Batang Lupar Trip

I joined my 2 aunts to go on a local tour to the newly-opened Batang Lupar Bridge. I asked Mom to come along but she did not want to go with us, preferring to stay at home. So I let her be. Perhaps she wanted some quiet time for herself, without me around. Heh. 

It was Sarawak Day, a public holiday. I got out of bed at 4.45 am and got myself ready. At 5.20 am, I went to the market near my house and bought some kuihs for my aunts and for myself. Then I went to my Fifth Aunt's house to pick her up. I purposely went a bit earlier to give myself a bit of allowance of time, in case I got lost. Indeed I got a bit confused finding my way to her house, since I was not accustomed to going there in the dark. Heh. Still, I picked her up successfully and drove to my Fourth Aunt's house.

I parked my car there and we walked to the commercial area near her house to wait for the tour bus. It came right on time at 6.30 am. Since I boarded it early, I could choose my seat. I settled for one near the back of the bus, near the emergency seat so I had more leg space. Hence, I was comfortable throughout the journey. The downside was that it was difficult to get in and out of the bus, since the bus had only one door that was right in the front. Coupled with a lot of elderly passengers seated ahead of me, I often had to wait for a while before I could get out of the bus. 

This one-day tour was a full house with 44 pax - mostly middle-aged and old folks. Heh. It was organised by someone called Annie ... a retired tour agent. I think she lived near my Fourth Aunt's neighbourhood and she often organised trips for them. They had been to many places, but I had never joined them before .... so I thought I'd just tag along for the fun of it. 

While waiting for everyone to arrive, Annie distributed butter buns - one for each person. I nibbled on as soon as the bus departed. It was yum with my hot black coffee that I brought along in my thermos. 

The first stop was Asajaya ... this small town was still the same as how I remembered it to be - there did not seem to be any development at all.  This was our breakfast stop ... so we walked around the small town in search of something to eat. In the end, we settled for roti ....

RM1.00 only! 

Kopi O was RM1.60 ... heh ... I spent RM2.60 for my breakfast ... 

We bought some fresh produce here at Asajaya ... I bought a container of jackfruit for RM5, and 6 pieces of wax apples, also for RM5. My aunts and their friends bought fresh veges and local oranges at the tamu or the local market. 

After an hour and a half at Asajaya, we got back into the bus and headed to Sebuyau. Sebuyau was another small town, and at least there was a bit of development here from the last time I came. After we got off the bus, we went in search of the toilet and also for local produce to buy. Heh .... at this stop, I did not buy anything. We walked around and my aunts were looking for dried prawns to buy. There were none. We also headed to the tamu ... 

Tamu Sebuyau

This tamu was new, it did not exist when I came here last time .... from Sebuyau, it was only a short ride to the Batang Lupar bridge.

The longest river-crossing bridge in Malaysia

We got down the bus and took some photos .... individual photos, group photos, with the Sarawak flag, without the Sarawak flag ... heh .... lots of photos taken here. After that, we drove across the bridge and it was a long ride to Sri Aman .... 

The road was bumpy and I was lulled to sleep for a bit .... we only reached Sri Aman at 2.10 pm ... the bus stopped at the Tamu ... but it was practically deserted. Since it was a public holiday and it was already in the afternoon, it was understandable. 

We walked around the corner to a food court and had our late lunch there ... not knowing what to eat, I ordered chicken rice ... 

Chicken rice, RM7, at Dore Food Court ... 

After lunch, we headed to the Sri Aman waterfront ... this was the location for the annual Tidal Bore festival held every year.

A huge crocodile statue by the banks of Batang Lupar at the Sri Aman Waterfront ..

Well, Batang Lupar always reminded me of the story of Bujang Senang. Bujang Senang was a 20-foot long saltwater crocodile with a distinctive white strip on its back. Word has it that this fierce beast terrorised the Batang Lupar for years. By the river bank was also Fort Alice which I wanted to visit ... but that would have to be another trip. 

