A New Beginning...

Roka Akor

2011-09-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

Roka Akor is a contemporary Japanese restaurant that uses the 'robata grill'. 'Robata grill' is basically a charcoal grill, which makes the food have more of a burnt flavor compared to the regular 'teppanyaki', also known as steel grill. We came across this restaurant on Groupon. I like that it is not a widely spread chain restaurant, making it more unique. In United States, there is one in Scottsdale, AZ and they recently opened another one in Chicago, IL.

The Scottsdale location is in a stand alone building right off N. Scottsdale Road, near the McCormick Ranch Golf Course. Upon entrance into the restaurant, we were greeted and given a choice of sitting at the bar or at the table. As we walked towards the restaurant, we saw that they had outdoor tables and given the nice weather that evening, we opt to sit outside. When we were guided to our table, I noticed that they have an open kitchen setup. It would have been fun to sit by the open kitchen to see all the cool cooking techniques they use.

Roka Akor is definitely the fanciest restaurant I have been to in the States. It is an upscale restaurant where you pay for not only the food but also the ambiance and service. We had a server who was very informative on the dishes and helpful with the recommendations. They were very alert on when we need refills for our drinks and the food came out at the appropriate timing.

The menu is definitely full of unique dishes with the Western-Japanese fusion theme. We wanted to try as many dishes as possible so we opt for a variety of their appetizer dishes rather than their entree dishes.

We started out with the Japanese Shishito Peppers. This is definitely a must try for pepper-lovers! The ponzu sauce (the Japanese version of soy sauce) enhances the juiciness of the pepper that was lightly grilled.

Robata-grilled Japanese Shishito Peppers with ponsu and bonito flakes, $7

Our server highly recommended their Salmon Nigiri for salmon-lovers. This is the first time I tried flame seared salmon and it has definitely left a mark in my taste bud. The salmon was so fresh and searing is definitely a better option because it cooked the salmon just enough, leaving it still juicy and the melt in your mouth taste. This was my favorite dish of the night.

Flamed seared sesame Salmon Nigiri, $11.50

Not getting enough of the salmon and of course, how can we pass up sashimi when we are in a Japanese restaurant, we ordered the Chef's Selection of sashimi. The selection was tuna, yellowtail and of course, salmon! The sashimi was served on ice, the proper way, unlike most Japanese restaurant. It is very fresh and the sweetness from the fish bursts with every bite. It is definitely the best sashimi cuts I have had.

Sashimi Chef's Selection, 3-pc, $19.00

Another fish dish that we tried was the Butterfish Tataki. I don't think I tried butterfish before so this was exciting. This is the most attractive dish - the asparagus butterfish was steamed and served with yuzu, a refreshing citrus flavor sauce. Although this is an appetizer dish, the yuzu sauce was a great transition towards dessert.

Roka Akor Butterfish Tataki with white asparagus and yuzu, $11

For those who are not a big fan of seafood, they have very tasty vegetable side dishes too. We tried their signature Sweet Corn and Sweet Potato. They are definitely the most expensive corn and sweet potato I have ever ate but the robata grill definitely made a huge difference. The sweet potato is crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside. The corn is so juicy it feels like we were eating some kind of a melon instead of corn.

Roka Akor Sweet Potato with ginger teriyaki, $4.50

Roka Akor Sweet Corn with butter and soy, $4.50

We ended dinner with their Green Tea Custard for dessert. The custard is not too sweet, which is always a risk when ordering custard, and is great when eaten together with the banana-vanilla foam. I suspected that they have a tinge of pandan added to the custard but since I couldn't remember what pandan is called in English, I didn't ask about it. This combination reminded of the sweet and salty kuih talam. The chef recommended dipping the caramelized banana into the custard but I preferred eating them separately. While it is a tasty custard and definitely made with green tea (rather than flavored), I can't say it is the best dessert I have had.

Baked Green Tea Custard with caramelized banana and vanilla, $8

I would definitely go back to Roka Akor just for their seared salmon but probably not anytime soon as their pricing is on the high side. But, I do highly recommend it for a pre-dinner place to visit. It is also known to have really good shochu (unfortunately I can't vouch for their quality as we didn't get any alcoholic drinks) so for those who want to get some drinks and light snacks before dinner, it is a great place. Off to think of a special occasion or celebration to go back there…

Mexican Food Galore

2011-07-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

When it comes to eating out, Mexican food is my choice if the real Chinese food is not available. Taco Bell, a fast food chain selling simple Mexican food like taco and burrito is one of my most visited places when I was too busy to cook. My list of ‘favorite restaurants’ also consists of several Mexican places – Qdoba, Pancheros and Los Tres Amigos. The style is very similar to Malaysian ‘chap fan’ – rice (or beans) with seasoned meat – but of course the taste is very different.

BUT, it wasn’t until the trip to Mexico that I realized how different real Mexican food tastes like. They are so fresh and full of spices. Now it is even more like Malaysian food. Four very important ingredients – cilantro (ketumbar/芫荽), lime (limau nipis), salsa (sauce) and tortilla. Onion is widely used too but I tend to ignore it since I am not a fan of onion. J Cilantro can be found in anything. Lime are cut in halves and served as a side dish. Some of us have had a halved lime served on our dishes, especially on seafood dishes. In Mexico, you get a whole bowl of it! It is served along with tortilla chips and of course, salsa! Lime is also used to make lime juice, which of course, is also a very popular drink in Malaysia (limau ais!). You can have it made with water (natural) or with soda (mineral). Hehe, yes, I learned the difference between natural and mineral pretty fast. Tortilla also comes in two choices – corn (maize) or flour (harina). The corn tortilla is really yummy when it is warm but becomes dry and hard easily. It is always served warm and wrapped in cloth. Salsa – this is the must try ingredient no matter where we go. Every place has its own style, from really spicy to mild and from watery to more chunky, almost like pico de gallo (raw, chopped up mix of vegetables).

Cuatro Cienegas is a desert. Sure, there are lots of desert springs with aquatic life but you would not expect the place to have any restaurants with good seafood. Wrong. The first week that I was there, we went to a little restaurant that served ceviche. Ceviche is a dish of raw fish seasoned with lime and peppers. However, I did not try it since it was also loaded with raw onions. Instead, I had a fish soup (caldo de pescado) that was very light and refreshing. It was not ‘chao cho’ at all. There were also a significant number of huge chunks of fish!

Calde de Pescado (Fish Soup)

While it was fun to eat out and try all the different food at CC, it was also pretty costly to be eating out all the time. The house that the guys lived in has a small kitchen where we get to do some cooking.

Kitchen in the house

JC and JR were great cooks of Mexican food, giving me the opportunity to learn a recipe or two. We had lots of tacos and pasta (not so ulu until we can’t find pasta sauce lah). JC is a vegetarian so she made really good vegetarian tacos like the lentil taco.

JC's lentil taco

JR once made us vegetables enchilada. Enchilada is like a mini burrito but covered with some kind of chili sauce. Like in Malaysia, there are all kinds of chili sauce in Mexico. I can just snack on chips and chili sauce all day!

JR's vegetable enchilada

Another Mexican dish that looks like a mini burrito is the flautas (flute). The flautas is the crunchy version and the sauce is serve on the side. We had this at one of the local restaurant in town. Like every restaurant that I have been to in this little town, it is very casual and there are only about 4 or 5 tables. The owner of this little restaurant was the cook, the cashier and the server.

Flautas de Pollo (Chicken Flautas)

I also had the opportunity to try a very unique dish, crepas de huitlacoche, at a more upscale restaurant that we went to in town. Huitlacoche is a type of fungus that grows on corn. It is more like a paste and occasionally you bite into little black pieces with springy texture. It reminds me a lot of ‘bok nee’ but has a stronger flavor. This place also has the best salsa in town, in my opinion.

Crepas de Huitlacoche (Corn fungus crepes)

On my birthday, we went to the east side of town for dinner at a little hawker stall called Alheli. It was my favorite place of all the places we went to at Cuatro Cienegas. It reminded me so much of mamak stalls back in Malaysia. One of their specialties is a set of tacos with beef, pork and two other parts of cow (probably some kind of intestinal parts). It was lots of meat but delicious! The meat was very well marinated and cooked very ‘thiam’. They also had baked potato that was so good although you don’t want to know how much butter they put in it.

Alheli

Taco set

Butter loaded baked potato

As you can see, most of the dishes are meat dishes. It was a little ‘jelak’ after a while. The vegetables are mainly lettuce, avocado (neither of which are my favorite) and tomatoes. It is a desert with very harsh environment for growing vegetables. But, they do have very delicious mango. Since I didn’t get to go back home to dad’s garden for fresh mango this year, I got my share of it from Mexico. There is an ice-cream shop in town that also sells popsicles (paleta) and ice-cold drinks. They have a mango drink that is made out of fresh mango. It is basically mango juice with ice. No added sugar since their mango are so sweet and besides the ice, it doesn’t seem like the juice was diluted with any water because it is a thick drink. On a hot sunny day, which is everyday, the mango juice is definitely a blessing!

I also discovered a Mexican spice that tastes very much like ‘sui boi hun’ that we use for ‘jambu’ – tajin. It tastes great with mango and hijama (hong guak).

Tajin with mango

Lastly, I also got a nice surprise on my birthday. The team bought some cinnamon buns and topped it with Mexican chocolate chip cookies.

The birthday surprise

It was nice to try all the different food there but I sure miss vegetables and fruits. Unlike most Mexican food that I have had, the food in Cuatro Cienegas does not have lots of rice. I definitely missed having rice after being there for two weeks.

Most adventurous birthday

2011-07-02T14:31:00.001-07:00

This year’s birthday was pretty special even though I didn’t get to spend it with any family members or close friends. We had an early breakfast and head out to Poza Azules, one of the ponds in the Cuatro Cienegas Valley. I get to go along this trip because two of the grad students in the team here, JR and JC, are monitoring the limnology and hydrology of the pond systems in the Cuatro Cienegas Valley. Poza Azules is named for its blue color. It is a decent sized pond but just one look at it will take your breath away. The blue color is due to carbonate precipitates of the high metal content in the area.

Poza Azules

It definitely made me wish we could swim in there. However, it is no longer open for swimming due to the negative human impact on the stromatolites (structural outcome of the interactions between microbes and chemicals in the water column). In the picture below, the stromatolites are the spherical looking sponges in the water.

Stromatolites at Poza Azules

The plan for that morning was to sample only two sites but as we were driving towards the second pond, JR noticed that the GPS showed another site of interest, Poza Tio Candido, to be very close to us. As it was still pretty early, we decided to check it out. We parked by the path and walked according to the direction provided by the GPS. A first timer here, GPS coordinates are very important! A lot of the landscape looks very similar. If it weren’t for the mountains surrounding the valley, I would not have a good sense of where North is (the Sun is not always helpful because it stays right above us for a good part of the day).

As we walked to Tio Candido, I had an unfortunate encounter with a pile of old cactus. Throughout the entire trip, I wore my Teva flip-flops as we often had to get really close to the pond where the ground is muddy and we are likely to sink. It is easier to clean and wash off with flip-flops than when wearing sneakers. I was looking around the area as we were walking instead of looking down. All of a sudden I felt sharp pain on my foot and realized that I had stepped onto a pile of old cactus. JR had to remove my flip-flop and individually remove all the cactus torns that got stucked to my flip-flop while I balanced on JC as at that position, I was surrounded by cactus. Phew, lucky thing that it was old cactus and the torns were more brittle.

Tio Candido

Unlike Poza Azules, Tio Candido has a completely different ecology. The vegetation around and in the pond is much denser. We also got to see some turtles and frogs on the lily pads. It is just amazing to see all these water bodies in the desert and each of them has their own unique ecology.

The channel feeding into Tio Candido

After we sampled Tio Candido, we head towards the last sampling site for the day, Poza Escobedo. On the way there, we passed by a cattle ranch. The pond there looks completely different, like an oasis in the middle of the desert. The grass around the ranch definitely looks like it is well fertilized by the cattle. While the green grass looks really fresh in the desert, it just feels weird standing around it. It does not seem to fit in the desert. Furthermore, the pond is extremely green, which is worrisome because it can be polluting downstream water.

The pond by the cattle ranch

The last pond for the day, Poza Escobedo, was named after a revolutionist, Escobedo. The fort that he had fought in still stands near the pond.

Escobedo Fort

The fort is just a square building with an entrance and two windows. Poza Escobedo is formed from karstification, which is when the minerals dissolved and the ground is eroded, allowing the ground water to rise above the ground level. This pond also has high mineral content, causing the water to have a bluish color. However, unlike Poza Azules, Escobedo does not have all the stromatolites growing on the sediment. This makes the pond looks like a clear blue glass with the sediment so white and clean.

Poza Escobedo

Clear water of Poza Escobedo

While these ponds are pretty far apart, some of the ponds in this valley are connected underground. Driving through the dessert, one often sees a water body that appears and then disappears underground. While the entire terrestrial ecosystem is pretty stable, the wetland ecosystem is not at all. Talking to the researchers in the group and also some of the conservationists in town, the water levels in the ponds and the structure of ponds can be highly variable. It is definitely a very fragile ecosystem. This is why it is had caught the interest of environmental organizations such as World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy.

We travelled to all these ponds with the guide of a biologist from Pronatura, a local non-profit organization that is responsible for the conservations of various ecosystems in Mexico. His group had started a project to try to create a wetland to attract migratory birds to the valley. To do that, they created a dam at one of the river that runs in the valley. It was a great opportunity for us to look at some of the conservation projects that goes on in the valley.

The river that was dammed.

The area in which the wetland will be created.

It was an extremely hot and long day but definitely very educational and interesting.

Cuatro Cienégas Part III: The Lab

2011-06-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Here at CC, there is no real field lab - the 'field lab' was setup in the cabin we live in. Unlike the KBS sampling trips back at MSU, where the sampling trip is solely sampling and no sample processing, we do have to pack for some sample processing for this Mexico trip. For example, we have to prep for water filtration, spiking samples with formaldehyde or RNA Later, adding chemicals to some of the water samples for chemical analysis or preparing samples that are to be frozen in a dry shipper. There has to be lots of think ahead in terms of the types of samples to collect, number of replicates, number of items required and the amount of chemicals.

They already had a large amount of items here but when the second team came (I was part of the second team), we still had to bring 5 action packers filled with all kinds of lab goodies and a dry shipper (the dry shipper amazes me! It was charged on the last week of May and it is still holding at -80C today, June 15).

The project I will be working on has two major sampling 'trips' and two one day sampling trip. However, everyone in the team has different projects and we all look at different aspects of the ecology in this desert area. Therefore, whenever we go out sampling, we sample for all kinds of analysis - observational, hydrology, limnology, chemistry, entomology and of course, microbiology. So it turns out that we are out sampling almost every day. Some days are just an hour or two out in the field while some days everyone goes out for an entire day.

Back in the cabin, I was in charge of the FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) station, which is to prepare samples for FISH from both sediments and water. I have a filter (known as La Flautas) that allows me to filter six samples at the same time, all using a hand pump! A centrifuge was also brought there to wash sediment samples.

There is also another water filtering station where Laura pre-filters water before the guys filter it through a 0.2 µm syringe filters to prep the water for chemical analysis. In addition to that, Laura also filters water through glass fiber filters to collect bacterioplanktons for DNA/RNA analysis. That is our only vacuum pump, which heats up very quickly. Every few samples, Laura will have to move it into the bedroom to place it in front of the air-cond so that it can cool down before continue to filter more water.

Next to the water filtering station is the drying area for all our dishes. Washing dishes here is quite a chore. We have very limited amount of clean water. We buy drinking water from the store to clean out the dishes before soaking it in the acid bath. As chemical analysis can be easily contaminated by lots of stuff, including water, every dish has to be acid washed. This was not as much of a concern when I was working with soil samples but I also did not do chemical analysis myself (except for dissolved organic carbon and total nitrogen). The nice thing though, we do get deionized water for all our washes, field blanks and of course, to make solutions. For solutions, we have to make fresh ones just before we need to use them since it is challenging to maintain sterility. We have limited syringe filters and have to conserve the usage because sometimes we may need to use more when the water samples we collect are murkier.

Our hazardous waste area - all with tags!

The hall is where we gather to label our bottles/tubes/etc.

Somehow, this trip reminds me a lot of my experience at Woods Hole when I took the Microbial Diversity course. A more intense one. I am definitely getting lots of arm work outs here and learning a lot more about the big picture. Working with scientists of different expertise reminds me all the time that we must be able to relate our work to the interest of the environment and the people in the environment.

Life in Cuatro Cienegas

2011-06-15T06:18:00.001-07:00

At Cuatro Cienegas, we (the ladies) get to stay in a cabin at Villas Del Desierto. There are only five cabins there and ours are often the only occupied cabin there. We get housekeeping service everyday, which helps a lot on crazy field sampling and sample processing days.

Love the cabin porch!

There is also a small pool where we jump in to cool down on super hot days with no wind.

