Kelantan: Kota Bahru

Finally, I have the mood to blog about my first visit to Kota Bahru. The realization of this trip was all thanks to ML who offered shelter to me for 2 nights just before she left for Johor Bahru to start her teaching course.

Before I start, let me warn you beforehand that there will be a lot of pictures of food.

I took the AirAsia flight to Kota Bahru, the capital city of Kelantan. It was really a last minute decision to go visit ML that week right after finishing my electives. ML was a really good hostess. Not forgetting to mention that her parents fed and watered me extremely well too. I reached Kota Bahru in the afternoon. So, our first stop was to find something to eat.

Pulut Tapai - It's really different from the ice kacang we normally have. There's crushed ice, pink sago, cendol, evaporated milk, brown sugar and some other ingredients which I couldn't figure out what they were. It was very refreshing and most suitable to cool down in that afternoon's hot weather. Cost: RM 2

ML's father offered me my first mooncake in 2 years while we visited his shop that evening. Nowadays, all these sweet desserts have the option of less sugar. I used to dislike mooncakes as they were too sweet but nowadays, they're all right.

ML's parents treated me to dinner that night. It was a shop along the road.

ML and I. It is really different to see women being in-charge of business and running the shop without any help from men. That's how Kelantan is like, according to ML. The women are very capable and they run the business.

That's the ayam percik which we ordered for dinner. It's chicken skewered with bamboo stick and cooked over charcoal. Then, think sauce made from coconut milk is poured over it. (I'm getting hungry typing this now)

Sambal daging. It's glutinous rice with sweet meat floss as its filling wrapped in banana leaf. Very interesting combination.

Other types of kuih or desserts

That's how they serve ayam percik with nasi kerabu (rice with bean sprouts, spring onion, and crackers)

Nasi dagang for breakfast with ML and her dad. There's fish, beef, and chicken gizzard served with rice dyed in brown. I don't mind having this for breakfast everyday but it's impossible over here.

We went around the town that morning. First stop was at the port:

The bridge is called the Royal bridge. Don't ask me why. The water looked really yellow.

Next, we went around the town taking photos.

Town area

Kelantan is famous for its arts and craft. We visited a craft centre specialised in weaving.

Imagine weaving a piece of cloth with specific patterns. How do they even remember the formula for it?

Soon, it was time for brunch. I called it brunch as I was still really full from the heavy breakfast and it wasn't time for lunch yet.

Wan tan mee. Noodles in dark souce with vegetables and char siew (sliced roasted pork). I felt that the standard in Kuala Lumpur is better.

After ML's dad went to work, she drove me around town visiting museums on Batik, crafts and Kelantan's royal family.

Some of the museums were formerly palaces. It is interesting to find out that different designs on clothes represented different social class back in the old days.

The famous market - Pasar Siti Khadijah

View from 3rd floor

You can only see women in the traditional Malay outfit selling vegetables and meat.

Another view of the market. I do find it interesting.

After all that walking and driving around in hot sun, we decided to cool down at the only shopping complex in Kota Bahru. We had some cold drink at a cafe. I ordered Mango Passion. It's basically mango smoothie topped with pink sago.

Dinner time with ML and her parents. This time, it was Thai cuisine. Kelantan has a border with Thailand. Therefore, there is a strong Thai influence in its cooking. The restaurant which we went to was really hard to find. It was fine till we went off the main road into a housing estate. Slowly, the number of houses decresed till zero and I saw only trees. Then I saw wooden houses again and finally, we arrived at the restaurant which was formerly a wooden house.

Lemon chicken. It's chicken coated with flour and deep fried before slicing it into strips and topped with sweet and sour lemon sauce.

Tom Yam. As you can see from this picture the huge looking chilli sticking out. It was really spicy. However, it was so delicious at the same time that all of us finished it even thought we were sweating profusely.

Stir fried vegetables. There were sweet corn, cauliflower, black fungus, carrots, chinese cabbage, prawns and chicken in oyster sauce.

Finally, it was eel stir fried in coconut milk, onions and beans. Maybe with some curry powder as well. It was my first time eating eel and one thing I can say is, it does taste different and be careful of the bone in the middle.

