Land Dragon Boat

Our dragon boat team participated in an interesting event yesterday in conjunction with Chinese New Year 2008 celebration organized by the Penang State Government and Penang Chinese Clan Council. The event higlighted 12 Chinese Traditional Festivals as the main theme for this year. Duanwu ( Dragon Boat Festival) was one of the event. Our dragon boat team participated in the Land Dragon Boat competition. I didn't know we can actually row on land ( besides e-rowing). The organizing committee actually built a look a like dragon boat on a look alike railway trail on the road. The paddles were customize and they actually look like a enormous stick. Our dragon boat team actually sent 4 teams for the event - Fressiynet ( our dragon boat main sponsor), Penang Forward DB and 2 teams from Chung Ling High School ( Chin Chin, Elise, Lisa and myself was the drummer). Penang Forward team manage to come out 1st. They somewhat discovered a good strategy on the 3rd round, improving their time tremendously from 24 seconds to 13 seconds! Impressive.... I didn't manage to walk around the area for the entire events, as by the time we completed the event (tad bit too many rounds ...*sigh* plus at the end when everyone was hoping to wrap up, came this long winded women as the MC) I wish I just could have smacked her to shut up ( didn't meant to sound aggressive, but she was WAY too ANNOYING! ). Went for dinner at a mamak stall nearby after that with Chin Chin and Kenneth.

A new year of reunions

It has been a new year of reunions for me.

It started with the CGL97 reunion with the group. This is suppose to be the official CGL Class of 97 reunion but most of the time, only the 5 Science 1 folks attend. There is a book and a keeper of the spoon who organizes the reunion and writes about the night in the book.

This year organizers were Guat May and Christine (who couldn't make it eventually) at Palace D'India in Tanjung Tokong. It was REALLY nice to see some people, who I normally only get to see during events like these, such as Doris who now has a son! And Vern Ying (who we affectionately call Poo) and Yvonne who is now a MMU lecturer. I think I haven't met up with Yvonne since uni days.

The lovely ladies with the book of the spoon

Doris handing me an ang pow... gosh, so malu, eh!

Just a note of the Palaca D' India. SERVICE there SUCKS. Most of us spent the night being really impatient with the wait staff. The water almost never came even after many attempts to remind them. The captain who took our orders told us the one order could feed 4 person when it could barely feed 2. And it took forever to get anything in this place! If you want to go to a great North Indian restaurant, I would recommend Passage Through India along Penang Road.


A couple of us, Ai Ping, Suan Lynn, Guat May and me eventually ended up at QEII for drinks to meet up with a few other ex-CGL-ians, Jo Lynn and Marion.

At QEII with the rest of the girls

Oh, and by the way, I got nominated by Doris who was is this year's keeper of the spoon as her assistant.

The second reunion was organized by Patricia for non-5 science-ers. But still it was just basically 5 Science 2 and 5 Arts 1 folks. It took place at an open karaoke bar along Bellisa Row. This place used to be a kopitiam, with roti bakar and coffee. But it has now be taken over by Bed. There were tons of people and we didn't even managed to get to sing many songs. Most of the other patrons there mainly chose Mandarin/Cantonese songs.

To the far left is Fiona with her baby, Jenelle. Photo was taken by Fiona's husband

We ended the night at my favourite maggi goreng spot. The one located at the corner of Transfer Road and Burmah Road. Across from the police headquarters.

Yummy plate of maggi goreng

Back to Penang

Finally I'm back in Penang. Arrived home yesterday afternoon. As usual my eve, first and second day of Chinese New Year will be spent with my family, grandma, uncles, aunties and cousins in my mum's hometown. I had been indulging myself with lots of FOOD ( grandma's cooking and cookies) for the pass few days!(Guilty!Guilty!) and not forgetting been constantly sleeping as well. *gulp*. I could see a small tummy on my stomach now! Was lazy to do my weekend run today actually but with all the eating and sleeping, decided to drag myself up today at 4.30am for the 6am run with Chin & Kenneth. Did a near 20km run today. I thought Tsen and Wei Chern would be buzy celebrating CNY, but to my suprise I met Tsen and Wei Koon (Wei Chern's tri-athlete brother) along the way. The weather today wasn't good for running today. Felt a bit humid at the end of the run. Was an average run today. Guess with all the eating the legs just felt heavy. Anyway I was happy to be able to run with my running partner again. That made my day!

