RT/WW - Tossing Yee Sang for prosperity

I was invited to a series of luncheons and dinners hosted by friends and biz associates lately. Having 'yee sang', an auspicious salad, has been a long-standing tradition during Chinese New Year (CNY) that it's unlikely to start off any set meals without this delicacy.


In case you're wondering, the words yee sang literally means “raw fish” and signifies abundance, prosperity and longevity. It is usually eaten during the 7th day of CNY to celebrate the birthday of mankind, but the salad dish has become very popular that it is now eaten even before CNY begins. The dish combination includes freshly shredded vegetables, assorted pickles, ground peanuts, toasted sesame seeds and crunchy crisps in striking rainbow colours. The raw salmon slices are added together with a drizzle of oil and sweet plum sauce.


The fun begins as we mix and toss the colourful yee sang together, wishing loudly for good fortune and greater success as we say “loh hei!” and toss the shredded ingredients as high as possible to bring better luck in the year ahead.

There will be another dinner bash with one night leading to the next and last week yet another and not to mention tonight and also at the end of the week. I've been frantically eating lots of these scrumptious delights during this festive season. Seriously, it makes me wonder what my cholesterol rating reads today. Now I'm beginning to wish the CNY would end soon!

I hope everyone had a terrific time during the CNY season and another wonderful week ahead.






First Commenter - Rainfield

PhotoHunt - Cuddly

Every time my daughter goes to bed, whether for a nap or sleep, she likes to snuggle up to her favourite cuddly toys. The feel of it is soft and cuddly and even when she's not sleeping, it brings instant comfort to her especially when she's upset, or just needs some comforting. Those cute cuddly keepsakes are her latest favourites ever since she got them on her recent birthday.




First Commenter - Rainfield

Happy Chinese New Year!

This year, by wonderful coincidence, Chinese New Year falls on the same day as Valentine's Day.


As the Year of the Tiger approaches, the streets are in festive mood with stretches of lanterns seen everywhere in every nook and corner of the city. Red is the dominant colour as it symbolise prosperity and good luck during this festive season. It has been a tradition to put up lanterns as they are believed to ward off evil spirits while brightening the atmosphere with an abundance of good fortune.


While doing my last minute shopping, the eye catching huge lanterns literally caught my attention and I just had to grab my camera. There were tons of different shapes, sizes and designs and these days, lanterns were made more attractive and appealing with running lights. As we are still mourning over the recent loss of my beloved father in law, red decorative items are not permitted in our home to avoid any inauspicious implications.

Before I sign off, here's wishing my friends and fellow bloggers abundant blessings of luck, fortune and happiness in the Year of the Tiger and to the die-hard romantics, Happy Valentine's Day. Until my next post, have a great time and enjoy your festive break!

First Commenter - Echo

WW - Sunset over Port Dickson

I've always loved sunsets and I love how different they can be, yet so striking! I took these shots while holidaying in Port Dickson recently. While the sun slowly sink beneath the horizon, these brilliant hues of colours awesomely lit up the beautiful sky and reflected upon the sea.










As I was taking some shots of the sunset, I had a chance to snap a couple in silhouette against the setting sun.

First Commenter - Mei Teng

PhotoHunt - Average

This is a shot of the giant golden statue of the Hindu deity situated at the entrance of Batu Caves. Standing at 141 ft tall, this statue is world's tallest statue of Lord Murugan that was unveiled in 2006. To give you an idea of scale, I would say an average sized person would be roughly about the size of the statue's foot!


We were passing by KL and it was an amazing sight to behold to see such a giant statue in all its glory. The setting was truly charming, quiet and serene. To reach the Temple caves which is on top of the stairs is a mean feat of endurance. You need average level of fitness, and a high tolerance to the extreme hot weather conditions to climb up the 272 exhausting steps. During my previous trip, I went all the way up to the top, feeling so out of breath. Coming down was even tougher, my knees turned all wobbly by the time I was back on flat land.




First Commenter - Mar

RT/WW - The Science of Music

Music has always been a part of my life and it's something I can't imagine living without. I don't actually play any instruments but I listen to music most of the time. Even as I'm writing this post, I'm playing David Cook's track on the Ipod.

Did it ever come across your mind of how music works or specifically, how musical instruments produce sound and connect together to create music? If you're curious of how it works, Petrosains is the perfect place to discover this innovative phenomenon.

This is some of what you'll experience.

Lemur's multi touch technology makes it possible to touch the interface on the screen and start playing.

Check out this never ending piano which has huge keyboards, introduced by Roger Shepard in 1964.

This exhibit gives you a chance to explore music tunes from phonograph, gramophone, turntable and CD.

Aspiring disc jockeys can attempt their first spin by scratching back and forth across the turntable by following the tutorial and notice how the sound changes.

You can even make your own rhythms, by simply pressing the buttons and see how well you did.

There's another awesome invention where you could listen to many genres of music from all over the world by putting on the earphones and plugging the device on the white dots.

The giant panpipes is also one of the big attractions. This amazing exhibit explains as you create your own masterpiece by hitting the ends of giant pan pipes with rubber paddles.

My little princess can't resist running her fingers along the sensors. This stringless magical harp can produce harmonic sounds of piano, flute, saxophone, guitar, etc. Sounds cool, right?

The exhibition had been travelling around the world for the past couple of years and has finally arrived at Petrosains, Suria KLCC. The Science of Music runs until the end of March.

There's even a chance to win some fabulous prizes too. All you need to do is visit the Muzika exhibition at Petrosains and answer 5 online quiz questions to participate in the contest. Who knows, you might stand a chance to win some PlayStation 3(PS3), Nintendo Wi or iPod Touch!




First Commenter - Carletta