My hometown…

I got this…

…sometime ago but I did not blog about it. It was so sweet and thoughtful of my friend to send it all the way to me. No, she’s not from here – her hometown is in Bintangor, around 30-45 minutes’ drive from Sibu but she has been posted to a school in Banting, Selangor so she is teaching there right now. I wonder what happened to all that talk about bringing all the Sarawakian teachers back to serve in the state – to date, we are still waiting to see that happen!

So what did she send me? There was this pack of coffee…

…from Tanjung Sepat. She said that it was very nice when she had it there but when it comes to good coffee, sometimes the secret is in the brewing. People used to flock to this coffee shop here just for the very nice coffee but then the guy decided to take over the fried kway teow stall and left the making of the drinks to the son or the workers or somebody and of course, the quality of the coffee nosedived…and so people do not bother to drop by just for that anymore.

Yes, I’ve tried this one that my friend sent me and yes, it was quite good – nothing like our Sibu Mui Hock, of course but for this type of coffee, instant, it is indeed quite good like the ones from Tenom, Sabah. I’ve had others that were not really that great…and it took me ages to finish off the whole pack.

There was also this big packet of tapioca chips…

…inside. No, I do not eat those but my girl loves these snacks but right now, she is still having a little bit of her cough though she is very much better now so she is refraining from eating such things for the time being. She said that she lost 3 kg…or was it 5, all that time when she was ill. Poor thing!

Like my friend in Banting, my girl too has been applying for a transfer to a school closer to home. She has been there for 3 years now and has not been successful in her applications. I shall not comment on how the incompetent useless good-for-nothing officers concerned do their job – it will go on and on and on like it is never gonna end and at the end of the day, it does not change a thing. When the time comes (when she completes her bond which is coming up very soon), I would probably ask my girl to resign and go into the private sector and it will be their loss for she’s truly a devoted teacher, always diligent and serious in what she does despite the father telling her all the time to relax a bit, no need to get all up tight and stressed out and all that but I guess that’s her, and she’s not me so I would just let her be.

Well, if it is any consolation, at least, my girl gets to come home every weekend unlike my friend in Banting who, I’m sure, will crave for all the local delights like a plate of kampua mee (RM2.50)…

…for instance. This one is from this coffee shop (2.304360, 111.835888)…

…along Lorong Merdeka 5 here.

A friend of mine was telling me about how nice the kampua mee at a coffee shop along this lane was but he told me the name in Mandarin so I do not know exactly which shop he was talking about. Well, this is a very short lane in a residential area and there are only two coffee shops – this one and the other one named the Esplanade which was not open. I was very early that morning, just past 7.00 a.m.

Well, this one was quite good – they used the bigger and straighter noodles, not the thin and very curly ones that is more like what you would find in Kuching kolo mee, and it had that original authentic kampua mee taste and yes, there were those slices of red-coloured boiled meat trying to pass off as char siew, all buried in the noodles, but there are lots like it all around town and I did not feel there was anything that would make it stand out when compared with the rest. Perhaps it is the other coffee shop that my friend was talking about – I will have to drop by there to check it out  some other day then.

The complimentary soup…

…was nice too but maybe that was because I was so early. They tell me that those guys would add water to those same few bones in the stock so at the end of the day, it would be nothing more than plain water with msg and a sprinkling of chopped spring onions added.

Well, thankfully, my friend in Banting now has the instant kampua mee…and gets the Sarawak laksa sambal sent over so she can cook her own and I gathered that the made-in-Sibu Mee Daddy is easily available over there so those would help to tide her over till the next time she comes back to her  hometown.

Thank you so much, King Hua, for sending me all those things but please don’t trouble yourself to do so next time – I know you have your hands full juggling between all your school work and responsibilities and taking care of your baby…but do let me know if you need anything from here. I will see what I can do.