The cabin is located near the edge of the town and during the nights, it can be super dark. It is so dark that we can see way more stars in the sky than I have seen before. In fact, Laura (the lab tech @ lab manager) and I saw a shooting star on the first night that I was here! We also do not have to worry about doing our laundry because we just drop it off at the laundromat and pick it up the next day! How awesome is that? Plus, it only costs 50 pesos ~ USD 5!Interestingly, if the laundromat is closed, we just have to knock on the door next door (the purple one) because the owner lives just next door!

CC is a very laid back town. In the afternoon, while walking around town, you will always see little kids playing on the pavement, parents and neighbors sitting outside to chat, and there is just so much sign of life out here. Simple life. They do not need a lot of the luxuries we have. All they have is each other. My favorite is walking by a house where the older couple who lives in the house will always sit in their porch on their rocking chair, just relaxing and enjoying each others' company. It is like in the movie Up!. Every time I walk around town, it reminds me more and more of the days in Bayan Baru when I was a little kid.

A typical house in CC.

One of the streets in CC.

Oh, how simple life can be.

But, all of us still have to check our emails and try our best to be on our regular work schedule. Lucky thing for us, one of the house that was rented for the guys, is owned by a hotel in town - Quinta Santa Cecilia. So they allow us to use their Internet.

Cuatro Cienegas, Mexico

2011-06-10T11:52:00.001-07:00

My first job assignment - field sampling at Cuatro Cienegas, Mexico, one of the spots featured in The Lonely Planet. How exciting is that? Microbial ecologists typically don't spend as much time outdoors as most ecologists. A lot of our work is performed indoors with a test tube of DNA solution extracted from minute amount of samples followed by a whole bunch of data analysis in front of the computer. My previous experience with field sampling was limited to Kellogg Biological Station, which was very well equipped for field studies. This trip is definitely an eye-opening trip for me! It is always a lot easier to learn about the samples and to think of ecologically relevant questions when I get to see where the samples come from and all the biogeochemistry dynamics related to it. It is also a long one because we have a six-week long mesocosm experiment.

Cuatro Cienegas is a little town located in the state Coahuila. To get there, we had to drive from Saltillo (the capitol of Coahuila), which we flew to from US. Saltillo airport reminds me very much of Kalamazoo airport where it only has one baggage conveyer and you have to walk from the plane to the airport building. I was super glad that I was accompanied by Spanish speaking colleagues! EVERYTHING was in Spanish!

From the airport, it was about 30 minutes drive to the town area. We stayed in Saltillo for a night before driving out to Cuatro Cienegas. The lab had a rented Jeep, which we filled to the brim! Literally!! As the trip is a long one, we had to bring everything we need in the field and also materials we needed to process samples for measurements that are time-sensitive. The weirdest was bringing a dry shipper with us! It felt like R2D2 came with us. Everyone at the airport at Saltillo was curious about it. Well, we need a way to freeze our samples for DNA and RNA extraction.

Surprisingly, all the luggages placed on top of the Jeep were totally secured. It did not bulge the entire four hours drive from Saltillo to Cuatro Cienegas. The drive was quite boring, as the roads seemed endless. It was a pretty sight though, with mountains and endless desert view. It was also fun to see the dust devil, which are little dust tornados.

Once we arrived at CC and unload the Jeep, we went to get dinner at one of the local restaurant called El Doc. Like some Mexican restaurants, they serve chips and salsa as starter. In addition to salsa, they also have this pickled veggie dish that reminds me of acat! I could make that a meal if only I have some rice!

Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

2010-06-19T09:28:00.001-07:00

Every trip back to Malaysia, I mainly spend most of the break in Penang. Kuala Lumpur is not one of my favorite place as there is not much to do there. However, I still try to make a short trip there as most of the college and high school friends are there. This trip, dad brought up the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park located at Taman Tasik Perdana. I completely forgot about this place. When we were kids, we spent almost every Sunday there.

Taman Tasik Perdana, also known as the Lake Gardens, is a huge park with lots of attractions. We used to spend most of our time at the main lake feeding fishes with leftover bread or bread skins. There is also a huge playground and exercise equipments. The Lake Gardens also houses the KL Bird Park, Butterfly Park, Deer Park, National Monument, National Mosque, Planetarium, Orchid Garden, Hibiscus Garden, and the Herb and Conservatory Garden. All these are only a short walking distance from Kota Raya and Central Market, which is where most buses stop.

This trip, we went to the Bird Park. For some reason, it is one of the park that I don't remember much. It was quite impressive as a lot of the birds are free flying and the park is very huge, giving the birds lots of places to fly around. As soon as we enter, we came across the parakeets and my first mosquito bite! Argh!

The most common bird is the one in the picture below. They are very entertaining because they have different mohawk style hair cut. They also come closer to us than the other birds.

Another one that I thought was very cute is the blue birds with a crown head and red eyes.

Within the bird park, there is also a small lake with lots of flamingoes.

By one of the river area, we saw this red flamingo. It definitely stands out! After a lot of mosquito bites, I finally got a nice photo of it!

Of all the sections, my favorite is the World of Parrots, where you can buy a cup of honeyed milk to feed them. They are very human friendly as we saw one landed on mummy's head!

There is also a huge lake with a waterfall at the Waterfall Aviary.

It was here that we saw a peacock and her babies!

Unfortunately, most of the peacocks have loss a lot of their tail feathers. We saw one opened its tail just as we were about to walk out of the bird park.

It was definitely a fun morning!!

Nasi Ulam

2010-06-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

This past trip back to Malaysia, gee kim was not around much and we didn't cook at home either. So the only home cook meal I get to eat this trip is Nasi Ulam or can be known as Herbed Rice or Rice Salad.

Nasi Ulam is a true Nyonya style home cook dish as it is not easily found in restaurants or any hawker stall (in fact I have never seen it sold outside). It is a dish that requires fine chopping abilities and patience. It is also a very time consuming dish as every ingredient requires chopping and roasting. However, if the ingredients are prepared in large amount, they can be kept for a few days and the dish itself can be easily put together.

The ingredients for Nasi Ulam varies with the cook. The main ingredient is steamed rice and a variety of leaves finely chopped. The leaves that are commonly used are daun kaduk (betel leaf), daun limau purut (kaffir lime leaf), daun kesom (polyganum leaf), daun pudina (mint leaf), daun cekur (galangal leaf) and daun selasih (basal leaf). While they can be mix and match according to the likings of the cook, gee kim uses only daun kaduk. Daun kaduk is a wild plant in Malaysia. It can be found almost in anyone's garden and also in various tropical grassland. In ahmah's house, daun kaduk is just right next to the kitchen area. Besides for Nasi Ulam, it is also commonly used for Perut Ikan (fish stomach) and various other Nyonya dish. The leaves simply washed and mixed in with the rice raw. These leaves have various medicinal values and hence, it is more beneficial to eat them uncooked.

In addition to the leaves and rice, other sides are added to give the dish more taste and to overcome some of the bitterness from the leaves. Gee kim's sides are kerisik (toasted grated coconut), belacan powder (roasted fermented shrimp paste), ground dried shrimp, roasted salted fish, finely sliced kunyit (turmeric), finely sliced serai (lemongrass), finely sliced shallots and white pepper powder. As shown in the picture, all ingredients are finely sliced and some of them needs to be roasted. This is why the preparation time can take almost the entire day! Some of these ingredients are meant to give only a subtle taste to the final dish but I love to have mine with lots and lots of daun kaduk, kerisik and ground dried shrimp. I would avoid the shallots though. :P

Once all the ingredients are prepared, they are then mixed in a large bowl and is ready to be consumed.

While it is sort of a salad dish, it is much healthier than Western salads that uses cream dressing. This does not come with any dressings. The variety of spices and leaves in the dish also adds antioxidant and other medicinal values to the dish. Until I can have my own house with a herb garden (even then, if I stay in US, might not be able to find the root for those leaves to plant it), I can only eat this once in a few years when I go home to David Chen Garden. For now, gee kim's supply of sambal hae bee (chilli roasted dried shrimp) will satisfy the often encountered craving for delicious Malaysian food.

Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies

2010-06-05T16:15:00.010-07:00

In the past six months, I have been to 4 butterfly gardens/exhibitions! I guess it was having the macro lens that prompt our first visit to a butterfly garden - Butterfly World, Florida. The other gardens that we have visited to see some butterflies are the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix, AZ, Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park at Grand Rapids, Michigan and the most recent trip, Penang Butterfly Farm, Malaysia.

Butterfly World is by far the largest butterfly farm. In addition to butterflies, they also have an aviary and various flower gardens, making it the most enjoyable park out of all 4 gardens that we have been to. We went there first thing in the morning, arriving shortly before it opened (kiasu mah!) and stayed until almost 5pm! Since the main attraction is the butterfly farm, we spent most of our time there and some time at the aviary. As the flowers were not blooming yet, we were only at the flower garden briefly. The nice thing about this garden is that there is a lakeside cafe where we could take a rest, look through some of our photos and get some snacks. There was also a macaw section that we spent quite sometime at as they have very interesting interactions. We also went into the lorikeet section but only stayed for a while because the lorikeets were feisty! They kept nibbling on John's camera bag and seem to have no manners when flying around! :P One butterfly that we saw a lot here and haven't seen it elsewhere is the one that has a huge black dot that makes it look like a bird's eye. It is known as the owl butterfly (Caligo eurilochus).

More photos from this trip on Flickr and Multiply.

In early March, when I made a trip to Arizona, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix. It is mainly a garden of various plants from the desert ecosystem. It also has a section representing the lifestyle and various natural resources used by the people of the Sonoran Desert (the desert of northern Mexico, California and Arizona) in the olden days. When I was there, they had the Spring Butterfly Exhibit so we got to see more butterflies! However, the exhibit area is very small, only about the size of our Penang garden. As we went on a Friday morning, there were a lot of kids on school trip so it was a lot more crowded. There are also fewer varieties of butterflies compared to the ones we saw at Butterfly World. Even though there were fewer varieties, I did saw a few that I haven't seen before - the malachite (Siproeta stelenes), a light green moth and one with green and brown wings (this one might be a moth).

I also saw one yellow butterfly hidden under a flower.

We spent a few hours in the exhibit area and then head out to walk around the garden. Besides butterfly photos, there were not as much to capture as cactus are less colorful. We did end up spending most of the day there too because the park is huge and has various trails with different characteristics of desert ecosystem. Photos of this trip on Flickr and Multiply.

In mid April, John came back to Michigan for a visit and we took a day trip to the Frederick Meijer Gardens at Grand Rapids. Similar to the garden in Arizona, they had an exhibition of tropical butterflies, which they called "Butterflies are Blooming". The Meijer Gardens have a similar layout as the Desert Botanical Gardens where it is divided into different sections, one of which is a farm garden showing an example of a typical Michigan farm. They also have a children's garden with interesting flower arrangements, an indoor arid ecosystem and a mini waterpark for the kids. There is also a section with sculptures. The butterfly exhibit was held at the Lena Meijer Conservatory, a tropical conservatory. It has the humidity of M'sia weather but much much cooler. We went there on a Saturday morning and as expected, it was very crowded too. The conservatory is much bigger than the exhibit area at the Desert Botanical Gardens but it has a very high rooftop allowing a lot of the butterflies fly up high, which made them hard to be photographed with a macro lens. It is also more challenging to capture close-up photos of the butterflies because the the high density of leaves in the controlled tropical environment decrease the amount of light available. After spending a few hours in the conservatory, we went out to take a walk around the other gardens but it was very windy that day. We decided to go back into the conservatory to get a few more photos. If it wasn't for the wind, I think we could have gotten a lot of flower photos too because the tulips and a few other flowers were blooming. I didn't get as many nice butterfly photos because of the lighting but did get to see a few more different butterfly, like this blue one.

It was very hard to get a photo of this butterfly. Whenever it lands, it will close its wings. Most of the butterflies in this garden is the smaller ones with black wings. However, I get to see a butterfly popped out from its cocoon! When they first hatched, their wings are all crumpled and take a few hours for them to pump liquid for the wings to completely open.

Photos in Flickr and Multiply.

The most recent butterfly encounter is at the Penang Butterfly Garden, back in Malaysia. All these visits to the butterfly gardens made me look for one in Penang and guess what, there is one in Teluk Bahang! Knowing the lack of sustainability in any of Malaysia's public amenities, I had low expectation for this garden. Surprisingly, I find it to be the second most enjoyable garden, after the Butterfly World in Florida. Thankful for the tropical environment in Malaysia, the garden is an outdoor park. Unlike the other gardens in the States, it is solely aimed for butterfly farming. However, it is much bigger than the butterfly exhibits at Grand Rapids or Arizona. They also have small areas with other types of animals such as ducks, snakes, lizards, scorpions, turtles and a pond of fishes. It was fun to see other bugs like the moving leaf and the stick bug.

While we were looking at the moving leaf bug, one of the people working there came out to release some butterflies that just hatched. We get to see lots of different butterfly and a huge moth!

We only spent a few hours there because it was getting really hot and there was no place to sit down for a rest. If they have a snack bar or at least a vending machine selling drinks or ice-cream and a shaded rest area, I think we could have spent a longer time there. There are a lot of different butterflies and other bugs that will be fun to photograph. It is definitely worth going back. Next time, will go first thing in the morning when the butterflies are not as active and on a weekday.

More photos in Flickr and Multiply!

Benihana

2010-05-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

Yippee, I finished my last class!! The crazy busy semester is done! Now I can start looking forward to going home and spending time with my family - in exactly two weeks, I'll be at home with mum, dad and ahmah!! For now, got another experiment to work on. Soil sampling on the only sunny day this week - Tuesday. Spring is really here! The rain is getting more frequent, flowers are blooming, the greens are coming back!

Got a bunch of photos from AZ and John's last trip here to MI that I haven't shared. Since it is raining outside and I can't go out to get more photos, I'll share the photos and videos I already have.

The last night I was in Arizona, we went to a Japanese cuisine restaurant, Benihana. It is a chain restaurant but I have had different good experience both times that I went. The first time I went to Benihana was in Florida, when we celebrated John's birthday.

It is a teppanyaki style Japanese cuisine, where we sit around a huge hot plate and they cook the food right there in front of us. I remember going to one of this back in primary school, after Sunday Dhamma class. It was somewhere on the top floor of Sungei Wang Plaza. We got a very entertaining cook this time. He did a lot of cool moves and I got to take a video of a bunch of them!

The meal started with miso soup and salad. While we're eating, the cook started with fried rice. Here is a video of him bouncing an egg yolk around.

After he fried the rice, he arranged it together into few different designs. Here is an angel.

Here is a Mickey Mouse. We happened to be sitting with a family who is celebrating a little boy's birthday. The cook made Mickey Mouse fried rice 'sing' Happy Birthday to the little boy.

For sides, we got roasted vegetables - onions, mushrooms, avocado and zucchini - and shrimp. I got soooo much mushroom this time because there was a lady who didn't want mushroom and I got all of John's mushroom too! Below is a video of him moving the onions around like a train. They also have their signature sauces - mustard and some garlic sauce. The garlic sauce blends really well with the mushroom!

As for main dish, John got lobster and I got tuna steak. The tuna is one of the best tuna I have ever had!

Lastly, we were really full but I still wanted to try the green tea ice-cream. So we just took one and shared.

Mickey Mouse Breakfast

2010-03-30T19:15:00.003-07:00

One of the days that I was in Arizona, we just slept in and had a 'take-it-easy' day. We had a fruit platter with grapes, bananas and pineapples for breakfast while watching Seinfeld. Hehe, there was a lot more pineapple but we used some for the pizza and as I was cutting the pineapple, chi tae jip chui, chi tae hae lok ark. Hehe. John also made us tea to go with the fruit platter. He has a teapot with a built-in strainer (haha, I am sure there is a better way to describe it) so he can make tea from loose leaves and flowers!! I couldn't remember what tea we had for breakfast but I got to try a variety of teas that he had while I was there and my favorite is the acai berry with green tea.

I couldn't help noticing that our breakfast setup resembles Mickey Mouse so I had to take a picture of it!

Pizza pizza!

2010-03-22T13:55:00.008-07:00

The only bread meal I really like! (as oppose to bo pan huat, in America, loti teh eh pang ghi)

We took an unplanned trip to Oregano's Pizza Bistro. We were driving home from a fun morning at a Japanese garden in Phoenix when we passed by this pizza place. John mentioned that it is a highly recommended pizza place in town. Since it was lunch time, we decided to walk over there (it is only a few blocks away from John's. In fact, we had passed that place multiple times when we walked around campus) for a slice of pizza but they didn't have pizza by the slice (oh yeah, this is a nice thing here in the States, where you can get a slice of pizza if you are by yourself or with friends who do not share the same cravings at the same time.). But since we were already there, why not try it, we can always take it home for dinner later. As it was lunch time, the place was packed and we had to wait. They have nice benches by their patio section and it was a sunny day!

