Forty

I turned 40 yesterday.  17 December 2018.  I am not big when it comes to celebrating my own birthday, because it usually involves me, having to spend money, feeding others on the pretext of celebrating my birthday.  In order not to "hassle" anyone with having to pay for the meal, I'd rather just skip any celebration.  And one week before Christmas is a great escape plan, because it will mean that I will be very busy with this and that activities (or I can "coincidentally" be busy on that day)

But this year, to celebrate my 40th, I decided to splurge.  To be alone.  To sit and reflect.  To just be.

So, I checked myself in to Hilton Kuching, with a room facing the river.  Given, our Sarawak River is known for the trademark milk-tea colour, it was still lovely to just sit by the window and get lost in one's own thoughts.  I had to do some translation works (long over-due), so that explains the laptop. 

That night, after McD's dinner with Noel, I got myself a big bottle of beer (because there isn't any small bottle of wine), some choc, some roasted pork and I continued my hibernation in the luxurious room.  Hilton never fails.  Even if it's 30 years old.  I had wanted to work on my translation a bit more, but with all that food and booze, I went to sleep rather early, waking up at 11.59 to have my last glass of beer, some chocs and to say a prayer for the coming years.  Then of course, in the coziness of it all, I promptly went back to bed.

The next morning, I tried to get up from the heaven of a bed and down to the restaurant by 8.30am.  One needs to maximize the time given to eat you see.  If possible I'd wanna be there at 6.30am - 10.30am!  Haha!  Pig!  I have always loved Hilton's breakfast spread.  And I always will try to have it every birthday.  Usually, I would stay at Tune hotel across the road and come morning, I just cross over for my annual super expensive breakfast.  Somehow, it give me that relaxed feel, just sitting alone facing the window, slowly watching the (hot) world go by outside... and having a good start would set the tone for the rest of the day.

A long time ago, Hilton was an affordable venue for my family to have our special days celebration.  Their breakfast was still RM30-ish, and their dinner RM50-ish.  Up till one year, when Mother's Day dinner went up to RM75, I found that I no longer was able to take mom and dad there anymore.  I wonder how mom and dad did it though, they always took my brother and I for dinners there when we were small.  Tsk tsk... 

So what did I come out with after the few hours alone?  Here is the list... for my own keep-in-check and for your reading pleasure...

1.  Financial:

-  to keep 10% of monthly salary as non-touchable savings

-  if I need money for travelling etc, that will need to be in another "saving" scheme.

2.  Work

-  to be more productive (instead of reading blogs and blogging during work hours!)

-  to complete and improve Admin P&P for my company in 2019.

3.  Health

-  To exercise at least 3 times / week

-  To eat healthily (i.e. cut down on white carbs, eat more veg and fruit, less fatty meat)

*note:  I realized with age, I am already doing this.  During the breakfast (and a few other hotel breakfast recently), I took more than 3 servings of fruit and still wanting.  They are delicious and so refreshing!  And when pork is cooked at home, I realized i need to side step the fatty parts as I am not able to swallow them!  gasp!  Horror!

-  To do intermitten fasting once / week (16:8)

4.  Ministy

-  to intentionally put in more energy and effort into Tadika Ministry as a Chairperson for the last 2 years.  Not avoid issues by sweeping them under the carpet and avoiding those involved in the ministry.

5.  Spiritually

-  to do more devotions - i) with Noel ii)  take up new devo material:  CFC?  Disciple Red?  1 chapter/ day?

*note:  I have yet gotten this figured out - to find something that would work.

-  to do Wesleyan fast once / week.  From Thursday night till Friday night.

6.  Self-improvement

-  to go for a baking / cake deco course

-  to go for a proper swimming class so that I can swim properly

-  to learn how to cycle

-  to read at least one book / month

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.  Psalm 90:42

After checking out in the afternoon, we went to pick up the Kiddo's result.  He asked me if I really wanted to see his result on my birthday.  I told him that no matter what, it's done.  And no matter what, I am proud of him because he tried and did his best.  And no, his results did not spoil my birthday at all.  Not a single bit.  I am still ever proud of him.  Always.

Penang Duo Trip, November 2018. Day 3

Our third and final day of eating... tomorrow, our flight departs at 7am, which means we need to be at the airport by 6am (i.e. taking Grab at 5am).  And that will mean that we will not have time for a proper Penang breakfast.  I noticed that most of the kopitiam / stall only starts their business at 8am.  But why??? Meh.

