Candle in the wind…

Just take a look at this!

Nope! That’s not an apple…or at least, not a real one. It’s a wax apple or in other words, a candle and it’s part of my daughter’s collection. She collects candles, not me. I collect hotel key cards, among other things! LOL!!! No wise cracks from you, Kpenyu!!!. Maybe I’ll post on that one of these days…but in the meantime, back to my girl’s collection, she also has this mother ladybird and her babies as well…

…and she got this lovely pair of ducks from Gundot who incidentally, has a much more impressive collection of candles…

…and these are Easter eggs…

…and I got these flowers from a Malay friend when I went for her wedding reception and they too have been added to her collection…

Well, those are some of the nice candles that she has. Anyone of you collects candles too ?  Personally, the mere mention of candles instantly brings to mind Elton John’s Candle in the Wind. Well, what do they remind you of? …Or what other stuff do you collect? Care to share?

The river…

One of my all-time favourite movies is “Tom Sawyer”, the musical starring Johnny Whitaker who was very popular in the days of black and white TV in some American sit-coms and the then-very-young Jodie Foster as Becky Thatcher – the girlfriend, with music by John Williams…and I love the theme song, “The River” by Charley Pride. You can click this link to listen to it but the song will only start somewhere in the middle of the video clip. Try catching the meaningful lyrics about a boy growing up to be a man – …only one golden time in his life is he free… – and that would be his childhood days, of course! Nice!

When I was growing up, my house was about 100 metres away from the river – a tributary of the massive Rejang that flows by Sibu town…and at that time, we had a whale of a time going swimming with our friends (Malay and Melanau) from the nearby kampungs. This rubberseeds’ photo from an earlier post of his certainly brings back a lot of pleasant memories to me…

Photo from rubberseeds.blogspot.com

…and there was a stream that flowed by our house. My mother taught me and my brother how to swim there. She just threw us into the water and pulled us up by the hair when we were drowning…and the moment we could catch our breath, she would let go again; we struggled to stay afloat and managed to learn how to swim in a jiffy – dogstyle! We only progressed to the big river when we were a bit older.

And on certain days, my maternal grandma and aunties would come to our house and with my mum and of course, my brother and me, we would all go nangok-ing in that same stream. The tide must not be too high; usually the water was around waist or knee-deep. Armed with our baskets, we would go into the stream and catch fish and shrimps like this….. 

Photo through the kind courtesy of Gundot

So, for the uninitiated, that is what is called “nangok” in Melanau. We did not care about how muddy and murky it was and we did not even think about any danger that could be lurking in the stream. All we knew then was it was so very exciting and so much fun…

Photo through the kind courtesy of Gundot

Sometimes we would even put our arms into the holes in the muddy bank and catch whatever fish that might be hiding inside. How come we never thought of snakes then, I wonder? Boys will be boys, I guess! Look! Fiq has caught a big prawn!!!…

Photo through the kind courtesy of Gundot

Of course, we were all wet and covered with mud. I guess that was part of the fun…but no, we did not get to be as bad as this… LOL!!!

Photo through the kind courtesy of Gundot

We would start from as far upstream as we could go right down to where the stream entered the river. Then we would go home with our catch and the feast would start as soon as we had had our baths and changed into our clean clothes. We would have rebus – some of the shrimps and fish boiled in water with chilli and belacan together with the paku (wild fern) that we would have plucked from the jungle that lined the stream or pais – the fish and shrimps wrapped in banana leaf and panggang (grilled)…and we would enjoy eating the very fresh and sweet luit (shrimps) raw (Some would still be jumping around! LOL!!!), dipped in a special sambal (dip) made with chillies, belacan (dried prawn paste) soy sauce and sugar. Here is a photo from another one of rubberseeds’ posts for those who haven’t the slightest idea what luit looks like…

Photo from rubberseeds.blogspot.com

That is why when I look at Tom Sawyer’s mischief and pranks, I think we were pretty much the same, more or less, when we were kids. Life was filled with so much fun, excitement and adventure…unlike the miserable sqeaky-clean children of today who would complain of the “stench” even when going past the wet market. I really wonder what kind of life they have – with tuition classes since kindergarten, this they can’t do and that they can’t touch and in a way, I sympathise with them for their lost childhood. Sadly, they will never experience all that joy that I had back then in that wonderful golden time when I lived in our house by the river…

Yummy yummy yummy…

Well, the other day my friend asked me to take him to buy a suitcase (as I know where to get suitcases at very special prices), so we agreed to go for breakfast first. We went to this Yum Yum Cafe, one of the shops in the Sibu Bus Station commercial area. They say that they have the best Foochow mee sua (longevity string noodles) in town but we did not have that. I had that there before and it was as nice as they said it was, but the portion was a bit small. My friend had pan mian, something that I do not really fancy but he said it was very delicious…

His wife had this bowl of beef soup…

…while I had the beef noodles, the dry variety…

I quite liked it and would not mind having it again. Of course, they just can’t compare with what I had in Kota Kinabalu but these are only RM3.50 each compared to RM7 over there. Upon leaving the place, when my friend turned round the corner, we spotted this in one of the blocks of new shops in the vicinity…

It certainly looked like Rasa Sayang is back in business. The last time Bongkersz was here, we went to the original venue but somebody else was running the place under a different name. We decided to give it a try, but unfortunately, what we had was a letdown. We could have much better kampua elsewhere! So without wasting any time, I went there the next morning and yes! It’s the ORIGINAL Rasa Sayang!!! Of course I had the kampua noodles…

…and this bowl of pian sip aka kiaw in Kuching and wanton in other places…

Ooo…they were just as nice as I remembered them to be and both of those plus a glass of kopi-o peng kau (iced thick black coffee) came up to only RM5.60. Here’s another photo of what I had…

Coming to Sibu again, Bongkersz? This time, we’ll go for the real thing – the original Rasa Sayang kampua. After that, you will never settle for anything less! Yummy, yummy, yummy…!!!

P.S. If you remember the cabin-size baggage that I bought for RM50, Swiss Brand no less (Just click the above link to have a look, if you have forgotten!), my friend got one that was EXACTLY the same, Swiss Brand too but bigger (check-in size) and guess how much he paid for it? RM70.00! You can’t get it any cheaper elsewhere!!!