Putting 'quality content only' posts into the trash!

Hey peeps,

Okay I admit that previously I was bragging about putting on more thoughts for a quality content in  my posts; guess what, all those things I've said are up for trash. Haha. Well at least just for today though. I'm currently facing one of those connection hiccups and I'm racing against time before this internet connection goes way to slow which means I can't load up my WP page.

Anyways, I've been meaning to write a post about a little mangrove park over at my place but I'm going to let pictures do all the writing and with this kind of internet connection, I can kiss that thought goodbye for tonight. Hence, I'm just putting up a trashy post for now just to keep up with my at least three posts a week regime. Haha.

In case you are reading my posts from Facebook, thanks for reading and guys, drop a comment or two right at the comment button. I know some of you tend to leave a comment right under the link at my Facebook which is okay and great. But, think about it, if you post your comments over at this site, other people get to see your piece of thought or comment too. Sharing is caring, no? =p

Okay peeps. Gotta stop here before this laptop starts acting up with more of its annoying antiques. Til better posts to come!

Stuffs I read for my Travel Ideas

If you are on a look out for a good read to generate your new travel ideas, here is a list of sites that I frequently visit or have subscribed in my reader:

1. Matador Network - boasted as the "World's Largest Independent Travel Magazine". There are so many things to offer in this site from travel tips, to living a life as a travel journalist, a travel blogger, and reading endless amount of travel journeys and discoveries especially if you can't literally travel to a particular place. This is one travel magazine that every traveler has to read and by far is among one of my favorites.

2. Briefcase to Backpack - a great website for those looking for a career break or a gap year where you will get brilliant travel ideas and list of things you can achieve and accomplish within your gap year.

3. Travel Channel.com - what easier way to get more ideas from none other than the Travel Channel. If you can't quite catch the channel on the tv, have a quick go at their site and you won't be left disappointed for missing that favorite Travel Channel show of yours on tv.

For local travel  or more like Malaysian outdoor adventure travel,  I have subscribed to these favorite bloggers of mine:

1. Jamie Soon - I bumped into her website after googling for Sg. Kampar white water rafting event and sure enough her blog comes on the first page of the Google search. Besides topping the rank in the search engine, I'm supposing Jamie is an avid traveler and outdoor adventurer girl. You got to check out where she had been to and I must say, I want to go there too!

2. Teoh Yew Aun - this guy is an all out , outdoor adventure junkie. His writing was recently published in the local NST if I'm not mistaken. I'm also sensing he dreams to become the Malaysian version of Bear Grylls which I think is quite possible with his kind of 'enthusiasm'. It's really interesting that he takes the time to video and document his jungle discoveries. That takes a whole lot of effort man and the videos are cool too.

3. My dad's Ride a bike travel blog! He's on a mission for a Round The World trip (RTW) by 2012. If you are into bikes,go check his blog. I do hope he gets to write more though and let's hope he can document his biking journey well. FYI, my dad christened his favorite RTW bike as Camel which is a Kawasaki KLR 650. We still think Camel is a funny name to call a bike. =p

4. Zue's Cerita Travel blog. Zue is my old time friend from Penang and a true Penangnite she is. She'll be going for a Euro trip next month and I can't wait to check out on her itineraries because Euro trip is not a bad idea for this year travel ain't it? =p

Yep. There goes my list of where I read to get my travel ideas. So I want to know, where do you read to get that crazy, wild travel ideas of yours?

How far have I gone with YaszAmzah.com?

Hi peeps!

If you have noticed, most of my recent posts (which you can check out on my sidebar on the right or go straight to my Archives page that I've created just today!) are listed under the Outdoor Adventures, Travel and Sports tag. I can't help but writing about those three categories because guess what, my life is currently whirling around planning for my next travel or outdoor escapades and 'dreaming' about my to-dos travel list for this 2010. I suppose you guys are doing the same thing too yourself!

