: : Christmas at KLIA : :

Well, if you’re hoping for a great posting of Christmas dishes on this site, you’re in for a disappointment. Doubt if I will have the chance to have a nice Christmas dinner, Western style. BUT!!! Nothing beats Granny’s homemade dishes. Can’t believe that I haven’t been eating Chinese in a long time. Also, a lot of photos to download, edit and get it printed out to send to everyone.

Then, on 27 Dec, my nephew is getting married. The most of the family is down for the occasion, including Lolly and Devong. And, I got a dress while in the US. Check it out. Nice leh! And, it was on sale too! Unfortunately, it’s a bit too long but what to do? Also, need to get it pressed after all that travelling and it being cramped into a garment bag. Well, at least now I know where to get the patterns from if I ever wanted the tailor to do another dress. Wonder if there would be copywrite issues here? :p

Another two more hours and it’s off to Kuching. So, tara people! Off to clear Immigration. *shudder*

: : KLIA ~ Satellite Terminal : :

Well, I’ve finally arrived in Malaysia, safe and sound. Hopefully, the luggage is also here, safe and sound. It was starting to come to pieces at the back and I hope that the luggage strap managed to hold everything together. Would be dead embarrassing to see my clothes flying around on the luggage carousel.

Oh, a little note about that old man. I think he was checking the sites visited by various people after they had left the INTEL booth but wasn’t sure. So gelik lah!

Anyway, am going to check out the massauers. Need another massage to ease my back pains. For RM28 for a 15 min, it’s a steal compared to the US$20 for 15 min at Newark International Airport.

Also looking for food. Plane food makes me hungry.

Catching the morning flight to Kuching at around 8 a.m. Arriving in Kuching near noon. Then, it’s off to some snoozing time. 🙂

Ciao people and Merry Xmas!

: : Addendum to DFW Airport : :

I swear that this old man helping to man the Intel exhibition counter is out to impress gals or shows that he is so smart. ‘s Luckily, he’s not doing it to me but to other gals. Another thing is probably because of me sitting here for more than an hour but he can’t chase me off. Ha! Doesn’t say anything about having a time limit session on this thing. So there! :p

These days, the whole world is getting more and more wired up with so many gadgets everywhere. I notice that now, I’m carrying a handphone, PDA and digicam so my bag has become really big. In another two more years, perhaps I can afford a PDA handphone to make my life easier. No laptop yet coz those stuff are too expensive and I still love my desktop. Ah well. Can’t play games that well on a laptop and besides, I still prefer the desktop big screen for games.

Cheerio (again!)!!!

(and that old man is moving around again.)

: : Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport : :

Well, I have another 1 hr 35 min in Texas before flying off to Newark International Airport. Then, it’s an overnight at Fairfield Inn until the next day to catch the noon flight to KL. Then another 6 hr wait at the airport, am crashing at the airport and finally home.

I guess it’s going to be a boring day in Newark. No, am not doing the tourist thing because of the short time and it’s pretty cold as well. Hopefully, I will not get shock by someone coming up to me at the airport and saying, ‘Hi Wena! I know you… you’re the gal with the mum-mum blog!’ Yes, Cheryl, I still cannot get over what happened at KLIA! 🙂

Thanks to Jas, Donnie, Bob, Daniece, Scott, Autumn, Skylar, Montana, Rashema and Michael for the great time yesterday. We had fried turkey (amazing! pictures up in a few days time), vegetable loaf (it’s great and wholesome too!), trifle (yumm… in Christmas colours too) and loads and loads of other goodies. I love the dogs : Karsia and Fidget, as well as their cats : Little Bit and …er… Hershey? Didn’t get the chance to meet their other cat, Tank but meet up with the cutesy …err… sky divers? Someone please correct me!!! Hehehe… too many sights and sounds for me to absorb that I’m sorta lost at the moment. Rashema, I will send you the movie shots once I download them to my PC from my camera. I hope they come out clear. Not sure whether the lighting was bright enough or not. But anyways, the important thing was that I got the beautiful harp music that you played. 🙂

This trip has been an interesting trip, that’s for sure and it’s been so many sights, colours and sounds to take in all at once. Had to leave some of the photos behind in Jas’ computer as was too lazy to process it to ask her to burn it into a CD. So, took up the 15 day free trial offer at www.xdrive.com for 500MB. Going to be a hassle to download 76MB worth of pictures and movies on a dialup but we’ll see how it goes. :p

Let’s see, am now off to kill some time before the flight takes off. So, am off to the souvenir shops to get some Texan gifts for friends and family so cheerio!