It was only a short 10-15 minutes wait for us to be seated. While we were waiting, we took a look at their menu so we get to order right when they served us our drinks. We both got passion fruit black tea, which was very refreshing! On the menu, they state that their pizza takes about 40 minutes as they bake it fresh. Not a problem since we were not super hungry. But guess what, it took almost 1.5 hours for our pizza to be served! Although it took forever, our server was really nice and attentive because he noticed that we were waiting for way too long. Eventually, the owner/manager of the pizza place personally served us our pizza and nicely apologize for the delay. He even bought us the pizza!! Hehe, so we got a free pizza! This would never happen in M'sia! Instead of building on the customer's disappointment in the delay, they were very responsible and it was very nice that the owner/manager came out to see to the matter himself.

By the time the pizza came, we were both sooooo hungry we ate all of it! Hehe, I basically ate the first piece in 3 bites! We ordered a thin crust (my favorite! since that is even less loti and more garing!) with pepperoni and pepperoncinis, which is the yellow slices of chili you see on the top.
We also ordered a side of marinara sauce and John likes his pizza with lots and lots of sauce...
I would definitely go back to that place again! I wonder if their pasta or lasagna are as good as their pizza. Oh, they also have super huge meatballs!!! It is like a size of a golf ball! :P We were sooo full from eating the entire pizza, it was a good thing that we had planned to go check out the Arizona Aloha Festival at the Tempe Beach Park. It was so packed that there are some parts where we have to squeeze our way to get around people! (Found some photos online from someone's blog). We took a quick walk around and then can't help trying out some strawberry lemonade as we saw lots and lots of people carrying their cup around. It was sooooooooooo good! Hehe, the walk probably didn't do much as we got a huge cup, walk around the river and went back to get a refill. The first taste, you wondered why is it strawberry (which is common since lemonade typically over power most flavors unless they use a syrup based flavoring) but wait, the strawberry flavor is an aftertaste. Great combination! You get to taste the lemonade then the strawberry.

Pizza Part 2 - We had pizza again the next day! This time, 好特別喔! 有人煮給我吃的喔! I just had to chop up stuff. John made a pizza with the most topping I have ever had on a pizza! The toppings are sliced carrots (first time I had carrots on pizza!), diced chicken, yellow peppers and pineapple with a sprinkle of chopped cilantro. Of course, not forgetting the yummy pizza sauce and lots and lots of cheese!
Ahhhh...the wonders of good food and a sweet bf who don't mind being in the kitchen!

P. F. Chang's China Bistro and Cookiez

2010-03-21T07:57:00.008-07:00

I made another trip to Phoenix this spring break (my first spring break vacation!!) to visit John. It is funny to feel that a trip to Phoenix comes so naturally when after my last trip, I wondered if I would go back there again.

So what did we do at Phoenix this trip? Lots!!! We also ate a lot!! As I had expected, we made another trip to P. F. Chang's. They have really yummy food there that we both tried new stuff and was very satisfied with it. We took a nice walk to P. F. Chang's, which was only about 15 minutes walk from John's. The weather in Phoenix was a lot warmer than Michigan's weather a week ago (it was about 15 C all week this week here in Michigan!) and I get to wear a skirt!! It was warm enough that we got a table outside. In fact, both times that I have been there, we get to sit outside! This is allowable in Michigan only for like 2 months. Hehe.

Alright, what did we get this time? We started out with the 'must-try' of P. F. Chang's - Chicken Lettuce Wrap appetizer. For our main course, I got a white fish that is lightly breaded, just enough to make it crispy on the outside, and stir-fried with carrots and snow peas. It is a spicy dish as they stir-fried it with Szechuan sauce and it is simply called "Hot Fish". For my level of spiciness, it was not spicy at all but I like it just the way it is because it is very refreshing. Really spicy fish should be left to the works of an authentic Szechuan cuisine. In addition to the Szechuan sauce, there is also a hint of fermented black beans that is commonly used in Chinese cuisine. I am not too fond of fermented black beans by itself but the addition into this dish makes it unique. Fish also goes really well with brown rice that P. F. Chang's offer for no extra charges.
John got another fish dish - Mahi-mahi. Nope, mahi-mahi is not a dolphin, which it is commonly mistaken for. It is known as the 'dolphin fish' but it is not a member of the Delphinidae family, which is the family of the dolphins. Hehe, unlike its cute name, it actually has a fierce look! The mahi-mahi was grilled with lemongrass garlic sauce. The mild grilling definitely does justice to the freshness of the mahi-mahi because the fish is still juicy. The intensity of the garlic was also just right, not over-powering the lemongrass and the sweetness of the mahi-mahi. The fish was served with cilantro rice, another good rice combination with fish. I often make it myself when I get the canned roasted eel from the local Asian market - Oriental Mart.
Me love fish dishes! It is lighter on the digestion system and does not makes me sooo full that I just want to curl up and go to bed. Hehe. Even that, their dishes are pretty huge that I only finish half of my hot fish. But, we did go out for dessert after dinner. I still would like to try P. F. Chang's Flourless Chocolate Dome one day. To get that, we would have to just order one dish and share it so that we can still indulge in the chocolate dome without feeling too full.

For dessert, we walked a few blocks down on Mill Avenue, which is the main street of Downtown Tempe, to a small, locally owned ice-cream store called Cookiez on Mill. It is a very tiny shop with only one small table. Its specially is ice-cream sandwiches (and Italian Ice according to the review), where we can make our own combination from a list of cookies and ice-cream flavors. We shared an oatmeal cookie with Rocky road ice-cream sandwich. After getting our dessert, we walked down a few more blocks to my favorite spot in Downtown Tempe to enjoy our ice-cream sandwich - Tempe Beach Park, which is at the beginning of south Mill Avenue. I got to take another shot of the bridge for the Phoenix Metro Light Rail, this time with my macro lens! I also caught a shot of the train rushing through the bridge!
The picture of the ice-cream sandwich above is from the second time we got it. This time we got the white chocolate almond cookie with chocolate mint ice-cream. It is a superb combination!! The mint blends so well with the cookie. We love it so much we got it again just before I had to leave on Tuesday. Hehe. Yup, it is really good!

很開心John也很喜歡嚐試各種飲食. 真好玩! 我們可以一起聊些美食的話題, 我也不用擔心他念我吃太多, 或者吃到胖. Gives me a chance to learn how to take photos of food too!

Winter Wonderland

2010-02-27T08:30:00.011-07:00

Snow, snow, snow!!! It has been snowing almost all day the past week. Sure make being outside in the cold much more fun!!!
This is the path near my apartment building. The management plow the sidewalks in the morning and not long after, the path is covered with snow again.
At the area where the snow is not plowed, we got snow as deep as 1 feet!! Even the hydrant's body was covered with snow!!On the first few days, the snow was only lightly covering the path and on campus, they did a good job at removing it before everyone get to campus. The picture below is at the sidewalk near the building where my lab is. I thought the footsteps below is pretty interesting. Clearly, it was two people walking towards different direction. I wondered if they were walking along this path at the same time, if they did, did they know each other? If they don't, did they still look up and acknowledge each other? If they didn't, were they rushing to finish that assignment that is due in 2 hours? Hehe, it can be pretty fun to let our imagination run wild sometimes! I would say that these two person did not cross path but were quietly enjoying the peace on campus while walking to their first job schedule in the morning, just before the student rush to morning class starts.
The river on campus is mostly frozen too except for a small area near the admin building, one of my favorite area on campus. That is where the ducks hang out too, even now that it is freezing cold.
But now that it is so cold out, not many people goes to the river to hang out and feed the ducks. They must be really hungry because anyone who goes near the river, they will come close, hoping that they will be fed. When John and I went by the river just before Christmas, we sat by the stairs and it felt like they were going to eat me up!
All the trees on campus are covered with snow. Somehow the snow gives them a character because now they look like animated trees walking all around campus. :P
Besides human footsteps, there are tons of different types of footsteps on the snow. It is always fun to try to guess who made them. This one must be a rabbit one.
Let it snow, let it snow!!

甜甜的

2010-02-22T17:08:00.003-07:00

今年的情人節我收到好特別的禮物...那東西並不特別, 但那心意讓我非常的感動. 因為是他自己弄的喔! 那禮物就是...

當全部的零食摻起來, 那就叫'snack mix'. 平常'snack mix' 都會有些'pretzels', 各種炒貨, 巧克力, 和乾果. 我收到的有杏仁, 藍莓, 小紅莓, 櫻桃, 葡萄乾和最好吃的黑巧克力依macadamia! 通通都好吃, 參起來更好吃! 好甜蜜, 好幸福的感覺喔!!

甜甜的

我輕輕的嚐一口, 你說的愛我,
還在會味你給過的溫柔,
我輕輕的嚐一口,這香濃的誘惑,
我喜歡的樣子你都有.

Ethiopian Lunch

2010-02-20T20:52:00.004-07:00

It reminds me of chapati. It also reminds me of back home because their tradition is to eat with your hands instead of utensils.

Me and ahdik went out for lunch today to celebrate ahdik getting a new job - a supplementary instructor (yep, surprise, surprise!). We went to an Ethiopian restaurant called Altu's. I went there once with the TT, Pei and Jo a few years back and liked it but haven't been back since.

Ethiopian food (at least from what I had in the restaurant) reminds of chapati. Every dish comes with a spongy bread that taste exactly like chapati except it is much more spongy. Their dishes are a variety of vegetable or meat stew. Their vegetarian dishes are mostly beans or peas. Since I have been making lots of beans and peas stew recently (actually, ever since I find out how easy it is to make them with the slow cooker!), both of us got their chicken stew. The chicken stew dish also comes with cabbage that reminds me of the nasi lemak stall at the corner restaurant at Mentari Business Park. We used to ta pau that for lunch after school as it is one of the fastest thing to get. Plus, the auntie also have mummy and my favorite ikan pari!
Besides the unique type of food, the restaurant setup is also different. They have regular booth seating at the edge and in the middle of the restaurant, they have this 'kalo' looking thing. When they serve the food, they will take the top off and turn it around so it becomes like a table.

Huat arrrr!!!

2010-02-15T18:07:00.006-07:00

Keong Hee Huat Chai!! (Happy New Year!) Hor ni huat tua cai! (Have a prosperous tiger year!)

Without the M'sians this year, I didn't have a party at my place. But it was still a fun weekend with friends from a different lab. After the crazy weeks of presentations, posters, sampling in the freezing weather and long overnight experiments, it feels great to take a weekend off.

The weekend started with my first sledding and cross-country skiing (nope, I didn't cross-country, it is just called cross-country). Sledding is definitely much more fun than skiing. I can barely move my skiis and when I finally did, I kept falling down! Lucky thing there was inches and inches of snow! Going downhill is fun but I can't go up hill at all! It took me forever to go uphill because I kept slipping downhill. Sledding was scary initially but after a few trips down the hill, it was lots of fun! I'm the one in the yellow round tube. Another scary thing is there are lots of kids who do not get out of the way fast enough and I have no idea how to stop the tube or how to avoid them! I almost bumped into the little boy down there but lucky thing he stepped back fast enough.
The next day, which is the first day of CNY itself, Fan and I went for dim sum with some friends at a chinese restaurant called Golden Wok. It is the only restaurant in town that serves dim sum on a cart like it should be. Due to the large crowd (Duh! It is Cheh It!), they kept running out of stuff...like my favorite Wu Kok and the Tao Phui filled with pork. They did have 'kae kah' but we were there with a bunch of American friends so I didn't order that. Nothing beats the original dim sum in Hong Kong and of course, the one in Tai Tong, Penang (daddy, we have to go there for breakfast one morning!). Steph, it sounds like you have a much tastier dim sum stuff than I did!!!

Halfway through our dim sum brunch, they presented a lion dance!!! What a surprise! I never thought I would see one here at Michigan!!! It was a little weird since the lion was dancing around in the restaurant. The last lion dance I saw was during CNY in 2008 at Uncle Thean Yong's family CNY gathering.
The lion dance at Golden Wok...

After the dim sum brunch, we went over to a friend's house to make and of course, eat, dumplings! When we had enough dumplings, we played a fun card game which involves a lot of drinking. Hehe, good thing Datuk Loo does not know this game...otherwise, I would be drunk everytime we have a gathering. I kept losing! Without Datuk Loo, I just drank water. Hehe, yes, and yet I am the one who kept losing. It still amaze me how much beer people can drink, as we then proceed to play 'Flippy Cup'. It is another drinking game where one have to drink the beer and then flip the cup over on the table. The group that finishes the fastest win.

That about sums up my CNY. Not traditional but it was fun!

Ping vs. Virus 'Annoy-za'

2010-02-02T16:32:00.003-07:00

I knew it was coming this weekend when the cough came back and sore throat started. Yesterday's freezing cold weather did not help either, especially since I had to take the 15 minutes walk to Goodrich to get soymilk for breakfast (although I really could have made do with that remaining bit since I only used a little of the new one this morning).

Round 1!
Ping need to process the biomass from yesterday's experiment vs. 'Annoy-za'

It started getting worst when I was going in and out of the walk-in cold room (4C). Seriously, someone need to take the responsibility to clean up that place. I did it last year, not doing again. Since I made it all the way to 3pm and finished up today's lab report, Round 1, 'Annoy-za' down!

Round 2! ('Annoy-za' is standing back up!)
Ping need to finish reading the paper on Marx's theory as the foundation for environmental sociology but clearly, I am not doing that right now. Am not getting anything into the brain cells anymore. I have been reading the sentence "This emphasis on historical changes in soil fertility in the direction of agricultural improvement was to be a continuing theme in Marx's thought, though it eventually came to be coupled with an understanding of how capitalist agriculture could undermine the conditions of soil fertility, resulting in soil degradation rather than improvement." for I have no idea how many times and I can't seem to move further. Errr...the most common feedback I get from my writings is 'you need to shorten your sentence'. This sentence is from a paper published in American Journal of Sociology and I think it tops any of my long sentence! It must be a sociology thing because most of the sentences in this paper is super long. Well, since I am really getting side-track, I guess 'Annoy-za' wins Round 2.

Round 3! (Of course Ping is not down yet!)
Instead, I just had two oranges, a kiwi, and a cup of echinacea tea. That should knock this annoying 'Annoy-za' down. But I am going to go take a nap (nope, not the result of Round 3, just the consequence of Round 2). Round 3 results yet to be posted...(maybe MSU's win against the Badgers tonight might do it..hehe).
Zzzzzzzz

Butterfly World, Florida

2010-02-02T05:58:00.004-07:00

How often do you get to see a butterfly stay around long enough for you to capture a good photo of it? I haven't got one...until this trip to the Butterfly World. It is really magical to be surrounded by soooo many butterflies!! They are everywhere and there was even one or two who landed on me a few times!! We got there first thing in the morning right when they opened and we didn't leave until almost 5pm! It was lots of fun that I have the D5000 too because I get to take lots of macro photos. I get to play around with the video function too. The videos are a little blur since it was my first day playing with them and still learning how to focus. I also do not have a video editing software so I can't lighten some of them that is too bright. Hmm...Yong, any recommendation?

Here is one with a 'halu' butterfly that eventually got the other butterfly to fly too...Mei, reminds me of you lah. :P

Besides butterflies, they also have a birds garden. Most of the birds there are pretty small as they are finches and hummingbirds. They are also very active so it was a lot more challenging to capture them. We did spend a lot of time with the Macaws. They have an interesting interaction.

There was also a rose garden and a passion vine but they were not flowering yet. If it was flowering, we would probably be there for a longer time! Having the camera adds on to the fun but it was still amazing to just be there with all the butterflies and birds, to explore their bug museum that has all kinds of creepy looking bugs which you never want to encounter in real life and to just walk around the park.

Pompano Beach, Florida

2010-01-21T19:36:00.009-07:00

I spent this past winter break at Pompano Beach, Florida. It is a city just north of Fort Lauderdale and about an hour north of Miami. The place we stayed is right by the North Atlantic Ocean! We just have to walk out of the condo and we are on the beach!! Just like staying at Rasa Sayang.

View of the beach from the balcony...

The beach...

Unexpectedly, it wasn't as warm as I hoped so we didn't get to swim in the ocean or hang out at the beach much (although I should have remembered that when we went to Disney World in Orlando, it was actually quite cold). On the other hand, the clear blue sky and sunny weather makes being in Florida much more enjoyable than in Michigan. John and I still go out everyday to walk along the beach and do other fun stuff. I love the beach there! It is very clean, just like Taman Negara Pulau Pinang. Ooo, I also got my first pedicure!!

On the first day that we arrived, we went out to a park - Hillsboro Inlet Park - near one of the popular landmark of Pompano Beach - Hillsboro Lighthouse. It was very windy but I totally didn't realize initially because there was a pelican type bird that came by and I was super excited to be playing with my new camera!

