Sunday, May 24, 2009

Zhejiang to Yunnan Province

We started our adventure out of the apartment in the evening of 23 March.....

Rozi acted as my special sherpa..... before heading to the railway station...one of the items in the bag.....dried beef rendang and rice cube...LOL....

Waiting for our D109 fast train to Changsha

Rozi insisted that I took the photo to show the train speed...that was at 199km/hour....





We reached Changsha Railway early morning of 24th March....the ticket for early morning train to Kunming was sold out...we gotta wait for 8:30am train and camped out at the McD next to railway station for nearly 7 hours......however, there a a few motels and hotels within minutes walking distance nearby but we decided to wait instead since there were not many people around the station (that was truly backpacking experience!!).....






We managed to get soft bed shared with a local couple from Suzhou......so I have to put on my hijab while sleeping....my first experience but I slept comfortably may be too tired to think of other things!!.......Rozi was on upper deck and it was quite funny since we were chatting in Bahasa Malaysia talking about the couple doing lovveeyy dooveyyy stuffs until both of us fell asleep.........it was a very memorable 22 hours train ride from Changsha to Kunming city........






These are some of the photos taken from the train ride.......some mountainous scenery near Guizhou...











Somewhere near Kunming.....









TBC...........




















































































Friday, May 8, 2009

Mother's Day Card Exchange........

Thanks to my swap partner....this card had safety reached me....I like her creativity....very sweet and simple.......I place it on top of my table in the office and it has been an envy of my colleague.....


Unfortunately I had forgotten to snap the photo of my piece before I mailed it out.....arrrgghh....

Happy Mother's Day to all beautiful and loving mother out there.......hope you have a very memorable day and full of love............

Monday, May 4, 2009

Good bye Hangzhou...

These are my final photos before I bid farewell to Hangzhou on 1st April 2009........





A view from underneath a willow tree at West Lake


Very common view of West Lake, Hangzhou

Me and the spring flowers .....

Will write on my backpacking adventure to Lijiang, Shangri La and Kunming in Yunnan soon.....

Baking local delicacy

I guess you must be wondering why I wrote quite a bit journal updating my latest activity today. The main reason behind it is that it was done while waiting for my "kuih bakar" in the oven....LOL.....On my recent trip back to Kuantan, my mother in law gave me the mould for making this local delicacy since she is no longer using it. I have been wanting to have this mould so much but could not find any near my home. I never knew that my MIL keep a piece in her kitchen. I am so happy that I inherit hers now ....ha....ha........this is the outcome....guess no so bad for the first timer!!



Very simple recipe...I just use 8 whole eggs, sugar, small portion of flour, coconut milk, a small bowl of sugar and pandan syrup extracted from blended pandan leaves. Mix altogather and pour into the mould. Set the temperature to 150-200 then baked it for 15 minutes. That's it!

My WIP for April/May 2009

These are some of my latest WIP......enjoy!!!






I am using DMC color variation on 14ct special DMC fabric (not sure for the right name though!). I choose a freebie design from my favorite designer, Aurelle and Kissy Cross.

Finally, a colorful biscornu......


This is the RE for my Mother's Day card exchange, in fact, I had finished stitching them and need to assemble it on the card....the dateline is on 06th May....and I have not finish the final pieece....arrgggghhhhhhhhhh................


Swap with Nina

As promised, I would like to share with all of you the package I received from Rita in Hungary for Swap with Nina. Rita stitch a very lovely pinkeep and small scissor fob for me. Her works is very fine and exquisite. She also send me a card printed with colorful roses. Thanks Rita for all the nicest stuff you send me and feel very lucky receiving them!






My partner for the swap is also from Hungary. I stitched a floss tag and one small scissor fob for Carol. I send her some cotton fabric, my hand dyed floss, small coin purse and an earring hand made by a native in ShangriLa, Yunnan. I was really behind dateline. I hope the package had reached her safely. I have to apologize as my piece does not really turn out so well since I am stitching them in between my travelling and moving back to Malaysia. Yeaaahhh...lesson learned!! I should not sign up for the swap in the first place.....

Update on my LHN "COMFORT"

As I said earlier, I had made quite a good progress on this one. I am not sure whether I should make this piece into a pinkeep or just sew it togather with hardboard and frame it. I don't usually set my final piece when I start stitching them ..LOL.....












Now I may need to dig the boxes for my Coffee & Tea Thead Pack and start choosing which fabric to stitch them. On the other hand, Diane had just introduce the Little Women Virtue Series in February, they are so very sweet!. Of course, that would be my next pick for my future stash (but not so soon...maybe much later this year....). Got to make full use of my Coffee & Tea thread pack first before I start buying new set. I always adore Diane's creativity!!