Siti Nurhaliza - Cuti-cuti Malaysia (Don't you just love this song? No? Okay fine.)
I watched the video and thought, "What the, I can barely see Johor!"
(though to be honest, if anyone asks me, "What's a great tourist spot in Johor?" I'll be, "Umm...hmm?")
(Tanjung Piai? XD)
(FAIL Johorean HAH :D)
According to my personal research, some of the most famous tourist spots in Malaysia (or at least among Arabs) are Kuala Lumpur/Selangor (duh), Langkawi (of all places, I've never ever ever ever gone there DX), Penang (used to go there once a week, but I’m by no means an expert of that place. Not that I'm a Johor expert anyway), Cameron Highland (went there once, it was AWESOME!) and Genting Highland (the land of entertainment and gambling. Apparently. Haven't been there before though).
I'd include Malacca in as well but that's more of an attraction for fellow Malaysians. You'd find students with their history textbooks roaming the street, studying the historical remnants - wait, that's probably just me.
To be honest, I used to never understand why Malaysia is such an attraction to tourists. I mean, our weather is hot and humid, we have a lot of small bugs, big bugs, small animals, big animals. There are snakes in my garden. And there are crocodiles near my grandma's house. And her old house’s backyard used to be filled with tigers to the point that if someone’s gone missing, they’ll say, “Oh he’s probably eaten by tigers.” Not anymore of course. But in my neighborhood, you can sometimes hear hens and chickens being eaten by foxes at night, and there are bats in my attic. Oh and also, there's a bird outside my window who likes to throw tree branches into my room. I'm not kidding.
(well that's because my family's house is in the jungle - I mean village. Honestly, I ran out of classy words to describe my neighborhood, but yeah, it's one of the most peaceful neighborhoods ever, saves for those animals. But would you rather have noisy animals or city pollutions?)
(Take your pick, I won't judge.)
(I'll take those animals, I guess.)
(I wonder if the bird is still there. It's been nesting there for two years already WOW.)
(If the bird's still there by the time I return to Malaysia, I'll take a picture.)
And lookie here, these aren't my cats, but they think they're mine.
Can you guess how many cats there are in these pictures?
Looks like playtime is over for these cats. Bye bye, come again, I'm sure you will. Because we're the only family in the neighborhood who eats fish, aren't we? :D
(Although I must admit, since we’ve moved here, the cats no longer hang out at our place. No fish, I guess.)
As far as the saying goes, the grass is greener on the other side of the world. Well, Switzerland’s grass IS literally greener than ours, and Saudi Arabia doesn’t have much grass to begin with, but I suppose, living with green grass all my life, we’ve always wanted to have something in our life that we didn’t have – or impossible to have – and disregard things that we actually have, which might suit us more than what we actually crave.
Perhaps this could be applied to the rest of the people. I bet some of you hate winter, but we – who’ve been exposed to the sun all year long – crave for some snow so badly. We don’t care that much for nature, beaches and wild life, but some of you might adore them very much.
Still, no matter how great other countries are, in the end, you’ll notice that nothing suits you best as much as your original home. It’s just the way it is. You might hate it, but it is the way you’ve been grown up with, and whether you like it or not, you’re gonna miss your home, the atmosphere, and everything about it.
(In my case though, I spend most of my time in a house anyway. So give me a house and it’ll be like home.)
Every country is unique, and i must say, Malaysia is too. There are things that could be done there (and perhaps somewhere else) that couldn’t be done elsewhere (elsewhere that I haven’t been to lol), so I figure I’ll list down those things that I wanna do before I forget and waste my time in Malaysia doing nothing again.
1. I wanna drink Lai Chee Kang.
(picture stolen from google)
Hi everyone, this is Lai Chee Kang. It’s originally a Chinese drink I think, but every Malaysian drinks it.
My mother ordered it all the time, but I'd rather have cendol...
(picture stolen from google too) Don't you think these cendol look like slimy, fat green worms that you can eat without feeling disgusted? No? ...no?
Anyway, lai chee kang! I like it just fine, but the reason why I'm so craving for it, is because of this video.
Queenie makes her own white fungus serum! And that white fungus soup looks strangely delish.
I wanna make that serum but I'm pretty sure my mother wouldn't approve of bizarre cooking unless it’s for the good of my health.
Skincare's not included unfortunately. "You're doing this for the sake of your skin?? How vain!"
Umm.
There's no other way around it! I need to include this white fungus thing in our diet or something, or at least make it beneficial to the health so that I CAN MAKE THE SERUM. Yup.
First thing first - searching for a Malaysian recipe that actually uses white fungus in its food.
Might be hard considering all of them are Chinese ones, and I don't even know what it's called in Malay haha hmm.
So I asked my mother, "Do you know that thing that (my cousin) used to use to scratch her itchy skin with?"
Bingo! I got the name.
And what do you know, white fungus is one of Lai Chee Kang's ingredients.
Here's the recipe (nicked from here)
* White sugar (gula putih)
* Palm sugar (gula merah)
* Barley pearl (barli)
* White fungus (fungus putih)
* Black fungus (fungus hitam)
* Dried lotus seed (biji teratai)
* Dried red dates (kurma merah)
* Dried longan pulp (longan)
* Canned lychees (laici)
* Grass jelly (cincau)
* Honey dates (kembang semangkuk)
* Sweet melon candy (kundur)
* Sufficient water
(apparently, white fungus in Malay is cendawan putih, but the blogger just translated it as fungus putih. Doesn’t matter though.)
I bet if I were to ask any shop assistants here for these rare ingredients they would scratch their head, bulge their eyes out, and be utterly confused.
So as you can see, it is nearly impossible for me to make a bowl of Lai Chee Kang here.
And it's not as if white fungus is easily accessible here either.
So once I return to Malaysia, I want to drink Lai Chee Kang.
:D
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