Surprise $$ Gifts, Fending for Myself, All the Godkids

SO many updates. 

BIKSS visited some relatives across the border over the Diwali weekend cos #obligations. His one ounce of Indian blood means there are people he's related to who celebrate the holiday. 

Since he's been back (5 days ago) we haven't had dinner or anything cos the man is ill. Coughing. No Covid but I suspect a flu nonetheless. It's been wet and cold and hot and humid - sometimes all in the same afternoon. It's ridiculous. That's what happens when you live on the equator and have to deal with year-end monsoon season. 

He's just been browsing the performance sites and suggested getting tix to Sound of Music which I expressed interest in some time ago. But with mum's situation I didn't dare think about booking anything. Now that I have some respite I think it's safe to plan farther than 24 hours in advance :)

I paid for the tix first using my c/card cos he wasn't sure what seats I prefer and decided to leave the booking up to me. Then transferred some cash over into my bank. There are a few ways one can do this, he chose to do it the traditional way via account number. Which doesn't give me any notifications. So I asked if he had signed up for the newer interbank-phone one, he said yes. But since he's always sent me cash this way, he just defaulted to it. 

Ah, I said, cos this way the bank doesn't send out notifications. You just gotta log into the app and check the balance / transaction. With the newer way you get an email and an SMS. 

And that's when he decided to tell me that he sent me money for my lappy repair. He's sweet that way. It would be better if I KNEW he was being sweet tho. LOL. Anyway, thanks have been sent. And kisses too. 

Meanwhile, it's maybe a blessing in disguise that he's not available this week cos the Godsons (good friend's kids) have been needing me, and my niece (who is also my Goddaughter) has been feeling unwell and called me freaking out a little bit on Thursday night. 

The boys are getting whatever help I can manage, it's a long-term-plan that one. Career guidance, education pathways, financial issues. Long story. But I'm working on getting a counsellor for Godson 2 who's having self-esteem and lack of motivation issues, and figuring out next steps and calling on friends who have other friends in the F&B world to see how best to help him on his quest to becoming a chef. (His dad isn't being very supportive cos the cheaper culinary school is pretty far away, and the mum doesn't want him to go to a private institute cos it's expensive, she says...  and they have THOUGHT about counselling but never went cos, again, they can't afford it. Meanwhile there are a ton of free counselling services available here, especially for children and teens!)

The older one, aka Godson 1 - will be on school break for 2 months and is keen to move into the right college where he can then go on to do psychology in uni, so I'm helping him find suitable and relevant internships that he can think about and explore before he decides on applications. (Also, we've both enrolled in a psych/counselling intro/basics course that begins in Jan next year... I wanted to do this last year, but #mumproblems so I couldn't. Since Godson 1 wanted to enrol, I took it as a sign I should do it too!)

The niece, aka only Goddaughter, has been having warmness in her calf, tingling in her fingers and random aches and pains in her muscles and joints. Of course she went and googled everything to death and beyond thinking it's some autoimmune thing, and then her mother (my sister) said something about MS and then she went and googled MS and then started freaking out. 

So I took her to my boss's clinic this morning to get her sorted. She'd been to two doctors previously but hasn't come away feeling any better cos the second one referred her to a neuro specialist but that's not till end of next month, and when one is feeling stressed, one doesn't want to wait. I suggested she see my boss cos I KNOW he's thorough. And since all the specialists couldn't do what HE did with sorting out mum's sleep situation, I figured let him try and work out her symptoms. 

He did say they seemed rather random and didn't point to anything obvious currently. But he did a whole work up of labs and, as I expected, has been logging into the lab portal every few hours cos he's eager to see what her results show. He's THAT kind of doctor. It's not just cos she's family to me - he does this with our other patients too, I know cos I can tell when he's logging into the portal - I'm on the same email accont for the 2FA verification thingamajig. And he'll sometimes text me and grumble that so and so's results are taking a long time to get uploaded on the portal. 

Anyway, he reassured her that it's not a nerve thing, nor a muscular degeneration thing. Her symptoms don't point to that. Also SUPER unlikely to be a MS thing cos again, symptoms not quite there. Sister suggested fibromyalgia but he doesn't think so cos the presentation doesn't satisfy the requirements for that diagnosis. Still, he's curious now, he gets like that when he has a puzzle in front of him. Just like mum was a puzzle for him. And I know he'll be happily researching a bunch of things to try and figure this out. Which is exactly what we need, instead of a doctor who's just gonna pick the most obvious probable thing and "try" some meds or treatment and see how it goes (like what they did for mum). 

