Thursday, November 30, 2006

A brief escapade – part 4 – What Nots

Whilst walking around the street in search of the coffee place, I saw this scene which sort of captivated me somewhat. Purely a pleasure shot of life in the slower lane, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Yes, yes, no doubt we can see such scenes also in the city, but walking along the street, and encountering such without the endless traffic noise somehow put a different feel to the entire experience.

And what else did we do in Tanjung Sepat? We visited the mushroom cultivation centre thingy. A lady (doesn’t speak English) gave us a brief tour of the place in Chinese (err.. right, as though I would understand), but had some brief translations from my friends who are more Chinese savvy than me. There were actually quite a lot of variety of mushrooms grown, and one which reminded me of the Starship Enterprise! For a moment when I “got lost” taking pictures, my mind was wandering, imagining a “far away” scene with mushrooms flying all about engaged in a battle to end all battles – with Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the Starship Enterprise ready to save the day, blasting those nasty looking brown mushrooms to kingdom come!

When we were also sightseeing, we saw some poles lining the pier, and it is always interesting to peer down the pier poles to see what’s inside. A streak of voyeurism in me? :P Surprisingly, I had expected the poles to be quite similar when I sneeked a peek at the top bit, but there were quite a variety which I noted.



And to end my post on this brief escapade, just wanted to show this picture which I particularly like. One of my favourite looking pole (if I can consider it such – and if you are laughing thinking of dirty thoughts, go "whack" yourself!) :P It is this one which had a plant growing in the middle top portion. I call it “Within barrenness, Life!”……

A brief escapade – part 3 – The Food

Essentially, the purpose of the trip was to eat, eat and eat! And a bit of sight seeing of course. We reached Tanjung Sepat in a hungry state, and firstly, by 10:00am had Bak Kut Teh at an outlet along the street which appeared quite popular. Now personally, I am not a BKT fan, but this one tasted ok. Perhaps it may be because we tried the dry version as opposed to the usual wet soupy type. Also had some other fish and veggie dishes to go with it.

Not bad, not bad at all. Good start. And immediately after our breakfast, we walked to a nearby shop (which didn’t seem that nearby in the heat), for coffee and roti bakar. Before we even reached the shop, we could smell the roasting of the coffee beans already, providing an aromatic lure to passers-by to linger and follow the noses to the source of scent. I had the ice-coffee to counter the heat, but think it was so so only. Was later told that the normal coffee is better, served in authentic looking cups for aesthetic appeal. The roti bakar was good though. Freshly “bakar’-ed, with a well spread slab or two of kaya. Yum!

After that, we took a little breather from food, and only had lunch at one of the seafood outlet near the Lovers Bridge area sometime around 3:00pm. Food was ok, but thought that the fish fillet thingy was very good, dipped in some chilly sauce of course (no, they didn’t have ketchup!). The fish thingy gave a sensation of like melting in the mouth and was simply divine. Also had some fried calamari, rice noodles fried with crabs (a first time dish for me too), and some "O-cian" (oysters with egg).

After that, we adjourned immediately for some paus (see Part 2 of a brief escapade for the story on “handsome”). They advertised tau sa pau (red bean pau), which is my favourite, but alas, they didn’t have. Incidentally, Chicken Wing likened me to being boring just because I like to eat tau sa pau, but really! What's wrong with tau sa pau? Nice what! Simple food for simple folks like me! :P Instead got some type of meat pau which tasted ok. Oh yes, had another cup of coffee, this time of the hot variety. Two of the members packed some to bring home. I didn’t ta pau because they needed to be steamed, which I was told is the easiest thing to do, but hassle’lah! Have to jaga fire and make sure enough water, and …

Later, we made appointment for dinner in Port Klang with another Port Klang kaki. Surprisingly, teluk gong does not appear to be that familiar to this Port Klang kaki, and neither was it familiar to Marine Engineer who is also from Klang. They had to like call their other Klang friends for directions. (Hmm… orang Klang sesat in Klang? Double hmmm…!) Anyway, we had two extra doses of crabs cooked differently (one with egg yolk, and another “kum heong” – or at least that’s what I think it is called). I stayed away from the egg yolk crab dish, have never really fancied eating egg yolk anyway, and tried it before at another seafood outlet, but not one of my favourite dishes. Also had some mantis prawns and veggie, as well as a mixed seafood hotplate.

You know what, it is interesting to see how some “pampered’ folks eat crabs. Usually we would be given the nut cracker kind of thingy to crack the claws and stuff, but some seafood outlets provide hammers. Quite a lot of people I know find it a lot of hassle to eat crabs because they have to peel the shell, and yes, the Port Klang kaki muttered something to that extent, but gamely had some crabs, by banging (quite loudly I might add) away at the claws, until other people from the next table turned around and looked at us a couple of times.

