Back from my trip of 8 days in Japan, it was super! This is my fifth trip to Japan, but the 1st four was spending a night in Narita town while in transit to US.

I have always loved Japanese food and Japanese snack; so being there in Japan, was like being in ♥gastronomic heaven!♥!

I stayed 5 days in Hachioji (八王子) which is 1hr train ride from Tokyo downtown. We worked hard everyday, so there was no time to sight see. And then when we moved to Ueno (上野), which is in Tokyo downtown for an additional 2 days, we spent most of our time shopping. So most photos taken were food shot!

Breakfast is near the hotel or the office (walking distant from each other).

Breakfast menu : Green tea latte that beats any other latte; Mos burger; fruits (the dried one is persimmon, which is abolutely devine!); Noodles and Rice from Donut King

Lunch is always some where near the office, which normally comes in a set, about RM21 to RM30.

I have mainly fish or tempura. Delicious!

We have more time for dinner so we’ll walk further. Japan really have fantastic fish and seafood menu! One day, we had Sashimi, and even though the fish was sliced up with its head still in tact, its mouth was moving and its eyes were clear and silvery staring at us. It was difficult, but I still stomached one slice of that sashimi. Blech. I also discovered Sawa (サワー), Japanese cocktail. Love it, especially the one with melon syrup!

Try spotting the fish with its silver eyes, staring back at you.

The best meal we had was the king crab meal. It was expensive (but not as expensive as my crab meal in Shanghai); we took 2 sets and shared it among the four of us.

Boiled crab, crab roe (so delicious!), crab sashimi, BBQ crab (at your table). Delicious! 美味しい! Oishi!

The cheapest meal we had was a ‘fast food’ restaurant, where food is ordered through a coupon vending machine, coupon is then passed to the chef, and your selected meal will be served to you in a minute or two. No seats! Stand while you eat. But, quite Delicious! And then there was the RM30 green tea crème brûlée that I have which was oh-so-heavenly.

My RM12 Tenzaru soba; the coupon vending machine; the box that held my RM30 green tea crème brûlée; the box came with 2 small pack of ice to keep the crème brûlée fresh.

On our last day, while walking to lunch and realised there was actually a temple and a shrine just at the back of the office.

Some nice scenary around the office

We stayed in Hotel Park Side in Ueno (上野) on our last 2 nights. It was near to Ameyokocho, a shopping street for snacks, seafood and apparels.

Seafood in Ameyokocho, the last picture are Bonito pieces. You shave it, and you get bonito flakes!

♥Japanese culture♥
People are so polite there. They took the time to explain the menu to us with their limited English; they offered us help when we looked lost; they queue up in train station and wait for their turns; they seem to always have time for us when they are so busy! This is so different from the Shanghainese.

Our Japanese colleagues threw us a dinner party, and forked out their own money to pay for the party. We told them we were on expense and they should let us settle the bill, but we were told this is their way they show their hospitality.

In almost every toilet in Japan, you get this toilet seat with gadget! To be discreet, you can play a ‘flushing sound’ for 10seconds while you do your business. Your seat is warmed, and you get bidet, and a spray. One of the toilet we went to, even have blower to dry the royal a** after you are done! My bottom never remain so clean before!!

Toilet seat control panel

And just before I left, I got this!
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And everything went white!

Snow covered Tokyo! (and imagine dragging a heavy suitcase, notebook bag, handbag, 2 other hand luggages with all the shopping 1Km in this weather to the station!)

Japan, I really love it there!

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♥Happy Chinese New Year to all who celebrates! 新年快乐!♥

What a week it was. I put in 12hrs daily at work, slept at 1am 2am; even worked on Thaipusam day and still, I couldn’t finish what I should have finished.

Zara had really high fever last night, almost reaching 41degrees. Schools are the best places to pass on germs!
She was sweating profusely in her sleep one minute, and then another, she woke me up saying, “Mum, I’m very cold.”. True enough, her hands were cold and she was shivering.  I stayed up almost the whole night to watch over her, give her suppository, sponge her.

This morning when we asked if she was ok, and if we should bring her to see a doctor, she said “I’m feeling alright. I just feel very tired only.” How comforting to hear this.

Zaria woke up with a slight temparature too. Sigh! What bad timing, as I’ll be away for a week for work, and I’ll be worried about them. Tonight, Daddy will be looking after Zara, while Jelly will look after Zaria.

While I was packing, there was a thunderstorm, and Zara was accompanying me.
“Mummy, I don’t want you to go Japan.”
“Mummy has to, mummy’s boss wants to meet with mummy.” (can’t say ‘work’ because she told me I could work at home)
“Mummy, I want you to play with me.”
“Mummy will play with you when mummy comes back ok?”
Then there was a loud thunder, and she said, “Mum, you hear or not? Even the thunder don’t want you to go! See. Mummy, don’t go mummy.”

