To Ikea-Bangna!

So it is possible to go the newly opened Ikea-Bangna in Bangkok without getting on the taxi or driving there.

I finally made the trip to check out the first Ikea outlet in Bangkok last Friday, almost half a year after they opened their doors on Thai soil. With a tip from Hubby and some minor research on the internet, I found out that you can hop on the MRT to Sukhumvit, get on the BTS from there towards Udomsok station on the Onnut/Bearing direction. From there Ikea provides shuttle buses to their store, approximately every thirty minutes.

And I had to pick the most convenient time do it, lunch time on high noon! I didn't have enough change to get the ticket and so had to join in the long, long queue to get my change. Luckily it was fast enough and soon, I was waiting on the platform above. It's 25baht from Asoke to Udomsuk, by the way.

Out in Udumsok, I tried to look for any signs that points to the Ikea shuttle bus stop but couldn't find any. So, off I went to ask the lady officer there. Take exit 5 and go straight down the stairs and the bus stop is there, she had said or something like that. I thanked her and followed her instructions. 

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, I was a little apprehensive. Eh, where's the bus stop? I guessed I was actually expecting to see the bus stop as soon I reached the end of the stairs. I looked ahead but still no bus stop in sight. I looked to the back, and then saw people forming sort of a waiting crowd, under the stairs, right in front of a 7-11 outlet! 

Oh, so that's where the unofficial bus stop is, I had thought. I went over to join the waiting group. After sometime, I realized that it was really an unofficial bus stop, no signs whatsoever, but all the passing buses stop there to pick passengers up. The raised sidewalk that we were standing on made it easier for the passengers to alight or board their buses. And with the traffic lights just ahead, I could certainly see why the drivers chose to stop there.

Oh, I waited long enough to notice a little sign outside a little travel agency shop that says, Ikea 30-40 and somethings in Thai. I guessed it meant I was on the right spot and I had to be prepared to wait up till 40 minutes for the shuttle bus. I didn't mind, though. Time was what I had. 

Lucky me, I didn't have to wait that long, only for about 15 minutes or so, before I saw the Ikea shuttle heading towards us. The bus was the newer type, the one with air-conditioning and front 4 seats behind the driver facing each other. Which was good. I like that kind of bus. They are normally newer and in better condition. 

Journey there took quite a while. Traffic was quite heavy actually, perhaps due to the fact it was a Friday and it was noon time. Also the driver made another stop on the way at the Central Ramkhamheang, was it, I wasn't sure on that, to pick up more passengers, who Ikea staff I found later. We took about a good half an hour to reach Ikea.

I was surprised to see how huge the place was, actually. MegaBangNa, I think that is the name given to whole area. Quite a number of big names are there, or going to be there. The place looked, smelt and sounded new, with construction workers everywhere, strong paint smell, and tools hard at work. Reminded me a little about the Curve area in Damansara, just bigger.

The driver waited for a while at the end of the road leading towards the entrance of Ikea. Then, he made his way in. At his first stop, a bunch of people got down and while the rest of us were getting ready to get down, the driver said something, which by then a blonde lady already out of the bus walking. Someone got her and got her to come up the bus again, which then I understood, that was the entrance for the staff and he was going to bring us to the real entrance! She got up, thanked the bus driver and sat and he continued driving, bringing us to the real entrance.

Here you go, I had imagined him saying, this is your entrance! And so I got down and followed the crowd towards what I presumed was the entrance to Ikea-Bangna, slightly a little over an hour after starting my journey.

Sesame buns, successfully!

This is a wonderful morning! It may look like any other morning recently, bright, it may feel like any other recent mornings, hot, and it may be like any other mornings, alone. But no, it's not. It's better than the other past few mornings. Really!

I made bread, successfully! Yeah!!!!

Okay, technically I didn't really make bread, I made buns. Oh but I used bread recipe and shaped the dough into 9 buns, so maybe technically I did make bread, but baked it as buns.

I woke up slightly later than I wanted to and got right into making my breakfast and making my bread. I heated up the milk for my oats and made extra for the bread. While the oats were cooking, I sifted the flour. I used all purpose flour, the only flour I had. I used up all my leftover flour. Adding 2 spoonful of sugar and a big tablespoon of instant yeast, I also added some cinnamon powder. For fun. But forgot to throw a pinch of salt into it.

