Jackie Miao

Yesterday, Kota Kinabalu was visited by the world’s most anticipated ship, a 90,000-tonne beauty the  MV Queen Victoria. Currently on their 2010 World Voyage, this “Best of the Best” luxury British pride is one of the newest, most opulent passenger ships in the world belonging to Cunard.

Since my dad was piloting another ship at the time, he was able to take this photo of her from this angle while he was on the other ship. It would have been impossible to get a macro angle of her berthed so gracefully unless you were on another ship!

If you look carefully at the bottom of the picture, you’ll be able to see a guy standing by the side of the port, which gives you an idea of just how big the Queen Victoria is. She came and left yesterday, and word on Facebook has it that she’s headed to Perth next as I type! Sigh…

I’m really excited to announce that I signed up Kota Kinabalu to get involved in the Twestival Global 2010 initiative. Check out the video!

Twestival to put it in the simplest terms is a Twitter festival that happens one day, once a year where people get together for a tweet-up party to raise money for charity. This year 200 cities will get together on 25th March 2010 to raise money for Concern Worldwide, who are helping the poorest kids in the world go to school.

We’re currently looking for volunteers and sponsors at the moment, and if you’d like to help follow @kktwestival @fooz @twestival @concern @twestivalasia and drop us a line here kktwestival@gmail.com with your name and contacts. In the coming days, we’ll have more information on how you can participate!

Visit our official blog here!  http://kotakinabalu.twestival.com

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Snagged from hubpages.com. Shows blood glucose levels over time after a meal that is high or low in GI

Life got ultra busy again and I couldn’t log what I was eating for my apparent diet. Saying that I’ve been having better carbs as much I can, but it was a challenge during the Chinese New Year week with so many face-stuffing parties.

So what I did was pay attention to the total GI and GL of my meals. If there was a high GI dish like mashed potatoes, I would pad two spoonfuls of that with half a plate of low-GI veges to lower the GI profile of my meal.

Saying that, I’ve been making better choices on an everyday basis. I asked a friend at the gym who had lost heaps of weight how she changed her chubby genes to show a skinny body and she said, “Make better choices!”  and that’s exactly what I did; I made better choices.

Switching from white rice to brown rice, cutting out potatoes, no bread, ho fun noodles, glutinous rice, or flour-based cakes. I also substituted sugar with honey when necessary, and chose to drink calorie-free freshly brewed Tazo teas instead of lattes at Starbucks.

The verdict? My energy levels were steady and I felt my mood was more stable.

In fact I cheated yesterday, and took a few mouthfuls of some my grandma’s Ho Fun and I kid you not it made me feel so edgy, anxious, moody, and restless. I felt so uneasy that I spent an hour at the bookstore feeding myself positive attitude quotes to overcome the foulness of the carb crash. Why does Malaysian noodles have to taste so good and give you the worst carb crash ever?!

Perhaps I’ll substitute my favorite noodles with their lower-GI cousin the bean thread vermicelli, which is also called glass noodles or Tanghoon. I reckon I’ll be eating low-GI foods predominantly from now on to avoid feeling like fecal matter from the backside of a Saharan mammal. Whether or not it makes me lose weight is secondary because I just feel better after eating low-GI foods.

Mestemacher bread is yummy toasted

Here’s the 7 guidelines of Low GI Eating taken from page 183 of The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index – the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health:-

1. Eat seven or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
2. Eat low-GI breads and cereals (I eat Mestemacher breads (see left) and oats for breakfast).
3. Eat more legumes including soybeans, chickpeas and lentils.
4. Eat nuts more regularly.
5. Eat more fish and seafood.
6. Eat lean red meats, poultry and eggs.
7. Eat low-fat dairy products.

Alrighty hope you are making better choices!

When my bike started to get really stiff on the pedal, I decided it was time to begin learning how to maintain my bicycle. Since I had no clue how to go about degreasing, oiling, and maintaining a bike I turned to The Complete Bike Book: Choosing, Riding, and Maintaining Your Bike, which I got a year before I bought my GT bike! The book has instructional photographs on how to maintain a bike, which made it easier for me to learn on my own. While it is quite a comprehensive guidebook it lacked recommendations on brands of chain lubes, so I posted a question on Facebook asking for some suggestions.

A few people came back with some ideas ranging from Singer oil to WD-40. Eventually I chose to heed the advice of Clement and headed to Spring Trading to get Pedro’s Lube! While I was there, I realized I needed a couple of more tools to make the maintenance process easier. I got a working stand (RM45), track pump (RM25), cleaning brushes (RM54), and Pedro’s lube (RM 32). The bike shop owner recommended that I use WD-40 (RM 14.90) as a degreaser so I stopped by at the supermarket to pick a can up.

I’m pretty proud to say that my first maintenance session was pretty successful. Pedro’s lube is really silky smooth; took the bike out for a 45 min spin and it rode smoothly and beautifully! Now the next step would be to learn how to maintain the other bike parts and change a flat tire. Wish me luck!!!

To get your bike supplies in K.K., you can head to Spring Trading at Kampung Air:-

Spring Trading Co.
No. 5, Ground Floor, Jln Sentosa,
88000 Kota Kinabalu,
Sabah, Malaysia.
Tel: 088-26 2201

This is the 6th and final part of my Hong Kong series.

Maybe this is really late, but it was supposed to be my very last post on my Hong Kong trip and life just kind of got in the way. People tell me that you don’t leave Hong Kong without having dim sum and so that’s exactly what Rachel and I did for my last day. We went to West Villa Restaurant in Causeway Bay, which is said to be a favorite for local celebrities.

Here’s what we ordered:-

Rachel was craving for some Char Siu Bao so we got some. The top of the bun is like a Mexico bun and the filling inside the bun is a Char Siu pork filling with sweet gravy. I really liked the texture of the bun as I could really taste the freshly baked goodness from the first bite.

We also got some steamed Pai Kuat which tasted classic, unpretentious and good. I was however most impressed with the Siu Mai. The pork meat and big prawns were really fresh, juicy, springy and delicious. I’ve never had Siu Mai quite like it; not in Malaysia, not in New York, not even in London. It was arguably the best Siu Mai I’ve ever had in my life (so far) so if you eat nothing else in Hong Kong, eat the Siu Mai at West Village Restaurant.

Perhaps what was the least familiar to me was this Dim Sum style frittata. The glutinous rice with meat is coated with egg and fried like a frittata, then sliced and eaten with a dipping sauce. Apart from the virginal visual sensation, it was not bad but something that will probably come in as the last choice if I had to order it again.

Since I was missing the ritual Sunday dim sum sessions at Yi Ban and The Laureate in London, seeing this Kuay Tow wrapped with Cheong Fun dish on the menu was a pleasant delight. I was glad we ordered it because it was crunchy, chewy and had the subtle flavors of five spice. Chewing through this made me think about  how incredibly well the British-Chinese have tried to retain the best of Cantonese food and offer it to Britain.

Finally, Rachel insisted that I have the Tau Foo Fah. OUT OF THIS WORLD, glad she suggested it! I’ll be sure to head over for some Tau Foo Fah on my next trip because it’s really so smooth, silky and absolutely beautiful with the shaved palm sugar topping.

Overall, the meal was beautiful. I’m really glad we had dim sum on my last day because now I know what the big deal is. Here’s how to get there:-

West Villa Restaurant
Room 101-102, 1/F., Lee Garden Phase 2, 28 Yan Ping Road
tel: 852 2882 2110

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog series on Hong Kong. I love it so much I will definitely be back for more munchies and partying!