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Eating out: Penang’s famous cendol @ Penang Road

January 16, 2012 by · 1 Comment

Penang is known as the food heaven of Malaysia. If you want to eat really good food, most will point you to Penang. I remember when we visited Penang when I was Primary four, our family friend said this: “Eat as much as you can, but don’t forget to bring tummy medicine.”

Penang is a little bit odd compared to the rest of Malaysia. The roads seem tinier, the drivers a whole lot more aggressive and the same food is called different names. Take for example the ever popular Har Mee (Prawn noodles). The rest of Malaysia calls it Har Mee, but Penang insists on calling it Hokkien Mee. But for the rest of Malaysia, Hokkien Mee is thick noodles stir-fried in dark soy sauce! Oh, that. Penang calls that Hokkien Char. What.

Confusing names aside, Penang has some pretty unique food. I wish Johor could say the same. What exactly is there in Johor? Not very much. Feh.

On this particular day, I was out with the lovely Glow. She had driven into Penang to meetup with me! I was excited! Oh and of course, the boy came along too. It was a bit of a funny feeling really, because the boy had just became the boy once again the night before, and when Glow asked me “Is he your boyfriend?”, saying yes felt so odd. So. Very. Odd.

Glow is incredibly sweet, did I mention? She came by to pick me and the boy up and whisked us away to start our eating and shopping tour of Penang! The first place we went to was the ever famous Penang Road Cendol.

Oh hey, look! Even PCK has been. This cendol store is hard to miss. It is in a small alley but there is no mistaking the queue. Be mindful though, it’s not exactly the world’s best queue system and you will find that if you are overly polite, you will never get that bowl of cendol. Right opposite is another cendol stall. They aren’t very friendly, and if you stick around their stall with a bowl of cendol from their competitor, they will yell at you.

I have to admit. This cendol was sublime. Unlike many other cendols I have come across, this one was just the right amount of sweetness (from palm sugar) and had a really generous helping of the green jelly and red bean for extra texture. And in that hot and humid weather, the icy cold dessert went down a treat.

Now, much like other Malaysian dessert, cendol doesn’t look like much. In fact, to some, the above photo might be down right unappetizing. But if you are ever in Malaysia, you need to try cendol. If you are ever in Penang, you need to try this cendol. So good.

We also had Chee Cheong Fun (above) and Assam Laksa (below). Or in Penang, Assam Laksa is just known as Laksa. Ah, stupidly confusing! Especially because then they also like to separate it into curry laksa and lemak laksa… As for that Chee Cheong Fun, it was just not good. Tasted incredibly fishy and I wasn’t a fan. Give me back the Chee Cheong Fun we get in SG please!

**If you are confused as to what these dishes are, I have linked their wiki pages**

After that we went shopping, in which Glow made me spend monies by pointing out a really pretty lacy scarf that had music notes all over it. Doom.

All too soon, the day was over and Glow had to go home. Sadface. We did take some photos in the car though!! These were taken with the Popbooth app, so the quality’s not that great but it does take some pretty funny photos. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Dessert, Hawker style, Malaysia, Malaysian Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Travelling in Gumboots : an essay.

March 11, 2011 by · 9 Comments

There’s not much else I can set the title of this post as. I have no photos to show and rather than put up random photos that mean nothing, I am going to break my own (silent) rule and have a blog post with no pictures. Please try not to fall asleep on me.

I mainly wanted to touch base with everybody on how it has been for me on my crazy adventure to move into the country. It’s been awhile since the last Travelling in Gumboots post and some of you might have noticed the lack of regularity in my blog posts. If there’s one thing I regret from my move, is that my blog has fallen into the sidelines somewhat. And I thought I’d have that much more time to work on it, how wrong was I.

I’ve lost count on what week this is since the move. It could be week 5, or week 6 or week 10 for all I care. It’s not really that important. What is more important, is how I’ve been settling in.