Excitedly, I nearly poured my now luke warm milk into the dry ingredient mixture when I realized I had not added any butter or oil into my recipe. So I stopped myself in time, poured out some oil and mixed with some milk, and poured the mixture into the dry ingredients to kick start my fun. I then poured some more of the milk. Using a wooden spatula, I mixed all of them around and made sure all the flour turned into dough.

Then, I took out the dough and kneaded for a while on the counter. It was tough job. I could feel myself struggling to do it. The dough didn't feel soft, giving me some fear that I might end up with some rock buns. With that fear in mind, I continued to knead, going about it for almost 5 minutes, if not more. Sweat beats were forming all over me. Yes, I am that lousy.

This was the day I am grateful for the sun, the heat really helped to puff up my dough. I oiled the dough and left it to rest in the pot at the balcony where the sun was the strongest. After half an hour or so, I went to check and got really pleased when I saw the dough has more than doubled. It was like a giant ball now. Without further ado, I brought it in, boxed it down to release all the air and took it out to knead again.

After that I cut the dough into 8 parts. I wanted 9 parts but got only 8. Anyhow, I shaped the dough into little balls and dipped the tip into some sesame seeds before placing the little ball into an oiled pan. I did the same with the rest, but pinched out some dough from some of the remaining 7 to make another ball. So in the end, I got my 9 sesame balls arranged in 3x3 in the pan. Not uniformly perfect in size but certainly perfectly arranged.

After letting them proved again for about 15 minutes, it was time to bake. I was so happy and excited to see them in the oven. They really looked good there, all puffed up and boomed up and round and serene. I baked them for almost 20 minutes at 205-210 degree Celcius, taking them out once each to brush them with butter and rotate the pan.

The buns are now sitting on the iron rack cooling while I'm typing this out. They are just screaming to me, eat me, eat me! Hahaha.. I am glad they turned out well! Pat at the back for me!

Malaysian food in Kopitiam, are you sure?

Ok, the only reason I went to Kopitiam Central Ladphrao was because I stumbled across a review on this place while searching for Malaysian food in Bangkok.


The reviewer actually said that this was a Malaysian style Kopitiam and that they served Malaysian food, specifically Nasi Lemak, my current craving. 


Sitting here, only the drinks menu had familiar sounding names, like black coffee, cham, milk tea and ovaltine. As for the food selection, apart from soft boiled egg and toast, the rest didn't sound very Malaysian to me. I searched the whole menu for something along the likes of Nasi Lemak and Mee Siam, but nothing came even close to those. 


After going through the menu for the longest time, hoping against hope I might see something remotely Malaysian, I decided to order something that I thought might turn out as Singapore beehon, some fried vermicelli. It was nothing of that sort. While it might pass as a distant cousin, I believe this is definitely Thai. 


For drinks, I ordered black coffee, and it was really disappointing. The coffee was not thick and not hot enough but the syrup that came with it was way too thick. I made a huge blunder of dumping a teaspoonful into it without actually taking a sip of the coffee bare. It became too sweet, a little too syrupy to drink. I had to abandon ship, really. 


Oh by the way, skimming through the menu, at the very last page i saw the words "...growing up.. in chinatown, Bangkok..."

Wait, isn't Kopi a Malay word?? I understand tiam is a Chinese word but the Thai word for coffee is cafe, so why the use of Kopitiam? Bu then, I didn't finish reading through the passage, so maybe the creator grew up in Bangkok but moved to Malaysia later? Anythinglah!


I really should seriously consider opening a little cafe that serves Malaysian food in Bangkok and good old Malaysian@Melakan coffee. I welcome sponsors!! 


Here, the article by Cassandra James published on Oct 30, 2011,  that enticed me to give it a go : http://voices.yahoo.com/review-kopitiam-central-ladprao-10321165.html?cat=16

3 day MRT exploitation

Okay, I officially started my Bangkok-MRT exploitation for this year. I just purchased a 3 day pass, hence the plan.

Yes, MRT still carries the day pass, the 3 day pass and the monthly pass. They, however, decided to discontinue the 2 week pass almost a year and half ago. I used to get the monthly passes last year. And when I came back earlier this month, I had forgotten about the existence of the other passes, since they don't really advertise the day passes. I was reminded of these passes again when I was researching ways to get to the newly opened Ikea-BangNa.

The 3 day pass cost me a lot, at least for my standards. So I must make full use of this and ensure all my shopping are done within these 3 days. I also should take the chance to reacquaint myself with this city, and check out the stops along the line. The new, the changed and the disappear, although I am not sure if I can notice any disappearing act.

