Outdoor Wednesday: Mud

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I was watching the CBS Survivor series, and I just love the challenges. As I see them rolling in the mud, I remember this photo my niece took. She and her friends went to the same place the first Survivor series were filmed in Sabah Malaysia.

"I think I caught a fish, I think! I hope it is not a snake. We should have enough protein to win the next immunity challenge."

Friday Shootout:A Picture that Makes You Smile

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Member Voice by Kerry Bliss

Topic choice for April 16 by Kerry Bliss

A Picture that Makes You Smile

The headache of taxes is now over. The seasons are changing. This week should be easy, fun and painless. Look through photos from your town and pick out JUST ONE that brings a smile to your face. Share it with us; tell us about the picture and make us smile too.
For example this picture, taken by my husband when he was on a field trip with his students, makes me smile. (I know...any picture with a dog in it will do that; really, I'm that easy!) I guess the fact that he noticed this little critter in the doorway--and took the time to shoot the picture--makes it special.


Have fun! I can't wait to see what you share!
Kerry

This was in 1986 just before my oldest, turned two. We were in West Malaysia visiting my in laws. That spring in New Zealand was cool as I recall dressing her in spencers and cardigans.

Coming from a cool spring in New Zealand to a humid tropical Malaysia was a bit too much. She refused to put a top on, and was very tired in the train. After two weeks, she suffered from dehydration.

This photo reminded me of how her sleeping in the train in her nappies/diapers made people smile when they see her. By her side is her teddy bear.

This bear makes me smile. It was hand made by a woman in Scotland. She made it and sold them with proceeds to a charity for children. A friend's(A) friend's(B) friend (C) went to Scotland and was inspired by her kind deed and bought it. C came back to New Zealand and gave it to B.

We went with A to visit B. B was an elderly woman and she gave it to D. It's been 24 years, and D still has it. It traveled with her to Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.

I had been involved with a Charity for Deaf Children in Kenya for 16 years. I now wonder if the maker of the teddy bear had inspired me to do it.

Malaysian Roads

The North South Highway of Malaya goes all the way from the southern tip of Johor near to Singapore to Thailand. This is a user pay road, and there are toll booths through out the road.

My friendly bus driver was occasionally chatting with me when suddenly we went on a snail pace. I thought it was an accident. The driver was cross, he explained it was a road block. "How can they have a road block at peak hour? People have schedule."

Motor cars were stopped, we were not, once past the block, we soon resumed our journey.

When I was living in Singapore, we used this road a lot. The word JAM is a dreaded word especially during the festive seasons where people went home aka Balik Kampung. A usual 2 hours trip can drag to 6 hours. Instead of asking about the weather, people asked about the traffic.

Malaysia to Singapore by bus

We returned to Singapore from West Malaysia by bus. This is the first time we have travel by bus. The bus is very luxurious, comfortable and fully air con. It stopped at Boon Lay in Singapore.

We traveled via the second link, this is a great way as there were very few people at the Singapore immigrations. I have learned never ever use the causeway, as the immigrations in Woodlands is almost impossible.

We had a very friendly driver. He let me sit at the first single seat where he says, it is for him to sleep, and he normally does not let anyone sit on it. Occasionally we chatted.

Ka Pai to him. Ka Pai mens good job in Maori.

Kluang Mall

We were visiting Kluang in West Malaysia. There is a brand new shopping mall called Kluang Mall. It is very big, comparable to some of those in Singapore. I was the entrance taking photos and was stopped by a security guard. I was sheepish and said sorry. I was just taking the photo of the giant fish tank. I wonder how he saw me.

When I visited the ladies, we had to walk past the controls room. It was like some sort of a science fiction movie. There were so many TV monitors and the guards with walkie talkies. No wonder I was spotted.

Oil Palm

http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2009/09/sunday-stills-rule-of-thirds_05.html

In the above post, I had a photograph of oil palm kernel. I said I would do a post on Palm oil. In today's world, palm oil doesn't have a good name. I grew up in Borneo which is now an oil palm producing state. I understand that oil palm growing is a highly controversial environmental issue. I hope I will present a balanced point of view.

