Handling Holland.. (and now aidan too!)

I went to visit kakak last week. it was a good trip. we spend so much time talking about our wedding, and how much fun we had with all of you around us. we laughed so hard it and smiled so much! the kecoh-ness, the toll was just the highlight of it!

Min scored high in collecting duit toll! we wonder why!?

Hannah, i will collect from ejal lepas ni! jaga dia!!

Nana, 2nd paling kaya!

K.ida tak aci, dia pasang nada sekali! tapi tak apa, k.ida jaga bag baggguuusss punya! (tengok tangan dia!)

K.lin, awat tak pasang sarah?

Yin Yee pon dapat? (dia pakai merah, ada ‘ong’ agaknya!)

Rachael, that kebaya worked!!!

Shireen, siap bawak bag lagi tu!! tak nak lepas!!

And why on earth korang tinggal kan Maria kat belakang?? kesian dia!! dia dapat tak?!

We cant stop talking about that night at Singgah Selalu and how much it has affected us (in a good way of course!). it was all too meaningful to both of us. It all started with just 3 tables joined together, then it was 4, then 5, 6, 7, 8… it went right to the stalls. it couldnt get any longer, it then turned to an "L" shape!!!! i think it was alltogether 10 tables or more!! i just realised we didnt snap any photos that night! we were just too busy enjoying each other’s company and having fun i suppose!

With kakak’s meaningful friends flown all the way from UK, and our neighbour friends, yin and shin (whom we hardly see, since they’re all over tah mana mana), they dropped by later… and you lot, together with your husbands, wifes, girlfriends, boyfriends, kids. everybody made a point to gather that night. knowing that kakak jarang sangat balik. and it was 2 union in one go!

But tak ada rachael lepas ni. so kaum lelaki tak ada ‘purpose’ nak ikot!!

We will never forget what you have done, and what you have given us. will look forward to our next trip back and will have this again for sure.

How we wished bo, nasha & ed, a.zam, amy, cammy could join us. next wedding!!!!!!

Thank you guys, for everything. i love each and every single one of you. and thank you redza, for paying!! we should have ordered more!

It was a dreadful, bitterly cold winter. coming to march, i was all mentally geared up for a sunnier weather, warmer tempreature. approaching middle of march, it seemed like spring is never going to come!! there were still some sleet and it was below freezing tempreature, -4c and shops are already out with their spring/summer collection! bright colours, tshirts and skirts, and it was still freakin cold!

Over here, even if we catch a glimpse of sunlight, people are all excited. kids started to play on the roads, neighbours started to cut the grass, be in the garden, hang their clothes outside… but still, it wasnt that warm.

Last weekend, was the start of it all. the clock goes an hour ahead last weekend. we loose one hour but we have more sunshine, the day’s longer. we can now put on our shades, put on our skirts, but still with our jacket, but NO MORE gloves, no more scarfs, no more wearing 4-5 layers!!! i’ve never felt so ‘light’ for so long! its now 9c and if we’re lucky, like today, it’s 14c! chocolates now will melt!!

Everything looks prettier in spring!! the grass looks prettier, the road looks cleaner, the plants look as if they’re smiling, birds are chirpier, our car looks cleaner in spring, even the garbage looks better in spring!!! thus, you can imagine how one feels!

Flowers are now out. daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and some wild ones. it was beautiful. now, we see colours! before, the only colour we saw was brown, black and grey, and maybe the colour of our sweaters!

The best time to come is during spring. and one of the biggest event is Keukenhof. millions and millions of tulips as well as other flowers can be seen at the gardens. Keukenhof is in between amsterdam and den haag. the north of netherlands. there will be lots of programmes arranged during the spring at keukenhof. check out the website at:

http://www.keukenhof.nl/

I’ve never heard my husband said he misses home since we got here. he misses our family and friends back home, but not actually malaysia. i was the one who was so homesick. and last night, before going to bed, he said, he misses malaysia for the first time since we arrived. he misses the sundays back home, misses walking to the shops, going to tescos, having a meal at ampang yong tau foo and nasi ayam. he really misses home.

Now that its spring, the weather’s gonna be a tad bit like back home, i’m gonna try find stuff and cook yong tau foo and nasi ayam just like the one back home, and our next visit to the UK, we’ll go to tesco!

I miss malaysia too, but HEY BABY! ITS SPRING! 3 weeks late, but its spring!!