Half an hour's drive away was Mount Hosanna Chapel. It was already closed by the time we reached there so I could not climb up the steps to visit the chapel. Sigh, Our timing was pretty bad. 

3 towering candles symbolising the Holy Trinity

100 steps brought you up to the entrance, representing the stairway to heaven 

The last stop for the day was a Lachau ... 

We shopped for local produce here ... I bought 1 kg of langsat duku, RM8.00, From Lachau to Kuching was 2 hours. I sent my Fifth Aunt to Le Saigon and then reached home at 8.20 pm. What a long day ... 

Entry @ 25.07.2026

On Sunday, Fourth Aunt asked me to bring her to Vivacity Megamall. She bought a dress from Parkson a few days earlier, and when she got home, she realised that the cashier did not remove the anti-theft magnetic tag attached to her dress. Lol. So she asked me bring her there to have it removed. So I brought there around noon, and removing the tag merely took a minute. Not satisfied, Fourth Aunt lingered and gave the cashier a piece of her mind. Lol. 

After that, we just walked around the mall a bit, looking around. I did not have anything in mind to buy - other than Auntie Anne's - but I happened to see a skirt I like at Muji and bought it anyway. The cashier there was really rude though. Young lady, who gave me a look, and did not bother to fold the skirt nicely when I paid for it, and did not even print out the receipt for me. 'Do you need the receipt?" she blurted out when I stood there for a while, taken aback by her attitude.  'Of course!' I shot back at her. Duh. What if I wanted an exchange later on? Without a receipt, how would I look for them if I ran into problems with the product? I snatched the receipt out of her hands, turned to my aunt and said loudly, 'That girl is so rude!' I contemplated lodging a complaint against her ... too bad I did not see her name on the receipt nor her staff tag. What a disgrace to the Muji brand. 

Determined not to let her spoil my mood, I headed to Auntie Anne's ... this outlet just opened a few days ago and there was a long queue to buy the pretzels. I did not want to queue, but Fourth Aunt was sure it would not take long because the line was moving, albeit slowly ... so we both queued up for about 10 minutes before it was our turn ... 

Pretzels 

Parmensan Cheese Pretzel 

I bought 5 pieces of pretzels to share and to bring home - almond and caramel, parmesan cheese and garlic. RM39 spent; the best of them all would be the parmesan cheese one. The garlic one was not recommended for they only coated the pretzel with garlic powder. Fourth Aunt tried a bit of each flavour, but decided that she still preferred the ones sold by our local delicatessen, Aloha. Heh .... 

6-piece spicy wingettes and drummets, and french fries from 4Fingers Crispy Chicken... 

Fourth Aunt and I also shared some fried chicken and fries while at the mall; before I left, I took away some egg tarts from Oriental Kopitiam since Mom liked them. Fourth Aunt wanted to try the chocolate ones ... so I bought her some too. 2 pieces of Oriental egg tarts cost RM10.80 whilst 2 pieces of Belgian Royal Chocolate egg tarts cost RM12.80. I also had to pay RM1.42 for tax. Heh ....

On Monday. I got up at 3 am to turn on the TV for the World Cup final ... Mom too woke up to watch it. However, before the match ended, I had to leave for work already. Since the game stretched into extra time. it was still not over by the time I sat down for my noodles and coffee at my favourite breakfast spot at Mui Chin. 

Breakfast with World Cup Finals on my screen ... 

Halfway through breakfast, the game ended. I was actually glad that Spain won the match. It's a victory that was well-deserved. This Argentinian team was pretty nasty, and I do not really like their aggression and their nastiness. Now, I don't usually watch football, but I like reading about the controversies. This season, Mom and I watched some games from the round of 16 onwards ... and I found the Norwegian team really endearing. Now that World Cup is over, there are even more controversies to read about,  especially involving Fifa and some of the teams like Argentina. Heh. 

As soon as I got to school, my colleague, the school counselor came with a surprise gift ... 

Handmade scrunchies by our mutual friend, BL ...

Owwh ... it's so nice of her to make us some scrunchies. I quickly texted BL to thank her for her thoughtful gift ... 

