Passion Fruits

The leaves of passion fruits are very green and lively. There are two vines here. Two different species. I grew from seeds. They are starting to flower after a year.

A passion fruit flower bud.

The flowers bloom mid-day. After noon.  

The flowers are many, but only two fruits are formed. Probably there were no bees and the days have been quite still. No wind. Once when there were many flowers, it started to rain, didn't give any chance for the pollen to reach pistil, I think.

The flowers are beautiful.

 They drop the next day if no fruit is formed.

Lots of pollen on the stamen.

 I decided to do self pollination. 

Plenty of pollen.

Hello! Baby coming out from womb! :-)

How nice to see shiny skin passion fruit!

Vietnam Trip

I finally went for a holiday with HM. This time HM promised me to leave his laptop behind on this Vietnam trip. Why Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam?  Because we didn't know where to go, and my brother-in-law just went to Ho Chi Minh City for family holiday in September. Elly was very kind to share with me their trip itinerary. We just copycatted their itinerary, with some changes.

We took Air Asia from BKI to Tan Son Nhat International Airport. Stopover in KL. 2 hours from KL to HCM only.  Malaysia time is an hour ahead of Vietnam.

I booked into Duc Vuong Hotel. This hotel is located in Tham Ngu Lao Street, convenient for us to go around. The hotel staff were very friendly and helpful. Every staff speaks English. The room was clean. Breakfast was very good with Vietnamese bread, hot coffee, fried eggs of your choice with other few different dishes and fresh fruits. The 4 nights stays were really value for money.

Taken from hotel rooftop

Day 1

After checking in to Duc Vuong Hotel, the hotel receptionist lady pointed us to a nearby shop to eat Vietnamese noodle. 越南河粉。The beef noodle was served with a plate of herbs 九層塔，bean sprout, lettuce and one other vegetable which I am not sure of name. In fact, the Vietnamese eat a lot of such herb, bean sprout and fresh vegetables.

Elly said we should not miss the AO show perform at Saigon Opera House. In fact there are 3 other shows at the Opera House performing on different days. We watched the AO show. I didn't quite understand the stories but the show was performed professionally with music, dancing, acrobatics and cute and funny moments. It is indeed a show not to be missed in HCM. I purchased the tickets online 3 weeks before the trip via KKDay.com. Check out "Teh Dar Tribal Show at Saigon Opera House". There are 3 different zones. You get better viewing zone for paying more. Anyway, I purchased the cheapest and had no complaint about the view.

兩個女人可以頂天立地？

Outside the Opera House

Inside the Opera House

The Performers

Day 2

Again, I purchased a trip from KKDay Tour to go to My Tho, Ben Tre and the Mekong Delta.  We took Uber to go to the meeting point at the Sinh Tourist Office. The tour guide could speak fairly well English. I learnt about the Mekong Delta in Geography 40+ years ago. It was nice to see the rivers flow and the fertile soil in the Delta. On our way to Mekong Delta in the tour bus, we saw many padi fields.  It was fascinating to see tombs in the padi fields. Are the tombs there to protect their harvest? We got to take a river cruise to a village to see a number of activities by the villagers.

Grinding rice

Making rice paper

Fish from Mekong River

Rice Paper wrap

Cruising through swampy area. Attap.

Attap fruits. 海底椰

Making of coconut candies

In the evening, we enjoyed our dinner in a Vietnam food restaurant right in front of the hotel. Then walked along Tham Ngu Lao Street, a crowded tourist street at night.

Day 3

We started our morning trip to Cu Chi Tunnel, trip purchased from Klook.com.  I should say that this is also a trip not to be missed. The Cu Chi Tunnel was an underground city, built during the Vietnam War. We got to crawl in a 60m tunnel, which has been enlarged for tourists to get some hang of moving in tunnels. By the way, if you are not fit, it is better not to join in the tunnel crawling. I felt so tiring inside the tunnel. THERE IS NO WAY TO TURN BACK. YOU JUST HAVE TO MOVE FORWARD. In fact, I was a bit panic when we came to a junction of which we were not sure of the way. The tour guide wasn't with us. I was afraid that I might faint due to lack of oxygen as both my hand had started to feel a bit numb. Anyway, we came out safely, but inwardly, wasn't too pleased. 

One interesting observation. I noted that we could hear people talking outside the tunnels, but those outside couldn't hear us in the tunnels.

Can you easily notice the entrance to the tunnel? 

