Chai Tow Kway

my heart always has a place for my favourite dishes back home in Malacca especially chai tow kway. growing up with this dish and specifically buying from the same old man and his wife who set up a stall during Wednesday or Monday pasar malam in bukit beruang or in morning market in bukit baru, i adore this dish tremendously. for those who have no idea what chai tow kway is, check this out Wikipedia- Chai Tow Kway (omg even chai tow kway has a wikipedia page!!!!) for 18 years, i been eating the chai tow kway from this same old man till i finally decided to do myself. chai tow kway may be nice to eat but it is so tedious and freaking complicated to do it! hahaahah..but i enjoyed doing it because finally i tasted it again after 8 months long. =)

Shen's Chai Tow Kway @ Fried Carrot and Raddish Cake

mixing the rice flour with water.
( i modified the recipe a little bit due to insufficient flour and because of that, my chai tow kway turned out be a Lil too sticky)

after adding in the fried chai por and shredded raddish and carrot, it is steaming time.
the hardest part is shredding the raddish and carrot. because i do not have a blender, i have to use the manual way using the shredder. it took ages just to shred 150g of raddish and 100g of carrot!!!! scream!!!! i am so gonna look for a secondhand blender next year in garage sale.

after an hour of steaming, that's what i got. at first, i was a little afraid that it did not came out well because it was flabby and a little too sticky but thank goodness i still could produce chai tow kway from it. =)

after the frying process plus the addition of egg,
i am proud to present my chai tow kway!!!!!!!!!!
and the best part it tasted so good just like the old man's chai tow kway and i am so proud of it.
i used dark soy sauce instead of sweet soy sauce. i guess if i had used the latter one, it would have turned out tastier and yummier. but the point is first trial total success!
mummy, next time i could cook chai tow kway for you guys, we don't have to go to market anymore just to buy it. lol..

p/s: i got this recipe from Baking Mum website. so if you are totally free during the holidays ( trust me it is will take up your whole morning just to do this) and love chai tow kway a lot, check out this website Baking mum: Fried Carrot Cake Black. have fun trying.

x0x0,
shen

Who Am I?

It's 25th tomorrow, four more days till my 19th birthday. i have always look forward for my birthday to receive wishes from family and friends,to be drown in gifts and prezzies.... and to overload your facebook page with tonnes of wishes. but not this year. i am not looking forward for my birthday. not my 19th birthday. came from a family who does not really celebrate birthday, birthday to me is just like another ordinary day except for more frequent of phone vibrations. i have never really enjoyed my birthday through out my life except for last year when my friends went through all the trouble to give me the royalty feeling despite it was a week after my birthday. as this year, most of my friends aren't here with me, some are away for holidays during spring break while some are extremely busy with uni life, i can't hide my disappointment. lol. now i shall officially make my birthday as my resting day. a day of sleeping paradise. =) let's see how i grew up in these 19 years.



well, i was born on 29th september 1990. i am a morning child and born in the year of horse. i was showered with love since i was young for i was the youngest in my family and even in my paternal side. which is cool cause everyone loves me despite how naughty i was. according to my mum, i grew up as a mischievous child who creates havoc back in my home.


so at the age of five i learn to mingle with people of my age, making new friends, learning how to read my abc, drawing and colouring and playing too. and during my kindergarten years are the only two years that i had opportunity to make wishes and blew candles.

eventually i learnt that i had cousins and i grew up together with them. we do ridiculous stuffs together, but the best part i could remember was when we formed a spy team investigating the group of rempit kids whom we believed are responsible for the vandalism in our neighbourhood. lol.. and my job was to ride on the tricycle, using an umbrella as my protector shield. kids could really invent the best games on earth. forget about hasbro. life-learning experiences are more valuable.

at the age of 8, i was on my naughtiest period. i always run in the chapel every morning, chased by my principal with a cane on her hand. lol.. i even quarrelled with my mum and decided to run away by bringing only two pieces of clothes on hand to my nanny's home at the age of nine???. i must have freaked my mum out when i actually stepped out of the house.. and it was also at this age i developed chubby cheeks.

and finally i was in secondary school. as i was always the younger one among my friends, i was always taken care by my friends. there ain't nothing much for me to worry about my life during those days. the only thing that we struggle during those days are squeezing boring sejarah facts into our brains and rushing deadlines for various projects and folios.

