端午节

端 午节 (duan wu jie) or otherwise known as dumpling festival or dragon boat festival falls on the 5th day of the 5th month on the lunar calendar. this year, 5th day of 5th month falls on 31 May. coincidentally, it is also my deceased maternal grandma's birthday.

anyways, as the chinese settle on any parts of the earth, they will bound to remember all the different chinese festivals in the year.

this year, my in laws made many bak zhang or rou zong zi /meat dumplings. they made a cantonese shaped dumpling but with hokkien ingredients. i'll let the pics tell you what's it got.

My orchid-Paphiopedilum Insigne

*pics taken at different stages while its flowering. (took about 1 week to record it to full bloom)



somewhere in 2004, i bought this paph from the orchid society trading table.
it must be my 3rd or 4th orchid. it has one flower when I bought it.
after it finished flowering, i left it outside per the instruction from book and seller, but it hasn't done very well. as in not much growth and no flower. earlier this year, i moved it indoors and it started shooting new growth and then a stalk appeared -it's going to flower. i am so pleased and so proud of myself.
the blooming itself took about one whole month. it stayed as a bud for weeks (something like 4 weeks?) and on the final week, i managed to capture the bloom, day by day up to when the flower finally bloomed.

My orchid- Prologue

the bud of my paphiopedilum insigne ..this is the first photograph of the bloom.
it stays tight lipped for a long time. 

Lays-Sea Weed flavour

on one of our trips to T-Mark (taiwanese groceries), we found Lays -Sea Weed flavour chip.
it has subtle sea weed flavour and tastes light.
totally recommend this chip. trust Lays to make good chips.

Beginnners Guide to ..

YES. my passion for the moment, gardening. this post is especially for stace ;) i am trying to infect her with my gardening bug. *Grin.

here's my recommendation of beginner fool-proof plants.

main reason for picking them:

• super undemanding (can withstand some neglect)
  
• hardy
  
• multiplies giving you sense of achievement
• very colourful, looks cute
• can be decorative
• can be grown indoor and outdoor

• Echeveria imbracata (aka Monster flower, given its huge rossette forming structure)

- they have very interesting colours. they tolerate almost any type of soil (although the book recommend sandy soil) but they thrive on almost anything.
-with a little bit of attention, it will spread and produce many baby plants.
-they produce pink flowers with yellow linings to the petals
-recently I have tried and succeeded to propagate by using single leaf of the succulent.
-good for borders, pots, anything.

• Crassulae ovata (Jade plant)

-they come under a sub- species, for eg, some are green leaves, and some have green leaves with red rims.
-they have thick leaves and i grew mine under a bit of shade to give that dark green color on the leaves.
-sometimes they will flower too.
-to propagate, use single leave or a little branch.

• Pachyphytum oviferum

-sometimes called moonstones,
-they have very thick leaves and flowers is pale pink.
-can be propagated by single leaf or stem.
-when grown indoor, it can be very white but in sheltered dry outdoor areas, the sun brings out a pinkish color in the leaves.

• Haworthia attenuata

-my dad's friend gave him some bunch of these when he visited him in Auckland. he left me one baby plant and has since multiplied to two pots.
-narrow spiky leaves with bands of white tubercles give the outside of the leaves a zebra patterned look.
-they look a bit like zebras.
-in spring, they give out sprays of tiny flowers.

• Pony tail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata)

-my dad grew this in Sibu. they grew really big but takes ages to grow.
-am surprised to discover it's a type of succulent. it has a bulbous base.
-they like the ocassional drinks. if you grow them indoor, the leaves becomes very dark green.mine seems to have tinge of red on the leaves (maybe due to low temperature)
-what i really want to increase in my collection is palm with two bunch of pony tails on the same bulb.

• Sansviera (mother-in-law tongues)

- this is a really tough plant. it grows upwards so is suitable for any place.
- by tough i mean, it can withstand much neglect. i went on my trip and don't think it received a single drop of water. it still survived.
-after repotting in feb, it has produced many new babies and has grown much taller.
-having said that, i killed jakes first sansviera by standing it under full sun and full rain. (sometimes the plant label can be very misleading).

i think this is enough to get started ;)

new york city -being traffic engineer

after chicago, we flew to new york city. we flew into la guardia airport. it was good coz it wasn't crowded. unfortunately, we had to stay at queens. to be fair, the subway was really convenient albeit it was unlike the singapore or hong kong subway. it was less well lit and much older..they are like what you saw in tv.
i spent my first day at a traffic centre. jake's decided to bring me with him to meet his business contact. so i was 'traffic engineer' for nearly half a day. :P i pretend to be super interested at the traffic system. one cool thing was i could see traffic at times square from the control centre.
L:R the DOT 's numerous screens;funny how they call it air circulator when it is a fan; the server room; emergency response room they even have the news channel constantly on, CNN wasn't their choice of news channel; the system used by the operator in the emergency response room; NYC DOT logo;chart of every traffic light available on Manhattan; the bigger screens of the streets around;in walters suv, passing by one of the bridges; another view of the bridges;NYC has so many bridges, i donno which one is which; their EZ pass system you instal the 'machine' in your car and your car get scanned each time you past the bridge/tunnel; streets in Manhattan; some tunnels we are in; the great mural across the restaurant where i had my fabulous steak; 5th avenue pre christmas time.



at night walter and wife brought us around manhattan. we had dinner at this upbeat restaurant. and walter drove us around in his wife's SUV showing us the bridges, traffic system. i lost count of the number of bridges that we crossed. traffic was really jammed ...
we were on 5th avenue in the SUV and it must have took us 1 hour to get from one end to the other. it would be faster for us to be on our feet.

busy Saturday

with jake gone fishing since 6am, i was left to my own devices. since my laundry is overflowing from my hamper, it's time to put them into the washers. i figured out if they have gone fishing, it must be a good day. i started my first load at 6 am. gosh!!!!!!! and i logged on to read blogs etc.

then stace came online. that was good. we get to chat on MSN :) HEHEHE.
whilst talking to her, i loaded up some pics into my yahoo photoalbum. sal can finally see some pics of my wedding.

then i went to the bank to sort out the signatories for the orchid society. right after that, i went to shop for baby showers gift. that's when headache struck me!!!!!!!
there are so many choices available. they are all so cute. i must have been to about 4 baby places in the mall. most of the shops are filled with mothers and their prams. i finally saw a really cute 2 piece pink fleecy things from the craft market at the mall. one of my friend sells her hand made jewellery there. this time i stopped by one of this store which is tended by two nanna . they were knitting and i spotted the cute bunny rabbit 2 piece baby gear. i asked if she's made them and she said YES. i immediately bought them. i think i like to support local made products :)

then i drove to the horticultural society autumn show. i promised marnee that i would make it to the show. it was a chrysanthemum show and it was such an eye opener. i have never seen 'chrysanthemum' of that size. it's almost as big as a newborn baby's head. some were bigger. then i realised i left my camera at home. M was there and she showed me around.

next year i must go back and this time with camera. there were arrangements made by herbs, and people can compete with the fruit they grown at home. it's amazing what they have at the show.

i bought another houseplant from the trading table. *hiak hiak . i haven't checked out its name yet. it has kinda stripey look and has a shiny purple on the back of the leave.


here's jake's catch for the day, i think the snappers were in the freezer already by the time i took these photos.

mutated radish

recently i saw this giant radish lying around in my kitchen. it has the oddest shape, and weigh at least 2kg.

nevertheless, it still tastes good like normal shaped radish.
lesson of the day: Never judge a book by its cover.