Running Route : Clock Tower - Copthorne Hotel - Clock Tower
Time : 1hr 53 mins

Detailed Map

-Lynn-

It kinda sucks to run alone :(

My running partner is travelling to her mum's hometown of Terengganu for Chinese New Year! SOB! My running group is busy. So I ran alone today. Couldn't miss out on today's run as I imagine the amount of food I will be consuming over the next four days.

I practically had to drag myself out of bed. The intention was to wake up at 6am and get running by 7am. I didn't manage to get myself up until 6.15am. And I plodded around VERY slowly getting ready. I intended to run around Air Itam dam to train myself on some hills but I considered the crazy marketing crowd I will probably meet driving up there so I changed my running plans to Botanical-Jesselton.

Target distance: 10km.
Target time: 55 minutes (5:30 min/km)

I did managed to reach the Youth Park parking lot at 6:53am. I was still so darn sleepy and it was still so darn dark that I actually took a 5-minute power nap in my car. I really like running in the morning as the weather is so cool. Plus at 7am, you pretty much have the roads to yourself. The start of the run can be best described as sluggish. My body and brain was still asleep. As I entered Botanicals it got a little bit better. I suffered on the hills in Botanicals and Jesselton. On good days I can chug up it with a pretty good pace. But on both occasions today I felt my pace slacking off quite a bit at the end.

Detailed Map Here

I ended up taking 56:21 about 1:21 minute worse than my target. Grrr... I need more hill training and definitely more interval training.

-Chin-

Francis Western Food, Pulau Tikus

Lynn had a craving for western food and suggested we try Francis Western Food. She read somewhere that he was former a chef in Singapore who decided to return to Penang to open his own stall. His stall is located in a tiny kopitiam on the corner of Jalan Burma and Jalan Cantoment. Parking is pretty challenging. You need to park further down and walk to it.

The menu is quite extensive. They have classics like Chicken Chop and Fish and Chips. On top of that they do have interesting sounding choices like Baked Chicken with Peanut Butter (?!?) and Bacon Wrapped Pork Chop with Cheese.

I ordered the Chef's Spicy Chicken and Lynn had the Meditteranean Fish. Both were baked so they took awhile to come. The two dishes came with coleslaw and baked potatoes as the sides. The presentation was nice for a kopitiam western food stall.

My Chef's Spicy Chicken was topped with green capsicum, ham, canned pineapple, onions and tomato sauce. The chicken was pretty tender and juicy and the sauce was not too tomato-y. It was interesting (for the lack of a better word) but not fantastic tastewise. Lynn's fish had canned lychee, crabstick, green capsicum, canned pineapple and onions. The coleslaw had fresh pineapple. The potatoes came baked with butter and parsley. The best thing I had that night was the garlic bread which was smothered liberally with garlic butter. YUM! The theme of the night was pineapple.

Mediterranean Fish

Chef's Spicy Chicken

Verdict for now, I would rather go back to the Fort Cornwallis western food and have the yummy chicken chop. I would definitely give Francis another chance by trying the classics but I'm going to stay away from the exotic sounding stuff.

*** Be warned that the place does get busy. Go early if you do not want to wait for a table. It is closed on Mondays.

-Chin-

I am an aspiring chef

Today I made a citrus and avocado salad for Li Yen's potluck birthday party. It was made off a recipe from Food and Wine. The prep time was supposed to be about 35 minutes. But it took me an hour alone to peel the grapefruit and oranges! It is a complicated job to "release the fruit from its membranes" as the recipe called for. Thanks to the lack of ingredients, I did have to do some compromising and substitution. The good thing was that the salad was an absolute hit! And finish in about 30 minutes.

Oh and in the process of making this salad I found out that watercress was in actual fact "sai yong choi". Haha... watercress is just the fancy-schmancy name.