With the unobstructed view, we were also able to watch the Sun rises every morning! It is definitely my first time lying on the beach and watching the Sun rise. From the multiple mornings that we were there, we figured out that it is only interesting when the Sun is initially rising, which started at like 6.30am or so and last for about 10-15 minutes. It was freezing on one of the days that we were out! Then the Sun disappears behind a thick layer of clouds at the horizon. At 7.30am, it gets interesting again as the clouds rise and disperse, you see the light rays cutting through the clouds. On the coldest day that we were out watching the sun rises on the east, we also get to see the moon shining bright on the other side. Definitely one of my favorite sunrise experience!

Even though it was cold, we would still go to a nearby ice-cream store - Razzleberry's Ice-cream. We went there 3 times! It is only about 20 minutes walk (on the beach) from the condo. We would also stop to take photos of the birds that hangs out at the beach. This one below must have its leg broken or sprained or something because it was limping and didn't seem to be able to have it spread out.

A 'sand pit' that we came across on the beach...

There is also lots and lots of coconut tree, just like you see in the movies!

At night, we also get to see the moon's reflection in the ocean and various patterns of the clouds covering the moon. It is just great to be out there! It feels so pristine and peaceful.

John took more cool panorama photos of the beach.

Happy Birthday!

2010-01-11T21:06:00.003-07:00

Happy Birthday to mummy and daddy!

This photo was taken from the balcony just after the Sun had completely rised from the horizon. Every time I see the Sun rises, it makes me think of home...no matter how far away I am from home, at least I know that when you see the Sun sets in M'sia, I see the same Sun rises here in the States.

Kam siah for all the support that you have both given me!

Bunch of new toys

2010-01-10T11:27:00.007-07:00

Am back in East Lansing! Fortunately, I get to come back to sunny Michigan with blue skies, which is very rare in winter. The cold is much more bearable when there is snow on the ground and you can feel a little warmth from the sunshine.

After all the housekeeping stuff and catching up with all the papers I missed during break, am now back to planning experiments for the coming week. This is the longest break I have ever taken and not gone home to Malaysia...hehe...

Over the break, I somehow inherited a bunch of new toys..wait, actually, it should be A LOT of new stuff, some of them happen to be cool toys. Crazy as it sounds, I have sooo many presents from John and his family! 超尷尬的!! 但也很感動. 他們真的很熱情. One of the gift I received from John was the most unexpected gift I have ever gotten...a Nikon D5000! 在開禮物的時候, 感動到熱淚盈眶. It is also very sweet of him to let me use his macro lens to play with it...hehe...until I go back to Malaysia for some shopping! Hehe, I guess somewhere in my Flickr, he must have seen a photo that shows I do know something about photography that got me this camera.

The first few photos I took with it...

It does not have auto focus motor so it took me quite a while to get sharp images. The weight of an SLR camera also makes it much more difficult to get nice macro photos so Ping has lots more to learn!!! This combination will be good for me to practice focusing with stable hands.

The other new toy...was acquired while we were at Florida. We went to Ikea one of the day to help John's parents get furniture for the condo. While walking through the toys section, we saw this huge and cuddly elephant...and it came home with me all the way to Lansing to join my elephant collection!! Hehe, another unexpected one...or maybe not...for those who have gone shopping with me. *bleh* Wei Qi is now my first elephant with tusks! 也是John 送我的第一個毛絨玩具!

Los Alamos, New Mexico

2009-12-06T16:18:00.021-07:00

最近很忙, 有好多experiment 要做. But it is pretty exciting time! I am sooo glad that I took over this project. In the past 8 months since my last committee meeting, I have way more useful data than all the experiments combined from the 2nd and 3rd year. 但有時候,若是有空,還是比較喜歡弄scrapbooking. :P 沒想到, 這短短的半年裡, 我的生活突然有那麼多的故事了.

Alright, here comes the Los Alamos trip...

Albuquerque airport is about 2 hours away from Los Alamos, which is where Steph is working at right now. She picked me up from the airport and we went over to Santa Fe, which is the capitol of New Mexico, for a late lunch. Unlike Michigan, the 1.5 hours ride from East Lansing to Detroit airport, while dull, is occasionally greeted with various towns and signs of life. The approximately 45 minutes drive to Santa Fe is surrounded by mountains and flatlands with very little flora. It sure is very brown.

It does get more interesting once we get to Santa Fe. The buildings are very unique, having flat roofs and are mostly made of concrete (as opposed to the more common wooden houses in Michigan). But I still think that their color choice of 'earth tone' is still too boring, as much as I love nature. We had a traditional Mexican lunch at Maria's. I had a platter of Blue Corn Enchilada that comes with Spanish rice and refried beans. They serve the meal with some kind of puffy bread that you eat with honey known as Sopaipillas.

After lunch, Steph brought me to the Santa Fe Plaza. It is a touristy area with shops selling various types of art, specifically, locally made New Mexico style art.

While it was interesting to see the arts of New Mexico, it is definitely not my kind of thing as the jewelleries are very bold (those that is very 'cha bak') and the decor art are too weird looking and as Steph also mentioned, you wouldn't know what to do with them. Like this piggy here...

One thing that you see everywhere is this Ristra. It is a bunch of dried chilli that they keep around for later consumption. Isn't that convenient?

Within the plaza area is also a chapel, the Loretto Chapel, that has a unique staircase. This staircase was built by a mysterious carpenter that disappeared after he completed it. Until today, it is still a puzzle how the staircase was built as it has no support and uses no nails. I think because this is such a precious architecture, they charge people to enter the chapel, which I was surprised when we first walked in to the chapel.

We arrived at Los Alamos when it was pretty dark out so I didn't get to see much until the next day. Steph has a very nice apartment with tall ceiling and has lots of windows for the sunlight to enter. The next day, we went hiking at Bandelier National Monument. It is a national park with ruins left over from the Pueblo era. The Pueblos are Native Americans who lived in the soutwest region of the States. I wonder how many people in the States today is still a Pueblo descendant.

The view of the park from one of the mesa.

We hiked through the Main Loop Trail, which goes through the archaeological sites. These walls made up the Tyuonyi, where some of the Pueblo people used to live in. Can you imagine living in such tiny spaces? I think I would be claustrophobic!

Some of them live up in the rocks that looks like Swiss cheese. These rocks are made of volcanic ash that got compacted over time. They make rooms out of those holes within the rock and strengthen their rooms by smoking the ceilings.

Some live even higher up, like this Alcove House. We have to climb 4 tall wooden ladders to get up to the top. Can you imagine carrying a bunch of wood and food they gather up these ladders?

The park maintains the archaelogical sites pretty well as you can still see some remains of the petroglyph that the Pueblo people used to make.

After we finished walking the Main Loop, we hike through the Falls Trail. The trail ends at the Rio Grande, where part of it forms the US-Mexico border. We didn't walk that far and the river didn't look very appealing either.

Similar to the chaparral in Arizona, Bandelier also has very little signs of life. In fact, at the time when I was there, it felt even more serene as the trees barely look alive and we only bumped into one squirrel which I call it the bunny-squirrel because it has long ears like rabbits.

We did walk past a waterfall that runs into a stream leading into the Rio Grande. This made me realized that as much as I love being out in the nature and hiking through national parks, having a waterfall or lake or some kind of pristine water body makes it much more interesting. It reminds me our home back in Penang. Although it is smack right in the middle of a tourist area, it is only within minutes away from the beach, the waterfall, the national forest, and mountains and parks. Mummy and daddy, thanks for such a wonderful place for me to go back to whenever I need a break!

The view of Los Alamos with the Rocky Mountains in the background. See the snow-capped mountain? That is the first time I have seen one!! (Reminded me of the hymn "His Love Lit Image" we used to sing in Sunday school). They must have gotten quite a lot of snow already as Steph pointed out a few mountain tops with enough snow for skiing. Isn't it amazing that just within a small geographical area, Steph and I was standing by some rocks with only a sweatshirt and when we look up, we see snow and there could be people up there in their winter coat, skiing!

Besides getting to hang out with Steph, the other highlight of my trip is - the blue skies!!! Steph said that it is actually cloudier than normal but coming from the rainy, gloomy Michigan for the past several weeks, it is actually refreshing!!

The trip ended with a yummy Italian dinner home-cooked by Steph before I have to leave for Michigan the next morning.

There may not be much to do in Los Alamos but I was glad to see Steph and catch up with her again. It is great to have friends that even after two years of not seeing each other, we are still bffs! It is even more special because Steph was the first person I met coming here to MSU. Lost and not knowing how to approach a professor, I bumped into Steph on the hallway of the BPS 6th floor. She offered her email address and I thought that she is the nicest person ever! Later, being in the same lab as her, I am glad I get to meet her before she graduated because she IS the nicest person, sweetest friend (she remembered my favorite Swiss Roll!) and the greatest mentor ever! (I love you Steph!) Really wish that one day, we (along with Kristi, Kristin and Jen) could all have a reunion somewhere. I might get to see Steph again next year at Seattle but will have to see what the 老闆 says about the abstract first.

Arizona State University

2009-11-25T20:51:00.009-07:00

Walking around the campus of Arizona State University made me realize one thing - MSU's campus will always be my favorite campus. We have the prettiest landscapes and gardens with lots and lots of colorful plants. The few campuses that I have been to in the US (besides ASU and MSU) are Stanford University in California, Boston University, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Massachusetts, Western Michigan University, University of Michigan, Central Michigan University and Wayne State University in Michigan, and University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign in Illinois. They each have their specialty but MSU is still my favorite in terms of the look of the campus.

ASU is much smaller than MSU and the buildings are much closer to each other. In fact, it actually feels like SS15 without the crazy number of cars. Just right across the road from the campus are a variety of shops from restaurants and bars to clothing stores. While ASU have less greeneries (maybe because it is located at a desert area), its buildings have more interesting architecture. The two major plants (besides cactus) that are widely spread at ASU campus is the bitter/sour orange (Citrus aurantium, hmm, I wonder if there is any link between this orange tree and the bacteria Spirochaeta aurantia) tree

and this bright colored flowers that seem to clusters in pairs.

The nice thing about the ASU campus is it is very friendly to people who like to walk and there are lots of stuff to see within walking distance, unlike at East Lansing, where there is not much going on within walking distance. A nice place that I really like is the Tempe Beach Park, especially at night. It reminds me of Esplanade, Penang. From the park, you can see the Mill Avenue bridges that cross the Tempe Lake and the Valley Metro Light Rail bridge. The Metro Light Rail is similar to our Putra LRT. It connects ASU all the way to Phoenix downtown. The colored bridge below is the bridge for the Light Rail. The color changes every day and it is cool when the train comes because the colored lights will chase after the train.

At the north edge of the campus is a mountain with a huge A on it. It is like The Rock at MSU although they don't mess it up as much and it is not as high in demand like the Rock. From this mountain, you can see both sunset and sunrise and I saw both on it too!!

As for the shops around campus, there are tons of different restaurants serving food of different culture (hehe, except Malaysian! This will always be the one factor that makes Malaysia special because there is no other country that have mamak!). Besides the regular chain restaurants that you can find anywhere in the US, they also have chains that are more specific to the southwest region like Jack in the Box and non-chain local restaurants. We went to a Mexican restaurant the first night I was there and P.F. Chang's on my last night there. 和John出去吃飯很輕鬆因為我們不會常常去吃那些典型美國菜.他對別文明美食還蠻有興趣的. 有幾次我不太敢約他和我們一起出去吃飯因為不懂他會不會喜歡我們吃的食物.但,我們有一次辦BBQ的時候, 我約他去, 他好多食物都嚐試.這次, 我們去P.F. Chang's 的時候, 我看到有烤鴨,好興奮喔!好久沒吃烤鴨了.我問他,他會不會吃鴨, 他竟然說他嚐過!太好了! Hehe. So we end up ordering our favorite Chicken Lettuce Wrap, VIP Duck (which is basically the same concept as Beijing Roast Duck but they serve it with tortilla wraps instead of the puffy buns) and a salmon dish (是的, 他也很喜歡吃魚!所以我們出去時, 我常常有得吃魚!). They have one of the best fish dishes because they add enough spices to make it tasty and still taste the fish and don't cook it too long that the fish becomes dry.

On my last day there, we walked through their 'Union', which is known as the Memorial Union. They have tons of stuff to eat there!!! They even have a Cold Stone Creamery right in there (in addition to one that is just right off campus!). Since we already got our dose of Cold Stone ice-cream the day before, we went to Einstein Bros. Bagels for breakfast. They have a really yummy bagel called the green pepper bagel.

There are definitely still more stuff to explore there ...hehe, if I get to make another trip there. :P

We beat Gonzaga!!

2009-11-17T21:16:00.003-07:00

Argh, I am still so hyper from the game!! This is definitely the first exciting game of the season! It is also our first test since the previous games were all against not so 'geng' schools. Hehe.

Pei, why must the time difference between us be so much different!!! I am so hyper I need to talk to someone!! You are like the only person I know who is as gila over basketball as me. OMG, Morgan fell and held his ankle sometime during the first half. I thought he was going to hurt himself again!! The entire stadium was soo supportive as everyone chanted his name. He did went out but came back shortly before the first half ended. About 2 minutes or so before the end of the game, he got fouled out but he managed to score 16 points for us. Definitely better than the last game when he got 0-0 from the line. He started out pretty bad but improved a lot within this game! Go Morgan!!

Chris Allen didn't do as well this game and neither did Roe. In fact, Roe scored 0 and got fouled out! Allen had tons of opportunity to do a 3 point but he hesitated in all of them except one, ending with a total of 5 points. So disappointing! This game is pretty much Morgan, Summers and Lucas' game as they gave a total of 66 points out of the 75-71 win over Gonzaga.

The first half was so disappointing as we never came close to leading at all except for the first 2 points. Once Gonzago scored, they just kept going. Thankfully, the second half was much better for us. There were a lot of ties and leading by 2-3 points. It makes the game so much more 刺激!

Pei, this video is for you just incase you miss the MSU band. :P

十一月五號

2009-11-15T08:16:00.003-07:00

今天是一個很特別的日子. 這一天我發現了三件事...

1. 我終於和我自己承認了. 我們一開始做"let's see how this semester go" 的約定已經不夠. Pei, 你說的一切, 我這一天才敢想起.

2. 這一切比做夢更美. 我一直想,什麼時候會恍然醒悟. 今天我發現,這個美麗的夢是現實,而且,更棒!

3. 我曾經以為西方男生不比我們華人會疼女孩 (Haha, maybe that is why there is no good way to express 'manja' in English). 我錯了. 雖然他比我小幾年, 他仍然會給那被照顧, 被manja的感覺.

雖然發現了這些,有點可怕,但覺得這一切都是值得去體驗. 愛. 若是正直和單純,那才是真的. 不需要搞到複雜,因為間單才會帶來開心和幸福.

周杰倫 - 間單愛

我想就這樣牽著你的手不放開,

愛可不可以間間單單沒有傷害,

你, 靠著我的肩膀,

你, 在我胸口水餃,

像這樣的生活我愛你, 你愛我.

I'm on top of the world! This picture was taken by John when we were up on one of the mountains by Apache Trail.

Arizona!

2009-11-14T14:27:00.016-07:00

This is the best trip I have made in the past 2 years! (The last best one is of course, going home to Penang!) It may be a short one but definitely had a wonderful time there. We did a lot in the two days that I was there.

I arrived Phoenix in the mid-afternoon and my first impression - this feels like Malaysia! Every time I go on a plane ride, part of me always wish that its final destination is Penang International Airport. The first wave of heat as I walked out of the airport sure made it feel like I was transported back to M'sia for a moment. But of course, that will have to wait until sometime next year.

Later in the afternoon, as we were walking around Arizona State University campus, the glimpse of a little area here and there reminds me of Sunway. There is the nice houses and apartments, and then within a few blocks, you get the run down looking apartments or abandoned houses with a lawn that needs lots of mowing (already thinking about those houses almost covered with lalang). As you walk towards the main road, you get busy traffic and lots of shops, just like walking from our house towards Sunway Metro or the Mentari Business Park. Of course, they don't have a mall as big as Sunway Pyramid but the similarities are enough to bring a nostalgic feeling. Hehe, I must have said it like a thousand times to John as we walked around and when he was driving around the area. There are some area that has more well-to-do residents with luxurious looking houses, like those at the new Sunway area (can't remember what it is called edi). Reminds me so much of those days when I walked to Sunway College or the occasional walk home from SMKBS after a prefect's meeting.

The first place we explored was the Camelback Mountain. It is about 20 minutes away from John's place by car. We did not plan to watch sunrise at all but wanted to get an early start. We got there shortly before sunrise and got to watch it rises while we were hiking up the mountain. Although I have seen quite a few sunrise scene now, 這個讓我最感動的!! 感動到眼淚都掉下來了. Maybe because it was like a surprise present, 加上和喜歡的人手牽手看著日出, 真幸福!!