I think this 3 day pass is ideal for those who plan to stay here for the weekend to shop along the various shopping malls along the MRT line. With a minimum fare of 15 baht between 3 stations, the 3 day pass is worth the buy since there are like a minimum of at least 5 stops that are marketed as shopping havens.

My 3 day MRT exploitation started at Sun Watanatum this afternoon.

Suda-san

What was supposed to be a short dip in the pool upstairs on a hot morning ended up as a long soak under the sun! And I came back with a slight tan, not that I'm complaining.

I went upstairs with the intention of swimming. Under the shower pre jumping into the pool, I realized I managed to somehow snapped by goggles into 2, effectively rendering me handicap for swimming. Since I was already wet, I decided to just go ahead and soak myself in the empty pool.

After a while, an uncle came in. I was struggling to swim while all the while keeping my head above the water. After a while I gave up, and decided to just while the time away by kicking water at the side of the pool. Uncle swam a little, waddled water a little.

Then he came over and talked. And yakked we did. I found out he was Japanese and has been staying in Thailand for a total of almost 10 years now, with the past 2 years in here. He was able to speak everyday conversational Thai, while keeping his fluency in Japanese intact and steadily improving his English. 

This was only his second time up here, using the pool as he traveled Chonburi for worked for the past 2 years. He would leave at half past 6 in the morning each day for a journey that takes an hour and half and would only reached home late in the night, too tired to make use of the amenities provided. He had since resigned, hence the free time to try out the pool.

He had stayed in Malaysia and surprisingly he had traveled to Sharp in BP and Pioneer in Muar, among others. He was a bit surprised when I told him I worked the latter for a short while. He reminded me of Tobita-san. The similarities were there, especially in the overall face shape, except that his was slightly smaller and he wasn't as tough looking as Tobita-san.

He has traveled and lived in many countries, including Hong Kong, for the past 25-30 years. He seemed to know Malaysia quite extensively, naming Penang, Melaka, BP, KL and east Malaysia as places that he has been to. I believe he has been to more places in Malaysia than I have. Haha..

We left the pool when a guy, mostly the maintenance guy informed that they wanted to clean the pool. He gave his name as Suda. He was contemplating to find another apartment nearer his next office, which would be nearer to Chao Phraya River, as he didn't want to travel there each day.

Nice meeting Suda-san and all the best to him!

6 sausages for dinner!

I had six sausages for dinner today! Can you believe it? For those of know me, six is a lot!

You guessed it, there must be a reason behind it, else firstly, I wouldn't have taken six and secondly, it wouldn't have made it here, unless something happened. And something did happen.

I am not a frequent user of the microwave oven. I actually prefer to go the traditional way of cooking things over the stove, or baking it using a conventional oven. Microwave was just something I took to lately to defrost meat stuff and heat leftover meals in a hurry. Except for the time when I was in Hanoi, where I used it extensively to prepare meals for me. But that was because it wasn't my kitchen and I didn't have much utensil or things to cook and cook with aside from frozen food and instant noodles. Another story altogether.

Back to the six sausages for dinner. How can I right? Had my tummy grew so big? Was my appetite that huge now? Was I starving after performing some heavy duty exercise which burnt off chunks of my energy? Well, nothing of the sorts, actually! My ration went up simply because of my incompetence in using the microwave oven.

I rationed myself to 3 sausages, yes, just three, actually. T-H-R-E-E only. I took out the 3, removed their individual plastic wrapper, set them on a plate and placed them in the microwave. Now I really didn't what was the suitable duration to cook the sausages. So far, I've only defrost things using this microwave. 

There were some basic pictorial instruction on the microwave, which I referred to normally. However, as I said, it was only basic, covering vegetables, beef, fruit and defrost suggestions. Since sausage were made of meat, I concluded that if I should follow anything, it should be the suggestion for the beef. Well, I halved the time since I had only sausages instead of fresh meat, and only three of them. It suggested 9-10 minutes for beef, I set it to 4 minutes.

The smell and the sound that permeated through my tiny kitchen certainly didn't betray anything. I didn't think much except that they were cooking pretty well and that I might as well add some sauce to go with the sausages. So once the sausages were done, I added a scoop of leftover sambal on the plate and adjusted the timer for a further half minute.

When all was done, I took it out, ready to eat. I started to suspect something was amiss with the sausages when I saw how set and crispy the sausages had been. They didn't look hard, just, well, set. Without further ado, I poked one sausage using a fork.  Oh my, what a surprise! The fork wouldn't go through easily! I then took a finger and gave it a poke it, wanting to feel the texture myself. It was definitely not soft. The crispiness wasn't just on the outsides of the sausages, it was crispy the whole way through. My sausages essentially dried up in the microwave! A little longer, and they would have turned paper thin black, I am sure.