Anyways, today I planned to go to Him Heang, to get my much loved Biskut Tambun.  Somehow, I don't think that other brand taste as nice.  Maybe because Him Heang is baked fresh every morning?  Or maybe it's because Him Heang was the first biskut tambun I tasted.  Whatever it is, I must have Him Heang.  But, the problem is, there's only one Him Heang outlet, and althought it's still in Georgetown, it's quite a distance to walk.  And because there's only a limited number of bakes each day, it's best to go early in the morning to avoid disappointment. 

But do not fear... dim sum is with you.  Hehe... I lured Noel to wake up "early" i.e. 6-ish, to go out from the hotel at 7am.  I gave Noel the task to look for the route to a local dim sum place called Dai Dong.  It took us about 15 minutes to walk and when we got there, many locals and visitors have already been happily chomping down on the yummy treats.  Here, the dim sum is pushed on carts as well as some types are self-serviced from the counters.  The servers where aged cute ladies.  We enjoyed the dim sum despite only having choice of chinese tea (or can drinks).  We opted for a pot of chinese tea and were drenched in sweat by the time meal was over.  You can refill the teapot with hot water at the refill station.  You will be given an order chit which will be filled by the servers when you take food from their cart / counter.

After our fill, we continued our journey to Him Heang.  Truth be told, there are buses that pass by Him Heang.  Both free and paid ones.  Even bus No. 101 which we took to Escape yesterday.  But, I feel that if we used the bus and didn't walk, I won't be able to justify my eating.  So, eat all you want, but WALK.  Hopefully that will offset some of the calories.  We continue to walk and before long (read:  another 15 minutes), Him Heang came to site and I got my Tambun at 8.45am, the gates were even still closed when I and a few other early birds walked in.  Kiasu.much. I know.

I had actually planned to take a Grab to send the biscuits back to the hotel (I had bought 10 small boxes at RM7.10 each).  But, after googling the distance to our next destination, I told Noel that we'd walk, much to his annoyance.  But walk we did.  Where to?

Well, 2 years ago, when we went to Penang and were on a bus, we came across an eatery at the roadside which had MILLIONS of people eating and waiting for their turn to eat.  They didn't even care if the buses were zooming past them at full speed.  The bus driver then told us that is a popular eating place called Transfer Road (the name of the road).  Upon reading blogs after blogs after blogs about Penang food, I've come to conclude that I MUST eat the roti canai gulai ayam, gulai daging and roti bakar from Transfer Road.  So as we walked and walked, we suddenly realised, eh, we've arrived when we saw the masses of people, even with Rela taking care of traffic.  So Noel went to hunt for a place to sit, whilst I queued for roti bakar.  And when I sat down with Noel, a guy with roti canai kuah gulai ayam came with our plate.  We added on gulai daging (with no roti).  Atmostphere?  Win.  1Malaysia.  Food.  OK-OK.  Maybe we didn't really appreciate it because we were still full from the dim sum.

I had promised Noel to take a Grab so without asking, he just hailed a Grab before I suggest to walk back.  Haha.  So we took a Grab to send back the biscuit.  I told Noel, this will be the last Grab ride for the day.  After resting (a.k.a. pooping) and refreshing ourselves, we went out again.

So soon you'd say?  Well, I wanted to head to Padang Kota to the famous Mee Sotong Hameed Pata, which opens at 11 and they say if you come late, you need to wait for a long time.  So off we went.  Grab?  Nah, we walked of course!

One good thing about walking is that you discover places that you won't on the main road.  For example, while we were walking, Noel said there's a stone in his shoes, so we stop by the roadside to take the stone out.  While he was doing so, I looked around and realised, eh.... this is the Nasi Kandar Merlin that I've read so much about! hahahahaa!!! So since we were already there, we took a seat and I went to take a plate to be shared.  It was a good nasi kandar, we enjoyed the mutton kurma, but still, it didn't "satisfy" our tongue.  After paying up, we continued our makan trail to Padang Kota.  And we walked and we walked and we walked till Fort Cortwallis and not a single sight of Padang Kota.  Then we realised, it's actually named "The Esplanade Park" and Hameed Pata is one of the stalls in this foodcourt.  Noel sat down and I queued for the mee goreng.  When I came back, Noel had order Chendul whereas the main drink there is coconut shake.  I went to get that too anyways.  The noodles?  It's wet and slightly on the sweetish part.  But a good healthy squeeze of lime would balance everything up.  What I do wish is for them to give more sotong, since it's called Mee Sotong... it's squid cooked in some kind of sambal gravy.  Again, though it was nice, we weren't so crazy about it.  

