Stuff I gobbled up

Yet more pics from the Terengganu trip! These are some of the food i captured on camera before gobbling it up!! Quite conspicuous lugging the big cam everywhere so i only bring it out occasionally.



Frankly i don't really know what this is. It's not lobster but probably a branch of lobster/prawn family. So freaking yummy!!!



Look like ebiko



Sotong bakar (grilled squids)... *drool*


That's the Garbage Bin drink on the right.. A layer of dragonfruit juice and a layer of mango juice with watermelon and laici on top for the complete rubbish effect.. haha.. On the left is lemon + apple juice with asam.


The purple drink is called the Amber Chia drink. If i remember correctly, it's blackcurrent and dragonfruit mix topped with laici and blackcurrent. On the right is a mix of kiwi and erm... gosh, i forgot.. that's what i get for procrastinating and posting this a MONTH after i've been back. :P

Anyway, we went the shop (it's a shop with no signboard opposite The Store in Chinatown) almost every night to try a new drink. The guy also made a few not-in-the-menu drinks in for us guinea pigs to try and made us guess the fruits in the mixture. Good thing that our stomach could handle all those fruit mixture.. :)



Nasi Dagang with ikan tongkol! yeah, i try to eat all the 'nasi' whenever i'm in Terengganu. Stuff like Nasi Dagang, Nasi Minyak, Nasi Kuning.. haha.. don't get those much in KL.



Fried ice-cream... Not a specialty there but something i came across and ordered. Not that good. I've tasted better ones.



Food aside, i have to post this.. haha.. took this shot from a moving car. Wow, they decorated the bus like a tradisional malay house!



Wood on the outside. Batik decoration on the roof inside... hehh



I was told that it's for tourists to hop in for a small tour around town for free. Nice :)

Birds' Nest House Visit

Visited the swiflets' house to harvest a few nests when i was back in my hometown at Kuala Terengganu. okay that was like.. 3 weeks ago! In case you're wondering, swiflet is a species of bird which produces the edible bird's nest - a Chinese delicacy. Pretty good stuff if you don't think of the fact that the nests are made from the bird's saliva!! kekeke



This is the actual nest from the birdhouse - complete with feathers!! Swiflet's nest from the birdhouse are said to be much cleaner than the ones from cave



A fallen swiflet - this bird was slumped on the floor when we were going up to the birdhouse. Took it in my hand for pics and put the poor bird back where it's safe :)



Like a cave, the bird's natural habitat, it's pitch dark inside with a lot of bird's dropping! Euw, so smelly! We had to wear face mask and use this makeshift lamp whenever we go in to harvest the nests.



Gotta bring torchlights too! The swiftlets normally fly out and get back to their nests late in the evening, but there were quite a few hanging around when we went up during the midday



yeah, those white thingies are the nests!



Check if there's any egg or babies inside before harvesting the nest.



okay, time to harvest if it's clear



A baby swiftlet in the nest... probably newly hatched... geli lah.. haha



One of us accidentally harvested a nest with eggs inside! yikes!! We then put the eggs back in some other nest... hehehe



One of the many speakers that projects bird-like sound to attract swiflets into the birdhouse.



The nests we collected that day



Let's clean them and make some bird nest's soup!! Soak in water and pick out the feathers with this surgery-like tool... a freaking tedious process for sure!!



Especially those tiny, fine feathers!!! gosh, I have no patience nor the eyes (yeah, need good eyes for those tiny specs of feathers) for these!! My sis and the maid did it... nice and clean. Ready to be dumped into soup and eat! yumyum! :)



Still have a bunch of hometown pics. Will be posting more soon. They're all over my harddrive! :D

Durian Orchard Visit

I had so much durian last weekend!! I tell ya, it was one HEATY weekend!! Booze on Friday night, Klang Bak-Kut-Teh on Saturday morning and then DURIANS on Sunday! It's amazing my voice and throat survived through all that!

