Father & Sons

Abel was in his own world 

Climbing frame

 

 

 

 

 

Skills developed: motor skills (using those arm muslces) and confidence and risk taking

See saw time

Wonder what was Noel talking about?

Abel came to join in the fun

Sarikei part 2

The weather was not too hot and the boys had heaps of energy to burn so we let them check out the playground at the sarikei 'waterfront' area. 

 

 

 

well, it is still too hot for mom, so she stayed under this 'gazebo' thingie.

Noel driving the train..

Sarikei

Sarikei is another 15mins drive away from Bintagor.  It has population of 50,000 plus people. It is famous for its pineapples and pepper, hence these big pineapple statues.  The one above is near the jetty.

The jetty has lots of speedboats and also express boats (far back)

The main road.

This is the newer development (where the 'mall' is) and guess the developer put another landmark pineapple there.  Mum and dad and the boys.

Rojak @ Wong Hung Ping

Everyone tells me to try the Rojak in Bintagor. It wasn't too hard finding this place.  It was on a stretch of stalls - single storey, and there was a big Sign showing "ROJAK" and there are numerous newspaper articles pasted all over the walls. So we sat and ordered jienluk and rojak.

 

Here's the jien luk close up- it is different from the Hoho ones.

Rojak is like a fruit/veggie salad with a shrimp sauce.  It is both sweet and salty, and the ingredients used are usually cucumber, ban-guang(Turnip??) taupok, and pineapples with the shrimp sauce (hay ko) and lots of crushed peanuts. It was delicious. The "hay ko" usually determines how nice the rojak is.  Another important point was the ratio of all the ingredients. You can't have too many ban guang or too little taupok :P

We also ordered the Jiu Her Eng Chay.  Basically it's cuttle fish (boiled) with kangkong veggies with the hayko.

On the same strip of stalls was Malay stall and Jake bought this rice packet that has masak merah, masak hitam and curry egg.

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.
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