Citrus and Avocado Salad (with "sai yong choi" and pine nuts)

Lynn very dillgently tossing the salad

-Chin-

Run 25k?!?

Tsen suggested we hit 25km this weekend for our long run. Since they are training for KL International Marathon, this is the distance they are supposed to be hitting now. Lynn, Kenneth and I won't be running that marathon. Our marathon will be the Sundown Marathon in Singapore in May.

Route: Rasa Sayang Hotel to Teluk Bahang dam (x2)
Target distance: 25km

I was pretty reluctant to run 25km as our longest distance has been 18km so far. I was worried that a 7km increase might break something. I still recalled the horrors of my first ever attempt for a 25k at Balik Pulau. It brings back bad memories and that distance still terrifies me until today. I told myself I was going to try, no matter what to push as best as I could. So I told myself, try to hit 25km.

Wei Chern announced that he will only do one loop as he was not feeling well. His brother Wei Khoon, a 70.3 triathlete and former winner of the Penang bridge half marathon joined us.

As I started my climb up to the dam, my legs started to slowly give up. I knew it was impossible to continue a 25km. It was going to be a stretch to get to 17km. If I had wanted to do a 25km I should have ran it at my own pace. Starting at Wei Chern pace drained me. When I descended from the dam, I made my mind up to run a really hard 17km because I knew I would hurt myself badly if I attempted a 25k.

Time: 1:34:00

Average pace: 5:32 min/km

Detailed Map Here

-Chin-

My favourite bakery - Rainforest Bakery

This morning Lynn and I went to the Rainforest Bakery with my grandpa. It is own by our friends from the gym, Jerry and Jessie. I believe Jessie is the head baker there. They are associated with Celtic Bakers in London where he used to work. This is the best bakery for bread in Penang so far. Since my return from Oregon, I have been craving really good bread. Which in Penang is few and far between. Until I Googled "chocolate penang" one day and they came up. I now head there almost every week. On Saturdays you can often find me having breakfast there.

The multigrain bread

The best bread they bake by far, the French farmhouse

Cinnamon rolls

Rainforest Bakery is located on Chulia Street beside the Olive Spring Hotel.

Some bakeries I used to go to when I lived in Portland, Oregon.

St Honore (http://www.sainthonorebakery.com/) - The best almond croissants in town!

Ken's Artisan Bakery (http://www.kensartisan.com/) - Some to die for morning buns. If you want to know more about morning buns, check out this post: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/372524

Grand Central Bakery (http://www.grandcentralbakery.com/store_hawthorne.html) - For their freshly baked breads such as Yukon Gold Potato or their Corn Loaf.

-Chin-

Karakudi, Little India

Kenneth suggested Hameediyah for lunch of Friday because Aan Chien, the resident Indian food expert of our 'kampung' (village in Malay) has never been there before. It is probably the oldest mamak restaurant in this state, having been established since 1907 and is known to served a killer murtabak. However, after fighting Friday lunch traffic all the way downtown, it was closed!

ARGH!

So I suggested Karakudi at Little India because Kenneth had previously said some good things about it. I had only been to one other Little India restaurant, Madras Woodlands and they had some pretty yummy food.

Aan Chien and I ended up ordering the lunch set with a choice over mutton curry and an Indian dessert called payasam. It was HUGE! It came with briyani, basmati rice and naan. Enough carbs for me to run a couple marathons! Lynn ordered the aloo gobi masala. We also are big fans of masala tea, so we had that.

Set lunch with mutton curry... and dessert

Masala tea

Aloo Gobi Masala

However, we felt that Madras Woodlands had better masala tea. Lynn was also VERY disappointed that the aloo gobi omitted chick peas. She also proclaimed that the one at Madras Woodlands was better. But, she could be bias because they had chick peas in theirs. The payasam that came with the set lunch had beans and nuts. The consistency was gooey and lumpy. I must admit Indian dessert have never been my thing. Each time I give it a chance and try it again and again at different places. I still dislike it.

Verdict: Maybe we should just go to Madras Woodlands next time.

-Chin-