On my last day, ML's father brought us to visit Southeast Asia's largest sleeping Buddha. It was about half and hour drive away from Kota Bahru.

The Sleeping Buddha statue was actually outdoors but under a roof. It was really big. Even bigger than another sleeping Buddha status in Penang.

Views around the temple.

I guess even monks have to work for a living. I just find it wierd seeing them cutting grass with the grass cutter in their orange outfit.

I'm seriously hungry right now after writing about all these food. Point to note: don't blog about food when on a diet.

Hanging on

Dear blog,

Sorry for not writing to you soon. It has been a week since I got back to Liverpool. Goodness, I was planning to get a start on the entry for my holiday at Kelantan and Cambodia but I just haven't got the time yet.

I was planning to get as much rest as possible on the 13 hours flight back to the UK. However, the movies offered on the flight were just too good. I ended up finishing 3 movies. From Indiana Jones, Sex in the City to Kung Fu Panda.

F was the first person to call me on the phone when I just boarded the bus from Manchester airport back to Liverpool. I was really relieved that he offered to pick me up from the bus station even thought it was just a small stretch back to my new accommodation. By that time, I was already worn out and really hungry.

I collected my keys and the minute I opened my door, I went, 'Oh my goodness!' My room was used as the store room for 6 peoples' stuff over the summer. I could only go 2 steps into my room and that was it. Boxes and bags were all over the place, not even sparing my bed. I was wondering how was I going to sleep that night. Luckily, F helped me to move a third of all the things out of my room. I was thinking that as long as I have somewhere to sleep, I could sort them out tomorrow. Then, I went down to China town to have lunch with seniors and new students from IMU who are joining 3rd year. Luckily for the lunch or I would have preferred to die from starvation due to lack of motivation and extreme fatigue to look for food if I was left on my own.

I started hospital the next day. It was a miracle how I could drag myself there so early in the morning. I think it was all thanks to my jetlag. It was really stressful to find out how much harder 4th year would be as compared to other years. If only I know for sure that I'm definitely going to pass 4th year. To make things worse, during my introduction to the psychiatric rotation, I was just given phone numbers after phone numbers to contact and arrange for my own sessions to fulfill the requirements set out in my log book. Very depressing but I was set on trying my best to gain as much as I can from this dire situation. I can say that it was really frustrating trying to contact people and the worst part was, they don't even know that 4th year medical students were supposed to contact them. I think I can diagnose myself with depression considering the mental state that I was in.

Came Tuesday night, I went out for A's birthday dinner. It was great seeing friends whom you rarely meet last year due to all of us being in different rotations and also doing our electives and me going back to Malaysia. I was still suffering from jetlag which I have a feeling will take a long time to cure. I'm still sleeping around 10pm and waking up around 6am. Actually it's not that bad as I felt that I can concentrate on doing some revision before I set off for hospital.

Saturday and Sunday(which is today) was cooking day for me. Saturday, I cooked dinner for E who just reached Liverpool that day. Sunday, M and C, my ex-flat mates from 1st year came over for lunch! It was great seeing them again after such a long time. We do meet up once in a while but nowadays, it is really difficult to catch hold of them. I realized that it'll get more difficult once we all start working to meet up as we'll all be in different parts of the world.

My job as the chef wasn't done. I invited another good friend of mine to come over for dinner as well. Cooked salmon. We had dinner together with my flat mates and I who broke their fast at 8pm. Soon, it'll be Hari Raya or Eid and I'll be looking forward to all the nice food.

As I was typing this entry, there was a short display of fireworks which were really lovely from my window. It suddenly occur to me that the view from my window was of the city center and even stretching to Albert dock. Another thought came upon me. Maybe I haven't noticed the fun lurking behind 4th year.

I hope that next week will be another interesting week. Till then.

Here I am, again...

standing on the ending point,
trying to cling on to every last second,
and yet it flows freely through my fingers.

dreading of the moment to say goodbye,
filing away the memories of the good times,
looking forward to face the new challenges ahead.

steeping out of the comfort zone,
my luggages as my traveling companions,
leaving my beloved country behind,
just before her 51th birthday.