On Tuesday, I had a meeting so I did not go to school. 

On Wednesday, I joined my aunts for an outing since it was Sarawak Day. I will write about the trip later. 

On Thursday, my colleague SH brought a box of nangka or jackfruit to school ... she grew lots of fruit trees in a vacant land behind her house! Honestly, she had so many types of edible plants grown there - bananas, jackfruit, rollinia, chillies, calamansi, ginger flower, and so much more! So on Thursday, our staffroom had that potent jackfruit odour as our air freshener. Lol. 

We were saying that it was really difficult to peel the jackfruit because of the sticky latex and compact fibres that held the fruits together. It compelled my colleague A to tell us a folklore associated with the jackfruit. Cerita rakyat, she said. I was surprised that I did not know of this folklore. I mean I knew the legend of Mahsuri and Si Tanggang. So I suppose this story was lesser known. 

An admiral's wife, Dang Anum, was heavily pregnant and craving for jackfruit. So when a palace servant who was carrying a jackfruit for the king passed by her, she asked for 1 pod of fruit, saying that it was for the baby. The palace servant, although reluctant, cut a hole in the jackfruit and gave her 1 pod of fruit. When the less-than-whole jackfruit was presented to the king, he was furious and ordered Dang Anum to be killed. When her belly was slit, the baby was found to be clutching a piece of jackfruit. And that was why it was difficult to cut and peel jackfruits. Lol. 

Some jackfruit from my colleague. SH's garden

Very fresh and crisp ... I took some home to chill in the fridge since it was best to eat them cold ... 

Friday came and went by so fast! I was pretty busy on that day, and was looking forward to the weekend. But as soon as I reached home on Friday, I realised that I had no Internet! Urgh! I hated not having access to the Internet. I called the TM Hotline and keyed in my service number, and was informed that there was an outage in my area due to cable cuts ... Darn ... the worst thing was finding out later on that my boss wanted to call for an online meeting at 8.30 pm that night. Urgh. Of all days, he had to call for a meeting on the day I did not have Internet. Not having a choice, I resorted to using the mobile data from my phone to attend the meeting. I only got my Internet line back this morning, Saturday morning. 

There was a newly-opened butcher shop in town, and Mom was so excited to buy pork at a 20% discount. So I brought her there early at 6.30 am ... she managed to get what she wanted, and we even got 10 pieces of eggs for free since we about RM100 worth of meat. She seemed pretty happy with her purchase. We sent the meats back home to chill in the refrigerator before going out again for breakfast.

Mom said she wanted to eat laksa, so I brought her to Yeow Kee. I had not come here since May, ever since I found that the quality of the signature prawn dumplings here was slightly compromised. Today, Mom ordered laksa, now sold at RM10. It was RM9 for a long time. 

Laksa, RM10

I suppose the laksa tasted alright; Mom did not really like it, though. I could understand that since I too personally did not really think that the laksa here was all that good. 

Yeow Kee had a good selection of kuih

Mom preferred the kuihs I bought ... the serimuka was very good - soft and very rich, and not too sweet; the glutinous rice ball was very savoury, and even the triangular deep-fried radish cake was yum ,,, 

This morning, I really enjoyed the beef noodles though. My friend M was the first person to recommend me these beef noodles. The first time I ate, I hated it. At that time, this stall had just moved to Yeow Kee from another food court in town. Everyone seemed to anticipate its move, and the orders piled up. So much so that the seller could not keep up. She cooked the noodles in big batches and served several bowls at the same time. When I got my order, the noodles were already soggy. That was 2.5 years ago already, and ever since then, I had never ordered the beef noodles again. 

Today, I walked from one stall to another, now knowing what to order for breakfast .... I definitely did not like the kolo mee at this cafe, and the prawn dumplings disappointed me the last time I ordered it, and I did not like feel like eating the stir-fried noodles, or fishball noodles or kampua noodles or ding bian hu .... so in the end, I decided to eat beef noodles. 