Also, I'm working to create and publish only quality contents for YaszAmzah.com and currently my weekly target is to have at least three publish posts per week. I know top bloggers have a post published for everyday of the week but for the sake of maintaining that said 'quality content', I'm sticking for just three personally written, original content as for now for this blog. You know, I do have a couple of other blogs to maintain at the same time too. However,my primary focus will be YaszAmzah.com because I'm thinking, I just need to establish that much needed self branding first. =)

With that said, I just hope you guys will stick around and check out my blog's update from time to time now. Currently, I do have a couple of travel or outdoor adventures topics that are pending for writing and do stick around to check it out.

If you have not subscribed to receive YaszAmzah.com latest updates, you can do so by clicking on this link or by clicking the subscribe to my rss feed right at the last line of this post.

Alright then, catch you guys soon!

Cinnamon Chicken Recipe - Yasz Style!

I've created this recipe a couple of days  back and when I say created that actually means I didn't even Google for any cinnamon chicken recipes on the net (God, how geeky is that...=)) and I've never experimented cooking with cinnamon powder before except using a cinnamon stick in curries of course. I just had the feeling that I got to marinate the chicken drumsticks that I have and throw in some of the spices available in my current kitchen into the marinate.

So this is how I make my original cinnamon chicken recipe:

1. Chicken drumstick washed and cleaned.

2. Throw in some generous amount of cinnamon powder and Italian seasoning ( if you don't have this, you can always use any types of mix herbs usually comes readily in a pack).

3. To add some spiciness which we Asians must always have; the spicier the better really; I added a generous amount of black pepper and this wicked Baba's Chili powder. The redness of the chili powder adds a good blend of color with the already sweet and brown colored cinnamon powder.

4. Lastly, I added some EVOO - extra virgin olive oil ( or any types of vegetable oil will do) and a touch of salt because I'm very particular with my sodium intake. Haha.

That done, mix it all together and it smells really good already. You got in here a perfect blend of original sweet flavor of the cinnamon which is very distinct in it's own cinnamony way with a touch of heat from the superb chili powder and black pepper. Leave it to marinate overnight and the longer it takes to marinate, the better the cinnamon chicken will taste. Longer time will mean extra time for the flavors to  blend well into the chicken meat.

To cook it, simply heat up and lightly oil the pan. In my case, I'm using a cookingware from Fissler which is really great because once you have the lid covered over the pan, it'll speed up the cooking time and it is almost like frying plus steaming your meal. I let the chicken drumsticks to brown on one side - 5 to 7 minutes before flipping it on the other side, all the while putting on the cover. I guess by having the lid on, it helps to retain the moisture in the chicken because it won't ended up being brown and dry.

I remove the drumsticks once they are cooked and I also deglaze the bottom of the pan with some milk and water or you can use a mix of  plain flour with water to create a gravy from the brown bits left on the pan. Once that done, transfer back the drumsticks into the pan and let is mix together with the gravy. Finally, get ready to eat. It's so yummy and you are going to go for seconds and thirds on this one. You can trust me on that and it's for sure peeps.

On another note, this cinnamon chicken recipe is suitable for people who are always on the go and don't have much time to prep up for your food. You can prepare the marinate over the weekend and have a delish meal just waiting to be fried up over a pan in 20 minutes tops. Give this recipe a go and do tell me what do you think about it in the comment. Last but not least, Happy cooking!

Hiking up Bukit Engku Busu, Lumut

Bukit Engku Busu is my first hill hike for the year and up to date, I've been up there three time. The hill is located at Lumut, right behind the Lumut Police Station or just before reaching the Lumut entrance of the Naval Base . I can't really remember the last time I went hiking up here but sure enough it was ages ago, back during my schooling days.