Happy 51th birthday Malaysia! I'll celebrate it while I'm in Liverpool, 7 hours behind your time.

When laziness sets in

I guess when you have tons of things waiting for you to complete, but a dateline which is so far down the line, it's the best time to start lazing around and be lazy!

So, what happened to my Kelantan trip entry? It will have to wait until I'm back into the old rhythm again (which I thought was already very lazy but how would I know that I can be lazier?). I promised myself not to start blogging about Kelantan until I've finished my electives report. So, here, I'm keeping that promise.

A few updates, finally, when I was at the verge of desperation turned despair and hopelessness, my sifu, H, provided me the magic number to contact M as I've lost touch of her since she flew back to Malaysia. I was already giving up on my trip to witness one of the 7 wonders of the world this summer and was planning to hibernate at home collecting dust and growing some mushrooms on my head. Such a pitiful state I was in, coming back to Malaysia after 2 years just to stay at home and feel bored. I do cherish that feeling of boredom but being bored for the next 3 weeks till I got back to intensive studying again? No way.

So, with a big smile on my face now, I'm going to conquer one of the 7 wonders. 6 more to go in future! The only obstacle is this stupid elective report to be completed. When will it be done?

Malaysian Food Diary

Warning to whoever may be homesick after looking at all the photos of delicious Malaysian food which I've tasted from this point onwards. I will start with the non-Malaysian food first for those who accidentally scrolled down.

French Cuisine:

My flatmate made this for me and she even gave me the recipe for it. So nice of her. Came back to Malaysia and the first dish I cooked for my parents was:

Salmon marinated with Chives and Mango then fried on low fire with olive oil.

This Mango salad got the same response from both my parents as mine. I was totally shocked when L mixed raw spring onions with olive oil and pepper into the freshly cut mango. However, after tasting it, it turned out to be delicious! This was the worst culture shock I'd experienced so far.

Western Cuisine:

Malaysian-ised Chicken Chop at Kluang Station restaurant. The sauce was slightly spicy to cater for the Malaysian taste buds.

Kenny Rogers. To my disappointment, every thing shrunk on portion. Even the chicken was smaller! The taste was however, still the same standard.

Japanese Cuisine:

Ate at Sushi King and I ordered Ramen. Not bad at all.
Saw this square watermelon at KLCC. Too bad it's not for sale
Japanese desserts....just joking. They're actually erasers

Malaysian Food!!!!

As most Malaysians have heard about it, our ex-prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir opened a new bakery at the new posh shopping centre called The Loaf:

From the outside

From the inside
Pastries sold there were more expensive than usual, the staffs were more courteous, the environment was less crowded and more peaceful. I didn't buy anything so no feedback from me.

Next weird experience was coming across a selection of cigarettes on a proper restaurant menu.

Nice proper looking menu. I ordered Luo Mee which will be shown later. As I turned to the back to have a look at the drinks section, I came across this:

Cigarettes anyone? Served at any point of the meal, before, during and even after.
Luo Mee - This is a peculiar type of noodles as you can add black vinegar to the soup and it'll enhance the taste.

From this point on, it'll be just random photos of Malaysian food which I've eaten.

Rotiboy - crunchy on the outside, melted butter in the inside. Enough to die for? Hmmm

Pork Noodles

Penang Laksa - White noodles which is transparent looking when raw in soup made from fish.

Rojak Buah - Cut up fruits with some deep fried stuff mixed with peanut sauce

Another version of Rojak Buah

One of my favourites - Yau Yu Ong Choi (Squid with water spinach) - mixed in the same peanut sauce

Best curry noodles I've tasted so far. There was even a generous helping of clam in it.

It was my first time eating this at a restaurant. A different type of bean called 'Guai Dau' in Cantonese. Very delicious but it's also more expensive as compared to long beans or French beans.

Roasted Duck and meat. I'm not really a big fan of duck but this duck wasn't bad at all.

Cantonese style fried noodles

Hokkien style fried noodles - This dish was weird cause according to Penang people, this type of noodles doesn't exist in Penang which is highly populated with Hokkiens but it exists in KL.

