By the River

While, Me, Mom and Abel was at Ming Hing and Lu's Biscuit shop, Jake, Dad and Noel went for a drive. They went to check out the mangrove.

Mangroves

 

The Jetty.

 

Dad brought Noel to check out a street named after my great grand dad.

In the 80s, the jetty would be a really busy place, and there's non-stop schedules of express boat traveling to and fro Sibu to Sarikei via Bintagor. With the construction of the bridge from Sibu to Bintagor, less people use the express boats now.

Lu's Biscuit Shop

Right next door to Ming Hing is a shop selling 'biscuit.  The chinese name however imply a lot more.
Bing Jia would imply they are expert of all 'biscuits'.

We bought some pandan flavoured 'tau sah peah'. It was very delicious.  The skin was very thin and the pandan flavour was just right.

 

Theses are 'lee bing' or Leh biang in Foochow.  In the olden days, when a girl gets married, the bride's family would ask the groom for  these biscuits as part of dowry.  The bride's family would then distribute to her family with the invitation announcing the marriage.   According to my mom, if you are are closer/senior member in the family, the bigger the size of the biscuits.  It went by numbers like Biscuit No. 5 and so on. Mom bought a couple for Jake since he loves eating these biscuits.

 

Breakfast at the Bintagor Market

A number of my cousins worked in Bintagor after my Aunt. In the Ching Ming Festival, whenever Mom and Dad goes to my great grand dad's tomb, my cousins would bring my parents to the foodstalls above the Bintagor Market.

We ordered our drinks from this guy that is my cousin's friends. And then we ordered all our dishes from Tiang Pik Hoong. She's most probably the owner and cook for the store.

Here, we had the char kuay tiaw, (dry version).  We ordered an extra sunny side up egg to go with the kuay tiaw. This was delicious. It was very nostalgic that the owner served us in that plate. We used that plate many many years back!

 

One can also find Kampua in Bintagor (given its close proximity to Sibu) Here, we ordered the dark version .
 Below, mom ordered the 'healty' version. Instead of using kampua noodle, vermicelli (beehoon) was used.
Needless to say, it's the least popular!!! LOL

Dad wanted an 'original' kampua ie without soy sauce.

 

We ordered a 'dry' char mee (Fried noodle)

Noel fed himself but I had to feed Abel. It took him 5 minutes to destroy the Ben10 watch that Grandpa bought for him from Daesco.

 

After breakfast, we checked out the market on the groud level. We bought the malaysia 'white baits' and anchovies from the lady.  The whole place smells 'fishy'.

 

There's a few of these stalls on the footpath of the market and Abel checked out the toys.

Then Mom went to the Ming Hing the 'general' store. It sells talcum powder, shirts, toys, and lots of shirts and fabrics etc. We bought some flannel fabrics from the shop.
.

Nom, nom, nom

N loves his noodle! Kampua goes well with him.

Grandpa's residence as a kid

In Sibu, we made a short trip to Bintangor and Sarikei. It was like a 35-45 minutes journey from Sibu town using the Bawang Assan bridge.  Dad was born there and lived until he was 18 or 20 years old. (Need to check the facts with Dad)
He showed where he lived when he was younger. My, I can't believe the house still exist. His comment was it pretty much looked the same except the people now have installed air-conditioning in the house.
I can't believe he never showed me when I was younger :)

Houses like this are slowly getting replaced by brick house.

Kek Lapis

 

This is one of the most expensive purchase from the Market in Sibu.  This layered cake was Rm21 or was it Rm 23. All I can think of when I eat this cake was how much work and labour the person put into baking this cake. Taste wise, it is nice, not too sweet, and it lasted for quite a while in the fridge. Definitely would be a good choice to to serve during festive seasons :) HEHEHEHE

The Hat

Here's close up shot of the Hat.  If the boys don't want to wear it, it will make a good basket for your spare change, keys etc. Maybe it was never a hat to start with.

Sibu Central Market

I reckon if there's one place to show someone around Sibu, it has to be the Central market. This is like an open air mall (2 storeys) , with multi storey carpark attached . On the ground flooor is the wet market, selling everything from live chicken, little rodents (guineapigs etc) to groceries like salted eggs, veggies ..the list is endless. On weekend, the indigenous people also sells their produce at a designated areas on the ground floor. They sell things like chilis, sago worms, fruits, you have to go there to see for yourself
The picture that I took showed the main area.

After buying the veggies etc, we went upstairs to eat.  There are as many as 50 stalls (perhaps more) selling all kinds of food. It was very crowded on the Sunday.   The food stalls were once upon a time stalls that you find in the alleyway.  The Council has gathered everyone and house them at the Central Market.

 

Here's kueh we bought from the stalls downstairs

We bought this hat from an indigenous woman. Sadly she only had one. She said she would have another one available next Sunday but we would have left then. Abel always said "I am King, I am King" whenever he wears the hat. 

This is steamed layer cake.

Here's what we came to the Market for. The Teochew Mee. This man used to operate his stall behind the standard chartered bank.

Kuay tiaw tam "wet"

Cha chu mee again!

Note the soup that was served with the teochew mee was 'salted veggie' soup unlike the usual soup that was served with kampua.

 

Visiting 大姑妈

Congregating at my 大姑妈's house every Saturday night is like a ritual for our family. My parents would be talking to my other uncles and my cousins while the littlies would play or watch tv. I remembered watching beverley hills 90210 with my cousins before the time of Astro. Then come 'supper' time, my cousins and my auntie would whip up noodles, or kueh or 'dapao' food for everyone.

So we brought the boys to visit my auntie and my cousins.  Abel here with my cousin Eng. hehe.

Abel with 雯蒂(hopefully I have got her name right) . She is cousin Ein's daughter.

Abel had his turn on my niece Agnes' iPad. This is his first experience playing Tocaboca

Here Noel gets his turn.

Home cooked meals

This is one of the few home cooked meals I had when I was back home. It's strange and nostalgic after being away from home for so long and using the same cutleries again. Of course there's always the addition of new soup bowls from buying toothpastes etc. :P