The 3 unfortunate sausages were still edible tough, but I didn't have any satisfaction eating them. It was like eating paper shaped into sausages. A slight tingling of the taste of the meat still remained. 10 minutes after finishing my latest dinner creation using sausages, I still felt the unsatisfied craving of having sausages.

So that was how I ended up having 6 sausages for dinner tonight. The second batch came out as plain old cooked sausages from the microwave. I should just kill myself if they too turned into crisp, papery sausages, this time not due to my incompetency but stupidity, right?

Leffe Art

I'm pretty sure with that many of us have heard of Leffe? One of the famous brand of Belgian beer, created by monks in monastries using their very own ingredients.

Well, I got to know this brand of beer after getting together with hubby as he is one lover of the beer. And when he got a nice Belgian as his boss, now former boss, he was introduced to none other than Leffe. The rest is history, as they say it.

They usual frequent a pub here which promotes various kinds of beers, especially those from Belgium. Leffe naturally took the centerstage. Now, what I like it about this fact is that the decor in this place has a stain glass art work, quite big, though not humongous. I am not sure if that is a focal point of attraction apart from the bar, but it really push forth Leffe, the abbey beer, for the stain glass artwork is none other than the iconic picture of a monk holding a glass of Leffe blond.

When I googled Leffe, this image is one of the many associated with this beer. So powerful that most the artwork is almost similar is not the same. Made me think that the art work is another branding of sorts for the Leffe brand. The monk holding the brew he created with his knowledge, sharing with the world.

Now, like I said before, I don't really drink beer, nor do I know how to enjoy and appreciate the taste of beer. What smoothness, what richness, what bitterness, let me try them all but still I cannot fathom the slightest of what those terms mean in world of beer. But what I like is this artwork. Definitely.

It's one of those things which I cannot forget. Which I find so pretty and beautiful and creative and peaceful all the together. Which lead me to do something about it, now that I am too free. Recreate the artwork, or the style of it, on paper using pencil colours and marker pens. Well, they are the only few art stuff that I have with me right now.

I was very pleased with myself when I came up with the idea of doing that and inserting my own twist in it, all for the special dedication to my hubby, the abbey beer lover. In the same style of the composition of the stained glass monk with beer, I redrew it, substituting the monk with my version, a polar bear. I crowned the polar and made him wear the robe and hold the Leffe glass, all in the spirit of the Leffe.

Why polar bear you might ask? Well, I know polar bear is associated with my hubby, but why is it polar bear and not other animals is beyond me. I didn't come up with that, merely borrowing the label. The whole construction of the art work was  not difficult when you have a reference and no time limit. The only challenge would be my talent, or the lack of it. I did try my best to make it as realistic as I can, though.

Colouring was that easy as I found out the art paper that I used, had some texture on it that if you coloured lightly, the texture became too apparent, making the colours a little uneven. I had to colour a few layers, especially using the white to blend the colours into the texture. But all in all, it was a good work done. Finished when the black lines were drawn to mimic stain glass.

And I named my art work, Polar Monk with Leffe. Leffe Art, especially for my hubby!

Nasi Lemak Goreng!

Today is leftover day! So I had nasi lemak goreng for lunch. With a twist! Leftover rice, leftover sambal, leftover peanuts, leftover cucumber, leftover omelette all dumped into the wok and stir fried. I included two sausages and added in some soy sauce to taste.

Loved it! Really loved it!

And no, this isn't my creation. I had tried nasi lemak goreng before somewhere at home and it was a really good invention.

Today the opportunity presented itself, and so I grabbed it. I am very much delighted with the outcome. It's gone now, and my mouth is still salivating! Simply delicious!

Only in Sutthisan, Krung Thep can you find flower nasi lemak and nasi lemak goreng! Hehehe...

Delicious pretty Nasi Lemak

Imagine...

Warm, fragrant rice, cooked in coconut milk, shaped into 5 petaled flower..

Imagine...

2 peanuts on each petals to create more texture..

Imagine...

A big dollop of hot, spicy sambal right on the top of the middle of the flower shaped rice...

Imagine...

Green, lightly stir-fried kangkung styled out to make the stem of the of the flower...

Imagine...

3 cool half crescent shaped slices of cucumber on each sides of the kangkung stem to mimic leaves...

