East Coast Part 5 – Sungai Lembing

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♥Jun 8th Sunday♥

Although I was born in Kuantan, and lived there for the first 6 years of my live, I no longer go back for visits since my God parent's passing. I don't know which restaurant is good, which is a good place to visit. After lunch, instead of going to another beach, we decided to head to Sungai Lembing, an old mining town 40+km from Kuantan.

On our way to Sungai Lembing, we saw this monolith off the main road (something you won't miss when driving from Kuantan to Sungai Lembing). Not sure where that was, we detoured and headed towards it, driving on small plantation roads.


We saw quite some cars parked at the foot of the hill, and found out this was Gua Cheras, which housed a statue of a reclining Buddha. Paying a small fee, we climbed some stairs to explore it.

Inside Gua Cheras, it was pretty mystical, as the whole place was shrouded by a thin layer of smoke from incense burning.


And then we saw the reclining Buddha.


It was very cooling inside, probably five degrees lower than the outside heat, the smell from the incense smoke was unpleasant though, so we didn't stay there for long.

Reaching Sungai Lembing, we realised we'd missed all the morning crowd. It was quite quiet with only a few shops still opened. We stopped at Kedai Tea Lembing or 林明茶室 (No.6 jalan besar sg. lembing, Sungai Lembing, Pahang, Malaysia) which serves big bowl tea that was common for miners, and famous for their handmade duck egg noodle.

The rich soup for the noodle is charcoal boiled for many hours, but to us, it was too strong in pork taste. The Egg Noodle was very chewy and springy though.

The girls wanted some 'adventure' so we visited The Sungai Lembing Mines, an old underground tin mine, now a museum, preserved in it most natural and original settings.

It was quite eerie being under ground walking in these tunnels, the miners could not be claustrophobic to be in this profession.


I was quite glad to end the tour, and went back out to the surface. The girls have a great time navigating the handcar at the museum ground, experiencing what coordination was required to properly move the car front and back.


Back to the town in the evening, the place is almost dead.


But this is probably the best time for wedding shots as the tourists have almost all left.


After this, it was the long drive back to KL. Long because of the bumper to bumper jam on Karak Highway. What a stressful way to end a holiday.

Ohline Shopping Malaysia Fashion - Why Do People Prefer To Shop Online

It is known with the existence of internet and modern technology, anything is possible including shopping. Nowadays, shopping online is seen to be getting a huge support especially for the individuals who are busy working. People will find it difficult to squeeze in time from their hectic schedule and tend to resort for the alternative way of online shopping Malaysia fashion. There are various online stores available in the market which sells gadgets, fashion items, car accessories and pre-loved items. If you are looking for a fashion online store in Malaysia, check out ZALORA as it offers a wide range of fashion products for both men and women. You could find your clothes easily from various local and international brands offered in ZALORA. There are many reasons people shop online compared to the traditional way of shopping. Among them are:

1. You do not have to move

The best thing about online shopping is that you do not have to move from the spot you are sitting. Just grab your laptop and start browsing through the website to get your clothes online. No longer have you to drive out through bad traffic on the weekends or stuck in crowds at the mall as you can do online shopping in the comfort of your home. You do not have to take your time to shower or dress up and shopping online is easy as a click of a button

Photo credit : Zalora

2. Much more choices

It is undeniable that there are a lot of brands and shop outlets you can find in malls selling the items you may want but also does online stores. Another extra advantage for online shopping is that you could easily scroll through the website and do a comparison of prices, designs and sizes without having to use your energy searching through racks in the shopping malls. There are much more choices and brands for you to choose from without having to walk in and out of multiple stores.

Photo credit : Zalora

3. Great prices and sales offered

Another luxury of shopping online is that customers can get affordable prices on fashion items online. Besides that, the sales offered online such as Eid Day sales, Christmas sales, New Year sales have a longer sales period compared to the sales in malls. Plus, the sales in online stores are opened 24/7 and you could participate in the sales anytime you want.

Photo credit : Zalora

NoQ Store For Book Lovers

If you knew me personally, you'ld know that I love buying books. I was a book worm when I was younger and now still do a lot of reading, although I may not have enough time to read all that I'd bought.