According to Wikipedia, it is designated as one of the 33 Phoenix Points of Pride! (There are so many things to do there!!) The reason why it is called the Camelback is because it has the shape of a camel's back. I know I saw it but for some reason, I must have not taken a photo at that time, or it was a crappy photo that got deleted before it got to my computer because I don't have a photo of it now. Boo! Hehe, that means we will have to go again. :P There is two trails that goes up all the way to the top. We took the Summit Trail. Although the trail is rated as "strenuous and difficult", we were totally fine. There is one challenging part where the rocks are slippery and it is very steep. But they installed a pole for you to hang on to so it wasn't bad at all. Other than that, it is lots of fun skipping from rocks to rocks. Hehe. It was a good thing we went early too because it got busier on our way down.

We even get to see the moon when we up at the peak of the mountain!

The city of Scottsdale from the mountain peak. We are looking at two golf course, which I thought is really cute because they look like those plots from Sim City.

From A New Beginning...

After the hike (which was only 11am! Going out with John is always much more productive because I don't have to wait until "jit tau tuk ka chui" to start the day), we drove down there for a yummy, fruity snack at Jamba Juice and later, lunch at Bamboo Club. It is voted Best Asian Restaurant in the Phoenix area and I was told that they have Malaysian dishes. Hmmm...clearly, our definition of Malaysian dishes is different. Hehe. They have the acar, satay and char keuh teow, all of which I did not order (err...who eats these stuff at a classy restaurant??? Hehe. It has to be keh lor pi ones that will taste better). I got "sizzling spicy tofu" instead. Haha, nope, it does not come in a sizzling hot plate (hmmm...sizzling hot plate noodle at Long Beach...yummy!) but it was delicious. Just spicy enough for a tofu dish and not too much gravy to make the tofu too soft. John got yummy Pad Thai but it has its own unique taste rather than the sweet, nutty traditional Pad Thai.

The other place we explored was the Tonto National Forest. This is a huge national park with lots of mountains and lakes, similar to the Rocky Mountains. It is interesting to see the stark difference in the ecology of the mountains in Arizona compared to the mountains in Colorado. The plant community in Tonto National Forest is less dense and are dominated by shrubs and cactus. There are also less animals that come into view, and if there are any, they are mostly birds. It has the ecology of chaparral rather than a forest (although it is called a national forest, maybe it does have forest ecology elsewhere that we did not come by since we only explored a small area).

We went into the park through the Apache Trail and one of the lakes that we came across is the Canyon Lake.

From A New Beginning...

A different view of Canyon Lake. The fun part of hiking here is that you feel like you are in complete wilderness. There is no pre-paved trails and there are less people around. In fact, we didn't bump into anyone while hiking at all! You can hike any way you want!

We also stopped by at a little town called Tortilla Flat. It is only a row of shops selling souvenirs and food. But surprisingly, according to Wikipedia, it is an official town with a population of 6! Isn't that cute?

On the way back to Tempe, we stopped by Goldfield Ghost Town. It used to be a gold mine but eventually became a ghost town when the gold runs out. Now, it is a tourist attraction with an underground mine tour!

Notice all the blue skies in the photos? It is addictive. Hehe. Can totally see why John likes it there so much. Unlike large busy cities that consumes precious Mother Nature, Tempe/Phoenix is large enough with lots of things to do but sparse enough that there are lots of mountains and other gifts of Mother Nature to explore.

It's Basketball Season!!

2009-11-01T20:06:00.017-07:00

This past weekend is the first game of the basketball season. It is just an exhibition game but it was fun to watch the guys play on court again! We are picked as the nation's #2 team by the pre-season coaches' poll. Everyone is excited that our team is looking good and we still have our key players along with two awesome freshman...but....read on.

I was already excited about the basketball season starting from the Midnight Madness held back in October. The basketball players are only allowed to officially practice with the coach approximately a month or so before the season officially begins. Midnight Madness is to celebrate the day the official practice begins for the Spartans. Similar to last year, they have a skit, performance by the MSU Dance Team and Cheerleading Team followed by a short scrimmage starting at midnight. This year, Coach Izzo went as an Indy car racer. Ever since we went to the Final Four, they have yet to put up the banner for it so they did it this year. In fact, they made new banners for all the Final Fours that we went under Coach Izzo. This year's Midnight Madness also broke record as they had a full attendance at Breslin Center. Fans who went in late were turned away because they had reached full capacity. Isn't it crazy? Well, we are the nation's #2 team!!

After the Midnight Madness, there was another basketball event - Green vs White Scrimmage. It was held on the same day our football team played against Iowa. This was when I got an autograph from Coach Izzo and had Chris Allen to sign on the basketball jersey that Pei bought for me!!!

This year, the Izzones (the student section) organized a really nice tour of the men's basketball locker room and open practice. It is interesting to see how Coach Izzo have each of them work on different aspects of the game and after watching a full court practice, I think that these guys are awesome! Wonder how NBA practice is like..hehe.

Trophies at the lounge area by the main entrance of the basketball office.

At the office area, they have action shots of the basketball players all along the walls. Here is a wall with all the Spartans in NBA. Suton is the most recent one who was drafted to NBA for Utah Jazz but end up not being selected to play. In the recent Lakers vs Mavericks game, a Spartan alumni, Shannon Brown did an awesome dunk right as the shot clock goes off. 很美的灌籃!!

Then there is the wall with this season's players.

Their lecture room.

The practice court with all the banners from when the Spartans participated in the Final Fours, with the most recent one last season in Detroit. We will make it to Indianapolis this season!

Here comes the one everyone would love to see....their super chun locker room!

with comfy chairs in front of a large wall mount HD TV!

Our awesome players practicing hard.

And we get to pick up our Izzone T-shirt.

Finally, a recap of Sunday's game.

It is a good thing that exhibition games don't count because we have 2 key players injured and coincidentally, it is Pei and my favorite player! #2 Raymar Morgan and #3 Chris Allen! The game started out pretty slow. We scored a 4 point in the first 2 minutes and then the game went without any score for the next 5 minutes or so. While we won Northwood easily, the scores were pretty close during the first half. We lost another key player, #10 Delvon Roe early in the game due to some injury.

While we didn't play very well, I felt that Northwood was pretty rough out there on the court. Our players were on the floor half of the time! They seem to enjoy jumping out and bumping into anyone who tries to shoot from below the hoop. Geezz!! Our point guard, #1 Kalin Lucas certainly did not have a good day as he kept missing his shots but did managed to be the top 2nd scorer, just 1 score less than Summers. Our shooting guard, #15 Durrell Summers gave an awesome play today, making several awesome dunk. Unfortunately, with a few minutes more to go, he fell and had to leave the court. He was limping as he walks out. I hope it is not too bad because we already have Morgan and Allen down. Everyone is looking forward to see the entire basketball team healthy and yet, injuries happened before the first game. Poor Morgan, he needs some health potion or "unlimited mana". Hehe.

One surprise from this exhibition game - our new freshman center, #50 Derrick Nix can shoot! He scored us 13 points tonight! I like the shot below - Lucas (#1) and Nix (#50) both with the same points at one point of the game. :P Hopefully that all the guys will be back healthy when we play against Florida Gulf Coast.

I just love basketball season!! Pei, 我好想念妳喔!! 沒有你在, 我要跟誰談籃球呢?

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T05:41:00.006-07:00

This year's Halloween is a little boring since no one is around. But even if there is plans, I probably won't be able to participate since I am wrapping an experiment today - because I'm going down South on Tuesday!!! Actually, Southwest to be exact! It will be an interesting trip since the weather is so extreme. Haha, in fact, when compared to Michigan, the weather here is right in between the warm, SUNNY Phoenix and freezing cold, SUNNY Los Alamos. Yup, that is the key - the Sun! Steph also said that it has been snowing in Los Alamos. That will be fun too!!

Even though it is a quiet Halloween for me, I did managed to carve 2 little pumpkins a few weeks back. This is the first one. Hehe, I accidentally destroyed its nose!

Here is pumpkin #2 that ah boy and me decided to call it "Ah Bot". See who can guess where this name comes from...hint: if you don't know, then your English is not 'Hokkienized' enough. :P

I was trying to make it smoke a pipe but it failed. So I had to think of something else, but I didn't realize that I carved the pipe so close to the ear until I lighted it up!! Whoopss. :P

Last week, when I drove over to tai lo's house to have 火鍋 with Alan, MC and everyone else, I passed by this house...

Isn't it cute? It makes me miss all the good times with the girls and the M'sian gang!

There are also a bunch of cute decors around town like this M&M at CVS Pharmacy (the equivalent of Malaysia's Watsons).

The Colors of Fall

2009-10-25T14:47:00.006-07:00

秋天來了!! But this year's Fall is a little weird. It feels more like Spring. 天天都下雨, 下到表土都邊泥土. Soil sampling is not as fun when the soil moisture is so high. Sieving is even worst because my 2mm sieve gets clogged up easily. But now I switched to a 4mm so not as bad.

Besides that, Fall is pretty fun for photos because it is so colorful outside! It is lovely just to walk outside too because the leaves are falling and sometimes, the cool mist is pretty refreshing.

This is the newest remodeling on campus - Wharton Center. It is where performing arts such as Broadway shows are held. Super excited that Phantom of The Opera will be in town next summer!!

One of the major streets on campus. The red leafed trees line the side of the walkway.

The red colored trees are pretty but I like the mix colored ones better.

Stumbled upon this rock while walking along the river. Someone must have gave it a pair of eyes! It made me thought of Steph's pet rock widget. Boo! Only Mac has cool widgets that don't slow down their system. Windows need to chill a little. Hehe.

While the trees are pretty, we haven't been getting nice, blue sky for a while. This is one of the rare days when the sky is blue and clear that even its reflection on the river is blue.

This shot came out blur but I still like it. It reminds me of a painting in a storybook. For some reason, I thought of Alice in Wonderland. It is actually the trailer of the movie (Johnny Depp is in it!!) that made me thought of it first. I think it will definitely be one to watch on IMAX, but after I hear the reviews first. :P

The Tree of Love. Its leaves are heart-shaped.

Red Cedar River. As usual, my favorite spot is along the river.

Ping have to go soil sampling tomorrow. Boo. It is going to be a rainy day hence, a muddy day for me. Planned to go today, which is pretty nice out but have to collect soil from one of the plots that is locked and it is hunting season so not recommended to sample during the weekend. Am starting to get tired of this high humidity and moisture weather. 8 more days!! Hehe.

Too many methods!

2009-10-19T16:07:00.004-07:00

Arghghggh!!! 我快發瘋了啦!! 我在做一些 meta-analysis 關於 soil respiration. 讀了那麼多文章,沒有兩個用一樣的method. 我必須用他們的raw data 來自己變換和分析. 更難的是要猜為什麼他們用哪些做法. 真不明白為什麼some research group 喜歡收那sample in 4 or 5 degrees C for 1 week 或許 acclimate to 25C for a few days before carrying out the experiment. Grrrrr...the community is going to change and microbial activity will decrease! Hai, guess that is what happens when soil scientists don't talk to microbiologists.

唉, 還是繼續認真的讀好了. 讀完後就可以回家吃飯了!! 今晚的晚餐...

Hehe, 其實這是昨天的晚餐, 但還沒吃完, 所以今天還可以吃, 明天都可以吃! 是我最喜歡的美國素菜 - 紅蘿蔔(carrot)和西蘭花(broccoli). 華人素菜忠實比較好吃, 可是久久一次還會想吃這些菜. 另一個是豆腐炒雞肉. I am missing the chap fan back home!!! Hehe, Ping is starting to countdown to going home edi. Hopefully sampling will be done by early summer then I can 安心的回家!!

Cici Jelly Drink collection

2009-10-18T14:43:00.004-07:00

Earlier this year, Pei got me this Cici Jelly Drink endorsed by Jay from Oriental Mart. When I went back a few weeks later, they only have the regular packaging ones. That means no 杰倫's face on it. Hehe, so of course I didn't buy any ler.

Last week, I went to 大華 to get some vegetable and as usual, will also wander over to the snack isle. Guess what, I found tons of Cici Jelly Drinks with Jay's face staring back at me!! :P

Am sure you all know the outcome of the encounter....

Hehe, can't help it. One don't come by Jay's merchandise easily in the States! Bleh. Malaysian fans are going to be so excited when he goes to M'sia to promote 刺陵 in December. Too bad, they won't be showing the movie in the States. Will have to get the DVD when I go back next year.

How do I get there?

2009-10-14T03:20:00.006-07:00

Back in M'sia, this question is typically answered by "Go there and ask people lah" or when I am in Penang, "ask gee ku lah". Yup, we just wing it and eventually we will get to the final destination. The first time usually takes us a lot longer. I still remember all the hand-drawn maps exchanged between mummy and tua tiow or gee ku, depending on if we are in PJ or Penang.

Ever since I started learning how to drive in the States, going places is pretty easy - online maps! I used to get it from Mapquest but eventually Google Maps became more popular and satellite view is much more appealing. Both Mapquest and Google Maps are usually pretty accurate but recently, Google Maps have been providing directions that are not accurate or are hard to follow. After the first two not so good experience, I started looking closer at the directions by using the satellite view and zooming in closer to look at nearby landmarks and the street patterns around my final destination. Basically, I try to get a sense of the area just incase I am unable to follow the directions, maybe I could still get to the place based on what I can remember from the satellite view map.

This past weekend, I looked up the directions to the Livery Brew at Benton Harbor for Hannah's wedding on Google Maps. As usual, I zoomed in to the area around the bar to see the exact road that I will be taking and noted any nearby main roads. It is a pretty simple to get there as it is pretty much right off the main road that we get on just as we exit the highway.

The exit I should be taking according to Google Map is Exit 31.

But we (Jen went with me) couldn't find Exit 31! We saw mile 31 but there was no exit there. It was Exit 33, 32 and then 29! Did I wrote it down wrongly? So we exit at Exit 29, turned back (actually Exit 29 is not too faraway from the place either but I didn't know what direction I was heading so to be safe, we turned back) and took Exit 33. My instinct had told me that I should be taking Exit 33 when I drove passed it (because it says Downtown Benton Harbor) but I trusted Google Maps so I passed it to look for Exit 31. We did call the bar just to make sure Exit 33 is the right one. Once we exit, it was pretty easy to find it (although I did miss it again because I thought it was a one way street. Hehe).

When I got home, I checked it again to see if it was Google's fault or it was because I wrote the wrong exit number. Nope, it was Google's fault! In fact, if I had click on the camera button right next to that particular direction, I would know that I should be looking for Exit 33. The picture below is what you get when you click on the camera button.

Wanting to know if there really is an Exit 31, I zoomed in by clicking on the U.S 31 route. Guess what, the sign says Exit 33!!

Question: How did Google miss that?

Now I am curious to know how does Google calculates directions for us. Was there an Exit 31 sometime in the past that was then removed? It sure gets it using a different algorithm than Mapquest because Mapquest gives the right direction, using Exit 33.

Knowing someone is going to bring up GPS, nope, I am not getting one yet. I managed to find my way back with just regular maps and directional instinct from Sleeping Bear this past July and made it slightly faster than the wrong direction given by Google Map too! Unless I am traveling somewhere where I am not familiar with or going for a road trip, GPS is yet to rule my navigation skills. Hehe.

A fun weekend!

2009-10-11T17:10:00.009-07:00

Hmmm, let's see...this past week was quite eventful, especially when compared to last week's mooncake-less 中秋節 and the broken glasses drama.

First of all, I actually did get to eat mooncake! 是John送給我的! Got home one evening and had two mooncakes waiting for me!

One is the original 蓮蓉 (lotus paste) with an oblong shape instead of the regular round shape,

and the other one is a flavor that I have not tried before - 火腿五仁月 (ham and five nuts). It is definitely a weird combination. I thought that it might be one of those flavors that were designed to suit the American market (like how there really is no Singapore mai fan in Singapore although it is a pretty popular dish here in the States). But, Fan told me that it is actually the more popular type of mooncake in Southern China like in Yunnan and Kunming. The five nuts (which are not all nuts since 仁 actually refers to kernel, even though the English label says 'mixed nuts') are walnut, almond, date seed, melon seed and sesame seed. It is actually pretty good but it was weird that they made it sweet instead of salty. Even though having 火腿 inside a mooncake is weird, I haven't had it for so long it was yummy!

He got them from a Chinese bakery in LA. I looked it up and guess what, they also have 豬籠仔 (tu long kia)!!! It is a little piggy made out of the outer crust of a mooncake and put into little baskets. Wow, I haven't seen it in forever and haven't had one since...hmmm...sometime when we were still staying in SS4 I think? I used to love it a lot!! No wonder people say that when you're in California, you won't miss home as much.