She was in a much better state by the time we parted after lunch, and hopefully she'll be able to sleep better tonight than she has in the last month. 

The other Godson, the nephew, on the other hand, didn't ASK for me, but I did some Godma-ing on him anyway. He's got it in his head that he wants to pursue some MLM thing, so he quit his job, took some of his savings (which isn't a whole lot in the first place) and went to the US for some MLM conference. That's a 2000 dollar trip. His wife (yes, he's married) isn't local, and has been very transparent about sending cash home to her parents who are managing the building of a house for her on their property. The nephew isn't planning on buying a place here, choosing instead to use his money for his MLM thing, instead of securing a roof over his and his wife's head. They are both living under my sister's roof. Le Sigh!

The wife's plan is - in plain ENGLISH - if he fucks up and she finds herself broke and homeless, she'll go back to her home country. 

I don't blame her. As a non-citizen there are limits on what she can do independently of her husband here, including not being able to buy her own flat (eligibility for subsidised housing not met, salary requirements for loans are stupid high etc) so she decided to build her contingency plan in the country of her birth. 

I'm all for an exciting life, but um, dude, you have a wife who needs you to be present to her needs and aware of her limitations! 

Anyway, I've been busy the last couple of weeks with these young'uns which has made me extremely prone to afternoon naps. 

Oh, and finally, mum has the start of what looks like a cutaneous horn on her forearm and I'm trying to find someone who can come by and excise it only no one wants to do procedures at home and none of the nearby GPs do in-clinic procedures cos they're all shit scared of complications.

It's fucking annoying that everyone keeps telling me they can send her to the specialist in the hospital who can do the removal - I CAN'T TAKE MUM TO THE HOSPITAL (I say while rolling my eyeballs in my mind) COS SHE'LL END UP BECOMING DELIRIOUS AND THEN WON'T BE ABLE TO SLEEP OR EAT FOR THE NEXT 48 HOURS! 

I'm so tired of explaining her hypersensitivity to stimulation. Anyway I've asked an aesthetic clinic near mum's old place. It's the clinic I first went to at the very start of this blog when I did my skin tag removal, and over the years have gone back to for various things. But since I started working at my clinic 5 years ago I haven't needed to go back there. It's a good thing I've kept in touch with his nurse tho... she's promised to check with the doc and see if he's able to do this thing in-clinic in which case I might hazard a short bus ride there to get it done. It's a much better option than taking her to the hospital. 

I'm also asking other boss who does derm and aesthetics if he knows anyone who is willing to come by the house to do this. He'll check. There's a senior consultant he knows who might do it, as he's "reaching the age where he wants to retire and is trying to find meaning in life". LOL. Come help me with the mum problem, that's plenty opportunity to find meaning in life! 

And so I've been running around, making phone calls, arranging appointments, making enquiries, checking a bunch of websites. AND getting myself fed. 

I went to a souffle pancake place the sister wanted to eat at. The diabetic had the pancakes (yes, the sister) and I had the avocado and salmon salad with extra sides of scrambled eggs and fresh berries. But there are no carbs in souffles, she says. Of course not. Only eggs. Unless you're having PANCAKES made in the style of a souffle. In which case, read the menu - there is WHEAT FLOUR in there. She shrugs and orders it anyway. I give up. 

I also gave myself a truffle cheese treat - picked this up at 40% off and had some on a rye cracker for a snack on Friday night. Perfect! 

I liked it so much I decided to treat myself some more and ordered more cheeses. 

This whiskey one has BIKSS' name on it!

And today after clinic in the morning with the niece we all decided to have the portabello burger at Shake Shack. The sister was paying. So I didn't feel bad about the cost - SHE thinks it's perfectly fine to pay $40 for 3 mushroom burgers and 3 iced teas. I ate the mushroom+cheese patty (ok, it was very yummy) and veggies and chucked out the buns. The diabetic conviced herself it was healthy cos NO MEAT, all veg, and then ate all of it. Le Sigh. 

Right. And now it's time for bed. That's been this week's update! Catch you all soon! 

Regular Food

Ok now that I've already freaked at least ONE person out with that frog fat business, I thought I might post some of the other pics of "standard" food items that are less likely to induce feelings of queasiness!