There was a young girl working there whom I had not seen before - so it seemed that the seller had finally hired some help. This young girl was the one who took all the orders and did all the serving. So the seller only focused on the cooking. There were plenty of orders and I had to wait for a while ... but today, the beef noodles were to my liking - springy noodles coated in fragrant garlic oil and a thick beef gravy, lots of toppings and a piping hot bowl of beef soup and beansprouts. Only RM10. Each mouthful made me feel happy. Heh. It was a big bowl, and I portioned out my noodles and took some home for lunch. 

 

The next destination was to the hypermarket .... Mom and I need to stock up on groceries for the week!

Entry @ 18.06.2026

The happiest moment for me today was meeting Student A at Sarawak Club. 

Today, us colleagues had lunch at Sarawak Club - to bid farewell to our Senior Assistant and also to celebrate our excellent STPM 2025 results. 

I picked up my friend at 11.00 am and we drove to the Club. I parked and we got out of the car and started to walk towards the building. Just then, a car turned into the parking lot, stopped and the window scrolled down. 'Teacher!" Student A shouted enthusiastically .... 

Heh ... it was coincidentally Student A. He quickly parked his car and came running towards us ... he was at the Club to exercise in the gym. And it was surely great to catch up with him again. As we reached the Club lobby, he was happy to see all the teachers there, and spent time chatting with us while we waited for the event to begin. 

Student A - I think his story was inspiring. He did not do so well in secondary school. He was a little inferior as he was physically smaller than the rest of his classmates. He lacked a little bit of confidence, and he needed a bit of help in the way he brought himself. But under our tutelage, his results improved by leaps and bounds, his confidence level climbed, he made lots of friends, but most importantly, he was still polite to every teacher. I knew in his heart, he was grateful to all the teachers who had given him a chance. We are all waiting for the good news of his acceptance into university. He promised he would inform us. Heh. 

Well, today's food at the Club did not seem to be to be that yum .... so I was a bit disappointed.

Dragon Boat 

I really enjoyed the seafood lineup, especially the jellyfish, baby octopus, and mussels. The jellyfish was perfectly seasoned, and while the baby octopus felt suspiciously like the frozen, ready-to-eat variety, it was still pretty tasty. As for the mussels, the light tomato-based sauce paired decently with the shellfish.

 Fish Maw Soup

Served piping hot, the soup offered a wonderfully savory flavor profile balanced by a sharp, tangy note of vinegar.

Steamed sea bass Teochew-style

Hmn ... this dish was not that different from what I usually have at home ... only that my Mom uses better and fresher fishes .... heh ... 

Lemon Chicken

My colleague requested this dish, but I think it was a mistake; the chicken was not well-marinated and not well-battered ... the sauce was also pretty miserable ... 

Homemade Beancurd

Luckily this dish was ok ... 

Vietnamese Prawns with deep-fried buns

Hmn ... I thought it tasted like prawn curry .... 

Kerabu Midin

Crunchy, with a balance of sweet and sour ... ok ... 

Yam Basket 

The yam was powdery soft but devoid of yam flavour - so it was still ok ... 

Fruit platter

Sweet, and pretty and served cold; I love these juicy fruits ... 

Other eats this week .... 

Nasi Goreng Sardin

This was my favourite this week!

I seldom go to the school canteen. But one morning, I was a bit peckish and visited the canteen to see what it was serving. I decided on the fried rice. As I was scooping the rice into the takeaway container, I saw dark chunks of meat in there. I thought it was chicken. But as I was paying for my food, the young canteen boy told me it was fried rice with sardines. 

I liked this fried rice a lot. It was cooked using the Smiling Fish Fried Sardines, so it was not fishy at all. The chunks of fish were chewy and tasty, the veges added a bit of crunch, and the rice itself was a bit spicy. It was pretty interesting! Only that it was a bit pricey, I thought. I was charged RM8.

Kolo mee, RM5.50

This was from Ban Seng Corner; it was alright I suppose ... 