While eating, we were wondering if there's any cheap movie tickets and yeay!  there's RM10/tix maybank card at TGV.  TGV is at 1st Avenue, near Komtar, which is quite a distance away and we won't be able to catch the movie if we had walked.  So although I told Noel that we won't get another Grab for the day, we did and we reached in time to catch Robin Hood.  Good movie by the way.

After the movie, I told Noel I wanted to go for the Viral Kopi Bintang.  So we walked for a round 10 minutes to the famed road side stall.  And as usual, Noel grabbed a table and I queued for the food (or drink in this case).  I think I queued for 20 minutes (under the crazy hot Penang sun) and got our coffee.  I ordered the original kopi bintang and kopi-lo (coffee and milo).  It was very thick and being iced, a thirst quencher.  I preferred the kopi-lo but Noel preferred the coffee.  The bintang / star on top was a win.  She had to shake the milk to make the broth (nothing like those machine in Starbucks) and then lift up her filter high on top of the drink to "draw" the star.  What I loved about this stall is how neat and clean the aunty (and her daughter was dressed to the nines).  They both had their hair neatly tied up.  We had roti bakar to accompany our coffee, it was just a usual toasted piece of bread.

Next on my makan itinerary was Hokkien Mee (a.k.a prawn mee).  I have already fallen in love with one stall here in Kuching, but wanted to try the "authentic" Penang version.  There's a stall nearby which I've listed down (Hokkien Mee 888) but it was scheduled to open at 4.30pm (it was only before 4pm at then).  But we went to take our chance anyways.  And yeay, it was open.  Why I choose this stall over many others, is because they have added on ingredients e.g. pork ribs, roasted pork, intestine etc.  I guess we were there a tad too early, the ribs weren't ready.  So we only added on roasted pork.  Was it nice?  It was, but somehow it lacked the prawny punch.  It was prawny enough, but not as prawny as the hokkien mee in Kuching.  Noel can't even eat the one in Kuching, because of the concentrate prawny broth.  Haha, how's that for authenticity?  And 888 didn't have kangkung!  How can it be???? Even the Kuching's version has kangkung.  So yeah, eventhough it was nice, it didn't meet the Kuching Hokkien Mee mark.

After that, we had to find the one thing on the shopping list - Indian shirt.  In the Grab on the way to 1st Avenue for the movie earlier, we saw the shops that we wanted to visit (i.e. those selling Indian shirts) and we knew that we had to walk in order to get there.  So, we walk we did and we went in and out of the shops to look for a nice and reasonably priced one.  I've long cancelled my intention to get a blouse for myself, because I didn't have the budget, but Noel needed on white shirt for his performance just a day after the trip.  So we walked around, hunted and finally got one.  We also got Penang shirts for the nephew and the niece as well as keychains for Noel's friends.  And we bought Gardenia buns as well as Samudra's Chocolate Cake at Mydin when we went to look for big recycle bag to carry the Tambun Biscuits.

By the time we finished, we came to the end of the street (I think it's Chowrasta) and what would we find but Nasi Kandar Line Clear!! HURRAHHHHHHH!!!!! Eventhough we weren't that hungry, we decided to "close" our Penang Food Trip with a plate each of our favoritest nasi kandar and boy oh boy, did we regret for not coming since Day 1.  This is still THE place for us.  For us, mind you... it might not be "the one" for you.  But we felt absolutely satisfied and was ready to call it a trip.  Awesome closure material.

But did this momma stop at that??? Of course.... NOT.  Haha... my colleague had forever mention Kimberly Road Duck Kueh Chap so I had to go and try it.  We walked again and came to Kimberly's very busy street.  It was particularly full that day because Penang Bridge Marathon was on the next day and there were so many runners / visitors to Penang.  But Noel managed to grab a table and I queued for the food.  I got a bowl of the Kueh Chap and thought later as we ate that I should have ordered the porridge version instead.  It was not impressive at all and we left all the tough chewy sticky rice rolls untouched.  We did finish whatever meat there were in the bowl though.  Waste not, want not.  Kimberly Restaurant is another place where you had to order a drink in order to sit at their table.

With many more people coming in to flood the place, we left immediately.  We walked directly back to the hotel as I wanted to pack and we had to sleep earlier to get up early the next day.  So there ends our duo trip to Penang.  Absolutely satisfying.  Till the next time (and we shall start with Nasi Kandar Line Clear next time!)

Total km walked:  19km.  Total steps:  21K.  Total weight gained in 3 days:  3kgs.