My school had a student who did a research to ask to boycott oil palm because clearing the jungle for oil palm plantation robs the orang utan's natural habitat. These results in the killing the orang utans in Borneo and Indonesia. So serious the problem that the orang utans may join the ranks of the dodo and the Moa. She did it so well that she won a prize which propelled her to a television appearance and a trip to Malaysia.

The greenies cheered when KFC stopped using palm oil in their kitchens. More recently, Cadbury announced it would replace palm oil in their chocolate production. LUSH Cosmetics, a leading cosmetics-maker, will no longer use palm oil.

Over in West Malaysia, where I took these photos, the land now planted with oil palm trees were previously planted with rubber for more than a hundred years. They have not been planted at the sacrifice of the felling of virgin forest. The harm had been done during the British Colonial days.

But in Sarawak, when I was flying from Miri to Mulu, I did see virgin rainforest being replanted with oil palm. These forests were not cleared specifically for the palm oil trees. The state had benefited from harvesting the trees. Timber brings in a lot of income.

Oil palm provides jobs, and gives income to many especially the lower social strata. The government had banned burning of old leaves, and some are used as mulching, to prevent more haze.

Dragon Fruit:PITAYA, Hylocereus sp

The dragon fruit is a relatively new fruit to Malaysia and Singapore. When it first arrived in Singapore, I was told they came from Vietnam. I bought it out of curiousity. It was white with lots of seeds like poppy seeds. It was cool, not very sweet, and I can't describe the taste, except perhaps a cross between an unsweeten pineapple and a water melon. I wasn't impressed and didn't buy any more.

Then I went to visit my sis-in-law. Next door to her mum's house was a mini garden centre. He grew these plants and were selling cuttings. It is like a cacti. She grew some, and my Sis Rose was interested. The man was very generous when he found that Rose was a retired teacher and was interested in his new plant. He gave her some cuttings.

Rose wasn't very successful. Apparently, you need a male and a female plant. My uncle Albert had some fruiting cacti when I saw them in July.

The growers have marketed the dragon fruit well. In many high class hotels, they have cut dragon fruit for breakfast. In this restaurant, they have dressed the fruit to be a prawn salad. It is very refreshing especially if you have eaten a lot of meat, and in the humid Singapore. I forgot the name of this restaurant. It is in the new building of NTU. I will post the building another time.

Click on this link http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2009/07/fridayshootoutsblogspotcom-texture.html to see a dragon fruit plant,

Durian: 2

There are many stories about this revered King of fruits. How do I describe the fruit. It's like a good thick custard. A good fruit is not just sweet. It should have a touch of bitterness. The best way to eat durian is to squat on the floor.

Durian is very heaty, it makes you warm and eating too much can make you very sick. We have known for ages that if you put some salt in the husk and add some unboiled water, drinking this concoction direct from the husk will cuonteract this. My siblings and I may be in the 21st century, and living in Australia and New Zealand, when we eat durian, we still do this.

You must never ever combine durian with alcohol. Some skeptics have ignored this and almost met with their death. One family has its own story to this warning. I won't go into details as this is a very personal issue.

Durian is an aphrodisiac. After eating durian, you have a warming effect. You know what I mean. There is a Malay saying," When the durian fall, the sarong drops." Some people take its literal meaning. In fact, it means people like durian so much that they will pawn their sarongs to get money to buy the durian. If this scenario is true, plus the pungent smell of the durian, it is far from being an aphrodisiac, if it causes fights in the family.

The water engineer and I went to buy durian. He was wearing his summer shorts in the humid Singapore. He bought the best ones, Sultan, Mountain cat or civet, D24 and the bill went to almost a hundred dollars. I was in the car, and he told me to get his wallet from his pants in the car boot. I took out his long pants and cheekily joked with the vendor that we don't have money and would he take the water engineer's pants. He laughed and said if he took our pants, he would soon be selling used pants instead of durians.