However, after the initial few heartful pounding of the hammer (no, the crabs were not crushed though – and sometimes I do wonder how hard the shells really are), we subsequently heard loud poundings from other tables as well. I guess the other people from other tables were “shy” and needed my friend to show how crabs should really be eaten! :P Just remembered something I asked my friends when we saw mini crabs along the lovers bridge, “Why do crabs move sideways”?, but my friends ignored me. SAD! Have you ever wondered why?

Not bad, not bad. And even after all that food, some wanted to go eat nasi lemak at the mamak nearby, but I was like “Oh no! Cannot eat liao! Simply too full”!, so we didn’t go but vaguely promised to make arrangements for another day. Chicken Wing later told us that on her other eating trips, we guys lost out to her female friends eating trip in terms of volume and variety of consumption. Cannot be I reckon, but you never know, some females can really eat!

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

A brief escapade – part 2 - Funnies

I named this post “funnies” because we had a lot of laughs along the trip. Will try to describe as best I can and share the humour along the way.

Coconut, no, err.. palm, err… No! Coconut!!!
Can you tell the difference between a coconut tree and a palm tree? Well, some are pretty obvious, but have you seen some which may be harder to tell them apart? Friend “chicken wing” (so given the name by “handsome” – will get to THAT story later) before this trip was pretty certain of being able to tell the difference between a coconut tree and a palm tree, but after this trip, I think her confidence is a bit shaken, and won’t ever want to be questioned again as to which is which.

For “those” trees which are hard to tell apart, we “fried” her kau-kau until she’s so confused now which tree is which! Muahahaaaaa! This can obviously only happen to city folks who seldom venture “outside”. To rub salt into the wound, she tried to cover her uncertainty by making a “profound” statement with a bit of the “know it all” air that the coconut tree was grown by a certain ethnic group (I will stop here now on this topic just in case I get accused of being racially bias) – WTS? So, figuratively, she was caught with her pants down! And every time we saw either a coconut tree or a palm tree, we would go “Chicken Wing! What tree is this?” The rest of us laughed our heads off and reminded her of this every chance we got during the entire trip. And you know what? She did say she knows the difference between a tapioca tree and a papaya tree. Hmm, must put this to the test one day! EVIL!!! MUAHAHAHAAAAAA!!

Dewan Semua Orang?
Incidentally, as we were walking from one eatery to another, we saw this “Dewan Orang Ramai” in Tanjung Sepat, and I was a bit tickled. Have always thought it was Dewan Masyarakat, but after seeing this Dewan Orang Ramai, I got confused myself and referred it as Dewan Semua Orang a few times in conversation. Hmm.. not sure why though.

Signage
As we were walking along Morib beach area, we saw this signage which was a bit peculiar. Not sure how explicit the authorities would have liked it to be, but make what you will of it, it leaves a lot for other forms of interpretation. For one, obviously it was targeted at couples who like to “berdua-duaan” along the beach area. Yes, we did see many couples getting semi “friendly” with one another enjoying the time alone. Chicken wing said that one of her friends, whenever he sees a sign that says “don’t smoke”, he will purposely smoke there. She wondered what he would do in such circumstances. And for another, if “berdua-duaan” were of the same gender? Can what! Sign never say cannot oh! :)

Marine Engineer
One of the members who joined us for the trip was this guy (who some of us have never met before) who works as a marine engineer, and is currently enjoying his leave. He’s actually chicken wing’s friend, and we were told before hand that he’s has been fielded a lot of “funny” questions about his job and we were to lay off the topic. So what did we do? We PURPOSELY “goreng”-ed him as to what is the difference between shore leave and leave, can he swim, is he a sailor?, need to cut crew cut or not?, etc. AND we PURPOSELY said that chicken wing asked us to ask him. Some more ah, he sweats a lot when he eats spicy food, so we also ribbed him that being in the steam room on the ship not enough meh? On shore also "steam" so much! Cialat!