Tiger Trap

Superfood - 18grains

I have recently heard a lot of advertisement on Superfood over the radio, tv, direct sales, friends....

1kg of Good Morning 18 grains costs RM70+ in Kota Kinabalu, displayed in the supermarket. Last night while watching Astro 经典名曲歌唱大赛2017， I continuously saw the advertisements over and over again. 

This powdery drink is portrayed as a healthy drink, meant for all ages.  I don't understand why purple sweet potatoes only costs around RM5 to RM8 per kg, depending on where you buy, end up RM70+ in powdery form in a tin.  

I couldn't help but to find out the ingredients in this tin.

When I added up the ingredients of the 18grains, they only consist of 30% of the whole tin. I feel distasteful to find non-dairy milk and fructose to be the ingredients in a tin too. I believe these two would be more than 50% of the whole tin. 

How harmful is non-dairy milk and fructose to the body can be easily found on the website.  This is as bad as Malaysia popular 3-in-1 coffee.

The nutrition facts do not reflect the ingredients listed.

I believe in real food, if we can buy fresh purple sweet potatoes and other ingredients from the stores, why go for the processed food? And pay so much more for what meant to be harmful to your health? 

Malaysia Coffee

I develop coffee drinking habit from my father.  When I was young, my mother used to make one pot of coffee and one smaller pot of Chinese tea every morning. As like most mothers, one of the first thing to do in the morning is to boil a pot of water.  The hot water was poured over the local coffee powder in the pot and over the Chinese Tea（ 铁观音）. Then a few spoonfuls of sugar were stirred into the coffee. 10 of us in the family would either drink coffee, tea or plain water. This is my memory of local coffee. And thus naturally deem morning drink with breakfast.

Then, came instant coffee and coffeemate. Seemed to taste very well to replace local coffee. A cup of Nescafe+coffeemate+sugar became a finale for every meal. The clever selling skill of Nestle introduced 3 in 1 small packages. I couldn't part with it. I don't know how many years I drank Nestle 3-in-1. Over 20+ years! Oh! Gosh! How much sugar and hydrogenated oil had I unknowingly consumed to raise the cholesterol and sugar level in my body?! How much fat have I developed due to that?

When my husband started taking metformin, I started to take an interest in nutrition. I observed the food he ate, and I ate. And to work out what to omit, and how to balance our food intake. My husband used to be constantly drinking coffee, so much so that I thought he has made a habit of drinking coffee, like naturally forcing himself down with coffee, instead of enjoying it.

Tomato Plant

I decided to grow cherry tomato, and here is my tomato plant. I don't put much effort. Just plotted with two seeds, and kept the stronger seedling. The fruits are plenty. They are so heavy until they pull the stem down and some tomatoes are touching the ground.

The fruits have started to get ripe. The weather has been very hot. I water twice a day, and perhaps the soil was not wet enough, the tomato skin is quite thick. They don't taste very good, but I just eat them raw.

Soy Sauce-traditional and Instant version

All these while I have been wondering how the soy sauce factories are able to produce so much soy sauce because my understanding about soy sauce production is through slow fermentation processes. It takes months, and you need many big urns for soy sauce fermentation. I think I got my assumption from the old Chinese movies, where households put the urns at their backyard.

In fact, there are traditional method of producing soy sauce in China and Taiwan. I am not so certain about Malaysia. I have been naive. Now, I can only jump into conclusion that for any soy sauce that I can easily buy from the stores be it in sundry shops or supermarket or hypermarket, they must be instant version so that mass production is possible.

Time to make a change in my choice for soy sauce as it is one of the main ingredient in my kitchen, and it is not supposed to cause any harm to my health, because it is fermented.

Chinese Soy Sauce-Flavor Enhancer & Preservatives

I did not expect to see so much additives in the soy sauce I am using!

Camel brand-thick soy sauce
E200(Preservative)
E621(Monosodium Glutamate or Ajinomoto)

Camel brand-light soy sauce
Sodium Benzoate E211(Preservative)

Lee Kum Kee-first draw soy sauce
Disodium 5-Inosinate(Flavor Enhancer), 
Disodium 5-Guanylate(Flavor Enhancer)

汾阳桥-Superior Light soy sauce
Color(E150a)
E621,E631,E627(Flavor Enhancer), 
E202, E211(Preservative)

Maggi-Seasoning
Don't even list the ingredients used!