Fragments

Fragments. Bits and pieces. Random goodness.

Photowalk: State Museum

This photowalk was pretty last-minute, as in it wasn't even planned, and it was a good thing I decided to bring my Pentax with me. Planky had texted me in the morning asking if I could hang out in the afternoon, and after several wrong turns (literally: Kuching is getting really confusing to drive around lately, what with all the construction work and road repairs), we ended up having afternoon tea on the grounds of the Sarawak State Museum.

This is what afternoon tea looks like in Kuching:

Not quite the tea and scones you were thinking, hey? The first dish is a local dessert called ais kacang, and it's shaved ice topped with jelly, fruit, red beans (the kacang), syrup, milk (condensed, evaporated, or coconut), and some other stuff, all up to the whim and fancy of the hawker. The second dish is belachan beehoon, and it's basically rice vermicelli (beehoon) with a gravy made from fermented shrimp paste (belachan). Usually you get julienned cucumber and slices of boiled cuttlefish with your belachan beehoon, and sometimes you even get slices of century egg. This one didn't have any century egg, but they gave us a bit of sambal belachan in a tiny orange dish, and it was really spicy, and I mixed this into the beehoon and it was superb!

The real photowalk was after tea, and I took some snaps of the blooms. It was interesting to see the different stages of growth. It would have been better if we had more variety though, as the museum grounds had mostly hibiscus plants. At least I think these were hibiscus plants. My knowledge of botanics is pretty bad.

I had some pretty crazy shots as well. Like this one:

You might be staring and wondering what's so crazy about it, and you've got a point, there's nothing crazy about it. Nothing crazy about practically hugging a pillar and putting your face against it and aiming your camera at the sky and trying not to breathe and staring into the viewfinder trying to get the symmetry and standing there while the whole world zooms by and laughs. Nothing crazy at all.

We went to the waterfront to try to catch the sunset but that didn't work out. No pretty orange purple hues today.

Dinner was at Jade Pot Tea House, where I had the usual, Taiwanese spicy pork noodles. This time it was really really really really spicy. I guess the waiter mentioned to the cook that I didn't find their spicy noodles that spicy after all, and they must have been very liberal with the chilli and pepper in an effort to make me weep in pain because the noodles that night were a deeper shade of red (it was more pale yellow than red before), and you could literally see the flecks of chilli and pepper (you could feel the powder on your tongue). More importantly, we caught the kitchenhand/chef peeking out at us a few times, probably hoping to see the gulping down of glasses upon glasses of cold water or something. I cleaned the bowl. No extra water, no frantic fanning of the face, no sweat. They must have been in shock.

Photowalk: Kuching Waterfront 2

Went on another photowalk along Kuching Waterfront last Friday, this time with Planky and her brother and her brother's friend. It's funny, you would think that living in an exotic tropical place like Kuching, that you'd have a lot more interesting places to shoot. Nope. That's the thing with living in one place for such a long time; after a while, everything seems dull and familiar.

But anyway, back to the photowalk. It was an impromptu thing, but it ended up being a really good day! Planky and I went on our own photo trail (the boys apparently ended up in the nearby shopping complexes, and people claim that girls are the fragile shopaholics?), and ended up with quite a tan by the end of the day. The areas we managed to cover were Main Bazaar and the whole strectch of the waterfront, and here are my best shots from that:

We had dinner at the Kuching Food Fest. I get really excited each year when July/August comes rolling around because of this annual event; it's basically this pretty massive area in town where they set up food stalls of all kinds, and they've got a garden show as well, and some events thrown in for variety. I didn't manage to take many good shots though, there were so many people shoving and pushing in the crowd, and you've got to factor in the oil and steam from the food as well. This shot below was taken at the chee cheong fun stall, where they make this flat steamed rice noodles (they look less like noodles and more like very thin sheets of steamed rice cake), which they fill with ingredients like shrimp or veg or meat (I think), roll up, and slice. Usually served with a thin dark gravy over the top of the dish.

This one below is a shot of the lady at the cha kuih stall. Rice cakes (some mix theirs with carrots or turnips I think), cubed and fried with egg, soy sauce and... argh, I can't remember the name of that preserved veg thingy! Is it called chai poh or something like that?

Here's a shot of my takoyaki in the making. The chee cheong fun and cha kuih were Planky's dinner. I'd previously tried the takoyaki from the Japan Boat stall, and didn't quite like it there (have they deteriorated? I didn't get much octopus, and they seemed to cook drown it in oil which was quite frigtening). This time my takoyaki came from the stall near the entrance to the garden show, and it was an improvement: the insides were still creamy and gooey, and they were pretty generous with the octopus. Less oil too, which is always healthy, or so I've been told.

And that's it. Overall a very enjoyable day out, although my tan gave me quite a bit of grief for a few days.

P.S. Is anyone else following the Olympics? I've been watching the artistic gymnastics and equestrian competitions, looking forward to the synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics! End of P.S.

Photowalk: Kuching Waterfront

Went on another photowalk last Saturday, this time along the Kuching Waterfront. It was pretty late in the evening by the time we started taking pictures, and it was cloudy too, so the light didn't make for very good shots. But still, the occasional upload-worthy one pops up. Here's the best of the day:

We headed to Sanga, a Japanese diner that's within walking distance of the waterfront, for a good dinner. Sushi is always good dinner grub, but it was the bento sets that are really good here. I went for the usual, the torikatsu bento set with cheese. Deep fried chicken cutlets on a bed of caramelized onions, topped with egg (I think!), chives (or maybe those were leeks?), and cheese! This set came with chawan mushi (steamed egg), edamame (green soybeans), miso soup, some kind of fish in a dark sauce, rice, and some fruit and veg. Dinner shots:

Looking forward to my next photowalk! The food fest is coming up, and I'm hoping to take plenty of good food shots (shots of good food, or good shots of food, read it as you want it, haha!). That's less than 2 weeks away!

Cheers, people!