Visiting to BCF 09 @ Sibu Town Square

Finally, I made it to Borneo Cultural Festival 2009 at Sibu Town Square. It has been a week this festival been held and tomorrow is the closing date for it. Just don't want to be a Siburian who didn't visit to the biggest event in own hometown.

As expected, the place was full with people. I started my visit at Sarawak ethnics stalls section which consists of Iban, Bidayuh and Melanau ethnics. Some traditional and mostly BBQ foods being sold here. Photo below is not satay. It was BBQ chicken tails. Ever try before?

Some ethnic traditional crafts also been displayed for the visitors.

I met some pretty Bidayuh girls (with an elder woman) at Bidayuh stall wearing their traditional cloth! They look nice!

There are also variety of Malay foods available at BCF 09. This "Sup Tulang" attracted my attention, but I didn't try it.

At the other side of the road at Sibu Town Square phase 2, it was where the trade and fun fair located.

Unlike previous year, this year the place was properly tarred. This is a positive improvement from the local council which worth some compliment. It definitely makes walking become more comfortable.

Fun fair section attracted a lot of youngsters and kids. People were queuing to experience riding on mini ferris wheels and mini pirate ship which seldom been found on normal days.

There was also a mini Merry-go-round for small kiddies.

A lot of fun fair stalls had been set up but their games are almost identical!

However, some stalls did put up attractive prizes to attract more customers visit their stalls.

I saw a special performance from New Zealand at the mini stage around the trade and fun fair area. I will reveal about it and show you the photos in my next post.

I then crossed back the road and went to the section where all Chinese stalls were set up. Each local Chinese clan-based association has their own store and decorated nicely to reflect the Chinese culture. The costs of the decoration was bear by the respective association. These associations include Foochow, Kutian, Hakka, Hokkien, Hing Hua, Cantonese, Teochew and Hainan.

This year, Kutian Association had won the first prize for stall decoration competition.

First runner up is Teochew Association...

... and 2nd runner up is Hing Hua Association. (Please notify me if I am wrong for this... )

Personally, I was doubt with the result. In my opinion, Teochew stall should be the winner. From the stall's appearance and shape to the material they used to decorate (Teochew Association was using the real tiles for roof), they are much better than Kutian in my point of view but somehow Kutian Association was the winner. Maybe you can judge by looking at the photos above. I was wondering who are the judges for this competition...

Anyway, at these stalls, you can get various kind of clan-based traditional/modern foods. Although some complained the price is a bit expensive, some people felt it worth the money as some of the traditional foods you hardly find in normal days.

The oyster omelet at Jiang Zhuang (Hokkien) Association attracted lots of food lovers quieing and waiting to buy the food.

Not far away from the Chinese association stalls, some young girls were busy preparing Taiwan style pan cake and fried chicken for you.

For those "buaya"... are you sure you don't want to buy some and have a try?

After about 2 hours of walk, I went back home with some foods on hands.

Tomorrow will be the closing for the festival, so for those who haven't visit to this place, you still have the last day to do so!

Delicous Kueh Chap @ Carpenter Street Kuching

Kueh Chap - one of my favorite Kuching food. The term Kueh Chap is actually comes from Hokkien where the word "Kueh" means cake, in this case it is rice flour cake wider than Kueh Tiaw and the word "Chap" means mixtures, the mixture of pork, its organ, some deep fried tauhu (a.k.a. Tauhu Pok) and special herb soup.

One of the very famous Kueh Chap stall in Kuching is the one located opposite Shang Di Temple near Carpenter Street.

The Kueh Chap stall is not too hard to find because it is located at a very unique food court at Carpenter Street. It is just behind the old shoplots opposite Kuching water front and parallel to it. If you see a place looks like a temple and facing a temple but it is actually an eating place with various food stalls, congratulation!! I guess you have found the place!

When ordering Kueh Chap, you can choose if you want the "Kueh" or not. In Kuching, if you want to order Kueh Chap without the "Kueh", you just tell the cook "Kueh Chap Jeng". Some people may choose not to have the rice flour cake for health sake as rice flour contain high carbohidrate which may lead to obesity.

Anyway, eating Kueh Chap with the "Kueh" makes the food taste less salty as the "Kueh" itself are tasteless. Beside the "Kueh" you can also choose which part of pork you like or don't like to be added to the foods, such as pork skin, pork ears, pork stomach, pork tongue and pork intestine.

This Kueh Chap at Carpenter Street sold at RM4.00 for a small bowl, RM5.00 for a big bowl and RM6.00 for special serving with extra ingredients added.

The price was increased already. Still remember about few years ago, one regular bowl only cost about RM3.00 or RM3.50.

Beside Kueh Chap, you can also find Sarawak Laksa and some other famous and delicious foods at this eating venue in Kuching!

A Short Visit to Memoryland!

This is a place that I was very familiar with, a place that I spent 3 years of my life, a place that I got to know bunch of nice friends from different corner of the country, a place that left me with a lot of sweet memories which I still hardly forget until today. It is Universiti Malaysia Sarawak a.k.a. UNIMAS old/temporary campus at Kota Samarahan! It is my memoryland!

Just happened to went back there with my buddies Chun, Kayel and PY during my trip to Kuching for my roommate's wedding last weekend. Special thanks to PY for making this revisit a success! Despite limited time, she still made her efforts to bring us all the way from Kuching town to our memoryland. Really appreciate this.

The feeling was just too great to describe when you stepped onto the land that you are so familiar with and the land that you left so much of sweet memories there at the time you left it. It was just like you back to your old time and all the past memories were flash back into your mind!