Kolo mee, RM5

Very good kolo mee from Jit Yang cafe - good portion size, very springy noodles moistened with a mixture of fragrant oil, generous amount of garnishing, it is simply irresistable ... 

Thanks to my colleague S for this cookie ... he said he bought it from Mr DIY .... it tasted ok, reminded me of Franzzi ... 

Fried meehoon, RM7

This was from Ming Foong, Stall 30 at Kenyalang Wet Market Food Centre ... 

This tasted alright, but I thought it was expensive; not worth it at all 

Entry @ 11.07.2026

I'm in the midst of some exam work .... so it's been a bit busy. School has been chaotic as well as there was some transition of leadership going on at the moment ... 

The other day at a meeting, we were supposed to use the library as the venue. But because exam was given the priority, the school insisted using the library for an oral exam. So in the end, we were relegated to the cookery room. 

There was no air-conditioner there in the cookery room, merely ceiling fans ... so I was glad I brought my own portable fan. This tiny fan was really useful. I turned it on for nearly 6 hours at #2 speed ... it whirred quietly and the battery did not heat up. I was pretty impressed! 

On Thursday, I headed back to school ... 

My friend made giant potstickers .... lol ...  she made me eat one on the spot but I did not feel like eating at all .... so I brought one piece home. She filled the pastry with chives, minced chicken and fish maw! Lol ... what a combination. It tasted nice. Just too huge and filled me up too much. Heh. 

Friday was my colleague's last day with us .... next week she begins as the principal of her new school. Heh. 

Fried Meehoon, RM5

We had breakfast at 一家园 at Nanas Road; this place has a stall selling stir-fried dishes ... I liked the noodles here, which had wok hei ... 

Some of our students had gone to camp  .... so we did not have any classes ... my colleague A ordered brownies; it was made my a student's mom ... 

Brownies, RM40

They were freshly-made, very yum but a bit sweet ....

Today, Mom and I went out a bit late. She wanted to eat Wang Zai's kolo mee today, so I brought her to the shop. As much as I also like Wang Zai's kolo mee, I decided to try the 板面 banmian from another stall today. 

Banmian, RM6.50

It tasted ok, surprisingly; the noodles were springy, and seasoning was quite fragrant; there were minced pork, mushrooms, cangkuk manis and anchovies; the soup was umami and served very hot. The chilli was nice also. Not bad  and I would not mind coming back here to eat this. 

Then I brought Mom to the pharmacy to buy some medicine. She has a bit of cough. Nearby was a supermarket, so we did some grocery shopping afterwards. I could not help but buy myself some pastries from the bakery next door. 

Aloha's chicken pie ... RM4.50

I think the pies are still yum ... heh ... eating in front of my Macbook before I start work .... 

After that it's time to go home, and I need to finish up my work. 

New Desserts Taste Test

Pandan Taro Layered Cake from Taka Patisserie ... 

What's nice about this cake is that it's not too sweet; both the pandan layer and the taro layer had a distinctive taste and did not overpower one another. It was also great that it had bite to it, for there were bits of diced taro in the top layer that burst with flavour when you chewed ... The taro was also of good quality since it was powdery and disintegrated in the mouth. Also, the flavours were old school - I think old timers would love this cake. 

The coconut jelly was also interesting .... the container was made of glass! No wonder it was so heavy! When I opened the lid, I was surprised because the coconut jelly was so jiggly! It had to be a very soft pudding! Or perhaps like very soft tofu curd. 

I scooped out some into my bowl and tasted it. Well, the bottom layer was a very nutty and fragrant black sesame paste .... it was ground to a sandy texture ... so there was bite to it as well. 

The top was layer was really soft ... it had a thick santan flavour that quickly disappeared, leaving a rich milky aftertaste in the mouth. The black sesame paste did complement the coconut flavour at the top. I thought it was interesting a dessert. Heh. It's good that it was not too sweet - the cake was sweeter. 

Maybe I'd go buy a tub of Nuto Nuto to compare. Soon. Read that it's a homegrown brand ...