I love going to book fest and book sales to find a good bargain, but sometimes I want a specific title which can be difficult to hunt down in our bookshop. For example, I like reading Qiu Xiaolong's crime thriller series and it's not found in our bookshops; My best friend recommended me Half The Sky and I'd been searching for it but only found the Chinese translated version available.



And then I was introduced to NoQ Store, a subsidiary of Times Publishing, one of the most reputable names in book printing, publishing, distribution and retail in the Asia Pacific! It's an online book shop with 14 million titles spanning across different genres and all of them at discounted price! What more? Shipping is free if your purchase is RM50 and above.

And of course, I found Qiu Xiaolong's latest books and Half The Sky available there. I'd just ordered them and can't wait to receive them.

If you are a book lover, this is a good place to shop for books. And here is something for you.
From 14 August - 31 December 2014, you will be entitled to an exclusive 15% discount on all purchases at NoQ Store. Just use code MYTWOGIRLS at check out.

Happy shopping! (Like I did)

Notice added October - NoQ Store has since been closed from October 2014 onward.

Homemade Salted Vegetable / Hum Choy / Kiam Chai / 自腌咸菜

Nothing beats homemade.

After seeing some videos/posts on how salted/preserved vegetables were made commercially, I'd actually try to limit purchasing of salted or preserved vegetables.

So I decided to make my own using a simple recipe I got from Best-ever Cooking Of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia & The Philippines. This is the 2nd time I'm making it, the end result is a crunchy salted vegetable with no chemical after taste like those you get from store bought ones.

♥Recipe for Homemade Salted Vegetable♥

Ingredients
1/2 cup of rice (actually this can be any amount, just make the amount you will be eating as porridge for that day)
5 cups of water (adjust the quantity according to how much rice you'll be cooking, 'rice water' is what we'll need to preserve the mustard green, and it has to be enough to submerge the vegetable)
500g mustard greens
35g salt

Method
1. Wash the rice, bring to boil in a large pan with the water. Cover and simmer for 12 minutes. Drain the rice, saving the liquid and letting it cool. The rice itself is not used in this recipe, so you can have the porridge like rice as a meal served with another dishes).

2. Wash the mustard green in lots of water and dry thoroughly. Using a kitchen towel to pat each leave and stalk. It's important that they are fully dried.

3. Cut the mustard green into smaller stalks and mix with the salt in a non metallic bowl. Leave it for 30 minutes, then squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Salt will cling to the leaves.

4. Place mustard green into a jar, and pour over the completely cooled rice water, make sure the rice water submerge the leaves. Place the jar in a cool place for 4 to 7 days.

5. Drain the salted vegetable. Use immediately or store it in a container and refrigerate for later use. It can be stored up to a week in the fridge, but will taste better if used immediately. These homemade ones are not so salty, so you do not need to wash them before cooking or serving it straight as a dish.





Not too difficult right? The most tedious part of making this is the cleaning of the mustard green (they have lots of sand) and patting them completely dry.

Here are some photographs to document the steps.

Step 2 (Most tedious step) - Wash and pat them dry




Step 3 - Cut them, sprinkle with salt and let it sit for 30mins.

Cut the mustard greens

Mix with salt and leave for 30mins

After 30mins, the liquid in the mustard green will be drawn out

Step 4 - Place them in a jar with the rice water for 4 to 7 days.

Day 1

Day 7

Ready to eat

So how did we eat ours?

Cut a few stalks up and add into a bowl of noodle as condiment.


Stir friend them with chili, minced chicken with some salt and sugar, and drizzle a bit of soy sauce at the end.


(photos without watermark were taken from the phone, hence the bad quality)

East Coast Part 4 - Tumpat, Pantai Seri Tujoh, Kota Bharu

Continues from here.

♥Jun 6th Friday♥

Early in the morning, the hubs drove to Kampung Kuala Besar, a fishing village near Kota Bharu.



The fishermen there seem to love to keep the Jambul or Red Whiskered Bulbul, a bird which they will use in bird singing competition.




Back at the hotel, we had another scrumptious buffet breakfast; after that the girls wanted to go back to Siti Khatijah Central Market to get more fake legos (yes, they sell them there at a very good price).