We passed by the restaurant building. Last time it used to be called as the name "Pohon Mas". This was the restaurant we used to have our breakfast, lunch or dinner because its environment was the most romantic among the eating places available in UNIMAS and it was fully air-conditioner.

Opposite Pohon Mas, it was the Surau, the place where all the muslims having their prayers everyday.

Then we stopped not far away from the Surau in front of the hostel we used to stay. It was an in-campus hostel called Sri Samarahan.

So sad to see this hostel had been abandoned already. There were no sign of life, just left broken windows and damaged wall!

We further walked down and finally reached the block we stayed in our first year of university study.

This block was quite seriously damaged already and it was among the earliest hostel block in the temporary campus. The room with a disappeared window and damaged wooden wall was the room Chun and me stayed in during our first year in UNIMAS.

Chun and me walked into the room. We wanted to find back our memory here. We shared this small room in year one. It was really too small to share. We even had to attach our study table to the bed, our bed acted as the place to sleep and also as our chair to study! There was no extra space for chair! Can you imagine that? Although it was small, but we had a great time staying there!

That is the corner I used to hang my wet clothes after washing... and you know what? Both of us could even hear the sound of termites (a.k.a. white ants) bitting the floor at night time when we slept! That was really an unforgettable experience!! A lot of my notes put inside a box was eaten by these termites!

So, because of the termites attack, the wooden floors now were mostly damage. That's why we walked with extra careful when visited it just to prevent the floor collapsed when we stepped on it.

Can you guess what is it? No! It is not the place for you to put plants! It was the place that we used to wash our clothes and this was what happened to it now! All the plants grew up from there! How sad...

The building in photo below initially used to be girls' hostel. We used to call it "police station" because it was painted white with blue strip. Now it was changed to all white. The blocks were still in use as the hostel but it was boys' hostel this time because we saw some new guy's students moved their things in.

We then further drove down to the former UNIMAS main hall. This was where we had our graduation ceremony but I am not sure if it was still in use for other purposes. Didn't have time to walk in to have a look, so basically just stop by and snap some photos from outside.

Our last stop was outside the Faculty of Information Technology! This was one of the place we spent most of our time in because computer labs were here.

Opposite the faulty were the 2 lecture halls we used to attend lecturing. They were named as DK1 (Dewah Kuliah 1) and DK2 (Dewan Kuliah 2). One lecture hall could accommodate about 300 students at one time I guess??

After about 30 minutes of revisit to the old campus, we then left the place with full satisfaction. Although we hoped that we can stay a little bit longer to get back more past memories there, but time was chasing for us. We left the place with heavy heart, yet we always hope we can visit back here again to find back our memoryland, the place that left us with too much of sweet memories!


p/s: Special thanks to PY again for her efforts to bring us here. Otherwise, our dream won't come true!

A Short Reunion at Roomate's Wedding

Just back from Kuching. Went there with my buddy Chun to attend University's friends Lian Hin and Linda's wedding dinner. Lian Hin was my roommate for 2 years when we stayed in hostel whereas Linda was my coursemate as well. Both of them were holding hands since the day I knew them but I guess their love started much earlier than that. After many years of "love marathon", they finally chose to become official couple on 4th of July 2009!

I felt very honored to be invited to the wedding reception with other university buddies, Anita, PY, Kayel and Chun. This was a good opportunity for us to have a small reunion after we graduated. Actually about 3 years ago we almost got the chance to have the reunion when Anita was getting married. Yet, because of some unavoidable reason, Chun couldn't attend the dinner. But this time, all of us made it. Kayel flew all the way from Singapore at the very last minute just to make this reunion a success!

We had a great time at the wedding dinner which was held at Lee Garden Restaurant in Hock Lee Center.We chit chatted like old days, laughed like old days, made fun of each others like old days... Wow! The feeling was indescribably wonderful! It was just like we back to the past with time machine where we used to study together, attend lecturing and even sit together in the lecture hall, doing assignment as a group, modify coding from the same source (ssshhhhhh...), breakfast, lunch and dinner together and the list go on! We almost did everything together (except slept on the same bed of course) but surprisingly non of us end up as couple! Although I guess some sparks did occur between some of us, but at the end it couldn't develop to be the fire. Well... maybe this is our destiny, this is our fate, our fate to be forever buddies!

I appreciate this friendship very much and I know so as them. That's why Kayel made last minute decision to fly all the way from Singapore just for one night stay to join us. Anita and PY never hesitated to spend their time bringing us around Kuching and tried to give the best hospitality they could. PY also made her efforts to brought us to taste Kuching foods we missed a lot and also to track back our memory lane. Hopefully I will try to reveal about these in my coming posts.

Back to Lian Hin and Linda's wedding. I felt so happy for them as their coursemate cum friend. Lian Hin is a very shy and low profile guy. We never had any arguement throughout 2 years of stay in Sri Muara hostel No. 98 house. I learnt a lot from him especially about computer and hardware stuffs. We also used to play Counter Strike as a team to fight with our "enemies" next door. I really missed those time very much!

Whereas Linda is a very softspoken lady. Although I didn't know her as much as Lian Hin, but her love towards Lian Hin never change since the day I knew her. Usually no matter where Lian Hin went, you would likely see Linda was accompany at his side and finally both of them chose to be a couple! I really felt proud and happy for them!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish them have a blessed marriage and wish that their love will last forever! Happiness forever my roommate!