Wait till the girls are bigger, and both are able to say such things! *sigh*

Hope they will get well soon, and Daddy will take good care of them.

See what we got in the mails the last 2 months.

♥For Zara♥

A beautiful hand made dress from Jesslyn.

A sexy dress/top with crocheted word “Zara” from someone who doesn’t want to be named (just in case everybody ask her to do one for them).

♥For Myself♥

A practical bag holder from DR.

And a set of Dove items with a tote (which I gave them to Jelly, since I don’t think I’ll ever use them) and a t-shirt from Dove (which says, “Be yourself. Be Beutiful.”) that I like very much, for writing this; all the way from US.

And also greeting cards from May and Hui Sia!

Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! ♥Muaks♥

My google ranking is ZERO now! (actually not just now, but since Jan 1st)

Daddy is not around, so I have to send Zara to school in the mornings, getting stuck in the heavy traffic!

Only 1 maid at home, cannot do my own things or work after 6:30pm until the girls are asleep.

Zara throwing lots of tamtrums, probably missing Tuyam, and maybe also because she’s tired sleeping late and waking up early for school.

So many escalations lately at work. Working late all the time!

I want to do this tooo…..
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(but then I’ll be careful and not knock my head so hard until I get a permanant bruise on my forehead)
(this also explains why I have not been visiting your blogs)

(Thanks to all who’d commented with advice and encouring words in my last post, really appreciate it) 

There’s the office work to complete before the Christmas shutdown.
There’s the paid post to do to make some extra cash.
There’s time to spend with the two girls who now require as much attention.
My way of de-stressing besides going for retail therapy and having a really good meal which can only happen during the weekends is to get myself busy the kitchen.

Besides whipping out the Christmas pudding; I attempted to bake a banana cake with toffee banana filling and mascarpone icing; since A Piece Of Cake will not be around to bake Zaria’s upcoming birthday cake, I thought maybe I’ll attempt the feat this year. The icing needs to be worked on as it was melting real quick. I hope Zaria’s cake will turn out better.

I kept myself busy cooking for the 2 fussy girls (the ‘wai-sek’ or greedy Zaria is becoming real fussy with her food now, sigh, so I had added fish to her diet to give her food more flavour); and also made a real good Hokkien Mee or Har Mee. The latter, I just bought the spice, taught Tuyam how to make it and supervise her cooking.

Last week’s creation.

Banana cake with toffee banana filling and runny mascarpone icing

This home-made Penang Har Mee or prawn noodle is so delicious I tell you.

The girls’ fish slice mee suah (Chinese : Wheat noodle)

And for those who have asked, Christmas pudding really is a type of cake which is either steamed or boiled, and not the same as the jelly like Chinese dessert that we are more aware of. For those of you who are interested in getting the recipe, it can be found here.

Daddy wanted some home made Christmas Puddings. The wife got busy one weekend….

Daddy and the few neighbours I gave this to claimed it’s really nice.
Home made Christmas puddings anyone?

LB gave the royal order to do this tag. Such a 8 tag….

♥8 Things I’m Passionate About:♥
1) My girls, Zara and Zaria (but of course)
2) Food – I just love good food!
3) Cooking and baking – I always wonder why I didn’t go into this line
4) Natural Skin Care and Body Care
5) Child care – that’s why I work from home, so I can supervise the maids and not let them do what they feel like doing
6) Photography – but I suck in this area
7) Books
8 ) Blogging

♥8 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:♥
1) Write a Will (please don’t let me die before I get this done)
2) See my girls grow up
3) See my girls walk down the aisle
4) Visit the Grand Canyon
5) Make my first million (possible?)
6) Read all the books I have on my book shelf
7) Watch all the DVDs/VCDs I’ve stocked up on
8 ) Visit my Greek friend’s twins in Greece

♥8 Things I Say Often:♥
1) Zara! (shouting warning)
2) Mei Mei! or Zaria! (shouting warning)
3) Xxxxxxx Yyy (shouting Daddy’s full name when I need him to do something for me urgently)
4) What is it now?! (upon hearing crying or screaming while working)
5) Zaria, danger! or Mei Mei, danger! (if no. 2 didn’t work)
6) Be careful! (to the girls)
7) I love you (to the girls)
8 ) Kiss Mummy

♥8 Books I’ve Recently Read :♥
1) Twelve Dancing Princess
2) Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs
3) Princess and The Pea
4) Beauty and The Beast
5) Sleeping Beauty
6) Baby, Boo!
7) Maisy’s Bath Time
8 ) The Long March – by Sun Shuyun (my current read)
(Every day before the girls’ bed time, we have to spend about 30mins on book reading. Most books selected by Zara is princess related, and Zaria likes her Baby, Boo! and Maisy series, so these are the books I read repeatedly to the girls. I do love reading, but then, I only get to read my book in the toilet ahem while doing my business. So it takes like 3 to 4 months to finish one.)

