Months ago my best buddy and I decided to have a little road trip to our famous Tioman Island on the East coast of Peninsula Malaysia.
So we took a long ride departing from Melaka at 5am in the morning and drove all the way into Johor and headed East into Mersing. (Google around if you want to know how to get there by car)
At Mersing, we parked our car at the public parking lot and took a ferry into Tioman which cost around RM35.
By the time we arrived, it was already late afternoon.
We checked into Tioman House located on ABC beach (which used to be RM15 the cheapest bangalow from what I read from the internet, but now cost over RM150 per unit >p).
It was still clean, decent and comfy.
I took the Queen size bed of course :p hehehe
We took a walk around to scout for lunch, and saw ang moh playing in the sea along the long stretch of beach.
We ended up in some rather homely restaurant some 20 mins walk away and decided we were to hungry to walk any further. -.-
Now I have to conclude, FOOD in Tioman, SUCKS BIG TIME.
There's hardly any nice food around and they're not exactly cheap.
In fact, the nicest thing I remembered having on the island during my stay there was Baked Beans on Toast. -.-
Tioman is small, but not that small to walk around the entire island in one day.
Most of the streets there were this sort of small, narrow, concrete path.
Surrounded by a lot of houses at both sides.
Mostly "bars" on the beach side.
Though more like sheds with the title bar to it.
It's rather developed for an island that's not situated by a lot of locals.
Not exactly my cup of tea. But here you are sure to find quite a number of travelers all year round. We camwhored for a bit...
before taking the opportunity to take a long walk along the beach at sunset. :D
Enjoy these shots.
And finally, the sun set.
all nice shots credit to GeraldI have a lot more nicer photos in store but I'm going to keep those for later and dedicate a whole entry of self shot wallpapers of Tioman when I'm done with these entries.
Look out for those k? :)
That night, instead of talking 20 mins from our bungalow, we took a short hop to the next door restaurant for dinner.
While we settled down on our tables, suddenly, a cat leaped onto my lap and stayed there!
Like wtf?
Since when cats become so dominating?
Wait, since like forever.
He was very cute though (it's a He, I saw the balls), and manja and purred at me for a good 15 minutes before leaping down.
And guess what?!
He leaped to another guy's lap at the table next to us and purred there!!
That traitor cat!!!
I'm not talking to you anymore!
That night, while resting on our porch, a kitten came along,
it twirled around my legs, I patted its head for it was cute, and before I knew it, it hopped onto my lap and stayed there!!
Were all the cats in Tioman really domesticated or something? They seemed oblivious to strangers and selfishly claimed each and every single lap they come across theirs?!
The worse part was, she refused to leave?!!
Even when her MOTHER came along, and wedged herself next to her daughter on my lap for space till they're both about to fall, and not a sign of leaping off me was shown!
And that's not all! Papa cat came along asking for the same attention?!!!
All same color somemore!Am I the new age Goldilocks?!? $%#$^
We've been dutifully tending to our itty bitty garden (all you avid gardeners don't laugh, it's all I could manage this summer)...
and look what we have! Our very first tomatoes of the season. Apparently my two-year-old didn't pluck off all of the green tomatoes to make cannon balls for his shovel catapult earlier this week. So, we each took one little red tomatoe. It was delicious.
I mentioned that I was making dinner from what I had on hand, right? Well, I should have just gone plain and simple. But no, I decided to get a little fancy, and had to fix the curry to make it edible.
Then I threw in a carton of cherry tomatoes. Next some chopped kale. (The remainder of my CSA and farmer’s market bounty from last week.) The idea was to have the tomatoes stew and become part of the sauce. 
Next a jar of Trader Joe’s Punjab Spinach Sauce (which I keep in my pantry for times like these). I guess now is as good a time as any to mention that I am not at all opposed to using these meal helpers as long as I recognize all of the ingredients within. If it’s all stuff I’d cook with anyhow, why not use a little help here and there? We’ve all got a lot going on in our lives, and it would be ludicrous to assume we’re going to cook from scratch each night! Trader Joe’s has a bounty of these prepared sauces, frozen items, and envelopes of goodies I keep on hand. 
OK, so back to the curry. Next I tossed in a handful of raisins (for texture and some sweetness)...
and a bag of frozen organic spinach and a bag of organic frozen peas. I should have just let the potatoes cook, the flavors blend, and enjoyed the meal as is over brown rice.
The irony of it all? When my husband had the curry he commented that it was a little too sweet for his tastes.
Today I am under "house arrest"—again—with two sick little boys, one of whom is potty training. In addition to blowing any chance I had of a “break” this week, I haven’t found it very appealing to venture into a supermarket with these two. So, we’ve been making do with what we’ve got in the fruit bowl, the pantry and fridge. Meals have been a sort of creative game. Last night my Wednesday Supper Exchange saved the day, since it was switched to Tuesday this week and my friend Liz made a delicious meal. The whole family enjoyed a grilled chicken with honeydew salsa that was yummy. Today, it’s looking a little bleaker. Thankfully, I think I have enough ingredients on hand to whip up a vegetable curry that'll get us through one more day? (Photo of last night's dinner courtesy of Epicurious.com, since we ate it before snapping a pic.)
Today I am not cooking, I am foraging. In what is easily one of the more exhausting rites of parenthood, I am potty training our little one. This leaves me very little time to cook, as I cannot take my eyes off him for more than mere minutes, for fear that he will forget to go. All of this together time has me thinking that maybe I would like to go back to work. Kidding, sort of. But I have listened to those of you who prodded me to try out for The Next Food Network Star....I am seriously considering it. It could be fun. It would be wild. We'll see?
