Coconut trees, pepper and kinship - Hainan, China

Just came back from Hainan (海南省). 

It was supposed to be a trip to bring my father and aunt to visit our 舅公 and 舅婆. Our last trip was 7 years ago with my father and mother.  It is amazing to see relatives whom had grown up or grown older after 7 years.

舅公 and 舅婆 is still going strong even though they were not as healthy as before.  Old people tend to get weaker as years go by. I am glad we visited them this year.  The younger relatives had all grown up and working, and we remain in contact with them after the trip through wechat.  Hopefully, next time, they will be the ones visiting us in Singapore.  😁

The 乡下 relatives are very 好客, treated us to sumptuous food when we visited them.  I still think Hainan has very nice vegetables, fresh and crunchy.  We ate goose, chicken, duck, pork, beef, seafood and lots of vegetables.  We tried all their chilli sauces and it is really hot hot hot.

We saw our shophouse build by my grandmother. The shopfront is still ok, but the interior is a big mess.  Even though it is sad, but it can't be help as we can't expect the 2 old folks to have the energy to scold the tenants for not tidying or to clean up the mess.  At least, it is being rented out, instead of rotting there.

We went to 三亚 before going to 琼海, 文市镇, 文多水村, where our 舅公 and 舅婆 stays. It was raining in 三亚 and typhoon was forecast. However, the typhoon passed by and we didn't get to experience it. 😥. Because of the rain, we didn't get to see much of 三亚, I hope to return one day where I can visit 天涯海角 and 海上观音.

We shopped a lot in 琼海, 加积镇, buying up dry-fit tees and 3/4 sports pants. We also bought lots of goodies back as souvenirs for colleagues and friends.

海南 is famous for their coconut trees (because it is an island surrounded by seas), seaside resorts and pepper.  A lot of their goodies are made from coconut. In my relatives' village, they grew pepper, 槟榔, rear pigs, chickens, duck and goose for sale.  To be frank, they are very self sufficient and have much more in terms of life than us Singaporean.  Whenever they need food, they just rear or grow the food, just like what my 舅公 and 舅婆 does.

It is a good trip, I hope to visit again soon.

3 months passed and any happenings?

Actually quite a lot.

I brought my aunties to Hong Kong for a short trip with my sister. 3 aunties in their sixties and 2 阿姐 in their forties. It was a fun trip even though a bit hectic.  The 3 aunties enjoyed themselves and I am glad of that.

Mum went for the PET scan in Aug and it was confirmed that there is no tumour in her body. They did a full body scan and can't find areas that are suspicious. We were so happy to hear about this.  A heavy stone taken off.  And I thanked 观音 for blessing her. Doc says there is nothing much to worry even though her CEA blood test is still high. The PET scan is the most accurate diagnosis to-date. However, she will need to go for blood transfusion because her blood count continues to drop.

I attended a course 2 weeks ago, "The 7 habits of highly effective people". A very interesting course, do attend it if you have a chance, it is an expensive course. Whatever that were taught were very useful both in the workplace and in our personal life.

I am not in good health at the moment. Pain pain pain, but I will try to exercise and keep myself stress-free and rest more. I remember the 7-habits course, so I am going practice these habits and live with them when it comes to my health. Hope I can achieve something on this.

猪脚米粉

Rainbow noodles

Talking about being healthy, I cooked 猪脚米粉 (an unhealthy dish) for dinner recently. It tasted great and every little bit was finished. Sis also cooked Japanese rainbow noodles and it tasted even better than my 猪脚米粉. Even though 猪脚米粉 is unhealthy but since it is once a while, I felt it is ok.

Hmm .. it wasn't an excuse. We can still enjoy our food even though we need to keep ourselves healthy.

Change my paradigm, I can enjoy my food and be healthy too.

It is now JUNE and this is the first post for the year. OMG

This is no good.  Nearly half a year is gone and I have yet to update my blog.  I nearly forgot what I had done for the past 5 months.

Times flies.  I believed I am a bit relaxed for the past 5 months.  The Corp website I had been supporting for past 10 years got transferred to another department. My only role now is to transferred all my knowledge to my colleagues and support them if they could not handle the website.  In the meantime, I will be clearing all the enhancements and issues of all the small applications, ie applications that are supporting internal operations.

Chinese New Year has passed, we managed to cook up a feast. Stew pork with tau kee and black fungus, vegetables curry, finger food, etc.

A niece was borned and we are expecting a nephew in September. But these are all my cousin's children. Haiz, my brother and sister-in-law should 加油了.

I picked up pop piano lessons and attended lessons for 5 months now. Learn 5, 6 songs but still cannot play without pausing. It wasn't too hard for me at the moment, but I must really practice.

Recently, I made bak chang and kee chang for the 端午节 offerings to our ancestors. Comments were mixed, some felt it was not salty enough, some felt the taste is just nice. I tried to add in 豆沙 in the kee chang for the first time.  Since it is the first time, the amount put in was too little. Next time, I will put more.

Other than these, nothing much that I can remember now.  Getting old and losing my memory power.

Never fear, next few months will be better ... I hope. 😁