Scotland: Falkirk Wheel

Have you heard of Falkirk Wheel? It is the world's first and only rotating boat lift!

It is sited in a countryside of Scotland, approximately 23 miles (37 km) from both Glasgow or Edinburgh. To be precise, it is situated in the Falkirk Town, Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire.

Falkirk Wheel was the only point of interest I earmarked for my trip in Scotland, after I stumbled upon. [My entire trip plan is free and easy and by that mean, the rest of the plan is blank of places-to-go, only the places-to-stay].

I was very impressed with such a futuristic structure, in the middle of nowhere, just for the purpose of connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. For the first time, I heard of Falkirk, for the first time I learnt about canals' history (brief) of Scottish. For this case here, the two canals had been historically joined at Falkirk by a flight of 11 locks that stepped down across a distance of 1.5m (since 1800s), but these were dismantled in 1933, breaking the link.

Falkirk Wheel was meant more than just to restoring navigability across Scotland actually.

Chinese Glutinous Rice Dumpling

In the pantry of my office right now, I am having Chinese glutinous rice dumplings (肉粽) as lunch. I have a sense of gratification as this is something I made from scratch. And seriously, it ain't easy! There are lots of preparation work prior to the wrapping, cleaning and washing numerous utensils after wrapping and waiting at least 2.5 hours of cooking thereafter. I always know it, that's why I didn't want to do it myself, alone. I grown up in typical Chinese family where every year praying of Dragon Boat Festival (or Dumpling Festival, 端午节) and eating dumplings are part of the family tradition. I have the vivid picture of my mum wrapping dumplings, siting on a stool with all the ingredients laying on the kitchen floor; I have fuzzy memory of my grandma doing the same. Long hour of hard work.

Then we grown up, my mum demanded helps from me and my sister. I didn't learn dumpling wrapping skill from my mum willingly. Well, I didn't resist it either. I found it challenging and wanted to overcome it and I sensed, she needed company. In retrospective, this was probably one skill that she passed to me with little confident, as she admitted that she didn't like the work and not good at the technique of wrapping the dumpling. Sometime, we would had wrapped dumplings leak/loosen up while cooking. She repeated the same confession more than once. Her little fear blocks her from improvement. Yet, it didn't stop her from doing. My dad loves dumpling apparently and we love it too. I reckon, family love gave her a push to do it. Over the years, she saw my sister's and my wrapping technique doing better, and better. I think, she was relieved.

One little dumpling revived One little family tradition of mine.

Thanks to Mrs Kam and Lynn, gladly joined me last Sunday (Fathers' Day!) to wrap dumplings from 2kg glutinous rice, 1kg of pork belly, and many other ingredients (I used Diana's recipe). If not, I would not able to complete the entire process of dumpling making! whew~!

How I Find Places to Stay in Scotland

SC and I started to plan our trip to UK about three months ahead of the departure. Upon our decision to spend our time in Scotland mostly, I narrowed down my search for accommodation to these cities/Loch/Isle/Shire- Edinburgh, somewhere near Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, near Fort William, in Isle of Skye, and lastly close to Loch Ness (or Inverness) before we headed back to Edinburgh to take train back to London.

We broke down 10 hours of road journey into a week, by having 5 pit stops along the way.

Pit stop as in, spending a night in a selected accommodation.

source: Google Map

That made my effort to do accommodation reservation easier. I searched accommodation not too far from those places of interest. So strategic location of a accommodation is essential to me, Google map was my best friend during this period of time. Most hosts/agents would provide address, if not, the town or the street name of the listed apartment/hotel/house/B&B, etc. When some listing are vague about the location, I wouldn't want to have second look at it.

Pearl Beans (aka Cranberry Beans) and Corn Soup

Peeling off the pod of pearl beans are great for training toddlers' fine motors skill, as well as mathematic lesson for primary schooler- counting, grouping; addition and multiplication.

My daughters love the work involving these beans, I always get help volunteering in peeling off and extracting the beans. Little Bomber first laid her hands on the beans when she was about 3. She was probably attracted to the beautiful appearance of the bean pods.

They love to consume the soup that is boiled with these beans too.

As I surfing in the internet, it is also called cranberry bean,

Ingredients:

• 200g of cranberry beans
• 1 ear of fresh corn (or two, if you wish for more sweetness from the corn)
• 250-300g of pork ribs
• some red dates (optional) - Or carrot
• 1500ml of water
• salt to taste

Penang: Murals/Heritage Trail

After hearing so much of the Penang Murals Trail, we too, took a morning to hunt down as many murals as possible. Along the way, we discovered that there are not just Ernest Zacharevic's murals, there are many other amazing works too.

It was a fun morning, very much like a treasure hunt game- walking towards unknown based on the guided route.