Moving anywhere new is scary. Let alone going from a big city to a small country town that houses 200+ within its town boundaries and another 100 or so in the surrounding farmlands. Recently a friend asked me how many there were in the town over a yumcha session.

“350″, I replied.

“350 thousand, you mean?” came the query to clarify.

“No, 350. Period.”

“That’s…. about how many there is in this room!”

Yup. My town houses as many people as there were having yumcha at that one restaurant that Sunday morning. It may be small, but let me tell you it sure has its perks. Going down our (one and only!) street and being able to greet and know almost everybody you meet on the street gives you a sense of belonging like no other. I have lived so many years in Melbourne and never have I felt like such a part of the community like I do in Murrayville. It is amazing.

One of my major concerns with moving to the country was whether or not I’d be lonely. I am a social creature, I cannot live without company of my friends but at the same time, I am horrendously shy and awkward with strangers. Not a great combination, if you ask me! In such a small town, this issue was really a non-issue. Even if you weren’t acquainted today, you will be tomorrow. You are welcomed with open arms and not made to feel like an outsider. I hosted my first dinner party just a week ago, and looking at the beaming faces, I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming. Ask me a year ago if this was going to be possible, I’d have said no. Lonely? No time to be lonely in this town!

I’ve always loved the country. I escaped to the country whenever I could in the last few years. But there’s a difference between holidaying in the country and living there. My other major concern was whether or not my urge to live in the country was a built-up fairy tale in my head or that I really wanted to be out here. So in quick dot points, I’m going to state a few things I’ve learnt over the past month or so:

  • Bugs, they are everywhere.
  • If you are surrounded by grain farming, you gotta learn to be cozy with the mice.
  • If you have bugs phobia (like me), you eventually learn to get over it. As long as you have that tin of mortein.
  • Farmer markets in the city has better fresh produce than what the country folks get
  • Country living does not necessarily mean beautiful green rolling hills and blooming flowers.
  • Desert doesn’t necessarily mean all sand and occasional cactus.
  • You learn to live with a lot less than you would in the city.
  • The beauty of picking fresh fruit off a tree!!!
  • The weather is of even more fascination to us up here in the Mallee than Melbourne city dwellers.
  • Mice, they eat plastic too.
  • Crickets, they bloody get into your house then die.
  • Sand flies: their bites hurt.
  • BBQ rules.
  • Import beers? What import beers?
  • Tea means dinner, Dinner means lunch, Vicky means Victoria.

I made my first jam the other day. Fig jam, with figs off my colleague’s tree and a pot borrowed from a neighbour. It’s not perfect by any means (I think I let it boil for too long), but you know what made it that tiny bit sweeter? The fact that I was living the life that I’ve always wanted, (ever since reading books and books on country living), and making jam with freshly picked fruits and that the whole process was made possible with the generosity of my neighbours.

It may not be the rolling green hills that Daylesford have to offer, or the beautiful scenaries that Bright has, but this is my own little slice of (bug filled) heaven. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. At least not right now. Right now, I’m contented.

Filed Under: Travelling in GumBoots Tagged With: , , , , ,
Travelling in Gumboots : The country and being part of it.

Travelling in Gumboots : The country and being part of it.

February 4, 2011 by · 16 Comments


Once again we meet on a Friday, and it’s the 2nd segment of Travelling in Gumboots! If you are wondering what this is: You can read this post to gain a bit of background.

So it’s almost 2 weeks since I’ve moved up here. Work has started and I couldn’t be happier. It does mean that my blog posts have hit a bit of a wall. I’m trying to keep them going, but I fear until I’ve found my feet with work, the blog posts will continue to be somewhat sporadic.



Perhaps one would say that one of the bad points about being in the country is the small and sparsely populated towns. I feared the same. In fact, so many people told me that I would be bored to tears. That I would have so much time to myself that I wouldn’t know what I was doing. Now I dont know if this actually applies to any other small country town, but let me assure you that in my town of 300-350, this is not true in the slightest. In fact it is quite the opposite: I have never been busier. And that’s just the social bit.