That was sometime during the week. Most of Saturday morning was spent in the lab working on experiments and then I went over to the East Lansing Public Library to check out the book sale. They have tons of fiction books for really cheap prices. I got a bunch of Amy Tan, Nora Roberts and James Patterson books. I was only there for 1 hour and already got 13 books. If I had stayed longer, I would probably end up buying more. All that 13 books were only for USD 6.50! Even Amazon used books will not be that cheap (especially since shipping itself is typically USD 4)! Later that evening was Hannah's wedding at Benton Harbor (yes, she is the one who came over the day before my graduation at Western). I thought that I have not been to Benton Harbor but after driving through it, I realized that I have drove past it twice when we went to some beach at St. Joseph. As much as I think that traditional Chinese wedding is a hassle, I still enjoy going to Chinese wedding reception more than the Western style. Somehow it adds a character to the reception, like it really is a wedding reception, rather than just the bride and bridegroom having a party.

Today is stay home and do nothing day but as usual, there are always stuff to do at home like washing someone else' dishes! What is so hard about washing dishes that Lee ah boy have to leave all his dishes in the sink until he runs out of dishes to use?? Grrrr!!! Don't even ask me to nag him about doing house chores because then he will just get pissed off. I rather not have to deal with that. After doing dishes, I made wat tan hor without the hor fun. Hehe. Not a big fan of hor fun so I used egg noodle instead.

For dinner, I made kay phui with sio bak (叉燒飯)....and now I'm back in lab to prep for tomorrow's experiment. It might actually snow this week because Lee ah boy baked chocolate brownies today! He better find time to get those baking utensils cleaned tomorrow as I won't be going home until past 1am and will have to get back here by 8am tomorrow morning.

Busy 'hunting'

2009-10-01T21:19:00.003-07:00

Just before I went to Colorado, the 'soil team' (there are so many different projects going on in the lab right now that we can have teams) went out to KBS to sample all the main sites ranging from mature deciduous forest to different levels of successions to agriculture. That was the last time I was out at KBS before today.

One of the things I like to do during sampling trips is take photo of bugs that happens to come by while I sample. Today, I didn't feel like being out there at all. It was freezing cold when I started and then when the frost melted as the Sun came out, my shoe was wet and it was not fun sampling with cold feet. But, at least it was a nice sunny day.

Since I didn't take any photos (besides the regular site photos) today, here's a video of a bee looking bug hunting for food. I love taking video with the macro function!! Actually, video or not, I just love macro photography. Hehe.

More hiking and Estes Park, Colorado

2009-09-29T16:59:00.008-07:00

Hehe, again, we woke up early to catch the sunrise but as you can see, it is pretty bright out already but not as late as the day before.

Instead of taking the shuttle to trails further away, we went to one that is about 3 mi from where we stayed. As we were hiking, we came across this herd of elk. It was a nice surprise since we were not expecting to bump into them. They were definitely much closer than the day before.

The mountain trail we went to is called the Deer Mountain. It is also a very enjoyable climb up to the top of about 10,000 ft, another 3 mile to the peak.

View from the peak...

It was also nice that there is another trail that led us back to the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center to catch the shuttle that brought us to downtown Estes Park. Although I wished that we had more time to go hiking around lakes and waterfalls, I was glad that we made a trip to downtown. It is a very cute town with lots of interesting shops that sell all kinds of stuff, like this bookstore.

Downtown is actually only 2 miles away from where we stayed but after all that hiking (about a total of 9 miles), we didn't feel like walking all the way to downtown, especially since we might have to walk back if we missed the last shuttle at 7.30pm.

As we arrived downtown, we saw a few more elks! Better still, they were right in front of us!

They doesn't seem to be bothered by the cars passing by or the bunch of people (like me) standing around them watching them eat the fresh looking grass.

We had an early dinner at an Italian restaurant - Mama Rose's, where we ordered their veal parmesan. Can't remember when was the last time I had veal but this is really good! The texture is just nice and the lack of breading enhance the taste of the meat. The picture below is half of the entree portion. It is huge! Lucky thing we didn't order two different entree! Not only that, the entree also come with garlic bread and a huge plate of salad! Wonder if people actually order entree and finish it.

Since we had plenty of time to walk around after that, we managed to catch the last shuttle back (with a little bit of power walk as we went to get ice-cream 30 minutes before the last shuttle). I was soooo tired that night that I crashed until the alarm ring the next morning at 5.45am. Yes, we did get to see the sunrises this time! Hehe...mission accomplished!

Bear Lake and Rocky Mountain wildlife

2009-09-28T17:54:00.011-07:00

On Friday morning, we woke up right about sunrise time but it was already pretty bright outside...I learned that the sunrise time reported on weather.com is actually when the Sun is already completely up.

The first place we went, which is also my favorite place this trip, is Bear Lake. I passed by the lake on the way up to Flattop Mountain the day before but didn't get the chance to stop by and enjoy it or take photos. So was glad that John enjoyed it because I get to walk around it and take a bunch of photos.

To get to Bear Lake, we had to hike for 2 miles to get to one of the park information center - Moraine Park - to catch a shuttle that took us to a park-n-ride area to catch another shuttle that took us to Bear Lake.

The view of the mountains and the desert from Moraine Park.

What is so special about Bear Lake? It has awesome reflections and it is sooo clear that you can see the bottom of the lake! It is also surrounded by colorful pine (the green ones) and don't know what yellow-leaf trees. I like how there are also the 'red' colored pines but sadly, those are actually dead pine trees due to infection by mountain pine beetle. Poor trees...

After walking around the lake, we hike another mile to get to a waterfall, Alberta Falls. It is not a very big one but definitely not one that you can go near (like the one at Titi Kerawang) because it is very rocky and it does not end in a pool but keep going down a rocky path.

The hike to the waterfall is very enjoyable as it is a very relaxing trail with lots of colorful plants and cute little squirrels. Even though they are wild, they 'boh kia lang' as they will come very close to us.

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking out for wildlife as the wildlife guide point out to us and at the same time, get to go all the way up to the highest visitor center - Alpine Visitor Center. The wildlife at the higher altitude are all small rodent type animals like the marmot and the pika, which I think looks like Pikachu!! Hehe, although I don't think that is where the character Pikachu originated from.

Since it is the elk season, of course we have to see some elk! Only a few elk photos that I took came out nice but am still waiting to get the raw files so I can edit it. John took lots of awesome shots of the elk, and he got one when the male elk was bugling! The elks are always in a group of females with only one male. Their social life basically revolves around how many females the male can gather and mate with.

I did get a shot of this deer because we were much closer to it. This is the baby one. We kept 'bumping' into a mum deer with her two kids. I think that it is the same family! :P

There are lots more photos that John took during our trip.

Mountain Hiking

2009-09-27T07:06:00.001-07:00

After the conference, I stayed back for a few days to explore the Rockies. I had all day Thursday with no plans since John will only be arriving later that evening. I decided to join two people I met at the conference (they are actually from KBS but I just didn't bump into them at KBS) to go hiking. Guess what, they are actually pretty hard core hikers who have climbed tundras and all kinds of huge mountains before. My experience - "pek sua" with gee ku and gee kim. That is barely Penang Hill height, which is ONLY about 3000 ft! Haha, but now, Penang Hill will be sub sub water for me ler! :P Will definitely want to do that when I go back next year...and now we have Aun Aun as the guide too since he has done it all the way.

Since we could not check into our respective hotels until after 3pm, we left our bags at the YMCA and walked about 1 mile to get a shuttle bus that took us to Bear Lake. From there (which is at 9400 ft), we hiked up to Flattop Mountain of 12300 ft, which is a 4 mile hike. While 4 mi is typically not a big deal for me but going up hill on a rocky trail with sneakers - Ping wasn't doing too well. What more, hiking with two hard core hikers who have hiking boots and longer legs. At one point, I told them that I'll meet them at the top and took my time hiking up. But every once in a while when I look up at the sceneries (instead of looking down at my feet and where to step next), it sure is worth it to make the hike. This is definitely a popular trail because there were tons of people...mostly passing by me. :P

View from my first rest stop, about 50 minutes into the hike.

Halfway to the top, when the plant community has changed to a more shrubbery ones.

View of Lake Emerald... from 3/4 way.

Phew! Finally at the top! The plants on the mountain peak are mostly grasses. Plant density is also very low as there are more rocks than plants.

It was freezing cold up there! We passed by a few glaciers and came to one, the Tyndall Glacier, where we saw a guy preparing to ski down the steep glacier.

Can you imagine hiking all the way up to the top with your ski, ski down the glacier (which only took like 1 min) and then have to climb up the glacier to get back on the trail to hike down. Gila! But here he goes...

Wow, he made it through the rocks! (A bunch of people watching with us was cheering him at this point.)

And he made it all the way down.

View of Emerald Lake from the top.

One of the reward being up there is I get to see this marmot sun-tanning itself. :P

Another 500 ft elevation/0.6 mi hike, it will be the Hallett Peak but I have had enough rock trails for that day. If it wasn't that rocky, or if I had better shoes, I would have done since it is only 500 ft.

When you are up there, it feels like the clouds are so close. This is my favorite shot from Flattop Mountain. Too bad a lot of the photos came out looking washed out due to increased UV intensity from the top.

The view of Longs Peak right at the back with the clouds. It is the tallest mountain in the Rocky Mountain National Park with an elevation of 14300 ft. If the weather is great, the hike up to the top, which is an 8 miles trail and 5000 ft of elevation, it takes approximately 12-14 hours for a hard core hiker. But the scary thing is, because of the rocky surface close to the top, people have died when the weather is not as pleasant, especially when it snows or when there is a thunderstorm. But, I would still like to climb Mt. Kota Kinabalu of 13,400 ft someday. That was last years vacation the Sunway gang did that I missed. :( I never seem to go back at the right time. Hehe.

Hiking in the YMCA

2009-09-24T19:51:00.008-07:00

On the last day of conference, I only had morning workshops to attend. I had a few hours after lunch to spare before the closing dinner/dance. The YMCA is very helpful with recommending hiking trails both within the YMCA property and at the Rocky Mountain National Park. In fact, they have tons of facilities that one would not get bored when staying at the YMCA. I told them that I would like to go hiking but only have about 3 hours. They suggested the Bible Point.

To get to the trail head of the Bible Point, I have to walk through a horse stable where you can go for horse-riding. They also have ponies for kids such as these two horses with science-themed names - Nitro and Glycerin.

The view of Rocky Mountain from the starting point.

It wasn't a very clear day but the sky is still pretty blue and the clouds are not as dull and depressing as it has been in East Lansing the past week. *bleh* The temperature that day was also just nice because it wasn't very hot or freezing cold.

The trail...love the dirt road trails! Haven't done such hiking for a really long time...the last I can remember is the trip to Woldumar Nature Center with the girls before ah Pei left for M'sia. Pei, 好想念你們喔!! 現在沒有人陪我去外面走走了.

View of YMCA from the peak of Bible Point.

Right at the top of Bible Point is the grave of a young boy who used to be very active at the YMCA. His parents buried him there because it is his favorite place in the world.

There is also a cross and a mailbox near the grave. Inside the mailbox is a bible and a guest logbook.

The entire trip only took me about 2 hours and I stopped quite a bit to look around and take photos. It is a very nice and relaxing hike.

Later that night is the final dinner and dance. I had planned to just go for the dinner and then take off. Instead, I end up staying until way past midnight! Hehe, they had someone to teach us various country and line dancing. It was lots of fun! Definitely a work out since all the songs are super long and we sure move around a lot. (Steph, are you giving me the forbidden look?)

LTER ASM at Estes Park, CO

2009-09-22T19:49:00.006-07:00

As most of you already know, I attended a conference at Estes Park, Colorado early last week. The conference is for all the scientists who works at the Long Term Ecological Research sites all over the world. This is the first time I attended a conference on my own (the PI doesn't count since I only saw him twice the entire conference, once when I had to present my poster). I was nervous about being alone before the conference but I get to meet with a bunch of people who are also from KBS on the plane ride to Denver, CO. We figured each other out since we all have our poster tubes to carry.

The trip from East Lansing, MI to Estes Park, CO is the longest trip I have ever had within the US. I left home around 7.30am (ah boy have to be at work at 8am so we have to leave a little early) to catch the 8.30am shuttle (Michigan Flyer) that will take me to Detroit airport. We arrived Detroit at about 10.30am and hang out at the airport for another two hours until our plane to Denver at 12.30pm. The plane ride is only 3 hours. I love direct flights! No changing gates/terminal hassle! We arrived Denver at about 2pm (Denver is 2 hours earlier than MI) and we had to wait for another 2 hours before our scheduled shuttle to Estes Park at 4pm. Luckily I have already get to know a few people by then so it doesn't feel that long. The shuttle to Estes Park is another 2 hours. I was pretty excited to be in Colorado but the bus ride was no fun at all because I started to get dizzy when we were close to Estes Park. All those winding roads!! All the car rides to our house back in Batu Feringghi sure did no help at all! We finally arrived at theYMCA at 6.30pm. That is exactly 13 hours since I left my apartment in East Lansing! This is more than halfway back to M'sia! Hehe, can't help wishing that I am going home to Penang every time I fly.

When we get there, I felt much better because we have to check-in and rush to get dinner which was served only until 7pm. After dinner was the graduate student social so it distracted me from thinking about being dizzy. The food there is definitely great! We have some kind of potato dish every meal and I definitely had ate tons of sweet potatoes!! They also serve pineapple and oatmeal for breakfast, which are two of my favorite food! They definitely serve us tons here. We get three full meals a day and then there are snacks between the workgroups sessions and during the poster sessions at night. For snacks, they serve popcorn, chips and salsa or cookies. When we check-in, we were given a coffee mug and the program book. I thought that the coffee mug is a really good idea because it sure help reduce washing cups during the three main meals and cut down on the use of disposable cups during snack times and mixers.

Leila and I stayed at the Rainbow Lodge. We got a room that has two double-decker bunk beds and a queen size bed. Can you imagine 6 girls staying in this room with only one bathroom? Disaster! Especially since we all have to get up at the same time for breakfast and morning talks and then probably go to bed at about the same time too! Thankfully, it was just the two of us.

The first few days were pretty intense as I have workshops back to back with plenary talks. All in all, I was glad to be part of the conference. I definitely do learn way more from this meeting than the super huge American Society of Microbiology annual general meeting. This conference is much more interactive and allow graduate students the opportunity to be part of the discussions. The most beneficial part is to be able to interact with the graduate students from the labs that publishes the papers that I always read about.

It almost feels like I was back at Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole, MA. The environment is great! The blue skies and nice cooling weather is definitely brings the mood up! I get to see awesome blue skies while walking to the main auditorium area from the Rainbow Lodge and lovely skies full of stars at night while walking back. Yup, definitely made me think of MBL days.

Soooo unlike MI. Ever since I got back, I have been greeted with blah cloudy grey skies. Boo! I know, I know, grass is always greener on the other side. But, but, I wanna see more blue skies! :P

Overwhelmed!!

2009-09-13T21:32:00.004-07:00

There are so many things to tell you all!! Hehe. It is great out here! The environment is lovely, the conference is so much fun and there are sooo many things to learn! Today is only the first day of the conference and I am already overwhelmed with all the science that I can learn and be part of. The atmosphere is very laid back and everyone, including the professors, are very friendly and is very helpful and encouraging.

After several opening talks this morning, they have a panel discussion on how the LTER network influence their career paths. It is a good idea to have such discussions especially for graduate students who are close to the end of their graduate career or are unsure if they would like to go into non-academia or academia path. It also gives me an idea of the types of career I can have that still involves field work or that allow contribution to social sciences and decision makers.

After lunch, they break out into several working groups. The working group that I attended is on potential inter-site comparisons of carbon studies within the LTER network. It is definitely a great topic for workshop and we had a group with great dynamics. We are all interested in using soil respiration data to better understand the factors that drives differences in soil respiration we see from all the different environmental regimes at the LTER sites. So it gave me the opportunity to propose the incorporation of microbial growth efficiency into soil organic carbon model. Hehe, I know you all don't know what I'm talking about, but it is super exciting stuff!

The day ended with few more talks and poster session about all the LTER sites. I also met with a Singaporean who asked me if M'sia would be an interesting place to start an LTER. Hmmm...my opinion, I think it is an awesome idea! But starting an LTER requires tons of work and lots of connections. He seems pretty hype about it so maybe if he starts one, I can get a job in M'sia some day! M'sia will definitely have good representations of tropical forest ecosystem with high soil organic carbon turnover.

As I was walking back to the lodge, I looked up at the sky and wow!! I have never seen that many stars before! There are millions and millions of them! It is also sooo dark that I get to see a bunch of meteor shower. I was so mesmerized by it that I didn't make a wish until after I saw four or five of them. Hehe. Now I wish that I could go camping. Hehe...it is too much hassle though. Am just glad to be here. I could definitely see myself working out. :) Below is a picture of how dark the place is. The lights are along the sidewalks but it is so tiny and low that it is still dark enough to see all the tiny tiny stars that our eyes usually can't see when we're in the city.

Hehe, I am still so excited about this place that I am definitely not blogging coherently here. Will blog more about the place and post more photos when I calm down. All the interesting stuff that goes on in all these different LTER sites that I get to hear about is overwhelming too. Will have to digest them at some point this week. I also haven't taken as many photos since we are indoors most of the day. Will definitely have more photos when John gets here and we go out hiking.