Imagine...

3 omelette butterflies flying towards the flower from the left...

Imagine...

Can you see the image in your head?

Can smell the wonderful, fragrance of the rice?

Can you taste the spiciness of the sambal on your tongue?

Can you feel the coolness of the cucumber on your skin?

Can you hear the crunchiness of the peanuts as you bite them?

Do you feel yourself falling into an absolute blissful state, that the world stopped spinning for a moment as all your senses threw you into ecstasy?

Nasi lemak, oh, nasi lemak, you are so pretty today...deliciously pretty!

Sketch, if you can!

Sketch, if you find it difficult to imagine!

I am one that cannot visualise things easily in my head. I find it difficult to construct the image, with all the layers, the colours, every detail that I can think of, in my head from thin air. I will try to the visualization, but without much success. It's an important enough of an idea, I will try to sketch it out.

So I am pretty happy that I took the time to visual and then transfer my nasi lemak flower on the paper last night. I took the effort to identify a few designs actually, but stuck to the flower pattern as it was the more the pretty and doable of them.

I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome this morning. Even better than what I anticipated. Adaptation became easier, construction became more precise. Luckily then, I sketched the night before. Kitchen tornado avoided at all cost! Hopefully, the receiver loved it as much I as was proud of it!

So lesson learnt, sketch if you can! It might just help you :)

I need Spring!

Spring...

Perhaps, the reason for springs and autumns is because god has mercy on us humans!

Flying off from Hanoi right into Krung Thep in April seemed like a bad move. It is like putting taking your head our from the freezer and putting it straight into a super hot oven, if you can do those without your head cracking open!

It was so cold for Hanoi for me then that I had to wear socks almost all the time when I was in the apartment. I needed the jacket all the time when I was out and on worse days scenario, I even wore it while I was in the apartment. I might be exaggeration with the coldness but being a Malaysian, 18-20 degrees daily was too way to cold for me and I had a tough time adjusting, especially during the first 2 weeks.

Now, back in Krung Thep at the height of the Songkran season, I am experiencing massive headaches daily. It has only been 3 days here, yet, I cannot seem to adjust to the weather. It's almost like 35-38 degrees daily since I've landed. It's so hot I am tempted to have the airconditioning switched on almost all the time.

Which got me thinking, maybe the reason for spring and autumn to be stuck in the between winter and summer, and summer and winter, respectively, is to help our body to adjust better to the temperature change. That the world is designed to protect it's living things and not to kill it.

An extreme change from super hot to super cold or vice versa will just wipe us out!

Sigh.. where's my (mini)spring to help save me?

Hanoi Apartment Curse

Did I bring the 'apartment' curse with me to Hanoi?

I've been in here for almost 3 weeks, and in that 3 weeks, I've moved 3 apartments, due to reasons not under my control.

I reached here on a Tuesday. Come Thursday, I was asked to help pack up everything of ours and get ready to move. Another apartment, somewhere else, still unconfirmed then. The main thing was we needed to vacate that unit, that night!

So off we went in search of the 2nd place to stay. We had two options thrown to us, though they didn't differ much. In the end, we chose the 2nd unit as the interim unit as it was brighter, at least for me, even though that meant we would have a club/karaoke as our left neighbour. It was a walk up apartment.

Problem arose almost right after the agent left us that night. The kitchen sink was stank terribly whenever it was used and the kettle wasn't in a that dared me to use it. 2 nights later we got a rude shock in the wee morning. A drunk neighbour mistook our unit as his and managed to get in! Luckily Hubby was awake at that time. Else I wouldn't know what to do!

The technician came the following Monday to do the necessary repair work. About 3 hours of hardwork, with an hour of interruption to get another round of supplies after the initial diagnose, he managed to reveal quite a good job done! I wasn't able to open the replaced lock with my existing key, which I could after his first try and the kitchen sink actually smell better as you used.

It was smooth riding after that. No more complaints. Until we got here, apartment number #3, the apartment we originally wanted after being kicked out. The headaches came back, fast! First problem was the bedroom door couldn't close. The lock simply didn't catch. That simple problem was rectified quickly.

We thought that that was it, when after 2 days, we noticed the kitchen floor damp. The dampness didn't go away, instead, it got worse as the days went by. Water started dripping from the ceiling! At first it was a patch on the ceiling, and then later, it was almost the whole ceiling!

Tired now. The ceiling is bare, there's a staircase chair in the kitchen but the men are gone, for now. I'm hungry.