still buying music... cassettes!

my current car, which is 23 years old, originally came with a cassette player. when i bought it, there was a cheesy jvc cd player inside.

nope, can't do. out went the jvc and in came the becker grand prix unit.

i listen to radio through it but as there is a cassette player there, i began to look for cassettes.

it's not easy to find cassettes nowadays but you could find them in smaller towns.

how about rm5 each? karajan led anne sophie mutter playing mozart? sting live? toto?

okay, selection wise may not be so wide but at rm5, who cares?

tropical fruits

we are truly blessed to be living in a tropical country. i don't know about you but i feel that we have access to the best tasting fruits. and in such a wide range.

just look at the simple banana. if you walk into any supermarket, you'll only find "cavendish" type which, to be honest, taste really bland. however, if you go to local stores or wet market or specialty stores, you'll be amazed at the variety we have locally.

look at this "pink" banana. this is known as pisang raja locally. when unripe, it is green like other bananas but once ripen, it takes a reddish hue. taste wise? fantastic! rich, creamy... mmm....

if you drive out of town, you'll be amazed what you could find. how about wild bananas?

thin as my fingers, too bad my camera can't do justice to its colour. it has a glorious shade of yellow and it tastes fantastic!

imagine the best tasting banana and scale it up! sweet, fragrant... mmm....

we made the mistake of letting tonto eat this wild banana. nowadays he refuses to eat other bananas!


have you tried these bananas? no need to go ga-ga over strawberries, or blueberries, tropical fruits are still the best.

can you name of another fruit with depth of flavour and fragrance like the durian? cempedak?

the sweetness and purity of mangosteen?

even pineapples have so many wonderful varieties here.

so which are your favourite fruits?

new trellis

some time back, i built a wooden trellis for our creeper plants. however, wood + glue doesn't stand a chance in our hot wet humid weather. 

about a year later, actually more than a year, it fell apart.

well, before that, signs were there. the glue started to come off, the adhesion started to give way... in short, our furniture glue isn't designed for outdoor use. 

some really strong winds later, it gave up.

okay. i could redo the trellis, using stronger wood, better glue or, i could search for a better solution.

a better solution it is then.

well, i'm not going to use wood this time. if i have to, will have to use some hard wood but this will be pricey.

a better solution is needed. and after some thoughts, settled on this.

garden variety fencing. these are pvc clad steel wires. this is the most economical (a 25" roll goes for rm120) and i believe most hardy solution i could think of! also, it's really fast to put up. more time were spent digging that "trench".

to prevent the trellis from rattling around, a 5" galvanized iron pipe was used to anchor the fencing into ground.

all in all, 50kg of top soil later and it's good to go!

planted some passion fruit, daun kaduk, pumpkin, san choy (cantonese name of a type of veggie).

we'll see how things go later...