Watery Wednesday: Penang

http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/

From the snowy Southland of New Zealand, and the hail storms of Auckland, I dedicate this post to http://rainfield61.blogspot.com/ of sunny Penang. "The Pearl of the East aka "The Pearl of the Orient", "东方花园". I love visiting the Botanical Gardens and didn't mind the humidity and the heat.

photohunt: Framed

http://tnchick.com/

A octagon framed window in a Buddhist temple in Malaysia.

Watery Wednesday: Fish Spa

http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/
Fish cleaning therapy is sprouting all over in Japan, Korea , China and South East Asia.
Garra Rufa, a type of small tropical fish, also nicknamed Chinchin Yu, nibble fish or simply doctor fish nibble your skin and eat up dead cells.

My sister Helen took her children all the way from Australia to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to try this out. The fish bites don't hurt but leaves a pleasant tingling sensation.

While this is a new craze in the East, fish massage is not new. It has been practiced for more than one hundred years in Kangal, Turkey.

Photohunt: Fresh: beans from the garden

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Where can you get these wing or square beans (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus),as fresh as this? I just picked it from my sister in law's bean vine growing on her fence in her garden in Johor Malaysia. It is so fresh you can eat it straight away, and have a mouthful of vitamin.

My parents used to grow them in Borneo. It is a good plant to grow because it is very tough and no insect will attack them. So it is a good plant for an organic farmer. The pod is highly nutritious, some people eat the leaves. I guess the leaves are edible as my parents used to serve the leaves of the long or string or snake beans.

To cook the pods, you can blanch them quickly and eat with a belachan sauce, or the traditional way, just slice them diagonally and a quick stir fry with some garlic pieces. Remember, a quick fry, don’t overcook. Your pods should be crunchy, slightly sweet and very tasty. If you overcook, they turn a dull black colour.

Wing beans are popular in all South East Asian countries. You can get them in Hawaii. I don't remember seeing them in New Zealand.

Scenic Sunday: Malayan Tapir

http://scenicsunday.blogspot.com/



Tapirus indicus, Malayan tapir is found in the Malayan peninsular. I saw these in the Singapore zoo. They have an enlongated snout which reminds me of a short trunk of the elephant. The most obvious feature is the white stip from the front leg to the hind legs, known as the saddle. Malayan Tapirs have been trapped in the Malayan jungles and sold to zoos.

I copied this from
http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Perissodactyla/Tapirus_indicus.html

The body colouration is unmistakable: the front part of the body (ending just after front legs) and hind legs are black, while the back has a saddle of grizzled white or grey. While this colouration seems conspicuous, it renders the tapir nearly invisible in the moonlit jungle at night. Young animals are completely different from their mature relatives, resembling brown watermelons with whitish stripes and spots on a chocolate brown coat. They lose this baby coat 4-7 months after birth. The thick hide is sparsely covered with hair, and there is no mane or ridge on the neck. The body is round and barrel-shaped, the tail is no more than a stump. The nose and upper lip are extended to form a short, prehensile proboscis. The eyes are small and beady, and the ears are rimmed with white.

Photo hunt: Twisted

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In a new shopping mall in Kluang, Malaysia, the decor caught my eye. It was twisted branches and twigs.

Skywatch Friday: Malaysian sky and train

http://skyley.blogspot.com/

The train in Malaysia is very long and they leave the station at Keppel Station in Singapore. Then you get off at Woodlands for your immigrations clearance. There are two trains leaving at about the same time, and no conductor to tell you which train to get on. People rush like a stampede. We notice a couple of passengers had got on the wrong train.

The train also stops and leaves the station very quickly. My city sleeker girls realised that before they could get off, the train had already taken off, and they had to stop at the next station.

water festival of Intrudo

water festival of Intrudo

The Intrudo or “introduction” or “coming before” in the local Cristao language (a 16th century Portuguese dialect still spoken at the settlement at Ujong Pasir) was celebrated on the Sunday preceding Ash Wednesday on February 25.

This traditional event, before the start of Lent under the Roman Catholic season of fasting and penance leading to Easter Sunday on April 12, traced its roots to the coming of the Portuguese in 1511 and its 130-year rule over Malacca/Meleka.

According to Regedor (settlement headman) Peter Gomes visitors and tourists from Singapore sportingly joined in the fun. It was a time to get wet with buckets of water and  garden hoses used to wet fellow residents, visitors and passers-by, who were caught out on the villages main street.

***Photo courtesy Metrostar***

Malacca/Meleka

PORTUGUESE MALACCA  1511-1641

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/malacca.html

This is for my fellow Blogger FF, I told her that there is a Portuguese Village in Muslim Malaysia in Malacca/Meleka. The Portuguese built a fort, and unfortunately I can't find a pix in my achives, not did I find one of the villages.

We were taken to the village just before Christmas. The Portuguese descendants light up their whole village, children and adults dress up as Santas, angels to greet the tourists. Some open their homes with juice and home baked cookies. It is quite a tourist attraction in a Muslim country.