Some time ago BIKSS found a place that serves various types of waffles for dinner (not just dessert) so we tried their smoked salmon and eggs - 

It's not bad as far as waffle dinners go, and at least I know where we can have chicken waffle dinners. But we both agree that the batter probably won't stand up to the cold/wet of ice cream. Still, it's not like we don't already have a waffle place for dessert, and I'm unlikely to have waffle for dinner AND dessert anyhow. 

They do an awesome chicken salad and fried honey glazed paprika wings too - 

And the next place we went to on the Friday following that was the tiny teeny Italian place we found last month. Thinking we should try some other mains instead of just their pizza, we ordered a something something salad (I can't remember now) and their salmon and shrimp with wine sauce. And cannoli for dessert.

The veggies were decent enough. It didn't look very enticing but there was cheese so I was happy.

The salmon was ok. By ok I mean, warm. The shrimp were cold. I can't do cold shrimp. Or left-out shrimp. I get sick in the gut. So BIKSS ate the shrimp. And the sauce wasn't fantastic either. I mean, where was the wine? Where was the anything? It just tasted like a generic savoury brown sauce. 

The cannoli looked a LOT better than it was. We had never had cannoli before. But when we bit, or tried to bite, into it we were pretty sure this was NOT what it was supposed to feel like. The pastry was HARD. Not crispy. Not stale. Just HARD. I was disappointed and decided to leave half of the stuff behind. Also there was a family who had come in for dinner and their kids were so terribly ill-behaved that I couldn't wait to get out of there. Yuck.

We went in search of better cannoli and managed to find another Italian joint some distance away, but I'm unlikely to dine there as it was noisy and full of hipster university student types. Ugh. No thanks. 

(We were pretty excited to try a proper cannoli and I forgot to take a picture LOL.)

This pic is from their website - it was expensive tho. I think it was close to 10 bucks. But it was pretty good. At least it was crispy and flaky and not HARD AS A ROCK.

In any case we both decided that the Cannoli is not a treat either of us really enjoys. We're more likely to gravitate towards softer mushier desserts :) Waffles or cake for us please. 

Do you have a favourite dessert? Leave a comment! I'd love to hear about it and maybe give it a try if I haven't yet tried some. Always game for good food!

Snow Jelly or Hashima

Last night we went for dinner at a Tim Ho Wan dim sum restaurant. It's part of a chain that started out in Hongkong and the original Mongkok restaurant earned itself a Michelin Star within a year of opening.

It IS very good. And BIKSS enjoys their baked char siew buns.

He also likes the garlic pork chops and steamed dumplings in chilli oil 

I didn't have any of those dumplings cos I wasn't sure my tummy (or my sinuses) would be too happy. After Covid I found that the slightest hint of chilli heat would irritate my nose and throat and then I'd end up with a lot of phlegm and can be heard coughing from a mile away. 

The other thing, the tummy thing, is cos I'm trying out a dark plum concentrate detox programme that is supposed to help clear out the bowels. So far it's not bad. I mean, I go daily and didn't think there would be too much for it to excavate from my intestines. But on day 1 I had +2 poops aside from my usual one, and on day 2 I had +1 poop. It's quite a gentle stirring and not the crampy diarrhoea type of emergency toilet runs that a lot of detox teas seem to cause. 

Anyway since I was on the plum detox I didn't want the chilli to aggravate things. 

I ordered some steamed beancurd rolls and spinach dumplings and that was our surprisingly filling dinner. 

While chit chatting at the restaurant to kill some time before our movie (Black Adam!), I mentioned to BIKSS that I recently got a couple of bottles of ready-to-drink Hashima. What's that, he asked. I looked it up and read him the description I got off Wiki - 

Hashima, or Hasma, is a Chinese and widely Central Asian dessert ingredient made from the dried fatty tissue found near the fallopian tubes of true frogs, typically the Asiatic grass frog (Rana chensinensis). Because of its whitish appearance, hasma is often called "snow frog fat". Hasma is relatively expensive, so it is reserved for special occasions and in high-end restaurants. 

(It's also sometimes called Snow Jelly or Snow Frog Jelly, and the Western pharmaceutical term for it is Oviductus Ranae.)

He gave me a look of faux (or not so faux) shock and horror. 

Wanna try some? 

What here? Now?

Why not! I'm pretty certain we can find some at the traditional Chinese tonic shop we passed by earlier. I saw one on the ground floor innit?