Maybe I got lucky. I definitely cannot say that every single country town out there is the same, but the Murrayville community certainly blew me out of the water with its welcoming and friendly nature. And here I was worried that I was going to have no friends! But people have been most friendly, I’ve been invited to dinner, been invited to events, been invited to random chilling out sessions and BBQ sessions. People here are genuinely interested and wanting to be your friend, and coming from a 100% suburban / city life, this completely blew me away and touched and moved me beyond words. Because while Melbourne folks have always been friendly enough, I can tell you that in my 8 years of being in Melbourne I didn’t know who my neighbours were. I did make an effort once upon a time, but people just didn’t care. It was a Hi, Bye and oh-hey-I’m-going-to-snitch-on-you-to-the-landlord. I gave up after that and kept to myself. So this neighbourly spirit and amazing community strength that I’ve seen going on in Murrayville have been an eye-opener and I am incredibly humbled by it.



Do you know the best way to appreciate all this? It’s really by being a part of the community. To play tennis, to play netball, to attend rotating dinners (more on this soon!), to attend events and to show that you are interested in the community and want to be part of it. If you give, you will always receive something back. And that’s what is so rewarding about being in such a community.

It may be early days yet to say that moving here was the best decision I’ve made in the long while, but right now I genuinely believe so. I may be far away from my friends and my familiar grounds. But Melbourne will always be there, technology keeps old friends close and I am making new friends everyday. But to have the chance to experience a rich community togetherness? That’s priceless.

p/s: photos accompanying this post are of the amazingly beautiful sunsets that shine over the Big Desert almost every evening. I feel truly blessed.

Filed Under: Travelling in GumBoots Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
Travelling in Gumboots: Making the move.

Travelling in Gumboots: Making the move.

January 28, 2011 by · 17 Comments

So I’ve made the move.

For many years, I’m often heard saying : “One day, I’ll move to the country. I really want to.”
And so I did it.

Did we forget that this was a travel blog too? Well, we probably did, given the amount of eating we do around here in Melbourne. But this is indeed a travel blog too, so you will be hearing a lot about my country adventures. So much so that I decided to start a weekly column called Travelling in Gumboots. Booyah! (And if I’m any good with my schedules, it will be up every friday!)


Not many people will make the move. You hear of country folks going to the city, but it’s not often you hear of it being the other way around. Of course, the government’s been encouraging folks to go rural for ages, but ask yourself this: would you do it?

It’s a hard drive up to Murrayville. That is, hard if you do what I’ve been doing for the past few times – a continuous 7 hours drive from where I (used to) stay in Melbourne, with only 3 stops in between. Each stop less than 5 minutes which is really just so I can stretch my legs and find the nearest toilet. Hard if you are doing it alone, and hard because it’s a pretty darn straight roads, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out what happens when fast moving cars, boring roads and pencil straight roads come together. You get a sleepy driver, and a recipe to disaster. Just a couple months ago, a family in a caravan went off the road near Murrayville – dad fell asleep at the wheel. Unfortunately for them, it was fatal. But I took all the precautions: I slept as early as I could, I drank lots of water and I had music blasting the whole way through. And when I felt sleepy, I called a mate. And I’m here safely!

I couldn’t take photos of the drive up obviously, so I thought I’d show a few quick shots of my new town.




Here’s the side of the hotel/motel/pub of the town. It’s on the highway and you can see it from this front photo here:


source: Gdaypubs

Along the highway, there’s the garage / petrol station, a small cafe, the currently closed IGA (that will hopefully be opened up again very soon!), the hotel/motel and not very much else!
Take a left after the hotel/motel and you will head up this street:

A bank, an op shop, a newsagent, a gift shop, and even a craft supplies shop down at the end of the road. What more do you need?

