Fear of death

Recently I have been talking to various people about their attitude towards death. It is a hard topic but yet everyone of us will be facing - the statistic said that 1 out of 1 people will face death. Instead of fearing  death and trying to avoid it or even avoid talking about it, I think we should prepare ourselves and talk about it.

Some people prepare themselves by getting a will done, getting land for graveyard...will that really take the fear of death away. It is really blessed to be a Christian when we have Jesus who is the resurrection and the life- with Jesus, we do not have to fear death but be confident as Jesus has been raised from death and he has taken our punishment for our sin. As Christian, we can now face death confidently as we are going back to our permanent home - spending eternity with God.

Cooking Duck??

I have never tried cooking duck until a month ago. Since duck is one of my favourite dish, normally I will just buy roast duck from the shop. As I am quite free now, I thought I will buy a raw duck and do an experiment on cooking duck.

I bought a bottle of sour plum sauce and thought I will make sour plum sauce duck.

I cleaned the duck and rubbed with salt and then wash it off.

Pour at least half a bottle of the sour plum sauce (I pour too little and it doesn't taste as nice)

3-4 tablespoons of dark soya sauce and rub all the ingredient over the duck.

I left that to marinate for half an hour - I think I will let it go for longer next time.

Preheat the wok, when it is hot, put in duck to seal all over (no oil), after that, pour the rest of the sauce and cover it. Stew in medium to low fire for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Turn the duck around every now and then.

That's it.....it is not as hard and it taste quite good. I also use the sour plum sauce from the bottle to be my dip for the duck.

Mushroom Chicken

1 whole chicken (chopped into pieces)

2 tablespoons light soya sauce

2 tablespoons dark soya sauce

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 large onion (cut into 4)

10 pieces dried mushroom (pre-soaked)

6-7 slices ginger

Marinate the chicken with all the ingredient above for at least 1/2 hour. Cook it in medium fire until it is boiling and then lower the fire to cook further until the chicken is cook and smell nice.

Recipe for Chicken Stew

Something that I tried last week, it was easy and yummy.

4 chicken drumsticks (wash and chopped into bite-size pieces)

4 tablespoon light soya sauce

1 piece thumb size ginger - cut into strips

4 pips garlic - chopped

2 tablespoons black soya sauce

Put all the ingregient into the pot and stew. Medium fire till everything is boiling and then lower the fire and cook until the chicken is cook (probably another 10- 15 minutes).

Peanut & Pork Soup Recipe

Here is the recipe for the soup that I made a few days ago:

300 g pork ribs (or soup bone)

200 g peanuts

10 pcs of red dates

6 pips garlic

some black hairy vegetable (fatt choy)

Boil all of them in a pot for an hour or so in slow fire.

Tuk Tuk experience in Bangkok

Wat Arun....

Something that I notice is Thais is very proud of their temples. Here are some of the pictures taken from Wat Arun - I think it is the name of this temple. The sand castle were built by the worshipper; as they came to worship in the temple, they will bring buckets of sand and build sand castle. This is ensure the temple has sufficient sand and have not need to buy more sands. 

Apparently the wall of the temple was built using crack chinas?? According to the tour guide, when the Thais was doing business with China, they will ship all their goods to China but on their way back, their ship will be quite empty and to ensure there are enough weight on the ship (to avoid overturn by the wave), they brought back all the chinas from China. Some of them might not have survive the wave, hence some have cracked etc, instead of throwing it away, they have used the cracked chinas to build their temple. What an idea, they are quite good with recycle in that era!!!!

More pictures from the river...

Organised Chaos??? Bangkok...

Indeed Bangkok can be known as a city with Organised Chaos. Before heading to Bangkok, a friend has warned me about how Bangkok is like, you either really like it or you hate it and it is a city with Organised Chaos. Here are some of the pictures taken from the Chao Phraya River to avoid the traffic.