Food glorious food

Day 5 – Kuching – New Years day

When I first thought about doing a blog, I sort of promised myself this would not turn into a food blog, day 5 and I have broken that rule. Today was pretty much about food, mainly looking at it, partly recovering from the amount consumed, and a wee experiment with something new.

Up earlyish again to another sunny and humid morning, cup of coffee for breakfast as still full from last night !

We set of at eight for the Kuching Sunday market to check out some sights and look for some local fruit and snacks for me to sample. The market was fascinating with lots of fresh fruit, fish and meat and home made snacks along with the usual market fare of cheap imports from China.  We sampled a few of the of the snacks, prawn fritters, curry puffs and bought some odd looking fruit to take back for me to try later on.

Dried chillies (it is Malaysia after all)

Fish (and flies) for sale – (go the Arsenal ! The Malay’s are really into football and there are a lot of English premiership shirts in Kuching, you have no idea how long I had to wait for the bloody Manchester united fan to get out of shot ! )and for eatingwhole chickens (the sun was shining through an orange canopy, so the chickens were a normal colour)Huge Jack fruitand a take away snack of rice baked in bamboo

After the heat of the market I had a wee lie down back at the apartment before we were picked up by a friend of Alex’s and his family and went for a swim and lunch at the Kebah golf club. I had a burger and fries, mmmmm first chips for a while and maybe last chips for a while. There is a McDonalds in Kuching, so assume there will be in many other places, but I really do want to not go there, local foods as much as possible !

I am pretty sure I have neither of these, but I thought that before I went to Hong Kong !

I spent the rest of the day mooching in the apartment, updating the blog over a couple of beers. After 4 days of walking around in the heat and not drinking enough water I was feeling a bit drained. As I am in no particular rush to be anywhere at any time I want to rest up every now and then, at least until I get used to activity in the heat and humidity. I did go for a wee walk around the block.

Alex’s apartment block,  from across the man made lake – the one on the left.

The first of the weird fruits, durian. apparently these are banned from many hotels in Malaysia due to the smell ! They are quite pungent. I had a couple of pieces, the first was OK, the second tasted like the smell, and was off-putting sadly. A quote from Wikipedia.

“The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust, and has been described variously as almonds, rotten onions, turpentine and gym socks. The odour has led to the fruit’s banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia.”

With all this food, I am going to have to be careful I don’t turn into a blimp ! Sucking down a whisky now, so I guess that isn’t helping much either 🙂