Waaaaa... Hairy Crabs!!! ( 哗。。。。大閘蟹！！)

My wife got back from China last Friday.... and she brought along..... HAIRY CRAAAAABSSS!!! This crustacean is a well known delicacy for the Chinese, and it's only available during autumn season. It's quite pricey, especially after China had opens it's gate to the world.

True to it's name, the crabs were rather hairy, especially on the legs and the claws.

How to cook them? It's rather simple (and people prefer to cook them in such manner so that we can savour the original fragrant taste of the crab). Boil some water, add in some salt, a few slices of ginger and a spoon or two of wine to enhance the taste.

Wait till the water come to a boil, then put in the crab one by crab, while they're still alive. (Never, ever, never and ever consume crabs that are already dead before cooking, especially the hairy crabs and mud crabs)


The crabs will be ready in 10 minutes.

The crabs will change colour from greyish brown to orange red. Not the massively hairy claws, that's where they got their name.

Most people would prefer the females due to their aromatic and salivating roe. To differentiate the gender, just turn them upside down, and examine their dorsal pattern. The one on the left is a female, while the other two are the males.
It's recommended to serve hot. Therefore, immediately after removing from the boiling water, open up the shell and DIG IN! The roe are normally attached to the shell.

OOoooooo...... sooooo Yummmyyyyy......

p/s. Hairy crabs are available at selected local restaurants, selling at RM80 to RM200 each depending on the size and gender.

Sweat Sweat Sweat

I got so occupied that I had almost forgotten about my membership at the gym. Paying the monthly membership fee without using the facilities for the pass two months was definitely a waste of money.

I went home early yesterday and hit the gym one and a half hours before dinner.

Did 20 minutes cardio, a few rounds of weight lifting and twisting and stretching, just to get myself sweating (and tone my bulat body, hehe).

Spent another 15 minutes in the sauna to force out more sweat. This is me right after the sauna session. Josh tutup mana yang patut untuk mengelakkan perkara-perkara yang tidak diingini. hahaha.

I took my shower and drove to my mother-in-law's place to company her for dinner. Yah, it's just me and mother-in-law. Wife was away and she will be back tonight. A simple low carb low meat diet seems to be good for me.

Will hit the gym again today.

Thunderous Night at William

A few bloggers decided to have a simple get together before Danial flying off to his 'homeland' again. Danial had picked William as our meeting venue.It's my second visit. As usual, i was clueless on how to get here. To avoid getting lost (and also embarrassment, hehe), I'd happily and voluntarily went to Abg Bear's place to pick him and Hairie up before we went to William. The Navigator I bought didn't recognise 'William'. Ishh...

Though ice cold drinks are not recommended to the sinusitis-prone me, the ice-blended ribena plus longan and fresh ice-blended juices were just too tempting. The big mug was not mine, it's Abg Bear's.

The food were just superb! But this one was my favourite, the seafood arabiata. (More photos of food can be found here.)

It was drizzling when we arrived. And the drizzle turned into heavy rain right after we'd ordered our food and drinks. Then came the thunder! But then, the heavy rain and the thunders was just 'kacang' as compared to the 'thunders' that we'd created. Of course, the major 'thunders' was from Abg Bear. Lot's of interesting stories were told, lots of hilarious experiences were shared, and lots of jaw dropping secrets were told! That was FUN!

And here were the people:
Hairie, Abg Bear,

Budlee, WahazaExtra,

Danial and me (not in pic)

The heavy down pour and the thunder had not affected our jovial mood a bit. We spent a good two hours there before we headed home.

Send Danial Off

Danial flew off to UK on Monday night. He called me last minute to send him off to KLIA. Lucky for him that I came home early that day.

As we were about to head to KLIA, he suddenly missed his Honey Larling, so he gave her a call. Since Honey was free and bored at home, she was more then happy to tag along.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is currently celebrating it's 10 year anniversary. One would notice the extravagant decor once entering the airport. We got interested with this illuminating logo and took some pics.
Here's Danial.

And me.

They got some real size cut-out and a castle-like stage. I didn't want to pose this but 'they' forced me to do so... (ye ke?)


Since we were early, we went for a drink after Danial had checked in his luggage. We got bored and 'someone' suddenly figured out a way to kill time -- took some pictures of faces and put them in the blog.



Danial malu dengan kelakuan kawan-kawan dia tu, sehinggakan dia tutup mata tak sanggup nak tengok. (ke intai dari celah-celah jari?)

Danial's flight was at 2.00am, but both Honey and I got to work the next day and couldn't accompany him till that late. We left KLIA at 11.40pm.