[caption id="attachment_588" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bukit Engku Busu Trekking"][/caption]

The hill is only about 300 metres up but still it is pretty challenging for the inexperienced. Bukit Engku Busu is also part of the Lumut Forest Reserve and comparatively to Broga Hill, this hill has a pretty dense forest vegetation. It is a real jungle trail up there with lots of huge, long roots engulfing the forest floor. Some say if you are to begin your hike early in the morning, somewhere around 6ish am, you may come across some scorpions and even snakes. Thankfully, I never came across any since my last two hike uphill was in the evening. There were mosquitoes instead and they are the only motivation to keep you going up because the more time you take to rest, the more bites you'll get. =)

[caption id="attachment_589" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Engku Busu Jungle Track"][/caption]

Some of the views you'll get from third quarter uphill is the Naval Dockyard view and some clusters of islands surrounding the area. As you hike uphill, you also get to listen to the engine sounds of the ferries commuting from Lumut to Pulau Pangkor.

[caption id="attachment_590" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Naval Dockyard view from the top, just approx 5 minutes before reaching summit"][/caption]

Right on the top of the hill which we took somewhere around 38 minutes to get to, it's just an open area with not much of a view. Well actually there are views up there if you don't mind going a little bit further into the bushes which in our case, we didn't bother to go looking at all. From the top, there is also a route to climb down hill towards Teluk Rubiah which is in Manjung. But from what I see, the route is pretty dense up with bushes and I'm not sure if people still go down that way anymore.

[caption id="attachment_591" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Fallen tree at the Engku Busu track"][/caption]

Anyways, Bukit Engku Busu is still your best bet to keep up your fitness level and to pump up your heart on a very good cardio exercise. I still think our 38 minutes up and 33 minutes downhill was pretty slow. Other daily hikers can easily scale up and down in less than 60 minutes. Despite all that, mountain or hill hiking is not about reaching the summit at the fastest time but it is all about having the greatest feeling of conquering a difficult feat with sheer determination, effort and the strong mindset to constantly pushing your limits to reach the top. A feat that is worth the effort and that is exactly how I feel every time I reach the highest point of any hill and hopefully in the near future, a mountain.

I lurve white water rafting so much and Riverbug crew Rawks!

[caption id="attachment_543" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The gang before hitting the river"][/caption]

With the title all well said, yea, I couldn't resist the adrenaline cravings. Hence, I did go for my second white water rafting adventure over at Sg.Kampar yet again in December 2009. My first white water rafting at Sg.Kampar was super awesome and the second run was AWESOME-R! Hell yeah it is.

Despite being the second time I went there, it was yet another new experience for me! The river is alive you know, the environment and weather are constantly changing and so will the water rafting experience. This time around, I went with a couple of my old buddies and it was a pretty ad-hoc plan. Made some phone calls to the organizers who are none other than the Gopeng Rainforest people; the lovely David and wife, Janice. Called them up to arrange the schedule and I even forgotten to deposit some money earlier because I was too excited to go for the white water rafting. Haha. That's why, I think, David had to call me on the night before to re-confirm that I was coming all the way from KL to Gopeng the next day. Hehe.

Right, let's move straight to the 'big event'!

This time around we were late and the raft master was already waiting for us. The reason we were late because since we were all coming separately and we assumed that everyone knows we is Gopeng! Haha. Two of my friends actually misunderstood the location and they went to Medan Gopeng at Ipoh instead. LOL. The best part was when my friend was confidently talking to me on the phone saying that, " This is Medan Gopeng. This is Gopeng town la." Hahaha. FYI, Gopeng is a super tiny town or what we call it as 'pekan' and the only bus station it has is a pretty old-looking, very old school look-a-like kinda bus station. Even the buses are one of those old type ones.

Ok, being late - done, Next up was to listen to the raft master quick safety briefing. For some reason, we were noisy and laughing and we had to be 'shusshed' because there was another group listening pretty attentively to their raft master's briefing. Haha. I think Senz, our raft master was doing a real quicky on the briefing since we were very late but not late enough to have some cam-whore sessions with one of the Riverbug crew included. LOL.

I know this Riverbug crew from my previous rafting and this young lad got a handful of nicknames. The last time I went, I think people are addressing him as something else, but this time around when I asked of his name, he was telling me his name is JayZ. Haha.