Now the thing about our malls is that because we're smack in the middle of South East Asia, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) shops are all over the place. A long time ago they were mom-and-pop shops in residential estates, but in the last couple of decades we've seen brands go upmarket and open up branches in all the popular malls. 

They look like a Chinese herb version of Boots or GNC you know? Something like this - 

  

or this

Anyway he gave me a look and with a great deal of resignation said "You know you're probably one of, wait... no, you're the ONLY person who can get me to eat or drink weird things. Frog fallopian tubes? Ugh."

They're not fallopian tubes. It's the fatty tissue found NEAR the fallopian tubes. 

What does it taste like? 

Like bird's nest. You like bird's nest right? It's sweet and everything. Like jelly. 

Yeah, but only because by the time I found out what bird's nest was I had already decided I liked it. 

Great. Let's go. I'm pretty sure (shopname) sells them in ready-to-drink bottles. That's how I got mine at (differentshopname). Just pop the lid and drink!

They did indeed sell it there. So I bought a bottle (just under $10 for 230ml) which I shared with BIKSS. 

This one is red date flavoured.

Phew, that's the dates then, I thought it was the frog thing. 

Er, no. It's NOT the dates. The dates are what they use to make the syrup. That IS the frog thing. 

The lighting's not the best but I managed to get a light UNDER the bottle so it might be easier to see the jelly-type things. 

He was pretty calm about it. I took a sip, passed him the bottle, he took a sip and passed it back to me, then I took a gulp so that I would get some of the hashima, and he did the same. Surprisingly he wasn't too repulsed by the thought of frog fallopian tubes (as he calls it) in his mouth and managed to drink the thing. 

Not bad right? 

Actually if I didn't know what it was I'd probably be playing with it, like squishing the jelly through my teeth.. 

Haha, exactly! That's what I do!

I found THIS LINK for a hashima dessert recipe - there are some clearer pictures there of what it looks like and how it's cooked traditionally.

(from julieolive.co.uk)

And if you want to know why I got some for myself in the first place, well, Western medicine doesn't seem to be able to solve my post-Covid coughs, so I thought I'd try some Asian / Chinese remedies. 

According to this website -  Hasma is taken for medicinal purposes in Traditional Chinese medicine. Reported benefits of eating hasma include replenishing vital essence in the lungs, kidneys, and improving skin complexion. Hasma is also prescribed to treat respiratory symptoms such as coughing, hemoptysis and night sweats due to tuberculosis. Young children are however not recommended to take it, as the high contents of hormones might cause puberty to begin early.

As I'm way past puberty and could always do with better skin and lungs and kidneys, why not right? 

And if you're still not convinced, here's some science to back up its claims of immunomodulatory, antioxidant, antifatigue, antiaging, estrogen-like, hepatoprotective, hypolipidemic, antiosteoporotic, antidepressant, antitumor, antitussive, expectorant, anti-inflammatory, and antiasthmatic activities! 

That's a lot of stuff for one little frog's oviducts to do! What about you, would you ever give Snow Jelly a try... now that you know what it's made of?

The Vacation Part 2 - More Food Pics

On the second day of our vacay we spent the morning roaming around a touristy street food area. We ate some famous chicken rice balls which didn't impress BIKSS. Nor me. But it was very cheap and the chicken was delish. The rice, well, meh. It was balls of rice. That was it. I suppose if you're into portion control you could use these as a measure each time you ate. Provided you wanted chicken rice rice at every meal. Cos it's not just plain steamed rice, it's cooked in chicken stock and flavoured with chicken fat and other condiments like garlic and ginger and soy sauce. In other words, totally bad for you. 

Then we looked at some shops selling knick knacks, and found one that every sub would approve of! 

Do not beat! Indeed!

At the end of the street there was a chendol shop so we stopped in for a bowl to escape the heat and soothe our parched throats. We chose one with a topping of durian! Yummmmmms.

After that it was time to burn off all those calories. So we walked over to visit the church / fort that was on top of St Paul's Hill. 

He very obligingly posed for a picture at the bottom of the hill. 

We need to do this, I said. Cos you haven't been up here before. And definitely not with me even if you have, many moons ago. And if you don't do it now, we may not get another chance.

Why? What's going to happen to it? 

Nothing. But I doubt our knees will be able to handle these steps by the time we next decide to vacation here. 

He scoffed at me. No problem he said. No issue. 

Halfway thru he said "Hey let's take a look here"... coming off the staircase and onto a grassy area as he did so.