Handsome
Another funny incident happened when we were having paus for tea, and some wanted to ta-pau (hey, it rhymes!). The “leng lui” waitress, although being politely called many times, ignored us and was more preoccupied watching her friends play mahjong. Later, we were told that for ta paus, we were to personally go to the kitchen area and order. So, “Handsome” went’lah. I tagged along as I wanted to see what the kitchen looked like for famous pau shop, and once I got there, I saw this 10 year old girl who was serving Handsome giggling away like mad. She was apparently so “taken” with my friend (and yes, some have commented that he is “leng chai”, and looked like one of the Hong Kong movie stars - as he has told me before), and was so very shy whilst serving him. I did initially noticed that the other ladies in the kitchen were smiling at the girl and trying not to laugh, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was so funny. THEN, the girl’s brother said something and made a gesture which made my friend blush! The girl’s brother apparently asked her not to “fatt hao” when she sees a Handsome guy (which he indicated by hand gesture to the face indicating suaveness like the James Bond kind). My friend was so embarrassed! HAHAAAhaaaa… but I bet he was very secretly pleased! :)

There were other “funny” moments, but will keep them for now…

A brief escapade – part 1 – The Place

After going through long periods of rehearsals and intense sessions for the concert during the past weeks, what better way to wind down than to go for a mini break with some friends? Of course, going on a trip where I can chill and don’t need to think too much, as well as being able to eat as much as I can, would surely sound absolutely fantastic, but truth be told, I think I need another holiday to recover from my short escapade to Tanjung Sepat. :)

“Located two hours from Petaling Jaya and 30 minutes from Banting, the once tiny new village is today a boomtown of home-grown industries and restaurants. Visitors do not return home with merely stuffed bellies, but would take with them Tanjung Sepat’s delicacies such as fishballs, fried bean curd, locally grown and roasted coffee beans or powder, Chinese buns (pau), tapioca chips, longan fruit, bottled Lingzhi drinks and fresh mushrooms. Tanjung Sepat is regarded as the star of the famous seafood belt along Selangor’s southern coast.”

And did we get to sample seafood or the other local delicacies? You betcha! :) Now, let me see, from the list (and no, I didn’t do my research before going on this trip), but somehow or rather, all the items have been spotted or sampled in one form or another, thanks to a friend who brought us there and more or less planned our itinerary for us.

Will try to cover my trip in parts, as there were way too many interesting things happening. There were two places of interest which had piers as though stretching out to the endless sea, i.e. lovers’ bridge and another unnamed but remarkable pier at a mushroom cultivation facility.

We had wonderful weather initially, and yes, I got sun burnt abit. Wore a round collar t-shirt and felt the sensitiveness of the area around my neck during the evening. Unfortunately, I chose to wear long pants during the trip, so didn’t get to “sun” my white legs. So, yes, have more or less two to three-tone colouring now, but will cover everything up until it is at least more even, and not too shocking to the eyes! :P Initially, when I was told we were going to the beach, I did think of going swimming, but with expected murky conditions of the sea, didn’t bring my goggles or any form of swim wear. After all, can go skinny dipping right? - but no, it didn’t happen! :)

Watched some fishermen sorting out their daily catch, and runners ferrying the fishes on motorbikes to and from the market area and to the respective restaurants. Talk about fresh fish eh? Even saw one very long and big fish (not sure what fish it was – like I would know!) which the fishermen kept separately.

Took lots of pictures actually, and my friends accused me of being a poser, wanting to have not one, not two but sometimes three shots of me, me and Me! :)

We also went to Morib, and saw families’ enjoying an afternoon outing along the beach. Didn’t see anyone swimming though, not surprising, given comments from my friend that it was a “teh tarik” sea. Still, it didn’t stop many from combing the beach during low tide, as well as many from enjoying the wind flying their kites high asunder. What struck me most, was to see and hear the screams of delight as kids enjoyed themselves in the playground, some blowing those ever popular soap bubbles in fascination seeing light reflection on the bubbles before being gently carried away by the wind. I wished I could have captured those shots, as I remember very well my own youthful exuberance so many years ago.

There was this particular spot where we rested for a bit, which sheltered us from the hot sun, yet allowed cooling breezes to fan us comfortably. It was so relaxing that I almost caught an afternoon nap there itself.

What other things caught my attention? I saw some resting on the benches, some alone lost in thoughts, some others obviously getting "touchy-feelly" with one another . Also heard the ever ringing bells announcing ice cream for sale, mingled with the excited sounds of kids as they ran around screaming in utter joy. Yes, it has definitely been awhile since I sat at the beach. Do you know, when I was studying in Dover, sometimes during the afternoon, I would go sit by the beach (alas, it wasn’t a sandy beach – but of pebbles – yet still a beach!), close my eyes, and listen to the constant pounding of the waves and "will" the afternoon away in a relaxed state of mind.

I had a book with me, and lugged it in my bag, but didn’t get to read it unfortunately. Would have been good to sit and chill for an hour in the breezy spot, but we saw looming dark clouds and hastened back to the car for our onward journey.