Friday, 19th May 2006

J, M, Wm & I all took a day off from work to go to Miri for a bit of shopping and a lot of eating. We were lucky enough to have C as our driver in the office 'bus' and M came along too as he needed new glasses desperately and Friday is a holiday for school kids in Brunei.

Miri is situated in Sarawak, East Malaysia, and about 2.5 hours' drive away from BSB. We set off at 7.40 am and first stop had to be the noodle stalls in Seria.

Fried kueh teow at the stalls - they were delicious, woky, hot, soft noodles..... very eggy and full of beansprouts - to enhance the taste, add lots of sticky sweet soysauce and local spicy chilli sauce.



Local cakes

We hit Miri at 11 am...



... and headed to the opticians where I picked up my super cool, highly trendy and coveted Tommy Hilfiger sunglasses which I've had prescription lens put it so I can see when I'm driving. I love them!!! Here they are. J lurved them and wanted a pair badly too but they didn't have any in stock but Albert will order a pair for her from Italy.


Here is our loot from the opticians.

M - 2 pairs
M - 2 pairs
Me - sunglasses and a pair of tortoise shell frame glasses
J - 2 pairs, several pairs of daily use contacts and a box of 'define' lens which make your eyes look bigger

8 pairs of glasses in total and all were cheap compared to the prices we would have paid for the same thing in Brunei. We were very happy.



After almost 2 hours at the Opticians, we were hungry so set off to have lunch at Maxim's.

We had deep fried pork leg, 'drunken' prawns and stir-fried forest fern.

The pork leg was good - the salt which they had rubbed into the skin made it extra crunchy and crispy. It was served with a sweet sour chilli sauce and mini mantous (deep fried bread) and some pickled pineapple.



The drunken prawns are not prawns which had been on a drinking spree, but prawns poached in Chinese wine with some herbs, wood fungus and spring onions.



The forest ferns were lightly stirfried with garlic and rice cake (used to make rice wine) seasoning, so it was slightly alcoholicky but very very healthy.



Then the shopping began!!!!!!!

Shoes - From McD's where M had his lunch, I saw the magic word 'SALE' at Vincci and my heart started racing...... Half an hour later, I walked out with 2 pairs of gorgeous shoes! Total cost B$40.

Here are my shoes with H modeling one of them.



The first pair is suedy look and it's flesh colour with faint lilac braiding. The second pair is glaring orange red in colour with cork wedges, painted with gold and red whorls. Toes are encased in red, black, gold and beige strings in front. I think these will cut into my feet badly but hey, I can sacrifice comfort for hot shoes! Easily...

The rest took longer but were just as successful:

M - 1 pair
J - 3 pairs
Wm - 1 pair

Here are the girls with our shoe loot. ( From L to R - J, M & Wm)



Next. We found a fantastic shop selling the most beautiful Mediterranean look crockery and tableware, all made in China for the US market. The designs and quality were incredible. J bought A LOT of plates, serving ware, bowls, etc for her new house. I had to resist as I have no room for storage but it was painful, so very painful, to walk away. I imagined the plates full of FOOD on my dinner table for Christmas, for birthday parties, for girls get together eat fests..... sigh..... - it still hurts to talk about it. In the end I broke and bought these 3 cuties:



( Don't you think they will look so cute on my Christmas table this year?)

Next stop, another shopping mall - not much success here but I bought 2 bottle of Chinese red wine for cooking ginger chicken in wine, and 2 bottles of Hsiao Hsing wine for cooking.

Last stop, dinner ( we all know that shopping is an exhilarating but hungry process) :

We ordered:

1. A whole 'cha chi kai' which literally translates to Fried paper chicken (the skin is very thin and crispy, and the meat still juicy, tender and well marinated).



2. Kau Yuk - Belly Pork deep fried and cooked in tasty sauce, steamed with yam slices, a very traditional Hakka & Cantonese dish. (sorry not a good pic)



3. Steamed Tiger Prawns with egg white, Chinese wine & garlic. (A disappointment as the prawns were tough).



4. Deep Fried Calamari with spicy salt



5. Forest fern again



Aside from the prawns, eveything else was delicious and we ate almost everything.

After that magnificent dinner, we piled into the bus and this time we were a quieter and more subdued bunch of girls as we were full and tired after the day's activities.

Arrived home at 10 pm. On the whole, a fantastic day out with super bargains, a lot of laughing, eating, walking, shopping and talking. I want to go again - I want that pair of turquoise strappy shoes with 3 inch GOLD heels - why didn't I buy it??? Why? And it was only B$22......