Furry Ball

2009-09-07T15:59:00.002-07:00

Came across this weird looking ball of fur on a tree that I walk by everyday. It doesn't look like it is some kind of flower/fruit for reproduction purpose since it is found randomly on the leaves of this particular tree. But I can't seem to find a head/eyes/mouth that I can call it type of insect for sure. Weird!

Guitar Hero 5

2009-09-05T20:49:00.005-07:00

When I got my Wii console, one of the popular games was Guitar Hero World Tour. It was so popular that when I told my friends I got a Wii, they would ask me if I got the Guitar Hero too. But I didn't see how much fun it would be until I played it recently at John's place. Actually, I didn't like it very much when I first played it either. I kept missing all the notes and it just sounds crappy. But thanks to John's occasional nudge when we were at his place, I could actually play a couple songs (okay, not really, if you've seen John play). This game is similar to the Dance Dance Revolution games that ahboy and ahyong used to have for PS but instead of dancing on a mat, you play the guitar.

Earlier this week, they came out with a new version - Guitar Hero 5. Right about the same time, I received a package and guess what, it is a surprise gift from John containing the Guitar Hero 5! I have played it a few times since then and this game is actually lots of fun! It is also challenging because each song has different degree of energy even within the same level. Hehe. I could finally figure out what to do and play a decent song too!

有男朋友疼的感覺真甜蜜 :P 多十天我就能見到他!! 好期待喔!!

Bee 'shower'

2009-09-04T19:21:00.005-07:00

Was waiting for the bus yesterday when this bee came by to entertain me. Actually, it was probably at that place for a while but I just didn't notice it until I sat down on the bench. What caught my attention was the way they clean up themselves. It is soooo cute. It is like a little kid rubbing their face with their tiny hands. In between cleaning up its face, it will put its two front legs together, like it is 'pai ang kong' (praying).

What fascinated me even more is the way they clean themselves. This video is a little long so you might get bored halfway through. Wanted to add background music but Windows Media Player on Vista still won't allow me to import mp3 format music files.

Happy September!

2009-09-01T04:53:00.005-07:00

九月到了! There is a bunch of stuff to look forward to this month!! :D

Walked around campus this morning since the atmosphere is nice and quiet (but the weather was freezing cold!). 新鮮又平靜的空氣, just me and Mother Nature. 一邊走, 一邊聽杰倫不能說的秘密的soundtrack, 好輕鬆喔.

The leaves are also starting to change colors...

Ping have to start getting used to the cold again...boo!

想念

2009-08-31T20:15:00.003-07:00

最近很喜歡聽這首歌...讓我想起了一個人. :)

這首歌的故事是關於一對情侶.那女的在北半球,想那男的和她一起看雪.那男的在享受夏天的彩虹,卻想著女孩.雖然一個人是寂寞,有兩顆心在想念著對方,那寂寞變的甜蜜了.那MV也很可愛,又甜又苦.兩個人若要離的很遠,卻不想分開一定會有些苦苦的感覺,但,如果已經相處的來,也會有甜蜜的懷念.

品冠 - 當你想著我 (feat. 李心潔)

當你想著我, 當你唱者歌, 在喧嘩的時刻
一個人寂寞, 兩顆心都懂,
我陪在你夢中擁抱你的溫柔.

早安!

2009-08-31T04:43:00.005-07:00

While you all get to see sunset at Batu Feringghi at this time, I get to see the sunrise from the office... :)

8.22am: Wait, it is still not fair! I don't get the warm weather that you all are getting. It is freezing cold here! It is like when you are walking by the frozen food isle in Jusco when it first open. Hmph! I'd rather be drinking Milo juak than Milo peng. But I don't even get Milo here. Blehhh.

Bright fungus

2009-08-30T17:18:00.006-07:00

Fungus is a multicellular organism that has its own kingdom (Fungi) within the domain Eukarya. Fungi is also a group of microorganism but I don't work with them at all even though I am a microbiologist. I also don't know much about them except from what I have learned from college level microbiology. But, I could generally distinguish them (except for some species that are very tiny) from bacteria (which is the microbe that I work with). I actually did work with a type of fungus (Aspergillus sp.) that produces aflatoxin during one of my rotation when I first started grad school. That short rotation surely made me realize that I do not want to work with fungus ever. :P I still kill them when processing my soil samples.

But, that does not mean that I don't have an appreciation for a good looking ones like this...

Isn't it cute? The recent humid weather must have provide the perfect condition for it because it blossomed really fast. I was walking by this part of campus a week before I saw this and they were definitely not there. It is also weird that they are found only around this particular tree. I looked around and have not seen it anywhere on campus besides this place. Looking around online, I found one called Jack O' Lantern mushroom that looks like this and it seems like it could glow in the dark! Will have to check it out tomorrow...

Besides the fungus, there is a tree around this area that I really like because of how it looks. It does have a solemn look but that makes it more like a friendly tree.

But I guess no one really cared because now, this is how it looks like...

It has a broken arm and looks even sadder now. :(

Busy as a bee

2009-08-29T19:27:00.005-07:00

I recently found out that I can take videos using a macro setting on my camera! It is lots of fun! Will hopefully be taking more when I get to go out and WANT to continue to stay outside. The weather is very much like Fall weather now. Maybe Fall is really coming...boo!

Here are my first two videos...no major editing or 'fancy-ing' since Ping is busy with the poster and an exciting new project!

This bee is looking around...

This bee has found a yummy spot and is busy stuffing itself with nectare. It is likely a worker bee judging by the amount of nectare it is collecting. Can you imagine how many times it has to do that repetitive action to get enough nectare to bring back to its hive to feed the rest of the bees? It was there for definitely a long time because when I got tired of leaning close to it, it was still going. Worker bees must have very muscular mouthparts.

Squirrels on campus

2009-08-29T13:44:00.006-07:00

Squirrels! They are the cutest furry animals! Now is probably their feasting time because all the plants are making lots of seeds before the temperature drop and they don't have enough Sun to make food and carbon supply for their next generation. (Arghghg!! All I can think of is carbon this and carbon that these days! But finally submitted the abstract this morning!)

Want to know what the squirrels are eating? There are a few different types of tree seeds/nuts that they eat when they are not being fed by humans. This black one here was eating a tiny seed in a hard green shell that comes in bunches like grapes. It is from the plant 'flowering Dogwood'. I wanted to look for an intact shell but since this little squirrel was running all over the tree gathering all of it, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Plus, any of those seeds that are on the ground were already cracked open. This little squirrel clearly have no courtesy to people walking by. They don't look down to see if they were going to hit anyone when throwing the shells down. But it was also because one of its shell fell on me that I realized what the squirrels were eating.

By the way, I just found out that black squirrels are not native too Michigan but were introduced by W.K. Kellogg (the same guy who founded the Kellogg Manor House of Kellogg Biological Station!) to get rid of the more abundant red squirrels. Hmm, not sure if it was successful back then but there certainly is more black ones than the red ones now.

Another thing they eat is one that they are always associated with on cartoons...but Ping has forgotten what it is called. :P
It was this little brown squirrel who were looking for them, cracking them up and then throw them all over the ground. They seriously need a better table manners! Hehe. They seem to prefer the nuts with a certain ripeness because sometimes the squirrel throws down an intact one. No idea how they pick them but they sure are picky! They are really fast at picking them too because when they are running around the tree looking for and picking the nuts, it sounds like it is raining large raindrops and every time you pin point where they are throwing the nuts from, they would already be at another part of the tree.
Look at all the mess they make!

Fun at Kellogg Biological Station

2009-08-23T14:09:00.014-07:00

One of the best thing about working with soil ecosystem is the field work portion. It will be great if the next lab I work will also have field work component. Hmm...*thinking of a sampling trip to the various ecosystem at Colorado* :)

This summer, I have been working a lot on experiments using soil samples from the Kellogg Biological Station. I have been driving to KBS to get samples almost every two weeks and will most likely continue to do so until shortly after harvest season. Here are all the fun stuff I get to see at KBS.
Ladybug on a soybean leaf. It is such a coincidence that the two water droplets on the beetle is right where two of its spots are, making it looks like baja hitam.

Some like it up, some like it down, some even like it by the side. :)
At each of the plots with different land management, sampling flags are placed to assist us in sampling. The position is determined based on global positioning system (GPS) and is moved every year. This particular one have become a habitat to a 'crawling plant' (argghhh!! I can't remember the correct term for it!
If I get there really early or when it just rained not too long ago, I wish I have a pair of boots!
But I love the freshness of early morning dews.
The native land plots will always have little creatures like this err...dragonfly (I think). It has become my new sampling friend. I saw it twice on two different sampling days, standing on the same sampling flag. Once on a cloudy day while another time on a nice sunny day. The first time, I managed to get a closer shot because I was sampling by that flag while the second time, I was over by another flag when I saw it landed there.
The not so fun part about sampling the native sites is this little thorny seeds. They will attach all over my shirt and pants that I always have to spend some time getting them off me before I go back.
This last trip, I almost got my first photo of a deer! I was walking through a corn field when I heard rustling. I knew at once that there are a bunch of deer in the corn field. The corn plants were already matured and were about my height. When I saw the deer through the plants, I knew it saw me too but it stayed really still. But clumsy me had to drop the soil coring tube when I tried to get my phone out of my pocket. Of course they ran away as fast as they could. There were 6 of them! I did get two of them running away though. One of them you can only see the top of its head.
Hopefully I'll get a bunch of wild animals photo during my trip to Colorado!!

#Malaysia

2009-08-23T06:29:00.004-07:00

The luxury of growing up as a Malaysian is that we were brought up to interact with people of different cultural background. There is always something new to learn and to explore. Despite all the negativity of racial bias and multicultural tensions, it is no doubt that everyone of us Malaysian have a sweet, touching story to tell about being in a multicultural community. With the coming up Merdeka Day (Malaysian Independence Day), there are lots of fun events to explore both in Malaysia and on the Internet.

15Malaysia is a project that compiles 15 short films produced by Malaysian film producers (Buatan Malaysia!). The theme of the films is on the socio-political issues in Malaysia. A Malaysian will definitely find that they can relate to each of the story, some might just be something that we have talked about among friends, or an event that we have witnessed, or even happened at some point in our own life. The films will be released every alternate days, with four already up online for downloads on the website as of today. My personal favorite so far is Chocolate by the late Yasmin Ahmad. (Mei, for some reason, it made me think of our Standard 6 days..hehe.) Will be looking forward to more great films!!

1Malaysia is an effort initiated by our current Prime Minister, Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Tun Razak, to reduce the gaps between all the different unique races and cultures in Malaysia. Recently, a contest to pick a song that could represent spirit of Malaysians, where race and culture differences no longer holds valid. If one were to think back, what exactly is the cause of such strong racial tension in Malaysia? It is definitely not something we experience in our daily lives until we have to face the rules and regulations posted by the government. In fact, the racial tension is not a true racial tension. We don't pick our friends or who we hang out with based on their race, we do not decide not to eat at the nasi melayu stall at Jones Road just because it is not managed by a Chinese. It is our dissatisfaction over the way the government expresses their opinions on policies (which often take advantage of radical religion beliefts) that creates a scenerio that looks like racial tension.

Well, back to the main topic, the competition has picked the best 10 songs and is now open for public to make the decision of which song will represent 1Malaysia. Have you rank your top 10 1Malaysia songs? Here's mine.

1. Inilah Malaysia
2. Lagu Rakyat Satu Malaysia
3. Satu Malaysia
4. Nyanyikan Lagu Mu
5. Malaysia Satu
6. Sehati Sejiwa
7. Kami Anak Malaysia
8. Keranamu Hati Ku Malaysia
9. Perpaduan 1Malaysia
10. Satu

I find myself liking lyrics with the Rukunegara in it. It will be a great reminder to all Malaysians that when Malaysia was founded, the segregation according to religion was never incorporated into the principles in which the government is built on. True, "Belief in God" is the first principle but it says nothing about the path one takes to do that.

I dropped by Western this weekend when I went soil sampling. What a delight to see that the M'sian flag is flying high!

日出

2009-08-16T05:24:00.004-07:00

你知道嗎, 當我們性情不好的時候, 只要向著外面看, 大自然一定讓我們找到一個可以給我們笑起來的畫面.
今天, 一大早, 在lab 看出去的時候, 看到了日出. 很美喔. 雖然不是在海邊或著山上, 還是覺得日出真的很美. 給了我一個新鮮明朗的早上 (照片不是很美, 是用手機拍的). 希望有一天能夠和自己喜歡的人在山上看日出...應該很甜蜜把. :P

回到家, 看到這一雙鳥, 他們好甜蜜喔. 這一些都讓我想起, 和必要讓不開心的事一直留著. 世界有哪麼多值得開心的事.

Frogs

2009-08-14T21:06:00.008-07:00

Today, I walked to the 'Reflection Pond' by the MSU Library to look for a weird fish that swims sideways. I didn't see that particular fish but I saw a bunch of frogs!! Definitely way more than I usually see on campus ponds. But they were all pretty far in the middle of the pond that I had to use the digital zoom to 'catch' them on my camera. Now, if only I have an SLR with a zoom lens. Bleh.

Here is the first frog I saw. It is a huge one too! 你看到他嗎?
The guy sitting back there, he saw me looking for the frogs and pointed me to another one. He is actually a composer who is trying to write a song. Pretty interesting! I have never met someone who compose a song. He had a guitar that he plays every now and then, probably when he thinks of a melody.

Can you see another one here?
Here is an close-up shot of the little guy. It is the cutest one I saw today.
There is another big one on a wooden platform for some plant.
There are also lots of baby frogs! There are at least 9 in this box!
Besides that one weird fish, there is another first that stays in this pond. It is a white one that always hang around by this sign. I saw it there again today, but it was more actively swimming around.
真好玩的晚上!

哪裡有彩虹告訴我...

2009-08-14T18:23:00.005-07:00

彩虹, 平常下雨後才可以看到的. 但, 天氣好的時候, 也可以找到彩虹喔.

在MSU 校園有一個, 常常都可以看到他喔. 特別是請好的時候. 今天, 在外面走走的時候, 我又在同樣的地方看到哪彩虹, 讓我想起杰倫的 "彩虹".

Meteor Shower

2009-08-11T21:54:00.003-07:00

I saw meteor shower for the first time today!! There really is such thing! I still remember watching 流星花園 and thinking that one would never be able to see the meteor shower.

Tonight is the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. According to NASA, it is best to watch them between 9-11pm although it will be showering all night until sunrise tomorrow. Jo and I drove out to one of the roads by a residential neighborhood at Okemos where there are no lights. Due to the faint showers, it is recommended that we go to a place that is very dark. We parked by the road side, took out the blanket and lie on the car, looking up at the sky. The first shower I saw was a huge and long one!! Jo and I was so excited that we almost shriek out loud but remembered that people might be sleeping at this time. :P

We were out for about an hour and I saw a total of two long ones and 5 short, brief ones. Hehe, of course we couldn't resist making wishes when we see the 'shooting stars' as per the old legend. Hey, does no harm mer. :P We also thought of an old song while we were staring up at the sky...

I had intended to catch a photo of it but it came so rare and fast that it was impossible to capture it. But because it is so rare, I'd rather wait for it and see it for myself than trying to play with the camera to get a good shot. The moon is really low, bright and pretty tonight too but I was more interested in waiting for the meteor shower.

Nasi Lemak and movie

2009-08-09T05:26:00.005-07:00

Met up with Ming for lunch on Friday when we decided to make some M'sian food and hang out on Saturday with him and Brian. The spontaneous plan we came up is to cook Nasi Lemak and a few dishes to go with it.

Nasi Lemak is one of the most popular breakfast dish in Malaysia but it can be eaten anytime of the day. The basic of Nasi Lemak is the coconut rice (which is where the name comes from, 椰漿飯), roasted peanuts (toh tau, 花生), anchovies (ikan bilis, 干小鳳尾魚), cucumber (黃瓜), hard-boiled egg (熟蛋)and most important ingredient - sambal (chilli paste, 辣醬). It is a spicy dish as Nasi Lemak is not Nasi Lemak without the sambal. In fact, the taste of Nasi Lemak is often judge based on the sambal so it is very important to know how to make a good sambal if one wants to make a tasty Nasi Lemak dish. With those basic ingredients, the cook can mix and match them up (with the exception of the rice) anyway they want. I like it best when the sambal is not fried with the anchovies because it will leave the anchovies crispy. Basic Nasi Lemak can be found anywhere and our family favorite is the one at the front of Sri Weld Food Court at Beach Street. Nasi Lemak can also be considered the M'sian fast food because they are typically easily packed and ready to be served within minutes. Such Nasi Lemak are usually pretty cheap, ranging from 70 cents (as I last remember) up to RM 2.00.