Fried rice - liked this stall's fried rice cause they put a lot of prawns in it.

Lala (a type of clam) fried with egg and spring onion - first time I've tried and it wasn't bad. Usually it's oysters with egg but since oysters are expensive, this stall

Want to know what I usually have for breakfast?

From Pau, white carrot cake to Dim Sum, you name it. All the Chinese food for me. Hehehehe. Later on, I moved on to Malay food. But that will be posted next time.

How I miss 10 course dinners. Usually it's served during a function or on special occasions in high class restaurants or hotels. I was lucky enough to attend a medical talk at Hilton hotel after being smuggled in by my aunt and below was what I had for dinner:

From left to right and top to bottom: 1. Cold dish 2. Braised assorted dried seafood soup 3.Steamed Promfret 4.Chicken with San Tung Nut 5.Tiger Prawns 6.Stirred Marrow Quash with mushroom and garlic 7.Noodles with mushroom and bean sprout 8.Tong sui (Dessert) - Sweetened papaya with red dates 9.Deep fried lotus paste sesame ball

It was bad for health but I tend to overeat at dinners like this. The delicious food didn't help to prevent this from happening too.

Malaysian buffet breakfast in a hotel - as you can see how different it is from European breakfast, I do miss them


This was one weird dish I tried at Hong Kie's, a Hong Kong restaurant while visiting my friend at Seremban - It's garlic rice wrapped in leaf topped with an egg and sweet and sour pork ribs. Nice.

Prawn noodles - one of my favourite noodles

Steam boat, or more commonly called hot pot outside Malaysia

Bak Kut Teh - Pork boiled in herbal soup, and Tapai Chicken - Chicken cooked in rice wine

Kajang Satay - Best satay which I've tasted. It's pieces of chicken and beef skewered and then grilled using charcoal. Eaten with peanut sauce, cucumber, onion and ketupat (boiled sticky rice)

That's all for now. Next entry will be focusing on Kelantan food. As a true Malaysian, only the food part of the trip to Kelantan was important. Hahahaha. Till then.

Reunion after such a long time

How long has it been? I think it has been a long 7 years since the last time 3 of us were together in SMK Konven St. Cecilia in Sandakan. It had been such a long time yet it seemed like just yesterday when we met up to do our school project or attending classes on weekdays. The fact that none of us changed that much did helped with the feeling of 'it seemed like yesterday'.

JV and A. Maybe hair longer a bit but other than that, still exactly the same!

Of course I'll need personal photos with each of them.

It took A to graduate from US, JV to be studying in Peninsula Malaysia in a small town called Seremban, which wasn't too far away from Kuala Lumpur, my parents who willingly became my chauffeur and map reader, and all 3 of us to be free for this reunion to happen. So glad that it did cause it'll be extremely difficult in future.

We had our day's out at Jusco Seremban. I didn't even realise that we were all wearing pink. Pink must be in season now. Had lunch, shopped, even did some grocery shopping. Happy to see you gals and may we meet again soon. I think it'll most probably at someone's wedding. Remember to send me invitation card!

From one end to the other

Finally, the moment has come when I can almost officially declare that my summer holiday is starting!!!!!

It's going to be my last day of electives tomorrow. The previous 2 days have been great thanks to the really nice specialist registrar at paediatric cardiology department of IJN who was so willing to teach us so much. Finally, I can differentiate a few types of murmurs, carry out a complete cardiac examination, read a bit of x-rays and ECGs. She's going to my inspiration from now on. To medical students, coming across somebody who is so generous in sharing their experience and knowledge and willing to take out some of their time to teach is like striking the lottery. We'll be extremely grateful to that person especially to those of us who are bounded by the PBL learning system.

This afternoon I was kinda like sulking that I didn't have anything planned or confirmed yet for the next few weeks of my official summer holidays. This depressing period didn't last long as suddenly so many people contacted me asking me to accommodate them for a few days, then in exchange, I wanted to go visit them at their hometown, ex-schoolmates asking to meet up at the same weekend, ex-college friends asking to confirm trips and even informing me of plan B if this trip was canceled. So, from having zero plans to a super packed and hectic schedule, I think I must have wished too hard for an unforgettable summer.