Creadits: KPertiet's paper; Clementine Creative's Watercolour Circles; Misschifis' Fuzzy Felt Alpha;
Telling  the story of our lives from mscraps.com; etc.

Black Chicken and Black Beans Soup

I learnt about black chicken soup from my grandmother. At that time, two youngest aunts were still single and under the same roof with my grandmother. They taught me that this yummy chicken soup was great for nourish the body and the tasteless chicken meat was actually tender and delicious to eat with bit of soy sauce. I had some great time on my grandma's dining table with her and my aunts. They always tried to feed me and my siblings healthy nutrients whenever we were sent by my mother over while she headed out for some errands or her work.

In the nutrition aspect, black chicken does indeed have less calories than regular chicken, mostly due to less fat. For example, a 100 gram piece of regular chicken has around 8 grams fat, while black chicken has only 2 grams.
Recent evidence also shows a higher level of an antioxidant called carnosine. Antioxidants in general are a great thing, and black chicken has double the amount of carnosine than regular chicken. - source

To me, my grandma boiled the most hearty chicken soup in the universal.

Whilst, my mum taught me about black bean. She usually cook black bean soup with pork rib. According to her, black bean nourish blood, essence and yin. One step before making the soup is, the black beans are to be roasted or pan-fried without oil until the skin of the bean crack.

Over the years, I learnt from somewhere else that both black chicken and black bean are in greater effect by combining both together in a pot with black dates and boil. It helps to replenish blood and vitality. So, here's the simple recipe:

Ingredients

• 1.5L of Water;
• 1 whole black chicken
  [I usually would ask the poultry stall to de-skin and cut it into 4] 
• 100g -150g of black beans
  [wash them and then pan-fried without oil until the skin of the bean crack]
• Some black dates (optional)
• Salt to taste

Penang: Occupy Beach Street

Beach Street, or Lebuh Pantai is one of the oldest streets in Penang. Renownedly, it is a vibrant banking district with numerous heritage buildings standing side by side.

It was built as early as 1786 or 1787, subsequent to Light Street, to be the main commercial street of the newly established George Town. Beach Street is older and has been around longer than many of the towns on the Malayan Peninsula including Singapore, Taiping, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. Unlike arrow-straight Light Street, Beach Street was built to follow the curve of the beach, which was then right beside it. The result, as can be seen to this day, is a meandering street as it makes its way towards the southern hinterland. Today both streets meet at the Light Street Roundabout. - source

I used to came for classes at the British Council, Pengkalan Weld, in the evening and drove through Beach Road after class. Besides admiring the charming old-world facade, I enjoyed the peace and smooth traffic home. It was a buzzing commercial area of Georgetown in the daytime. It is still.

Mar 2015: Another Ordinary Day

Time flies, she is 5 now. Love every moment with her, except when she bombs me.

Credits :Sahlin Studio's Digital Scrapbooking Template - May2015; Feifei's Stuff; Amanda Yi Designs; KPertiet@Designer Digitals; etc.

Penang: Apam Balik

Everyone, please meet Malaysian traditional pancake, Apam Balik- literally means turnover pancake.

(source)

I was thrilled when I saw this during our last visit to Penang. This was my childhood favorite! I could easily had it every week in the pasar malam (night market) near my house. But it is getting so hard to find it these days, especially in KL. The Malaysian Department of National Heritage has listed this as one of the heritage food.

A good year ahead

Clean house. Good year.

- Ancient Chinese Belief

As the Lunar New Year arriving soon, the focus for most of us begin with cleaning and decorating, from each's threshold into drawers and cupboards. Jolly, the house would be de-cluttered determinedly, cleaned sparkly and decorated with all sort of lucky symbols to usher the family in a prosperous Chinese New Year. Dirt, residue, negative attitudes, unpleasant words and disrespect are to be swept before or after the celebration.

Along with the clean house, I suppose one's mind must also be refresh and optimistic. Only honeyed thoughts should come out of one's mouth, and the little minds are not reprimanded or scolded during the celebration period. 

Cleaned shelter, honeyed thoughts inject positivity from one to another. And so we all prosperously embarking into a good year. 

Here, I am not going to tell you how my physical house being cleaned up significantly. What is more meaningful, in my opinion is, cleaning up the house of my soul from last year. I started of jotting down things in a year I plan to do since last year. I felt that it solidified the year for me to live on: purposefully, happily. So, here I am again, wrapping up 2014, which I believe it would help to led me to another meaningful year of 2015. Planning for the year is all over the place. 

1. I had been cooking a lot more than before. Sometimes, I can even handle a meal for 6! The routine kicks in so naturally now that, I hardly hear my girls mention about dining out.
2. I jogged regularly, kept sickness at bay.
3. I've saved up the money according to the plan. The question is, what's next!
4. Together with sc and little bomber, we cafe-hopping whenever we had time and had fun throughout the year.
5. I had a great trip with my good old friends in Bangkok.