The queen of fruits, is the mangosteen. According to the Singaporeans and West Malaysians, the mangesteen is cooling, and hence an anecdote to eating too much durian. I learned this from my friends C.P. and S.L. Across the South China Sea in Borneo, it is believed that if you eat mangoesteen, you must not eat sugar, or you will die. I never had any mongoesteen when I was a child. My parents were cautious, they didn't want any of us 9 kids to die. I queried Dad, "But I will not eat sugar." Dad replied, it is not just white sugar, it is sugar hidden in biscuits and soft drinks." When I became an adult, I ate lots of mangoesteens.

I have lots more durian stories, I think I will leave them in my book.

Just one more for the road, the cultural centre, the oddly shaped Esplanade building, in Singapore has the look of the durian. Initially people got upset when it was referred as such. Soon, it became a term of endearment. Everyone calls it the Durian. Since the durian is such a well loved fruit, why not?

Friday Shootout: Aged and weathered

This is a green jackfruit. Why am I showing a green jack fruit when the topic is aged and weathered. I have to show the contrast of a weathered jackfruit shown in the photo below. Then you will know what I mean. I took other photos of the trees with the jackfruit at the compound of the Malaysian Railway in a small town. These fruits can go up to thirty kilos and two feet long.



This brown aged ugly looking jackfruit turns me off. But then, even a beautiful green one turns me off. I am sadly allergic to jackfruit. The aroma is too strong and over powering that it gives me a headache. While it is fragrant to most people in South East Asia, it smells like paint or strong nail polish and gives me a headache. When Mum and dad buy jackfruit and her cousin chempedat, they get me a bunch of rambutans. My kid siblings didn't understand why I get this special treatment and come and ask me for some. I don't have to explain how I fought off five younger siblings by running from one room to another with my own bunch of rambutans. (when you click on the link on my other blog, you will see a photo of this hairy fruit.)

Actually when the vendor told me the brown jackfruit was still very good, I suspect she is lying. I have never seem people selling browned jackfruit. You cut open the jackfruit by slitting from top to bottom. First you oil your knife and you wear groves. Otherwise the sap sticks to your hands and it is very difficult to remove. Before my family knew this, my mum had to use kerosene to clean the knife and her hands. Once you slit open the jackfruit, you dig into the body and grab out the edible fruits.

There are many fruits inside, and I am told they taste very sweet and have the texture of a semi ripe paw paw or papaya. In Singapore, some vendors sell them like a kebab. The Vietnamese dry them and sell them as jackfruit chips. The Thais put them in a can with syrup. Some people cook unripe jackfruits in a curry, my fruit. Mr. W. cooks his in a prawn curry. You may roast the seeds, and they make a beautiful nutty snack. Now matter how well they dress them, I still won't eat them.

In NTU, where I lived for many years as a faculty wife and the unofficial secretary of the residents' gardening club, there are many abandoned jackfruit trees, previously part of the university was a fruit garden. Since no body attends to the fruit trees, bees sting the young fruits, and the mature fruits become useless. You still get some workers trying their luck and cut away the bad part of the fruit.



This is an old cinema in a small town in West Malaysia built in the 1950s. It used to screen Chinese Movies from Hong Kong and Indian Movies from Bollywood. Sadly, it met its demise with the videos. Cheap pirated videos were rented for $1 to $2 sealed the coffin. The building is empty.



This old milk bottle is near to the Railway station at Kluang, West Malaysia. The first time I saw it was almost thirty years ago when I visited my husband's family. This July, when I visited, the bottle is still there. It looks as if nobody gave it a coat of new paint.



I was waiting for the dentist appointment in Kluang. My aged and weathered teeth had not been to a dentist for three years, and the dentist said," Your teeth is very very dirty, you must have them cleaned regularly," I muttered something and had my eyes shut tight." You scared of coming to the dentist?" He must be thinking," You aged and weathered woman, you are still scared of the dentist?" The whole of my appointment, I had my eyes shut tight, pretending not to hear him. I was more worried about my aged and weathered wallet, besides my pearls are fine, he didn't find no cavities in them, and all thirty two pearlies are mine. LOL.