Some of the things which was different from my previous white water rafting experience during this time around was we didn't go up until the 10km up river. Instead we only made it to the 7th km.  We didn't do body surfing at one of the earlier parts of the river because I was told by my raft master that the place that I had my body surfing before is no more safe. There's a lot of rough rocks underneath and it's pretty dangerous. Hell yeah it is. I did my last body surfing over that place before and bumped me butt straight on those rocks, but it was more fun and adventurous than the one we had this time.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Riverbug - whitewater adventure speacialist"][/caption]

We also ended up 'lepaking' at one of the river banks to jump from the tree and swam around the river. I was looking like an idiot , haha, while jumping from the tree into the river. One was because I've never jump from a tree into a river before. Two, I've forgotten to hold my nose before jumping and water went straight into the nostrils and left me coughing once I resurfaced. The best part, my friend Bulert told me this," Oh, forgotten to tell you before you jump to hold your nose. If not the water will enter your nostrils. " Duh! It already did, thanks man! Haha. Three, the tree was pretty high up and kinda slippery and there was nothing to hold on to before you get to the middle part of the branch, so I had to hold this kind, mat salleh's hand to get me across. LOL. I didn't know why,  but I was so dead on determine to jump from this tree so nothing was embarrassing at that moment.

All in all, the white water rafting experience was super fun and I got to do it with my super old buddies too, so that was  more the fun. Nevertheless, Riverbug crew rawks , always, and I even met my previous raft master, Max or Maxxy ( don't get me started with his full name, coz the nickname has got nothing to do with the real name at all..haha) during the drive back. He was driving the van this time and I'm glad he still recognizes me. Haha. We got talking a little and I told him about my Mt. KK trip this May and he was recommending his 'bro' who happens to be the guide, I think for the Mt. KK climb. So, if any of yous are interested to climb the highest mountain in Malaysia and Borneo, do comment and leave a message at this post. I can share with you the contact details.

P.S: If you ask me if I'll do another run of white water rafting again? My answer will be,"YES!". I'm looking forward for white water rafting at Padas, Sabah somewhere this year. I may have to scout for people who are an adrenaline junkie and don't mind to splurge for some awesome outdoor adventure fun. Mind you, Riverbug also runs the white water rafting experience at Sabah and Padas water rafting is claimed to be the longest 30KM white water rafting run in South East Asia. For more info you can visit Riverbug's website here or call them from the number here in the picture.

Riverbug Gopeng

How to make a sand oven?

The after effect of way too many BBQs and watching endless cooking shows from Jamie Oliver, Robert Rainford and anything cooking related shows on Travel Channel, we had successfully attempted on creating a sand oven during our must have BBQ sessions each year. The whole point of creating an oven from sand is to have the 'steamed' effect on the cooking and also to get back to basic when it comes to preparing simple yet delicious outdoor cooking.

Here is how you prepare a successful sand oven:

1. Your location for the sand oven should and obviously be right on the beach where there is endless supply of the sand.

[caption id="attachment_512" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="The Beach"][/caption]

2. Simply dig a little hole out of the sand to prepare the oven. Nothing too deep or too shallow. For digging purposes, have a tiny spade handy.
3. Charcoals and some fire starter to make the fire for your oven. Once your charcoals have started to burn and formed into 'bara api', dunno what you call this in English, it's pretty much ready to be tossed into the hole you've dug earlier.

[caption id="attachment_515" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Charcoal inside the hole"][/caption]

We always lit up the charcoals from the BBQ set first and later move some of it into the sand hole because by doing that, we can have two sets of burning coals. One on the BBQ set and the other on the sand oven. Also, I think if you are to lit up the charcoals straight from the sand hole, it's going to be a pretty tough thing to do because the sand tend to be rather moist the further down it is below. However, I think it's still possible to lit the coal straight from the sand hole.

[caption id="attachment_516" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Burning charcoal in the bbq set"][/caption]

4. Once you have layered the ground of the sand hole completely with your burning charcoals, put directly whatever you want to be cooked on the burning charcoals. In our case, we usually put a huge fish like the Seabass (Siakap in Malay), lightly seasoned it with salt, pepper,spices,lemon, or whatever you want on it and nicely double wrap it on an aluminum foil.
5. Next add more burning charcoal on top of your foil to have a double top and bottom cooking effect.

