Stickers Selling Is My New Past Time/I’m On My Way To Be A Good Mother/Roaming Around Penang on My Own

For those who are wondering, business at the Sticker Monster has been steady! A couple of international orders too! So yeah, I am quite pleased. 🙂 A portion of the money is stagnant in my paypal account, but oh well, still under my name, still can use it when purchasing items from eBay.

I don’t earn very much from each sticker sheet that I sell. But I do find immense joy in purchasing the items(a temporary addition to my humongous sticker collection though I’ve not kept any from the stickers that I’ve put up for sale), typing out little invoices in excel format, keeping a log of my inventory, labelling the stickers, wrapping them up neatly before putting them into white envelopes, sticking stamps onto the envelope and then sending it out.

So fun!! I even bought an RM8 kitchen scale to measure my packages. Hehe.

Here are some sticker packs waiting to be shipped out.

Since I don’t have clear cellophane tapes, I had to make do with those masking tapes.

And they are ready to be posted out!

A week ago, I suddenly had this urge to make porridge. I had some really good porridge courtesy of the maid at my Aunt’s place during her funeral.

Keen to carry out my first attempt in porridge making, I went to Tesco after a phone call to my mum. I bought french beans, baby carrots, sesame oil, salted eggs, chicken, mussels and some broccoli. I had rice, salt, soya sauce and pepper at home.

I’m not sure which way is the correct way to soften the rice as Lie Yuen cooked the rice in the rice cooker while waiting for me to return from Tesco. I scooped the cooked rice into the pot and boiled the rice with more water. It was fun stirring the boiling rice and seeing it soften into mush. Cze-Yin and Lie Yuen helped out with the chopping and cutting.

I think I put the broccoli in first, then the chicken, the carrots, the french beans then I put the mussels in last. I kept stirring for another 15 minutes or so. Have to keep stirring or else the porridge will harden at the base of the pot and get burned.

It was also our first time cooking the salted eggs. MMmm.

Cze-Yin’s carrot chopping skills are awesome!

Tell me my porridge looks creamy! I kept stirring the porridge and as soon as it looked a little bit on the dry and lumpy side, I added more water till it was of a good consistency!

Another one of my recent culinary accomplisments would be bubur pulut hitam or if you know cantonese: Hak Lou Mai. I think it is called Black Glutinous Porridge in english.

Ingredients: Pulut hitam, Sago(all the better for you chew with my dear!), Santan, Pandan Leaves, Rock Sugar

According to a recipe I found online, you have to soak the Pulut Hitam for up to half an hour and then pour it into a pot to boil. Add water as how you would when making porridge(about 2-3 inches above the level of the solid stuff). Sago is then thrown in. Keep stirring and adding water(it’s all about the FEELING. This one cannot teach one, *action face*) as the pulut hitam have a tendency to stick to the base of the pot and burn.

Add the pandan leaves and continue stirring. You’ll be all “YAY I CAN COOK!” when the aroma hits your nose.

Keep stirring until everything is creamy. Serve with a little bit of santan on the top. Don’t put the santan inside the pot because you’d probably want to keep the bubur pulut hitam for a day or two if you can’t finish it and Santan can’t last that long.

I’m making it again tonight! Haha, my love for bubur pulut hitam is strong. Mmmmmmm.

Sometime in February(I should stop all these going back in time thing. Am I growing up as a blogger? Is this the start of my slow demise?), Chee Kiang came up for a visit and spent a few days with me. On the last day, we went to Penang, where his grandma and aunty stays.

He was telling me about this morning market in Taman Free School that his grandfather would bring him to as a child. He even remembers the Laksa aunty(but so sad the Laksa Aunty doesn’t recognise him..haha). It is only a stone’s throw away from his house.

It was a morning market filled with tons of things. From pork, lingerie, magazines, fish, vegetables and various hawker stalls, you just didn’t know where to begin! Everything looks worthy of my money – if I was a housewife. I mean I am almost one lah what with the whole new interest in whipping up a few simple dishes. I would love to go there and buy pork. I can’t seem to find pork in Sungai Petani. I want to make herbal soup! I want to make pork porridge!!

Saw these cute purple paus inside the pau-steamer. It’s in a very pretty lilac shade. Are they filled with yam?

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the morning market, we had our breakfast in true Penang style.

I was slightly disappointed with my lam mee because they had meehoon and the gravy is not thick enough. Lam Mee should be all about yellow noodles in thick gravy. The best Lam Mee I’ve had is strangely in Taipan USJ, in a restaurant called Penang Village. -_-

Ugh, Chee Kiang eats solidified pork blood.

They don’t make markets like this anymore.

Back at Chee Kiang’s grandmother’s place, I spotted some suspiciously familiar sticker remnants on the cupboards. I asked him, “These look like Transformer stickers from a bygone era!” and he laughed, “Ya my brother pasted them there.”

Something every family home would definitely have – marker pen doodles on wooden cabinets.

“Lam Chee Liang is in Penang, HIS Hometown”. According to Chee Kiang, his brother wrote it when he was about 10 years old.

Then the 5 year old Chee Kiang replied, “OH, Why’s he in Penang?”

Though ‘Why’s’ is wrong but Why IS is correct, for a 5 year old, his English was pretty good! I couldn’t even spell that well at that age. Hahahaha. Damn cute and innocent right, especially the OH!

Then i think he got a little carried away and continued scribbling, “Go back to sleep Lam Chee Liang”. wahahaha.. Kids..

Taken with Chee Kiang’s grandmother on the day he arrived.
After I left his grandma’s place, I went to Georgetown on my own.

Here I am in one of the back alleys where they sell cheap pajamas.

Rm10 tunic tops!!

Yummy yok kon.

Aunties squatting down for their morning chatter.

Pretty decent earrings at a market.

I’ve never seen a chopping board stall before..!

The spine of a pig, mmm. Would make for good soup.

Quite a smart guy, he can do his washings in the tiny alley.

Colourful tie-dyed homewear. Love the colours, hate the fashion.

The poor fish had a knife down its throat as it got slit longitudinally. 🙁

I love those white round chips with holes in it. I heard that they are called Mercedes Rings. Salty and puffy, once you pop, you can’t stop.

I put my hand on the bananas so you can see how bloody big they are. Big in size and rich in colour. The makings of a good man.

And this pretty much sums up my solo walkabout at Georgetown. I heard Campbell street has tons of clothes wholesale shop but was sorely disappointed when a few of us went to check it out a few days ago. All the super lala jinjang fashion. Ugh.

Such a sad sight. 🙁 Nobody should ever have to go through trash.

While walking back to my car, I came across this adorable puppy. He is obviously an offspring of one of those stray pariah dogs but I’ve never actually seen a chubby pariah puppy before. So cute!!

I asked him to smile for the camera. So obliging, right?

Tubby at the tummy but he has prominent shoulder bones. I was busy photographing something across the road and suddenly I stepped on something soft and nearly tripped myself. I turned to look at whatever it was that nearly caused me to fall and saw the little puppy scampering away. The little guy followed me across the street!!! So sweet. 🙂 And I had to step on him. 🙁
It’s exam season now, so wish me all the best!