: : Dinner with Friends : :

Had a small dinner party with my sister’s friends : Cathlee, Wei Wei (who absolutely luvs this blog! 😉 ), Rose and her bf, Kris. Dinner was a pretty simple affair. Cathlee brought over some maki sushi but the plate was half-finished by the time I remembered about taking photos. Anyway, here are the rest of the pictures :

My sis made a salad from spinach, lettuce and cherry tomatoes. Yep, we’re tomato lovers, especially the small cherry ones. Very sweet and juicy.

We also cheated a bit here. Bought an already seasoned pork roast (uncooked) from Walmart. Stuck it into the oven and hey presto! It’s done. All one has to do is read the instructions at the back of the packaging. Sort of mangled it while trying to cut it but oh well. Don’t have the electric knife that Dad has back home so had to make do.

It’s been 4-5 yrs since I last made this dish : spaghettic carbonara. Only cream we could find at Walmart was heavy whipping cream so used that. Wasn’t too bad. I thought it was too salty but everyone else seems to like it so okay then. Or maybe they were just being polite. Ah well.

Another cheat dish : apple crisp / crumble using Betty Crocker’s mix. Went well with ice-cream. 🙂

That goes to show how simple an informal dinner party can be. 😉

Anyway, a quick note to say that there will not be much updates until I get back home for Christmas. Will be going down to Arlington with my sis to see Donnie, her bf, and also to help her move her stuff there. So, au revoir! Until I get back to Kuching, that is.

: : The Big Day : :

The day started out really bright and sunny so that helped to chase away the cold air. After the hamburger lunch, I took a nap after taking from Theraflu. Then, it was a rush to the Coliseum building where the Graduation Ceremony was being held. Dr. B. drop me, Mum and Euline off while he went to look for parking. It was a packed hall, with people coming in to attend the ceremony and people leaving the earlier ceremony. Met up with Donnie (my sis’ bf) and his parents, Bob and Denise Daniece (oops! sorry) there as well. By chance, they were sitting just behind us.

Once we got to our seats, the ceremony started. It was about an hour’s wait before we saw my sister moving up. She’s the one in the middle. Finally graduated with her Masters. Woohoo!

The ceremony was interesting. For the postgraduate students, they are hooded by members of their respective faculty. Undergraduates do not wear a hood, just a white sash.

Then, it was off to the dinner party at the Royal East, courtesy of Mumsie dearest. This is a great place for Chinese food and Korean food. I only took pics of what me, my sis and Mum ate. Didn’t feel it was polite to take pics of what the others were eating.

Since the three of us ordered Korean, the condiments for the food came : KIMCHI!!! Definitely something to warm up the bones in the middle of winter. The kimchi isn’t as strong as those found in Kuching but it was still great. They also serve up some pickled seaweed with sesame seed which Mum loves. The poor waiter was rushing up and down with our orders and various requests.

This was the Hae Jang Guk which Jas ordered. It was a spicy beef soup with tripes, intestin and vegetables. Hot hot hot! But nice.

Mum had the Kimchi Jigae i.e. kimchi and pork soup with tauhu and rice cake. Didn’t try any but could see that Mum loves it.

I had the Bibim Bap with the hot stone bowl. It was great to have rice after more than 4 days of not having rice. Wah! Siok lah!

Now what is an Asian meal in the US without the traditional fortune cookie? The cookie actually tasted a lot like kuih supit i.e. love letters.

Two generations of graduates. And I just had to close my eyes during the photo take! Ah well.

More food pictures later.