form 4 and form 5 were the sweetest moments of my life where i discovered my true friends and close buddies... they taught me many things about life and we struggled good and bad together. we laugh, we sing and we even cry together. sitting in a circle and telling gossip are indeed happy moments. dissecting frogs in a group, going for school trips and carrying out prefect's duties together too. fun. best part was being labelled as the nosiest 5SC1 class ever had made us special and different from the old boring nerds.

and even after form 5, we had so many sleepovers in hotels... and resorts which were pretty cool. i miss those moments cause i could laugh without a hidden sadness in me. seeing friends delivering stupid jokes could really make your day.

and now all of us have embarked different pathways...as days pass by, we would even tend to forget the last day we met. friendships are meant to be treasured cause without my friends, i would not have been the way i am today.

studying in intec marked another whole new journey of my life. broadening my friendship range has taught me that every individuals are different and i learnt my strength and weakness through them. in fact, i can proudly claimed that intec was the best part of my life and i love year 2008 the most. despite exams and ielts, i adore 2008 simply because i became independent in so many ways and gained friends from all over the states.

intec was fun too thanks to my roommate, gash who brought the Japanese culture into intec, we had opportunity to dress in yukata, to perform Japanese choir, to do sushi, to dance Japanese dance and to attend bon odori. learning another culture is a fun thing which makes you realise in fact my own country culture ain't that bad at all.

like i said earlier i love intec tremendously despite the horrible lifestyle we lead there. i met really nice friends and caring lecturers. though ausmat cafe food do sucks a lot, surprisingly i do miss them now. though i drank a whole cup of juice with a dead fly in it from the mamak stall, somehow i wish i could actually eat indo mee single again at the same shop. although i actually vomited secret recipe's food, yet i still misses it.

and i had my first prom night in intec too and that day was the only day i felt beautiful of myself. perhaps hidden behind the makeup gave you the confidence that you can't find elsewhere.

and finally i am on my solo journey to overseas without my family on valentine's day.
jpa could really be wise in choosing a date for us to fly.

and when i first arrived in a whole brand new place with no one you could count on except for your friends.. and i felt the fear in me and i missed my family, my bed and my home tremendously.

and i embarked my university life in the University of Queensland. being so fresh in the begining, we are 'WOWED' by every single thing even by an orange mascot. "macam rusa masuk kampung". yeah that was what i felt exactly when i was in semester one.

and we began exploring parts of brisbane, conquering every single places we could, attending every single festivals despite the obstacles we went through or more precisely by me.

and i had my first touch on marsupials like kangaroos, koalas, wombats and etc...

and that's the sweet part of my life.
i had been extremely down this year and faced various obstacles and mostly unwanted ones. but i learnt that good and bad comes and goes... though i had more bad than good, it has become part of my life, to cry and to stand up again.
and that's exactly how i am growing up.
so smile shen you are wonderful the way you are.
and for my birthday, i do not want anything else except some luck to bless me throughout my journey in overseas.
wink wink.

xoxo.

Brisbane Riverfire

i have to repetitively remind myself that i have a blog to update, a blog to tell my friends about brisbane but i tend to put that last in my list.
it is pretty true when i read in one of my friend's blog who said as we grow older, we tend not to express things out. well, that happens to me. i became more reserved now and more conscious of what people is thinking and commenting about me. enough babbling about my hatred of growing up. now i shall blog about Brisbane riverfire, a festival to celebrate the fact that Brisbane has a river. how cool is that?

there is one thing that i realised ever since i came Brisbane. Australians love festivals and they show freaking support towards everyone one of them. like this one for instance.
on the opening ceremony of this event, there was firework display and the most exclusive F-11 jet plane performances. just simple stuffs like that could bring more than thousands of people to southbank to watch it.

people actually gathered in southbank as early as 2pm though the opening was at 7pm. HOW AMAZING IS THAT? we arrived at 4pm but thanks to chong hao who reserved places for us, we could be considered having a spectacular view of everything.

just us getting overexcited with an ice-cream van.

as in a super decorative ice-cream van.

southbank
(southbank is an area near the city with the most famous man made beach)

Rolex planes performances. horrible photography skills i had.

the majestic river that runs along the city right till the end.
come to think about it again, it is pretty unique having a beautiful river in the middle of no where.

crowd crowd crowd.
amazingly people could just wait patiently for the event.

us, who waited for about 3 hours, doing nothing but chatting.