There are also more complicated ones that are served with various types of curry dishes. When we were staying at Bandar Sunway, we used to go to the one at a kopitiam (coffee shop) at Mentari Business Park. There, we can get the Nasi Lemak served with mummy's and my favorite ikan pari (some kind of ray fish) or sotong (cuttlefish). These dishes are more expensive and larger in portion. They can cost up to RM 6, especially if one gets a lot of meat or seafood dishes. Of course, there are also more gourmet Nasi Lemak that can be ridiculously priced, mostly for tourists or those who likes their Nasi Lemak to be served on pretty plates and nicely presented. I still like the ones that are served on banana leaves!

So what did we have with our Nasi Lemak? I made vege curry (knowing that guys tend to contribute more meat dishes and Ping cannot go without her daily vege servings!). Vege curry is another easy curry to make. As long as you pick your favorite types of vege, it will not go wrong! I have tofu, green cabbage (am still wondering if this is the same as ko leh chai but I never get the chance to taste them together so have yet to figure it out), green beans, and brinjal. I added a little bit of potato to make the curry thick (instead of using corn flour). The curry base can be thicken by using lentils too.

As for the rice, Ming and I cooked our own type of Nasi Lemak. Mine was just steamed with coconut milk and pandan leaves. Ming added turmeric (kunyit, 黃薑) and lemon grass (serai, 香茅) in addition to coconut milk.
Ming also made curry chicken (a pretty unique combination too because he added lady's fingers, which is typically used in fish/seafood curry) and sambal ikan bilis.
He also bought some banana leaves so that we can eat them on the banana leaves! Yummy!
Brian bought us Green Tea ice-cream for dessert. I hang around at their place to watch "He's Just Not That Into You" which is hilarious!! My conclusion from the movie is - don't try to read signs (which is sooo high school anyway!). Let the guy do all the work. If he is not clear enough, forget it! This is a good reason why I still disagree with girls who tries to 主動告白.
"If a guy wants to be with a girl, he will make it happen, no matter what" - Alex from He's Just Not That Into You.

Also, Ben Affleck is hot! :P

The fun stuff at MSU Campus.

2009-08-08T13:59:00.013-07:00

The best thing about nature is that it is never the same. I can walk the same route 10 times and every single time, the story that one can tell after the walk will always be different.

It should not be a surprise that I would have seen all the trees on campus by now, especially one that is along the route that I walk by 3-4 times a week. But guess what, I saw something different this week! They are little brain-looking balls hanging from the tree!
There is the yard long beans from the MSU Children's Garden. The green biovar of this long bean is actually very popular in M'sia, where it is commonly used for curry. I have yet to see this in the stores here, or at least I have not paid attention or look for them since I don't like long beans.
What about this thorny looking plant? They remind me of slinky balls, the one that burst into a larger size when you throw it on the ground.
Sometimes there are also interesting looking birds like this yellow one here. Not sure what bird it is but it was flying very low and seems to have a liking for the flower seeds of this particular Monkey Flower plant.
Look, even flowers have eyes! Creepy looking ones too! Imagine if they could glow at night...haha.
There are also lots of lilies in the small pond at the Perennial Garden. There were a few white ones that looks like there are dirt on it.
But if you look closer, it is not dirt but some kind of bug!! They made the white lily their niche! Ewwwww! These little bugs are aphids. They are very persistent pest for water plants, especially when the weather is cloudy and humid. They also reproduce very fast via asexual reproduction. It is kinda creepy how live baby aphids just pops out from the adult aphids. The best organic way to get rid of them is lady bugs! Lady bugs will eat them all up and then the lily will be nice and white again! Hah, I knew lady bugs are the good bugs! :P They are one of the cutest bug ever!
While the number of aphids all over the lily plants is disgusting, the turtle doesn't seem to mind it at all.
On the other hand, another turtle in a pond with no aphids on the lilies looks like it is trying to get out of the pond.
The wonders of nature...Ping is loving it!

S'mores

2009-08-06T19:08:00.008-07:00

I finally managed to make a yummy S'more with the microwave!! What is S'more? It is a sweet treat made of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows. The chocolate and marshmallows are smashed in between two pieces of graham crackers. Graham crackers are similar to the McVities digestives biscuits that can be found only at Marks and Spencer (at least in Malaysia lah, but I have yet to find it here in MI). The graham crackers are not as nutritious as the digestives but is quite tasty and I would eat it as snack once in a while. The McVities is still my all-time favorite biscuit. Every time I go back to M'sia, that is definitely one of the snacks that I will bring back here. Unfortunately, Marks and Spencer is only in KL so if I don't make a trip to KL, then there is no digestive biscuits for Ping.

The best S'mores is when the marshmallows are roasted over a bonfire. I have been in the US for soooo long and this is actually the first time I made one!! I learned how to make one from an expert too! We did it recently when we went camping at Sleeping Bear. First we have to prepare the chocolate pieces on a piece of graham cracker. Then put the marshmallow through the end of a twig or better if you have a satay sticks (Mei Ling, we have to do this when I go back...hopefully next year! We can do it at my parents garden!). It is very easy to get the marshmallows burnt so have to hold the sticks at the 'perfect distance'. :P It will take a while for the marshmallows to brown on the outside and soft in the inside so have to be very patient! It has to be brown on the outside because that will make it crunchy! (Yes, the photo is crappy because Ping does not know how to take photos when it is all dark!). Once the marshmallow is ready, use the other piece of graham cracker to 'kiap' the marshmallow onto the other piece that has the chocolate on it. Yummy! It is very very sweet though so two servings will be more than enough! But I like the marshmallow made this way so I was snacking on the marshmallow for breakfast the next morning! If you like dark chocolate, that will be better because it takes away a little of the sweetness from the marshmallow.

Even though it was sweet, I was excited about eating real S'mores instead of those S'mores flavored stuff. So I took the leftovers of the ingredients from Fan to make them at home. We used the microwave to melt the marshmallows. It is very tricky o! Different microwave requires different timing too. John did it the first time and it was just right. The marshmallows did not pop in the microwave and it melts the chocolate so that they mix well when you bite into it. Ever since then, I have tried it on my own multiple times and I finally get it right!!! The timing is definitely very important! Hehe...

This is how the S'mores would look like before the marshmallow is melted.
And this is how it looks like after I 'kepek' the crackers and bite into it.
Yummy! This is definitely an American treat!!

Maggi Mee

2009-08-02T07:50:00.003-07:00

當你忙到沒時間煮飯, 卻好餓的時候,你會吃什麼呢?

Instant noodle!! The last packet I have at home - Maggi Mee!
While Maggi is actually the brand name of the instant noodle, it is the most commonly used word to describe instant noodle in Malaysia. This is because once upon a time, the only instant noodle available was Maggi. Now there are tons of different brands out there, and Maggi is actually one of the least tasty one. Haha, but I still like the Curry flavor from Maggi as most of the Thai made instant noodles that are spicy has a sour tinge to it. The best instant noodles are the Korean made ones like Shin Ramyun. That one has a larger serving size and will definitely fill me up real fast. The worst instant noodle is the Maruchan Ramen that is very popular here in the US.

While instant noodles is on the 'top 10 most unhealthy' list of foods (one is basically drinking a bowl of diluted monosodium glutamate/MSG and preservatives/coloring), it can be made pretty tolerable if you add some healthy ingredients to it. I always add some combination of fishballs, baby shrimp, egg, dumpling, carrots, and of course, the most important - some green vege!!
By the way, daddy, the chopsticks I bought from Bali cannot withstand heat at all. Those that I have used to cook noodles are now 'krekot'. So they can only be used when eating sushi or cold dishes only. This one is the one I bought from Wang Fu Jing when I went to Beijing.

心酸

2009-08-01T18:45:00.003-07:00

翻著我們的照片, 想念若隱若現...
讓我哭笑不得.

雖然星期一已經說了再見, 今天才真真的感覺到哪心酸的感覺.
從今天開始, 我們就各過各的生活了. 好奇怪喔, 一直以來, 我都是一個人在校園走走. 剛才, 掛電話後, 想起一個人在校園走走, 好想很孤單. 哈哈, 是不是很怪呢? 不知道在這個短短的四個月裡, 我什麼時候讓他進了我的世界. 好不捨得喔...幸好在工作上, 回一直忙到九月. 那我就可以見到他了!! 還是現認真工作好了.

但今晚, 還是很想念他. Hmm...如果我們只是朋友, 我還是會哪麼想他嗎? 好想也會吧, 只不過會比較難過的想念. 現在只是戀戀不捨. :)

I didn't mean for this to go as far as it did.
and I didn't mean to get so close and share what we did
and I didn't mean to fall in love, but I did
and you didn't mean to love me back, but I know you did.
-Plain White T's -

Flickr

2009-08-01T12:38:00.004-07:00

Blah!! Super frustrated with the organization for Picasa now! Want to upload all the photos me took the past few weeks and Picasa is just driving me nuts! So will be uploading the photos on Flickr instead. Plus, now that I finally figured out how to edit photos with Photoshop (okay, sort of lah. Still have no idea what I'm doing sometimes. Bleh), there really is no need to upload the photos on Picasa now. In fact, it is a lot easier to transfer photos from Flickr to Multiply than from Picasa.

Photos to be uploaded soon!!

Oh yes, Flickr has a way better organization settings than Picasa. With the Flickr Uploader, it is even easier! Uploaded some of the photos last night --> http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahping/

記憶拼圖

2009-07-31T02:37:00.005-07:00

今天真的好累...回到家已4.30am了. 但, 在桌子上有個郵包. 本來想等明天才開的, 可是心痒, 卻開了. 是什麼呢? 是一張記憶拼圖!!! 看到那照片的時候, 一點都不覺得累了. 哪些照片是從我們開始一起出去完到現在的一點一滴!! 每一長照片都有很開心或者搞笑的回憶. 這, 真的是我從朋友受過最棒的禮物了!! It is the small things that 可以讓人動心.

哈哈, 好了, 該去睡覺了.

傻瓜

2009-07-29T18:20:00.002-07:00

今天有一件事讓我覺得以前的萍萍真的好傻哦. 因為要讓對方開心, 自己的努力變成負擔. 以為每一件事都是要自己主動. 當對方不開心的時候, 都覺得是自己的錯, 因為不能在他的身邊陪著他或幫他什麼忙. 但, 那根本不是愛情! 那就是傻瓜! 對方根本不想奮力那曾經甜蜜過的愛情. 因為那相隔已經太遠了, 那愛情也變了不值得追求. It was always about him. 如果他覺得太麻煩, 那就是我不夠努力. 那甜蜜的話和承諾, 只是空口白話.

當我從我的夢幻醒來時, 我答應自己: I will not let history repeat. 我不會在喜歡上一個不會在我身邊的人. 何必讓自己愛的那麼辛苦呢?

喜從天降, 我卻喜歡上一個快要離開的人. 雖然自己一直提醒自己, 我的心, 卻不想聽道理. 再一次, 我又選擇了一個遠程戀愛. 但, 這一次, I got a good feeling about it! 今天, 他讓我感到, 他對我們的感情是認真的!! 這個感情, 我不再是一個人了. 原來, 被喜歡的感覺真的很棒! 最重要的是, he cares. :)

我不是一個傻瓜了!! 我真的可以與他一起去Rocky Mountain 了!!

相信付出會有代價, 代價只是一句...傻瓜.

但, 如果兩個人都肯付出, 那代價就是...幸福.

Mango Salsa

2009-07-28T15:18:00.004-07:00

Got motivated to make salsa by Kristi. She had a great recipe for mango salsa and we had a lab party last week. What more can be easier than salsa? (besides bringing chips lah).

The mango salsa recipe I got from Kristi has mango (duh!), red peppers (一點都不辣的, 只給甜的味道), jalapeno (這才有辣的味道, 但比不上小辣椒的辣) and cilantro. But I am not too big on red peppers so I mixed it up with tomatoes. I also took out the onions because I don't like raw onions at all (maybe I should have left it in there since onion is one of the main ingredient of any salsa!).
Salsa is one of the easiest thing to make! It just requires a lot of chopping. If one prefers a less chunky salsa, the tomatoes, cilantro and jalapeno can be blended, which makes it even easier because less cutting up is required. But I do like some chunks so I prefer to cut them up as fine as I could.
After trying the 'final product', I would definitely not skip the red peppers. It adds a nice sweet and peppery taste to it. But if I made it for myself again, I would definitely add another piece of jalapeno. My choice of salsa is definitely spicy ones!

Kristi, thanks a bunch for the recipe!! Will definitely be one of my favorite!

Fish Curry

2009-07-27T19:02:00.007-07:00

It has been a while since I cooked anything Malaysian. With all the farewells and birthdays the past few weeks, I have been eating out quite a bit. Since most places serve extra large servings, that also means lots of left-overs for the week day or just eating simple stuff if it gets too busy at work.

Today, was in the mood to cook something 'home-cook'. First, what is in the fridge? Tomatoes and okra! (surprise, surprise, okra is in the same family with hibiscus!! Hmmm...wonder in what sense..). Okra is more commonly known as 'Lady's Fingers' (Malay: kacang bendi/Hokkien: or gui tao, which literally translates to black ghost nuts) to M'sians. Am not a big fan of slimy vegetables (ie. squash) but okra is actually one of my favorite vege!

I have always thought that okra is a Chinese ingredient as it is very common in our household. I tried to explain it to Fan, who is from China, but she could not picture it at all. Just remembered about the conversation with Fan a while ago when I was talking to mum and found out that it is not available in China as a 'regular' vegetable at all. According to Wikipedia, it originated in the Middle Eastern countries and was introduced to US at the SouthEast. As for why we have it, it is well likely to be from the Portugese influence (or not?). Anyway, even if it is not found in China, they still have a name for it - 秋葵(qiu1 kui2). I wonder if the hokkien 'gui' is actually from the mandarin 葵 instead of the 鬼.

Next, what is the best way to cook okra and tomatoes? Fish curry! So off I went to Goodrich to get fish! Back at home...

First stir-fry the okra (with the head removed) and tomatoes (quartered) with the curry paste. Used my last packet of A1 Fish Curry paste. With such products, cooking curry in US is soooo simple and quick!
When the tomato and okra is very well stir-fried into the sauce, I added some water and coconut milk. The fish is then added last because it is typically the fastest to be cooked.
The fish curry is then served with white rice.
Isn't that easy? Yummy yummy! The photo could have looked better. Didn't know how to avoid the over-exposed white rice. Grrr...

Rainy Day

2009-07-22T21:19:00.003-07:00

Ooo...it is actually raining outside! Can barely hear it but can see the drops on the window (which is from the lab since the 'dungeon' has no window). The dungeon is the lab microscope and computer room. It is cold (an average of 20 degrees C), dark and makes you want to go to sleep. The last because two of the most monotonous task is carried out in the room - direct cell count and phylogenetic tree building with Arb.

Am listening to a playlist with Plain White T's (love their new album!!) and 10,000 Maniacs.

Rainy Day - Plain White T's

A lovely surprise!

2009-07-22T20:57:00.004-07:00

Was expecting a package from Mei, but have no idea what it is. Mei only mentioned that it is something cute. Hehe...

The one thing that I least expected - Jay's merchandise!!!
Mei went to Jay's concert in Sydney. Ping is sooo jealous!!! :P Hehe...still aiming to go to his Taiwan concert one day!!! Although I have lots of Jay's merchandise, I actually have not started collecting the Jay 公仔. Let this be the first!
Thanks a bunch Mei!!!

Spending another late night in the dungeon. Makes me wish I had gotten a Mac!! Hehe...then I get to work at home. Definitely getting a Mac next time! (Yes, Steph, I know you are thinking "I told you so".)

甜蜜

2009-07-16T03:07:00.002-07:00

原來,喜歡一個人的感覺就是那麼甜蜜的.
原來,被喜歡的感覺就是那麼溫暖的.
原來,這種的緊張會讓人心跳加速.
原來,這種的害羞會讓人臉頰火紅.
原來,喜歡可以把哪緊張變成勇敢...給了我勇氣來緊緊的抱著你.

當你起床的時候,第一個思想就是他,
刷牙時,發現自己在傻傻的微笑,那是什麼意思呢?

我...好像...真的...喜歡上一個人了.

我...也好像...一步...一步...走火入魔了.

The colors of summer.

2009-07-14T08:50:00.006-07:00

春天的花草又小又可愛. 夏天的花草是迷人的. 如果能和喜歡的人在花園走一走, 感覺一定好甜蜜的.

When the weather is so lovely, it is hard to stay indoors! Went for a walk by the MSU Perennials Garden and all the flowers are in full bloom! So many photos to take.

This is the most interesting one...

From Plants

Isn't it cute?

Another funny one is the Nodding Onion. It does look a little like Onion when it is budding.

From Plants

But once it blooms, it does not look like an onion at all.

From Plants

The 'miniature cactus'.

From Plants

The lollipop.

From Plants

It is always more interesting to capture a flower with a bug on it. It is harder too because bugs are always busy flying all over the place. Gotta be very very patient to get a good photo of them.

From Bugs

Happy Summer!!