I looked out of the dentist's window, there were these buildings, or the back of these buildings. I couldn't believe my eyes. They looked like some of the buildings in my home town Sibu. I remember going to my friend's house along Ramin Way, and we used to go up and down in those spiral stairs in the mid-1960s. We had to do this in secret because it was a three storeys building. Very tall building at that time. These buildings must have been built at the same time, and never had a new white wash.



My big brother in law was very good to me when I told him I was taking photos for my blog. He took me on a reconnaissance on his little motor bike round his little town. I haven't been on a motor bike since my last year of high school, and with my camera in one hand, it wasn't a very good ride as it was very hot and humid and most of the road was not paved with asphalt. Never the less, we took some very good photos. We went past this house where there was a fruit he wanted to show me. We saw another fruit that we didn't know, and I was more curious with the fence.



This building is the local drug rehab building. Doesn't look very appealing for the inmates. This building was built in the early British Colonial era and had seen better days.



This is at another fruit shop. The dragon fruits would be past their "sell by date." Small town, they don't pride themselves and they should at least throw them out. The link I showed on textile, is a immature fruit and flower I saw at a farm. I shall show you on another post how a nice fruit should look like.

This is my lot for this challenge. Do enjoy sights and smells of the tropics.

ASSIGNMENT - SEPT. ELEVENTH
AGED AND WEATHERED
Assignment by: Pauline

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http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/sunday-stills-the-next-challenge-textures/

http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/sunday-stills-the-next-challenge-textures/

In Malaysia, the weather is hot and humid. There are a lot of flies. Food covers are made of beautiful lace nettings. This provides ventilation and prevents flies from getting into the food. Sometimes the flies zoom in and land on the cover.

Babies sleep in hammocks. When I was a baby, I slept in one made of sarong fabric which can't breathe and it was very hot. Now, this baby has one that is made of netting. She must be a happy baby. The hammock is attached to five springs. If the baby stirs before she is due to wake up, the carer moves the spring gently. When the baby grows older, she will move the hammock herself. They even have an electric motor to shake the hammock at set intervals. I was at a Malaysian restaurant when I saw one.

The disadvantage of sleeping in a hammock is you get a a flat head which the hairdressers call an Asian head. I have such a head.

Children celebrating Lunar new year

In the water engineer's home town, kids spent a lot of money lighting fire works and crackers.

Kuala Lumpur Tower

This was at the World's Highest McDonalds.

Kuala Lumpur 5

These are private housing, the houses are terrace residences at a KL suburb. There is a playground and are old fashioned playground. The equipment is similar to the one I played with in Sibu in the 1960s. The equipment is made of timber.

At the playground were many African children. Their fathers have come to be lecturers. It was Ramadan or fasting month, so when we were there, the children had gone home to break fast or to eat.

Kuala Lumpur 4

The Skyline of KL. Sean Connery movie's "Entrapment" showed the Petronas Twin Tower.

Among the many striking settings in Entrapment, the most dramatic is the one chosen for the film’s climax: the Twin Towers in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Currently the highest building in the world, Twin Towers dominates the KL skyline: it stands 84 storeys high and was built at the astonishing rate of one floor every four days. Made of stainless steel clad in glass, the two gigantic towers are linked at the 41st floor by a skybridge. And it was this that served as the location for the sophisticated Millennium Eve party which Mac and Gin attend, leaving early to ascend to the top of the Towers to carry out the ultimate bank robbery.

http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=2527&s=Interviews

Though the movie of Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones publicised KL, it was also full of controversy when it showed the poorer side.

The pix showed the MRT train as it passed by. The train gives an illusion that the two towers are very close together. It is in fact very far away.

To go up the KL tower, you have to pay. We have been there a few times. The water engineer likes it. Once, it had the World's highest McDonalds restaurant.

In the morning, you can get free guided tour of the Twin towers. You have to queue up earlier. We never bothered to.

Kuala Lumpur 3

Beginning in the 1990s, the city has played host to many international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Formula One World Championship.

The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is also situated in Kuala Lumpur.