poor sze luan who got bored of waiting and sitting next to me. =(

part of us. sitting on the stone floor till our butt aches.
and
finally
the fireworks!!!!
as i had utterly horrible photography skills, i did not took any pictures on the fireworks. but
i would like to upload some SUPER AMAZING PICTURES taken by SUPER PHOTOGRAPHER SHU NING. all the pictures below , credits to shu ning.
dear shu ning, if you are reading this post, i can be truly amazed with your photos. and those fireworks pictures are really marvellous. don't mind me for uploading in my blog but you deserved triple thumb ups for sure! =)

Bakery Disaster

after 5 weeks of community placement, it has finally ended two days back. definitely gonna miss those moments of watching the experts doing their jobs, counselling patients and dispensing medicine. and the plus part my pharmacist and the other assistants are all female which means i could listen to free gossips and stories (-_-).. though that doesn't seems to relate to pharmacy course..hahaha but that's pretty much the extra things i did there.
as a form of gratitude, i prepared a thank you card for them. but that was kinda last minute. bought it in roma train station and wrote in the train on the way to morningside. genius. time saving. lol.
apart from the card, i rushed home after my anatomy practical exam on wednesday to bake cupcakes for them. though lack of expertise greatly, i still managed to produce something that looks pretty edible though my first round was a product of burnt cupcakes. =X

but suprisingly according to my housemates, they loved these burnt cupcakes a lot. it wasn't really burnt but extra crispy on the top part. yummylicious.
blueberry cupcakes.

and those are my 2nd round that i gave to my pharmacists and the assistants. lol. just crossing fingers that none of them ended up in the loo after taking my cupcakes.

plating up to be served.
looks pretty edible i guess.
i haven't really mastered the icing part so i left it out.. shall learn it in a couple of weeks during spring break.

Anatomy

can somebody tell me why am i studying gross anatomy and histology when i am not gonna be a doctor in the future??

it's not like a patient will come into a pharmacy and tells you that they had a pain in their rectus femoris or in their cochlear or their stratum germinativum is damaged or their spinothalamic tract is not working???????

simply why are there millions of terms just for a part of human body? fascinating yes but memorizing no. radius, ulna, gluetus maximus... bla bla.... vermis, medula oblongata, trachea...wait a minute am i doing my revision here? hahahaa....

just complaining for satisfaction while cramming ridiculous amount of terms into an emo brain of mine for my anatomy practical test tomorrow...may i not flung another test for this sem?

the begining of the nerd-ing life.

Dedication to Sis

Dear Shir Li @ Arabia,

as many might wonder by the name of arabia, i could not give the reason why. it all started many years back when we were still young and ignorant. the name pops into my mind one day and surprisingly it last forever on my mouth. i have never stop calling her arabia because i feel in this whole world only shir li's sister will regard her as that. unique. i adore my sister more than anything else simply because she is a jewel in my eyes. she knows everything around her so well from politics to economics to cars to football to fashion to entertainment and to technologies. her knowledge is incredible and amazing and i admire her for that. i have learnt to cry, laugh and smile from her. i have even learnt to grow from her.
i would not have played lego if she had not taught me.
i would not have love monopoly if she had not brought the fake jutaria back home.
i would not love moffats if she had not bought the cassettes home.
i would not love eating from the small stool in front of the tv if she has not done that.
i would not have fallen in love with football if she did not.
i would not love drawing if she had not.
i would not blog if she did not started one.
i would not love kimi rakkinoen if she had not.
i would not love cooking if she had not either.
i would not love shopping if she had not.
i would not ever know nintendo if she had not told me.
i would not love cycling if she had not.
i would not have obtain a scholarship if she she had not.
i would not study in aussie if she had not too.
i would not have been such a fine lady without her.

I am sorry I could not celebrate your birthday with you for so many years. As we grow older, we begin to drift apart and the only time that i see you is during the end of the year for a few months only. i miss those good old days- both of us in our tiny room telling stories and making up ridiculous teddy bear stories. i had fun and i miss those moments.
but..
you are a wonderful girl now. i love seeing the way you grow cause that simply reflects the way i grow too.
HAPPY 23rd Birthday, Sis!
YOU ARE A GREAT SIS and will be forever.
love ya.


xoxo,
shen.

=(

maybe i should stop believing that things will get better...
because
the more i put faith in it,
the more hurt i got in return
and the more devastated i became.