This is actually my first time at a durian orchard. We received invitation from Shakh, the GM of BAG to visit his orchard somewhere off Gombak. Surprised to see quite a few durian orchards around that area. We actually went to the wrong orchard the first time.. haha... And all of us city kids were so excited to see so many durians hanging on the trees!! I tell ya, it's the peak of durian season and there were SO MANY hanging around!!! There were mangosteen, langsat, starfruit, cempedak and pulasan trees too! :)

We walked around the orchard without a hard hat and when it became windy, the trees would be swaying and you'd hear durians dropping! The bunch of us ran like kids to the shelter... haha.. went outside the hazardous perimeter and waited and watched a few more dropped. Once the wind was off, we'd go collect the fresh durians!! What FUN! :)



Collection of fresh durians, just dropped from the trees!



yumyum... felt like running out and buy a pack of durians to eat now



Don't have telephoto lens :P... but can see the durians??????? :)



And the outline of durians' silhouette... haha






Langsat tree. The kid is half-monkey, i tell ya! He climbed allllllll the way up and plucked off the ripe langsat for us to catch with the plastic thingy. It was like raining langsat while we tried to catch as many as we can. Some dropped on my head and shoulders.. ouch :P



Let's keep these small! Attempted to climb but failed miserably.. kekeke



Cempedak tree.



Mangosteen, still green!



Can't reach the mangosteens? This is how you get them!



Put them in the cup and TWIST! The ripe ones will fall easily when you twist it.



This one was a complete failure. The entire branch came off!! ahahahah



Look how many we gathered!



This is for us to EAT and EAT!!



This is 'pulasan'. It's like rambutan but has stiff instead of soft hairs



Pulasan, fresh from the tree.



This is where we ate lots and lots of durians, mangosteens, pulasan, langsat, etc.



And made acquaintance with Wormy. Hello World! :P



There's a bbq pit too but we decided not to bbq cause we wanna keep our stomach free for duriansSs!!



And Shakh made us tapau mangosteens and durians back! I took the mangosteens only since i suck at opening durians :P



Serious craving for durian right now, where can i get them at this late hour?!?!?



By the time we reached PJ, we were hungry again!! It was almost dinner time and all we had were fruits the whole day!! So we went to Sri Nirwana at Bangsar for banana leaf rice! Utensils are not allowed whenever we eat banana leaf rice! So i guess i can say that it was literally finger lickin' good! ;)

Rompin Roadtrip

Finally have some time to myself to update the Lair. I'm appointment-free today. No stuffy bankers to meet up.. well, at least for today! I've been spending my lunches and dinners with them for the past week and glad to get a break! Took a day off to settle some legal stuff yesterday too. I've yet to go through the thick documents (more like a tome!) i gotta sign!

Just offload a bunch of pics from the cam too. My weekend trip to a durian orchard and previous batch from Rompin roadtrip.

Anyway, let's backtrack TWO weeks to my Rompin roadtrip! yeah, i'm really behind my posts and photos! :PP

Let's see them pics! :)


Dragon Fruit orchard

These were taken last 2 weeks. Came across a few Pitaya or Dragon Fruit Orchards on my way to Rompin. I had two options to drive to Rompin actually and i decided to take the kampung road instead of the highway to enjoy the scenery and small towns that i'll be passing through. I stopped a lot on my way back!

Going there took me 3.5-4 hours drive and coming back took me 7 hours!! haha.. There wasn't any traffic jam, i just took a leisure drive and stopped at all spots that interest me. I always enjoy the return roadtrip cause i can buy whatever i want and stuff it into the car!! Bought 1/2kg of yummy and hot coffee-bean-fried chestnuts from a roadside stall in Muazam Shah then i was driving and cracking chestnuts all the way in the car.. kekeke

Neways, i was just shooting from beside the road and then someone called and invited me to go right into the orchard! Nice!! I've never been to a dragon fruit farm before! It's my first time seeing a dragon fruit tree actually and it sure look weird!! Like a mix of cactus and giant aloe vera!



A young dragon fruit, already being attacked my ants.


And it grows!


So small and already drying up


The good ones will be wrapped :)


I tried the dragon fruit jelly and drink. Taste a bit weird lah


The Prime Minister was here too!


Also dropped by Ulu Bendul. The starting point to climb Gunung Angsi is somewhere here cause i saw the signboard around. :)


Ulu Bendul Recreation Park. Lotsa peeps that weekend.


They pooled up the river water like this... o_O


The park is a bit touristy and commercialized for my taste


Random stop. Got fish? :D


The signboard says "Air Kelapa Bakar". Err.. how shall i translate this? BBQ Coconut Drink? :P Wanted to try it but there was no one manning the stall when i stopped by. Even the charcoals were not lit yet. I guess they open later in the evening :|



wah, kinda long... tired of scrolling yet?!? hehehhe

Newayz, that was 2 weeks ago! Will do the durian orchard visit last week in the next post. Next time. Late dy and tomorrow is another working day. Speaking of work, I can't believe they did such IDIOTIC mistake 2 freaking weeks before Go-Live!!! urgh.. what the heck, that's another story. Let's not go there lah. Nite!