We stopped by at Loo Coffee for a drink and ended up chatting to the owner, Alice, for almost an hour about Kota Bharu and the Chinese community. Most of the Chinese there seem happy with the ruling party, PAS. When pork is sold at a little hidden corner with high walls in Klang Valley, they are sold openly in Kota Bharu. The market near by Loo Coffee had pork sold right at its entrance, a scene not available in Klang Valley. Unfortunately, when the hubs walked over there later, the market was already closed. Alice suggested that we go to the Thai border to see the impressive and huge temples built there.

We could have gone on chatting with Alice, but the girls were restless and nagging us to move on.

We drove out of Kota Bharu, and headed to Tumpat, which is a district at the Thai border (the other bigger Thai Border town Rantau Panjang is inland and further away from Kota Bharu); but to cross to Thailand (Tak Bai Checkpoint) from this side of the border, a ferry/boat ride across the Golok River is required.

The closer we got to Tumpat, the more Thais we saw. We actually broke for lunch at a small road side shed serving simple Thai food. Every one spoke Thai there, a guy had to take our orders in Bahasa Malaysia, and translate to Thai for the cook. Zaria was happy to have some pork to eat after so many days at the East Coast.

We stopped at the KTM station there, which is the eastern terminus of KTM's East Coast Line.

As the station was pretty quiet, we went to the track and took some yoga shots. Eventually, the station master spotted us and shooed us away.


The girls, not toying with danger, stayed in a nearby shed, fooling around while waiting for us.


While driving to Pengkalan Kubor, the hubs decided to make a stop at Pantai Seri Tujuh. It seemed like a pretty popular beach for a picnic looking at how much rubbish had been littered and accumulated! I'd never seen a dirtier beach!





I'm disgusted at how we 'take care' of our beaches!

Luckily it wasn't a wasted trip as besides being a popular picnic spot, it's also a local favourite for kite flying. We saw some huge Wau Bulan or moon kites, being flown.







We even got to go on a horse carriage ride around the village nearby, as requested by the girls.

By the time we're done at Pantai Seri Tujoh, and rushed to Pengkalan Kubur the Malaysian checkpoint at the Thai Border, the chekcpoint was already closed for the day (up till 6pm each day), so no crossing over to Thailand.

We drove back towards Kota Bharu, and searched for Restaurant Kampung Kulim (GPS coordinates) at Wakaf Baru as it's a highly recommended restaurant.

It wasn't an easy restaurant to find, as it's hidden in some residential area. We has to ask around for direction before we managed to find it but only to know it's closed for the week! (So that the workers can rest it seemed!) Anyway, if we were to be in Kelantan the next time, we'll definitely want to try this place. We ended up eating at Cheng Mai Restoran, a Thai restaurant nearby Restaurant Kampung Kulim, but it wasn't good that good.

♥Jun 7th Saturday♥

We checked out Hotel Perdana after our morning breakfast. It's been a great stay there, love the clean gymn, the nice pool, and with super buffet spread we got every morning, and the service we got from the reception to the concierge was 5 star!

After another visit to Siti Khatijah Central Market for last round of shopping, we went hunting for Kopitiam Kita ( 4357-A, Jalan Pengkalan Chepa, Taman Desa Jaya, Kelantan, Kota Bharu), another place highly recommended.

Crowded kopitiam, the place is famous for packed rice from different district of Kelantan.


However, most of the rice were gone when we got there. Only managed to grab 2 packs of Nasi Ayam Goreng Kak Wok.


The girls have some kaya toasts, and then some customers next to our table recommended us roti titab, famous in this kopitiam. It's just a pan fried butter toast, top with soft boiled egg, with 4 dollops of kaya dotting the corners of the toast.

Something different.

This was considered our early lunch, before we took the long drive down to Kuantan. Our next destination.

Somewhere on the journey, we stopped at the road side for some kueh baked using brass pan over a fire fueled by coconut husks.


The brass pan was placed on top of the fire, and top with more burning husks to bake the kueh.


It was a very fragrant and tasty kueh.

Driving inland between palm oil plantations, we spotted some wild hornbills flying about kind of like playing, the hubs decided to chase after them.
.

All these stops made us finally arriving at Kuantan past 10pm. We felt so happy/relief to get into our cozy room at Riverview Boutique Guesthouse
.