An unusually productive day...

Unlike the rest of my life, I've been rather productive today! hurray!
SO, what did I do?

Morning...I slept through it , and yes, that's productive. Considering the silly get-up time I had yesterday. So, eventually got up at 9 something to get changed for breakfast with 婆婆 (grandma) DIMSUM! Then came back to mope about a bit, before going out again to buy stuff. We went to the market to get some Gula Melaka (coconut sugar), fresh coconut creme, 酒 餅 (basically yeast cakes), 豆腐花 (a lovely soft dessert made from soya beans - tofu fua)...

Stall in the indoor market selling stuff made from dried coconuts...the guy on the left is smelling the coconuts before grinding them to death...and the product goes into the machine on the right...which squeezes out the coconut creme...nice.

豆腐花 stall (tofu fua)

We dropped some of the stuff back at 婆婆 (Grandmas) house, and then went back to Aunties to have lunch.

For a moment my day got a bit more complex. We were kind of planning to go to 婆婆 (grandmas) house to make Kaya and rice wine, but as I had been cutting some Pandan leaves from behind aunties house, my mum started chatting to her neighbour, who also said that she knew how to make Kaya. So, mum thought it would be better to make the Kaya at aunties house.

Anyway, I started pounding down the pandan leaves in the stone pestle and mortar to make the flavouring for the Kaya. Ani (the indonesian maid) very kindly strained everything out for me while I turned my back :)

The process had begun.

We started breaking the eggs into a pan and whisking them...at that point everyone decided that they'd come into the kitchen and watch. Which led to everyone else deciding that they knew best how to make Kaya...I had 4 different people telling me to do completely different things... which was fun. Anyhoo, eventually all but one (my mum) of the 'cooks' left me to it... so we were there stirring, and stirring, and stirring...more stirring... and then some more stirring...the stirring continued for a while... we added the coconut and the stirring continued some more. Mum took over the stirring while i went to get ready for swimming, and by the time I came back down she'd already added all the (melted) gula melaka, the pandan essence and had finished making the kaya. Nini (my cousin) had already vouched for it's niceness.

With the Kaya done, we headed off to the Hyatt for their swimming pool. The swimming pool actually looked out over the beach, which was very clean, shelly and sandy. We thought we'd by-pass the pool and head for the beach. The sea was lovely and warm...with gentle waves lapping the beach...after drinking enough of the sea water, we went back to the pool for some less salty and sandy swimming. Spent most of the time pushing my little cousin around the pool in his rubber ring...and loosing swimming races.



We washed and then went back to aunties house then went out again for dinner...which was an array of crab, fresh fish, and other delicious goodies.

After dinner we went back to 婆婆 's house to try and make some rice wine...which everyone else (three of my little cousins, my aunt, and mum, wanted to watch too...then we had some exercises with 姨婆 (my great aunt)...which was hilarious.

...and now I have to pack to get down to KL