It's Been A Year...

Homemade Strawberry Jam -- First Batch of This Season

Yes, it was this day last year that I moved into my parents' house. Oh, I can never forget all those agonies I had to go through before and after moving in. And all those challenges I had to face in the past year...!!


After surviving the year, now I'm making a new start. It's not that I'm ready to go onto the next stage or anything. Almost none of the problems I had in the past year has been solved, though many things are getting better. It's just that I, and my family cannot stand me being unemployed any more. So, dear readers, obachan is going to start working full-time next week (starting on the 6th, May).

I guess I should be happy.
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Obachan Eats Langkawi - 2 -

Awana Porto Malay Langkawi

I noticed that I didn't take many photos of main dish because I was busy eating and chatting. And the majority of the not-so-many main dish photos turned out blurred because I didn't have enough light in the room. In a nutshell, you are not going to see the photos of the dishes like chicken dish, lamb dish, curry, stir-fry, pasta and fried rice that I enjoyed so much. Too bad!

This is a shot I took in the traditional fishing village we visited on a field trip. The details of the trip will be (hopefully) posted on another blog of mine sometime soon, but here I'm going to show you the refreshment we had there.

See? I tried coconut juice. First time in my entire life. It wasn't as sweet as I had expected, but it was good, especially with these munchies. I liked the flat, round crackers (chips?) the best.




Another thing to tell you: I tried Chinese take-out food, too.

See the drink in the plastic bag? That's what I wanted to see there... I had heard (or read ) that the drink does not spill, but I couldn't really believe it. Well, what I read was right. The top of the plastic bag was really nicely and tightly closed that the drink was not spilled at all. The ice cream dessert was nice, too. It was warm on the outside, cold and sweet on the inside. Yum! :D

Here's some more food photos from the conference dinner.

Standing in line, it was hard to take shots of warm buffet food in buffet servers with lids. At the table, I was busy eating and chatting. So, again, no main dish photos. :P OK. Desserts again (and the guy who made these sweets).



And this last one is the last meal I had in Malaysia: nasi goreng we had at the airport (KL).
Oh, I LOVED this dish. The sauce was not too sweet and not too spicy -- just perfect for me.

So, that was my heavenly week in Langkawi, Malaysia.
While I was there, basically I was no one's daughter, no one's relative but just "me." That's the kind of freedom that I can never have in my hometown, and I miss it so much, because I don't know when I can ever have a freedom like that next time.

Oh well. Now I've got to get back to the reality and think about what I should do next.
:)
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Obachan Eats Langkawi - 1-

Awana Porto Malay Langkawi

I want to say thank you to those who had given me the information on the climate in Langkawi before I left Japan. Yep, it WAS hot and HUMID over there! :D

But it was a heavenly week. I enjoyed every single minute, even when I was in the conference room, listening to the presentation and struggling to summarize it in Japanese for my friend.

Seafood something (I forgot the name) @ Awana Porto

This was my very first meal in Malaysia. I enjoyed it with beer.

Their breakfast was really good, too. In addition to Western breakfast food like bread, cereal, muffins, pancakes and sausage, they served curry. Curry for breakfast sounded like a crazy idea to me, at first, but hey, I LOVED it! :D

* (Added 23, April) BTW, the herb I asked you about in my previous post was served in the white dish right under the flowers in the above photo. In those stone bowls were some kind of sauces (salad dressings?).

And they had so many kinds of sweets.




@Laman Padi (Rice Museum)
This was an interesting place where they showed us the traditional rice growing procedure. Of course, rice-growing itself is nothing new to we Japanese, but watching real buffalo working in the rice field was really something.
And they treated us with some sweets made from rice flour.

I don't know the name of this sweet, but it was light and crunchy and VERY good.

... to be cont'd.
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I'm Back!!

Yeah, I came back yesterday evening, from hot and humid Langkawi, Malaysia to chilly and rainy small town in Japan. I have soooooooooo much to tell you, and so many photos that I don't even know what to do with. And my brain has not been functioning at all.

But I have to post this photo, because my curiosity is almost killing me.

Dear readers, what is this herb?

It tasted and smelled really weird first, but as I kept chewing, it got better and I almost liked the flavor of it. What is it?
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Mango Jelly

Mango Jelly

Dear readers,
Don't worry. I'm still alive. Still blogging. It's just that I was feeling down a bit for the past couple of weeks -- around my birthday. Having no job at the moment, and having to deal with mom's hunger strike, getting one year older was absolutely no fun at all. So I didn't feel like cooking/baking, thus had nothing to post about on this blog. Shame, shame. At least I kept a healthy everyday routine, though. I didn't skip any meal and walked a lot on the beach both in the morning and evening.

Today mom is out of town for a tea ceremony meeting or something, but still I'm not in the mood for any elaborate cooking. I did make easy stir-fry for lunch, and I have to admit that that made me feel good more than I had expected. Gee, I miss my own kitchen! That's part of what's making me feel down, I guess...

So, to make myself feel even better, I made this dessert-- an EASY dessert. It's mango jelly made with store-bought mango juice. All I did was dissolving gelatin and whipping the cream.

Well, no time for whining any more. Just five more days and I'll be in Langkawi, Malaysia!!
Yay!

I think I really need to go somewhere else and be myself for a while. ;)
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