[caption id="attachment_520" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Covering top layer with more charcoal"][/caption]

6. Lastly, cover up the final layer with sand. Make sure you fully covered the sand hole in order for the steam to remain within the hole and create the oven effect that you are looking for.
7. After a good 30 minutes, your fish should be ready to eat and dig the hole up to seize your awesome meal! I suppose, it takes longer time if you have chicken or meat in your oven.

[caption id="attachment_517" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Lifting up the fish in the foil using a tiny machete and tiny 'cangkul'"]

Digging out your 'oven cooked' fish

[/caption]

8. The cooking result from this sand oven will produce really moist, juicy and succulent dish; in our case, the yummiest steamed fish we ever had! And this techniques never gets old and definitely a must try thing if you are looking for adventure, beach side, cooking. It is yet, another plus thing for any BBQ-lovers!

[caption id="attachment_518" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Yummy Seabass"][/caption]

Putting together all 2009 babies!

Dear peeps,

Do you adore babies? Do you feel happy or do you find yourself smiling by just looking at baby pictures or what more looking at real babies in front of you?

If the answers to the questions above are all Yes, say hooray now! Yep, hooray because you happened to have a 'baby aura' which means you are attracted to babies or children and likewise the children towards you. * Just in case you are trying to Google about 'baby aura', I'm telling you straight out now, I just came up with that term and I have no idea if the term 'baby aura' even exists. Hehe.

Okay, back to the babies...

Since most of my beloved old time buddies and beautiful girl friends are happily married either last year or the year before, a couple of them began their first journey into parentage and motherhood last year and I'm doubly happy for all of them. The thought of having the newer generations amongst the gang is something really exciting and worth to shout about.

If I got my calculation correct, for the year 2009, I became an instant aunt for four beautiful little people! The best part of all, they come from all different races. First one born for the year is a cute Indian boy, Kaviraj, second is a cute little Malay girl, Ayra Zuyyin, the third one another adorable Chinese baby boy, Ian Cheng and last but not least, another charming little Malay baby boy, Aryan Iman. And check out their names peeps. I thought their names are pretty cool, am I right?

Out of the four, I've managed to meet only both Ayra and Aryan. I've yet to make an appointment with Kaviraj's mum to have a sneak peak at him. Haha. For Ian Cheng, you are going to call me Tante Yasmin as your mum and I have mutually agreed on it since your were just a little 'jelly bean'. Haha. Nevertheless, I have this strong feeling that all babies are going to grow up becoming super adorable kids and definitely full of interesting characters just like their mummies. With that, I pray you kids the very best in this world and here are their photos for ya'll to go 'gah-ing' about. Enjoy! *pictures will be put up later. =)

* For the mumsies, I have a new found respect towards you girls, who are now officially mothers for your endurance and unimaginable amount of agony you gals had to go through during the intense delivery of your beautiful babies. I can never imagine the pain and thanks for sharing your labour experiences because that's something you can never read about from the books. XOXO to you girls ( Shalen, Husna, Paah, Marilyn)!

New Year Resolution what?

Hey ya'll! This is my first post for the year 2010. I've been caught up with loads of things since the middle of December and I can say, I'm pretty much settled down by now. Yay! I've also decorated my new 'workplace' with some cute wooden animals and other souvenirs I got mostly from my travels dated way back in 2000.

Oh yeah, New Year Resolution for 2010? What shall it be?

To tell the truth, I don't need another new year resolution this year because guess what, I make my personal target plan every month! So, why do I need a yearly resolution? Haha. Anyways, this year, I'm hoping for more travel plans - a continual outdoor adventure from last year to something more extreme this year, more cash credited into my account, meeting more beautiful people especially people from Borneo ( hehe) and most importantly,doing what I love doing best and enjoy this short life! So people, make the best of your life today and don't wait for tomorrow to start doing that thing you always wanted to do. May God bless us with loads of great things this 2010!