I’ve been cooking lately. i wish we have a bigger kitchen for me to do more! bake for example. (i can almost see myself as a housewife, wearing a white shirt and a skirt, an apron, with kitchen gloves on, baking pastries!!) wait, hang on, i AM a housewife (a ‘hotel-wife’ since we havent bought a house yet), well, minus the skirt - too cold to wear one, minus the apron - i dont have one, minus the kitchen gloves - for the moment its kitchen towels!! heheh

You have to cook if you’re away, far far away from home. at least learn how to cook. one cant survive with just bread and salad now, can we? (but i must say the bread here are REALLY good!) well, i suppose some can, but i cant! kakak selalu cakap, "melayu habis budak ni." that’s certainly not true! there’s some chinese in me too! and i CAN take other food. its just that my tastebuds are slightly inclined, in favour of our tasty yummy malaysian food! i first learn how to cook back in my a-level days. before that, i knew nothing!! i was so spoiled by k.ana, who cooks at home. we had her since i was 9. so when i was doing my a’s, i stayed with kakak. my sister’s a no nonsense type of person, she’d say "live up and learn!" so she taught me all the basic stuff - how to peel an onion, how to cook rice, how to fry the chicken, and shared one or two dishes with me. and the rest, as she would say it "gi buat sendiri!" so, if not for her, i wouldnt be cooking now!

I enjoy cooking, and one will enjoy more if people would eat what you cook!! i certainly enjoy more seeing hardy eat them! it felt really good and i was so happy hearing him burrrbbbbb and say ’sedapppp!!’. i know sometimes he’s just trying to please me

Cili merah (red chillis) are VERY expensive here. and very scarce too! Malay food require us to use a lot of chillis! and here, 2 batang for 99 euro cents! its ridiculous!! thank God we found a good turkish provision shop where garlics are cheap, terung are fat and shiny, and they have a good supply of red chillis! we can now afford to eat chillis!! recently, hardy found belacan bakar (baked shrimp cake). we’ve been using serbuk belacan maggi, but finding belacan bakar here, made from penang pulak tu, and it has made my husband’s day! Hardy bought me a hand blender which turned out to be VERY useful indeed since we dont have a batu lesong! hahaha. wait till we go back home and get our container. will defintely bring our batu lesong! So, we now have good chillis, belacan and a hand blender - CILI + BELACAN + BLENDER = SAMBAL BELACAN!!!! (with lime of course). lagi laaa makan banyak!

*note to those who are in the same boat as me: if you ever need belacan bakar, do let me know!!

So when you have all these scarce ingredients here in this country, you’d tend to use them wisely. they are REALLY precious!! kena jimat!! kalau tak, sayang!! i would cut the chillis right to the tip, i would use serai from the tip right to the bottom! hardy would hirup maggi asam laksa right till the last drop, i would bite my asam slowly, i would fry keropok ikan terengganu right to the smallest bit and tend to savour every bite you take! kesian kan?, i know! i guess its different being away. you tend to appreciate what’s at home more, and be more thankful.

K.na taught me how to make nasi lemak (coconut rice) and nasi ayam (chicken rice) the other day. my nasi lemak menjadi (turned out good), but not so for my sambal tumis. something’s lacking. it probably needs more chilli! my ayam for nasi ayam turned out ok, i grilled them, soup was tasty, my timun for nasi ayam turned out to be just like the one in ampang nasi ayam hailam (its just basically soaking the cucumber with kicap masin ABC and a drop of sessame oil!), my chilli sauce turned out ok as well. rice needs a little bit more pracatise!! my new discovery was mee hoon kari. not too bad for a first timer but if anybody knows how to cook them (a good one please) please do share a tip or two with me! i need to improve myself!

Good websites:

www.resipi.net

http://resepimesra.net

Oh! and i received jamie’s oliver’s receipes - the whole thing! without having to buy his book! once i get the kitchen, it’ll be smokinnnn’….

Visiting kakak and redza this weekend. flying on friday. i will be staying there slightly longer but hardy’s coming back on sunday since he’ll be working on monday. they’ve prepared the menu for both of us, and time for me to hang my senduk for a while and enjoy her cooking!

Did ayam paprik yesterday and lets see….. what we shall cook today……

P.S: Sabreena dear, thank you for the receipe book!! it was a very useful gift!!

We were suppose to start our dutch course this morning, but they called to inform us that our tutor was feeling a little bit under the weather… and we thought, hmm… probably due to the Carnival - too much boozing and partying!! so here i am, at home, after scraping snow off our car with hardy for him to go to work, writing my blog! (we scrapped using my sendok yang dah kuning bekas kunyit! we didnt have any scrapper!)