Are you pretending to be interested in an empty plot of land because you're really just winded and don't want to admit it so you think if you show interest in something over there that forces us to stop climbing I'll be fooled?

Uh - huh 

...followed by a grin, some nodding, panting and finally a bunch of kisses as I get to where he's wandered off to.

Eventually we made it to the top. The view was spectacular, we played around with pictures (let's pretend we're posing for instagram fotos! - neither of us has an instagram account btw lol) and he took great interest in the old graves behind the church.

Loving my floppy hat

Look up there, he said. Up where? Anywhere! Just pretend you're looking at something exciting!

He spent a great deal of time reading the inscriptions on those graves.

After that workout we headed back to the hotel to get out of our sweaty clothes and change into something pretty (me, that is) for afternoon tea at the Majestic! The last time we were here BIKSS practically kidnapped me for a quick getaway cos I was so stressed out by the father-is-sick-siblings-not-helping situation in 2016. 

The menu's slightly different, but their tea and scones were the same, thankfully!

There was a pretty rainbow of colours on the cushions when we finished tea! 

We walked back to our hotel where we chilled out for a bit. Saw some local chickens along the way :)

Dinner was at a place called the River Grill. When we got there we were worried that it might be closed cos it was practically deserted. They assured us they were open for dining tho, so we got a table by the river and had a surprisingly delicious meal. It didn't look like much but it was full of flavour and the fish prefectly done!

There's the colourful boat that takes tourists down the river and back. I'd been on that ride with some girlfriends once before and BIKSS wasn't too keen so we skipped it this time. After dinner we sat on some stone steps by the river just enjoying the evening and chatting away about stuff. I think we were talking about land to air missiles and torpedoes. LOL. Yeah, we have weird conversations. 

We took pictures of us smooching and messing about with each other. It was a lovely relaxed evening - the kind I don't get enough of at home. 

On the morning of our departure we stopped at a famous crepe cake shop for breakfast, and I picked up some cakes to take home with me. Mind you, it was going to be a long drive, so the lady packed some ice into the insulation bag we had (BIKSS had one in the car) and I managed to bring the best crepe cake on earth home to my caregivers, without whom this trip would not have been possible. I'm glad they got to try some. Cos EVERYONE needs to try a Nadeje cake at least ONCE in their lives, imo. If you ever find yourself in Malaysia, look it up. They have branches in all the main cities I think. And while all the flavours are awesome, you simply have to sample their all time bestseller original vanilla. 

Purple yam for me, tiramisu for BIKSS. The perfect way to end our vacation before heading home.

Last Night's Picnic

Between the last post and this one I've taken 2 days off work because my back started acting up. I did still manage to cook an authentic Peranakan meal for BIKSS cos the Michelin Gourmand Bib Peranakan restaurant we went to last week was totally NOT authentic, in my opinion anyway. 

We ended up going to the beach and using an unoccupied BBQ station - 

Complete with candle in lantern for a romantic atmosphere!

On the menu were 3 of the dishes we ate at the restaurant -

1. Ladies finger / okra fried with rempah 'titek' - a sauce made with belacan (it's often just called shrimp paste but is actually made from dried, salted, fermented krill) chilli, shallots and candlenut, and garnished with fried shallots and lemongrass.

left - restaurant version / right - my version

(What I didn't like - Gravy was too thick and gooey and didn't have the texture necessary for a 'titek' rempah - one should be able to feel the ground candlenut in the gravy.)

2. Duck or chicken 'sio' - a gravy made with ground and toasted coriander seeds, shallots, sugar and tamarind water, and garnished with spring onions (because I'm not a fan of coriander leaves).

top - restaurant version - duck / bottom - my version - chicken

(What I didn't like - Duck was overcooked and outer bits were tough and stringy, gravy wasn't sweet enough and didn't have the right balance of sweet vs sour vs savoury, consistency was too thick. It's meant to have some run-ability, not a goopy paste that won't run off a spoon.) 

3. Sotong goreng assam (literally squid fried with tamarind) - works with prawns too. Marinate the seafood of your choice in tamarind water and dark soy sauce (edit: and sugar!). After 30 mins, chuck out most of the marinade then stir-fry the squid/prawns in a very hot pan/wok as quickly as possible - especially for squid because anything longer than 3 or 4 mins (max!) will render it too tough to eat (then you're gonna have to let it stew for 30 mins or more to retenderize it). Garnished with fresh cut green and red chilli (pre-soaked in soy sauce) and fried shallots and lemongrass.

left - restaurant version / right - my version

(What I didn't like - Too black! Too thick! Just gross.)