Okay, maybe a post office. This post office is so cute. The inside is old school post office complete with big wooden desks and pigeon holes and manual mail sorting. I love it! Oh but there’s no mail delivery in this town, which is not a problem since the post office is very near to the school – a quick run over from school after work is all it takes!

In the middle of the town sits the park. This is where a lot of the town events take place – I was here for my first town event just this Wednesday for the Australia Day breakfast. Lovely time for the town folks to catch up, sit back and relax for a morning together. I love it!

I live on the fringe of the town, in what the locals call Teacherville as most of the teachers who live in town live on the same street. It’s a 2 bedroom unit which is bigger than my place down in the city but how much does it cost? A mere 80 dollars a week. Take that, hideous rental city rates!

And to wrap it all up, here’s a photo of one (or two!) of my new neighbours. Here’s Bandit (the grey horse) and Buddy (the pony)!

Till the next segment of Travelling In GumBoots!

p/s: the incredibly cute gumboot drawing is by the amazing Violet!

Filed Under: Things to do in Country Victoria, Travelling in GumBoots Tagged With: , , , , ,

Canberra : Floriade, Imagination: where will yours take you?

September 28, 2010 by · 17 Comments

Recently I was in Canberra for a day trip. My errands and business only took up the morning so I was free to roam in the afternoon. Having no means of transport however, put a slight damper on things. Thankfully I met a rather charming couple who were happy to drive us over to Floriade. Obviously I hadn’t planned on having any time to sight see much, so other than restaurant research, I didn’t actually know what was going on in Canberra. It was again, thanks to the charming couple and a few other friendly strangers who kept bringing up Floriade that I decided I should make it over there and check out what the fuss was about.



From the website:

Floriade is Australia’s celebration of spring and the biggest flower festival in Australia, set in Canberra’s Commonwealth Park, in the heart of the nation’s capital.

Stepping into Floriade, you are first greeted by rows and rows of stalls selling an assortment of craft items and teas amongst other things. It was like a tiny bazaar and it was here that I found my newest favourite tea. Yes, I bought more tea.

We stopped for a quick lunch where I tried my first Turkish Pies. At least I think they were Turkish Pies, that’s what the lady said. The sign said Gözlem, and whatever it was, it was quite yummy.

With our tummies satisfied, we set off to explore Floriade. And what greeted us was a sight to behold.



This was where I started regretting not bringing my camera along. All photos taken in Canberra were on a tiny point and shoot belonging to my housemate. I had thrown that into the bag as a ‘just in case’ so I supposed having a camera is better than not, but I missed my Canon something bad.

Rows and rows of beautiful tulips as far as the eye could see. I’ve never been to the Tulip Festival in Melbourne before, so this was my first time in any sort of tulip field. It was a beautiful day and the sun was gorgeously warm and shining, making the colours vibrant and oh-how-i-wish-i-had-my-camera!

Obligated Touristy Shot:
I was feeling terribly Melbourne that day, especially amongst all the canberra folks who actually wore colours.



After awhile, we started noting that the tulips had been planted in such a manner so that it depicted an entire picture if seen from a bird’s eye view. This was the artist palette, which you can’t see from ground level, but you can most definitely oogle at the massive paintbrush.



And then more tulips.



As we walked further into the park, we found a little grove of trees with umbrellas hanging from them.



Another obligated touristy shot.



And more flowery shots:





A gorgeous day out, beautiful tulips and flowers, we even saw a family of black swans in the lake! The afternoon sun was beautiful and warming, a welcomed change after the freezing cold of Melbourne and Floriade was like a secret garden, surprising us with little things at every corner.

I had a beautiful time and the most relaxing afternoon I’ve ever had in a long long time. All too soon it was time to go and return to the reason I was in Canberra. Boo to business.

If you are ever in Canberra during the September school holidays, I definitely recommend checking out Floriade. It was a great way to spend the afternoon and I’m kinda wishing I had business to bring me back to Canberra next year!

Filed Under: Things to do in Canberra Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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