Lemme tell you a little bit about the Carnival. as New Orleans celebrated their Mardi Gras (pronounced mardigra, controversial this year), we here in Sittard (and mostly the southern region of the Netherlands) are celebrating our own Mardi Gras - simply called The Carnival.

Decorations were put up as early as late january. most decorations are in red, green and yellow. flags, baloons, ribbons, crepe papers. all them up on houses! i remembered we passed one street and at first i thought it was some kid’s birthday party! and there, i thought "wahh.. not bad to be a kid in this country la! big do for their birthdays! whole street celebrate" then we went to another street and saw the same flag, and the ‘clueless’ turned to ‘curious’. i started throwing hardy questions after questions (since he’s been in the country slightly longer than i have, and have more dutch friends than i have, know of dutch history more than i do).. "what’s going on??", "why are they putting up flags, decorations??", "is it a birthday party??" and what i got from him was the same reply to ALL my questions - "i dont know.." rupanya Carnival! thus the decorations! i was begining to think it was the queen’s birthday or something, but still… the clowns, funny faces, creatures on their windows?? hmm.. doesnt make sense! hehe..

Hardy got back from work one day and told me, there will a huge caranival this weekend. its the big one! this is THE one! prior to that, the weekend before, it was some sort of a ‘warm up session’ (i’m guessing). nothing big, they played music (local folk), wore red, green, yellow scarfs, put on their funny hats.. they then went to the pubs (from morning), danced and drink. that was it. and last weekend was the REAL thing!! we went to maastricht, the big city where there was a parade and tonnes of people having a laugh at each other and good time!

We totally ignored stephan’s advise and decided to take the car and gambled on the parking, it was raining/sleet and too cold to be waiting for the train! off we go, with our lay’s sour cream and onion, bottles of mineral water and my reliable dried apricots! (cant go anywhere without muchies these days!)

Maastricht is devided into two by the famous River Maas. the city centre’s located on the west side. we were lucky to get a parking lot relatively near to one of the bridges crossing the Maas. i think its called De Hoeg Brogk. and from the bridge we can see the main one, St. Servaasbrug flooded with people, colourful people all heading towards the centre. some are hitting the drums, some are playing the trumpet, some are singing and dancing, some are on a huge prams! some dressed as a rabbit, nuns, some in their pyjamas, some as pirates, some…? we werent quite sure what they were!… they really dress up. one can be anything and everything!!!!

We walked heading towards the Stadhuis, Markt, where the centre was. there were so many people, spactators and those participating in the parade! colourful floats, people on them, throwing confetti and pop outs, singing and dancing. it was such a treat for the kids and us too! i was getting a little bit giddy, there were too many people on the tiny streets of maastricht centre, it was so cold my ears nearly fell off and the smell finally hit me! *sigh* i didnt want to spoil it for hardy but i just couldnt stand it, i had to stop. the huge squre witness more ‘interesting’ costumes and ‘behaviour’! cool…

I was still clueless, ok, it was a carnival, but why? what are they celebrating? what are they singing? there must be a reason why they are doing this!?  the story goes, rupanya, this is a celebration for them before entering their ‘fasting month’. celebrate with food and drinks, basically having fun before doing the serious stuff. this dates back hundreds of years ago but now, they no longer fast, but they still enjoy and party!! i believe its called ‘Lent’.

The pub downstairs (where we currently live), was extremely busy. they started full swing on friday night, saturday and by sunday, i was so relieved! FINALLY, no more loud music, no more smell of alcohol, no more smell of tobacco! AND SO I THOUGHT! I WAS WRONG! the loud music, boozing and tobbaco smell continued right till monday after lunch straight on till 3am, and yesterday (tuesday)! i’m normally ok with all of them.. but it got to our room and i couldnt sleep!! even hardy agrees with me the smell was way too strong! so i wasnt ngengada!! shops all close during this period. but funny, people still go to work! haha.

So anyway… tak boleh tido! bising for the past few nights! but finally, last night, it ended early. by 2am most of them went back home, music were finally off. and FINALLY, we had our bedtime story! and our topic last night was "sabic europe vs. dow". how the europeans and the americans think, execute and work! very interesting indeed!

  Their last day of Carnival yesteday, there was a parade down on our road. our pub downstairs was their starting point and where they ended the parade. i managed to capture a few shots to share. they threw oranges, sweets, lollies, chocolates, crisps to the kids.. i was in our room, witnessing all the actions! didnt catch any lollies tho! some Carnival we have here!

I wonder what our bedtime story will be tonight…. cant wait! but first, i have to think of what to cook for dinner!