Supposedly this is one of my blog in May, but it ended in June… now it’s November… Oh well… LOL
1st day (24/5): Or perhaps one should say first night as we arrived at 2000 in the Kuching International Airport. Waited for Tze Kang to arrive as he is our host. He arived at 2105 from Miri. Then his father fetched us back to Beratok, his home.By then the time was 2200 already. Later on, he drove us to a nearby kopitiam which serves game as well and we were served some unique dishes. There were “pi” (love it so much; it’s a kind of animal), koay teow noodle served with tomatoe sauce (nice), mani vegetable fried with anchovies and egg (yummy yummy) and venison (erm… okay, but I prefer the one in Penang)… At night, the scenery up above the sky was breathtaking with millions of stars twinkling. What a sight!!!
(25/5) 2nd day: We went to have breakfast: Yen Cheng had kolo mee, SK had himself “lui cha” (a very healthy dish; however, for those who don’t feel like eating food as bitter as this for breakfast, this is definitely not your dish of the day, unless if you eat it in Mid Valley: it’s superb!!! Love it!), Tze Kang had himself kolo mee as well, and I laksa sarawak. It’s okay, but after I tasted kolo mee, kolo mee wins me over and became my top choice of delicacy in Kuching!!! ^^
Then, we went to Jong’s Crocodile Farm. It was awesome during the feeding time of the crocodiles. We get to see them performed on pouncing their prey: some were swift and fast; some clumsy and in Spanish we say torpe) LOL… Other than that, we get too see kingfisher, monkey, peacock, australian turkey (huge like an ostrich but colourful like a turkey), porcupine, otter and sun bear too… We bought some souvenirs: bookmarks, cute crocodiles magnets…
After that, we head to the famous cat museum. At first, one who had not been there would probably thought that the duration spent there would most probably be very short, but alas! We took approximately TWO HOURS plus in it!!!! Can you imagine that? And that was also because I got tired of looking at each and every one of the stuff there and I was the LAST!!! Oh my god!!! However, it really gave me quite an insight about cats and all. Did you know that there was a cat who gave birth to 240 kittens in her whole life? Or that a millionaire gave his cat all his fortune?? I was also captivated by a movie entitled ”Cat People”. It seems to be quite a movie to catch. I wonder if I can find it in youtube. Haha… Bought more souvenirs: bracelets, pen covers…
Then we had some satays of all sort near the river of Kuching. They reminded me of the “char siew” as the sauce the vendor use is similiar with that of the “char siew”, a delicacy of us chinese. After eating, three of us: SK, Yen Cheng and I had a sampan boat ride across the river whilst Tze Kang drove to the other side. It was quite a ride, I assure you. With three of us, it was unbalanced. I even had a moment of dread, thinking that I was going to drown in what Tze Kang called as the dirtiest river in Kuching. I’m not sure about that though, so no comment on my part… Fortunately, it went supringly well… LOL… When we arrived at the other end, I saw a bazaar selling aunthentic goodies from Kuching. So we went in to hunt for some more souvenirs. That was when the situation started to get ugly. It seemed that we were “hacked” by the previous souvenirs stalls and shops. I did not really lose lot of money, but Yen Cheng and SK did. Poor souls!!!! You could literally hear yen Cheng mumbling about this on and on. I felt so guilty that I wanted to give back the amount that they lost, but she exclaimed, “Are you crazy?!” LOL
Okay… This is until the second day. The rest, I cannot tell you in perfect sequence of what had happened or where did we visited since it had been so long. Actually, I even had the nerve to forget where we went when Tze Kang’s mother enquired about it. How forgetful am I! So there won’t be any details of date or time… Here goes:
We went to the pitcher plant and orchid farm. It was quite a scenery, but need some improvement and new collection. Perhaps one of the charms that Kuching hold is its mother nature’s gift: greenery… I don’t know about the rest, but I LOVE it!!! I remembered there was this time when Tze Kang got lost and drove into a dead end. But imagine this: there’s a school just before the dead end!! Cool, huh? Anyway, along that route, there were trees that look like pine trees lining on both side of the road, creating a canopy walk that you can only see in states, such as Canada. It was a beautiful sight, no doubt!
We also went to the cultural village. The fare is super duper expensive, but luckilly Yen Cheng and I have our student cards still. In it, we went into the chinese traditional house whereby we can see cookery, the original scene that one sees in drama series and also the pepper processing utensils, Malay’s traditional house and played “congkak” (it was my first time playing, in which I lost to Yen Cheng several times before winning once… LOL), the Melanau tall houses, Ulu’s long house (love this the best as the people carved beautiful and colourful decorations), learnt a trick or two in blowing the “sumpit” with the Pendan, went to the Iban house and last but not least watched a cultural dance performance… On the way back, we went and have a pit-stop in Santubong beach. It was very nice and seemed to belong to us four as there were no one there. Tze Kang said when it nears Hari Gawai, swarms of people will lunge themselves into the sea and gather at the beach. The scene was superb… like a picture I’d seen in the Internet…
We also went to the Chinese History Museum. There were many stuff there, like histories of hainanese, hokien, tew chew, cantonese and etcetera and etcetera… Also, they have musical instruments, cookery (some made from jade even), lion dance’s props, some prayer altars, a trishaw and many more…
We had two stops in shopping area: one is in Crown Plaza, the other I forgot already. Why would I remembered Crown Plaza? (snicker) Because I found Beauty Credit there!!!! I once bought their products in Penang: they were really good and dries fast (nail polish by the way), but then they shutted down. So sad, right? So imagine my happiness when I saw it in Kuching!!!!! ^^
More food blog up next: Tze Kang brought us to eat “lek dao shuang”, a hot mung bean dessert, chicken cooked “siu mai” (yummy yummy… after I came back, I can’t take the pork ”siu mai” for a week), more kolo mee and freshly made soya bean drink and salad with cuttlefish… I think that’s for now… I can’t really recall already. LOL… Pictures will be up next!!!!