My Granny's Place - Gua Musang - 5D4N

Chocolate n Peanut butter cupcakes

Green tea and redbean cupcakes - baked for my granny

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Me and my mum departed Singapore Railway Station at Tanjong Pagar on 23 Jun 08 at 6pm, arrived at Gua Musang on 24 Jun at 5am in the morning.

It has been a long long time ever since i last went to my granny's place, because it's very far far away, at the north of Malaysia - Gua Musang. No flight to this destination, so we have to travel by train, journey around 11 hours. In fact, it's quite fun travelling by train, because i got to sleep and the train conductor will wake us up when we reach our destination.

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As my granny's house had never been upgraded or renovated since the original state (since 20-30yrs back), it is still like a "kampong" kind of lifestyle. The house is built with wood, the only places with cement are the floor and the toilet "well" (where water is accumulated for shower purpose). After living in the city for so long, i really cannot get use to staying there. Not because of the lifestyle but because of the insects and animals around. I dare not go to the toilet at night because of the "flying cockroaches" and lizards arounds. I have to sleep with lights on every night because it was so dark. I have to shower with water in the well, which may have lizard's pee and shit....

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Street outside my granny's place

Place where people buy their daily vegetables and meat

Railway station at Gua Musang

Pasar Pagi - Weekly Morning Market - sells everything (but the place is very dirty and smelly, worst if it was raining the day before)

My uncle's chilli field




Cactus with flowers



Chinese Temple

My cousin's homework (drawn by me!)- Scene of classroom

Insect found at my granny's backyard

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Little India Project

The Litte India Project is similar to the Chinatown one, excpet for i do not have memories of Little India. Just hoping to find some traditional indian flavour.

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Not much luck with pictures, but some interesting finds on indian food. I found this shop that sells traditional indian desserts. The shop looks very old and only sells indian desserts. I bought some to try and they are very nice. For the cake/cookie type, it taste almost like a butter cookie. Very strong in flavour, very nice. I also bought this indian snacks, made from flour, curry leaves and onion, that is very nice too. I also bought some other snacks recommended by the lady, but have yet to try them. She told me that these snacks are made fresh everyday. The snacks are very nice, will definitely patronize them again.

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The dessert that taste like Butter cookie

Other than the desserts, i also bought some indian spices. Because after eating the Tandoori Chicken at Muthu's Curry, i wanted to learn how to make it. Because it was very delicious! Therefore i bought some spices for my Tandoori Chicken.

Really like the atmosphere in Little India, because they still maintain the "old flavours", such as old dessert shops and the old food restuarant. Would definitely go there more often in future.

Chinatown Project - 唐人街 又名 牛车水

My dad used to own a stall in Chinatown when i was young, selling "Ham Chim Beng" ( chinese fried doughnut, sweet - with redbean filling, savoury - with chinese five spices powder), therefore i was grew up there. Have been wanted to take pictures of the "Old" Chinatown but never have time to do so until today. I wanted to take some pictures for memory sake, but sad to say that Chinatown has lost it "flavours". It is no longer the Chinatown that i used to know. Of course, i know that Chinatown has changed long ago. But it was not so "new" till the recent renovation took place for the market and the hawker centre. I wanted to take some pictures of the market scenes, but unable to find any "feeling" to take the pictures. Because the new market is just another market that you can find else where. I was so disappointed...

I went up to the hawker centre to look for food that i used to eat (20 years ago) and to my surprised, some are still there. For example the "economic" bee hoon with porridge, which is located not far from the front entrance escalator. The food they sell is still the same as before, and so are the people selling them, except for the portion of the food have skrunk.

Than i went to look for this "Yong Tau Foo", which was sold by my father's friend (whom the daughters were my childhood friends). I found it! The stall was having very good business, there was a long queue at 11:20am on a thurdsay morning. As i really wanted to taste this memorable "old food", i joined in the queue. It was my turn after 20minutes wait. It was worthwhile, because not only do i get to taste this "old flavour" again, i saw this childhood friend of mine! But i did not acknowledge her, because they were too busy. And i do not know if she can still recognise me.

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After the tasty meal, i continue the search of the old Chinatown. I managed to find a few places with"old flavours". The first one is the "Big China" (大中国), they were very famous for their mooncakes (during my childhood days) and chinese cakes. My favourite was their redbean cake. The shops still look like it used to be, so i snapped a few pictures. Next, is this shop selling medicated oil. I do not have much memory of this shop, because which kid will enjoy visiting places that sells medicine. But i can "smell" the old flavor of this shop. You will be able to tell when you see it too. Next, it's another of my favourite shop, "Lee Tong Kee Hor Fan". They used to sell the best Chicken Hor Fan, with the smoothers hor fan that you cannot find elsewhere, but i do not know for now. I would love to try it, but just had my Yong Tau Foo... so got to be next time.

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I went to look for Kreta Ayer People's Theatre, a place where my dad used to bring me when i was young. Whereby the price for a movie only cost $2.50. It has now became a community centre.

The Chinatown Project ended very soon, it took me around 3hrs. Since i could not find the old flavours anymore, i moved on to another project - The Little India Project.