Sayonara my friend. Please take good care of yourself in 'your home land'.

p/s. Danial dan Honey siap bagi beribu-ribu juta flying kiss lagi sebelum kita berpisah....

Two Surprises in a Morning

I got two surprises on yesterday morning.

Puan Tod-tod and her hubby had breakfast with me at a restaurant not far away from our office at around 8.40am.


Just as we're about to leave, a very familiar figure got into my vision.
OOoooo Goooshh... it's our boss! I acted cool. Waved at him and invited him to join us. Hm... nak kata kantoi berbreakfast masa office hour tak jugak, sebab boss pun buat yang sama. hehehehe... Our boss is a very friendly and approachable guy.
The surprise was, he always had his breakfast at home, and we'd never met him in any restaurant during breakfast. So this was an interesting experience.

Tunggu sampai boss habis makan baru kita balik office sama-sama. Baguskan staff dia temankan dia makan?? hehehe

Right before I start my lecture, a got a call. There was this very sweet voice on the other end asking for Josh.
"Hi, this is Pinky.. hehe .."

Fuyooooo...... It's Pinky calling all the way from New Zealand!!

Now I can link the sweet face to a sweet voice!!! No wonder Dr. Chen-chen fall in love with this pretty Pinky! She sent me an SMS later.


Waa... two surprises in a morning.

A Busy Saturday

Last Saturday was really busy. The back-to-back schedule was a mental and physical exertion, almost causing fatigue the next day. Hmm.... age is really catching up.

Here was my schedule:

8.00am Me & my wife accompanied mother-in-law to the market for the weekly 'shopping'.


9.40am Had breakfast with mother-in-law.

10.30am Send my car for service.

11.30am Rushed to a shopping complex nearby to purchase a few items that my wife required for her trip to China the next day.


12.30pm Helped Danial to send his car for minor repair.

1. 30pm Rushed to wife's office to have lunch with her.

2.30pm Drove all the way to Seremban to attend our church pastor's graduation at the Seminary of Theology Malaysia. He'd been conveyed Master of Divinity. Congratulations Pastor Desmond!


6.20pm Drove from Seremban to Kajang to pick up my wife before joining a friend for dinner at the Terrace Cafe, IOI Marriott.

7.30pm Arrived at the restaurant. Had our dinner, had good chat and updates with our friend. Our friends story on her life for the pass two years was so amazingly interesting (and unbelievable) that we forgot how good the food was, until we saw the pics of the food we had....


The dinner was on our friend. Thanks Miss Nica.

10.30pm Reached home. Started packing for my wife's trip the next day.

12.30am Hit the bed.

ZzzzzzzzzzZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Breakfast Alone

I had breakfast alone today. Two burung kakak tua getting themselves for their trip to Bangkok for a short scientific training this afternoon, while the other burung had to go to UPM. Other puan-puan were not free.

I headed to Pak Li. Had meehoon soup. Oh ya, Pak Li of Seksyen 7 is now offering cakes. I took a slice of mango cheese cake the other day.

Looks good but does not really taste like cheese cake. You can't seems to taste the cheesy aroma at all, but the amount of mango was generous. Naming this cake as Mango cake would be more appropriate. Well, it's only RM4.50 per slice, what do u expect?

Hm...today's lunch would be alone too... now where should I go then...??

Rayaaaaaa!

We had Eid celebration in our office last Friday. It's sort of like an 'open house' where we invite colleagues from other departments and faculties over to join in the celebration. And this is the only time in a year that I wear baju Melayu. Getting tired of the old one, I bought a new pair together with the sampin a week before Raya. I thought light colour range would suit my skin colour better.

I'd decided not to put up any photo of foods, nor the drinks. Just people.
Having manja moments with mama, Puan F.

Malu-malu kucing with the burung-burung kakak tua. (Ada burung bernama Tod-tod konon-konon nak jadi James Bond)

Bermesra-mesra with Puan A.

With (left to right) Puan Lala (la la la la la la la ..... ), Puan A and Puan Sue-sue.

Gediking with Kak Nora and Cik Moshee.

Being mengada-ngada with Puan Roz while Puan Lala senyum kambing (la la la la la la......)

See, I told u, they all love to take photos with me, sampai sorok bawah ketiak pun rela.... kih kih kih...

It's fun to meet up with colleagues from other departments too. Other departments will held their raya 'open house' within this week and next week. More opportunities to makan-makan... Waaaaa.... I can't get enough with rendang and lemang!

Preview

This is a preview of what's coming next..

Jeng jeng.....