Before I forget, congratulations to those who have graduated this year, good luck to those sitting for exams, best wishes to those who are getting married. Finally, I hope that I can withstand all these excitement and not complain that I miss being bored. Maybe I should think twice before complaining that I'm bored as being bored may be a rare occasion from now on.

Will my holiday ever start?

I'm having some electives blues at the moment. Feeling quite depressed as I found out that PBL wasn't exactly the best learning method considering the tiny speck of knowledge I've gained from the last 3 years of medical school compared to the amount of knowledge students from other universities that don't practice 100% PBL have.

I hate it when I know that I knew something before and have totally forgotten it. I hate it when I can remember that I have learned it before but just can't extract it from my sleeping brain. I hate it when doctors ask you the simplest question of all and you get dumb struck. I hate it when I feel stupid all the time.

When will my holidays start???? This will be my last chance to relax and enjoy life before I need to turn over leaves from a whole forest to morph into the nerdiest medical student ever in order to pass 4th year. A whole year of suffering awaits. Will I ever have the chance to enjoy life?

It is different in a real situation

I got the chance to do chest compression on a real patient during my attachment at A&E. It was really scary and exciting as all the while, I only did chest compressions on models for Basic Life Support examinations and I didn't know how hard should I press or whether I was pressing sufficiently to keep the blood circulating.

The first thing that came to my mind when I stepped up the stool, straightened my arms and positioned myself to start chest compression was, 'Oh my goodness, I could see the patient's face so clearly as I was so close to him'. My mind also wandered a bit to imagine what is it like for the patient to see me towering over him if he ever opened his eyes. Next thing was, 'This must really hurt if he could feel anything because I was practically leaning my whole body weight on him'. But these thought soon disappeared as I was trying my best to save him. This was the time when I really felt that I was saving someone and scary or not scary, pain or no pain doesn't matter anymore.

The doctors were really good. They gave constant guidance on the right technique and how I should use my weight to press rather than using the strength from my arms to minimise exhaustion. Sadly, the patient never regained spontaneous breathing or heart beat after advance life support for half an hour. The doctors had to pronounce him dead.

I felt glad that I was given a chance this early into my medical education to attempt something as important as this rather than not knowing the correct technique and not having the confidence to do it in future.

Was A&E exciting? Yes when unfortunate things happen. As students, we have very ill intentions of hoping for more accidents or mishap to happen so that there will be more excitement while posted to A&E. When I qualify, I'll hope that everybody is in good health so that my workload would be minimal. The irony!

Picking up driving again

After such a long time, after avoiding it for 3 weeks since I got back to Malaysia, finally, I picked up the courage to touch the car again.

It has been 2 years since I last drove. On top of that, my driving skills was never really up to standard in the first place. I thought I would have forgotten how to drive, or my skills must have deteriorated to the extent of not knowing how to drive. How glad I was to find out that I was wrong!

Hehehehe. This time, I just drove for about half an hour in the morning. It was quite scary at first, as I couldn't really estimate how big the car was. By looking into the back mirror, I couldn't estimate how far away I was from the motorbike which conveniently chose the right moment to stop behind me as I was reversing out of my house.

Thus, from that point on, I realised that driving was all about estimation. We estimate the distance between the car in front and your car, estimate how near you are from the side of the road, estimate that you're driving on your side of the road and not declare the road belonging to your ancestors and drive in the middle of the lines, estimate how much you need to turn the steering wheel to clear the pot holes......the list goes on.

I hate it when driving is not like playing the piano when you can afford to make mistakes and just practice and practice until you got it right. I sometimes wished that my car was like a bumper car where I can make mistakes, banging into objects, or maybe accidentally driving it up a divider and come out without a scratch. No, once you bump into something, that's it. You'll be rewarded with a dent on your car to remind you not to repeat the same mistakes.

Afterwards, my parents are going to make me the chauffeur again this afternoon. So, wish me luck. I wonder when will the time come when driving will be a 2nd nature to me, when will it be when driving will be like walking?