BIKSS was impressed with the texture of my squid. He thought it was perfect! Heh. See, I CAN cook. It's just that proper Peranakan cooking is bluddy tedious. But seriously, that restaurant was charging an arm and a leg (and probably a kidney) for the dishes they served. And I was miffed that we didn't get an AUTHENTIC Peranakan meal. Pffft. 

To finish I had a "fake" durian pudding for dessert and traditional red date + longan tea. Delish! 

After dinner we went to look for somewhere to hang out and have a proper drink, and ended up at a coffeeshop 'corner' near my place. BIKSS had a soursop drink and I had an avocado shake - but the words on the top of the cups were what amused me! "Poke in deep, suck me hard" Really??? LOL. Mine just said "A coconut a day keeps anyone away, if you throw it hard enough".

That's soursop hanging off his spoon in the bottom left pic.

BIKSS noticed a goreng pisang (fried banana fritters) stall so he picked up a bag. I don't think I've eaten one of these in maybe 2 decades! We each had two and then began comparing the roundness of our tummies LOL. (The link takes you to a Youtube video if you want to have a better look at it or see how it's made.) 

While we were there we noticed some exciting looking things on their menus... so the next time we go for dinner I suggested we head there, buy some stuff to go and head down to the beach again for a relaxing (and quiet) dinner. It's probably a lot cheaper than eating at a restaurant too. 

 

The Vacation Part 1

..was lovely. I painted my toenails in the car - 

I also wore my wavy cheap-ass ring that I got online for 10cents! The only finger it would sit nicely on was this one, so I decided to just wear it there. 

I brought Bromley and his friend along but somehow we (I) forgot Finnigan's name... so I decided to rename him Cuthbert. I think. Then BIKSS kept on calling him some other name - each one beginning with C, but just never actually Cuthbert... and by the end of the trip he was Cuthbert Cartwright something something.... the second... or the fourteenth, or some other pretentious sounding thing. 

Lunch was at a popular (and very authentic) Peranakan restaurant where we had (clockwise from top left -) tofu in bean sauce, prawn and pineapple in a coconut gravy, stir-fried sweet potato leaves, and ngoh hiang - a fried roll made of a minced meat and prawn combo. 

While waiting to check in (at 2pm) we decided now would be as good a time as any to pay a visit to a friend's mum. The friend in question used to live with me when she worked here, and has since moved back home but is now in a different state. Her mum still lives in the state we were visiting so I wanted to drop in on her since it has been years since I saw her. We sat and chatted for about an hour - my friend's brother happened to be home too as he was off work that day. So we all had a lovely yak!

After that it was time to get to our hotel - we got a premium suite, cos I didn't want to be stuck in a tiny room for the weekend - but aside from the HUGE empty floor, there really wasn't anything terribly premium about it. Still, big room sparsely furnished is better than small room sparsely furnished I suppose. 

Induction stove. Nice touch. 

King bed with see thru access to bathroom.

LOTS OF FLOOR - That's BIKSS chilling on the bed.

The view of the river from our balcony. 

We went to the sells-everything-store that was situated in the same mixed-development building where our hotel was. Bought a SHIT TON of snacks. (To lug home with us for giving away to friends and students - but of course we had to have some for ourselves to try first so we could decide if we wanted MORE!)

And for dinner we went to an Indian fusion restaurant on the ground floor of the building. I must say, aside from the slightly too-dry lamb, I really enjoyed the food! 

Top left - Kebab and Tikka Platter : Lamb and Veg Seekh Kebab  / Chicken and Fish Tikka / Mint Chutney and Raita (yoghurt with chopped veggies and spices)

Top right - Sparkling rosemary with lime soda thing - sans sugar

Bottom left - Prawn Shaslik : Fresh king prawn marinated and grilled with tomatoes, capsicum and onions.

Bottom right - that green chunk is actually fish! And it was tasty too!

After dinner we took a stroll along the river to the night bazaar. It was a pretty decent walk and I felt like we managed to work off a fair bit of our dinner!

Robot-looking sculpture made from waste metal

Walking along the river

Chinese New Year was ages ago but their tiger lantern is still standing tall and bright in the middle of the roundabout where the street market begins!

And that was day 1.