♥8 Songs I Could Listen To Over and Over: ♥
1) Don’t Panic – Cold Play
2) Everyboy Hurts – REM
3) You Raise Me Up – Josh Groban
4) Something Changed – Pulp
5) Somewhere Over The Rainbow
6) 沙滩 (Blue Moon) – David Tao
7) Dear God – David Tao
8 ) Sorry – Jackie Cheung

♥8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends: ♥
1) Intelligence (at least able to catch my jokes)
2) Willing to lend a ear to me when I need it
3) A good heart
4) Comfortable to be with
5) Balance in decision making
6) Humour
7) Positive mindset
8 ) Empathetic heart

♥8 Things I’ve Learnt This Past Year: ♥
1) Be creative and create my own recipe for baby meals
2) Simple cup cake decorations
3) Breastfeeding Zaria on alternate breast while lying on my right
4) Setting up an ADSL Router
5) Managing 2 attention seeking children
6) Blogging for money (ok, I’d just started this, so I’m still learning)
7) Being creative in my excuse, reasoning, ‘lecturing’ with Zara (as she’s getting more intelligent and tough to get conned)
8 ) Pacifying 2 crying children at the same time :-X

♥8 Person I want to tag :♥
1) JO-N
2) Jaccs
3) Jasmine
4) Nadia
5) Sunshine
6) Kitty Cat
7) Vien
8 ) Chooi Peng

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Here is another tag from Chinee and JO-N :

♥7 things you don’t know about me♥ :

1) I studied 12 years in a famous Chinese school (not even government but semi-private where everything is taught in Chinese) but I think my English is better than my Chinese. 🙁
2) I used to be a teacher : 1.5yrs in a primary school, and then another 2yrs in an English Language Centre for children. I thought I was going to make teaching my life time profession.
3) I normally do relatively well academically, but for A-levels, I scored 2Ds and 1N and received several warnings from the college because I skipped classes way too often (all because of a stupid ex boy friend)
4) I almost gave up hope trying for a baby, and thought we’ll never going to have children, and then we got Zara.
5) I’m very impatient, I get very upset if I needed to repeat something several times and the other person just don’t get it. I think I’m a lousy teacher to Zara.
6) I absolutely hate clutter but then I myself am not a very tidy person.. I mean I want to be tidy, but I have difficulty maintaining it.
7) I’m very sentimental, I like to keep rubbish mementos. My BT phone card during uni days, the entrance ticket to museums I’d visited, the extra small blouse I once was able to fit in… I have more cupboards than Daddy in the house to store all these. 😛 And he calls me a rubbish collector.

And I pass this to :
Syn; Seng Kor (You have become a mystery); Irene

Continue from here.

This is the last bit of the trip. Bear with me as I don’t go on trips like these often, and I plan to record the trip in detail for my future reading/referrencing as my memory these days really suck!

♥Nov 9th (Fri)♥
Our last day in Shanghai and I was planning to do all the shopping needed on this day.

Our first stop was to change some money as we were running short of cash. Do you know that there’s no money changer in China (unless it’s black market) and besides hotels, the only place you can change foreign currency is from Bank of China and not any other banks? Also, not many shops and restaurants in Shanghai actually accept foreign credit cards; quite inconvenient for the tourists like us.

After getting some cash, we went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (上海科技馆) in Pudong. Not to visit the Museum but actually to go to this shopping place opposite the Museum. This plazy houses lots of little shops selling counterfeit shoes, bags (Le Sport Sac mainly) and clothings, but it was quite dissapointing actually as the designs and items were the same in most of the shops. (What a contrast huh? 1 side it’s the Science and Technology Museum; directly opposite, it’s this place filled shops selling counterfeit goods!)

I bought a dress for Zaria and a pair of shoes for Zara (later I found out the quality isn’t really that good). That was all I got. Not a very fruitful shopping trip.

We then got out of the mall and walked about outdoor, where we could get a glimpse of the modern Pudong.

The modern Pudong : Dragon at the Science and Technology Museum, we caught sight of an airship cruising above; Modern buildings in Pudong; Century Ave (世纪大道); Old folks dancing outside of a mall, for some, they danced with their imaginary partners

It was then back to Nanjing and Fuzhou Road (福州路) for more shopping.

Brightly litted Nanjing Road; Last pic is a photo of our Motel which I took at 5:30am before we left for the airport

The thing I like about China in terms of shopping is the books, DVDs and CDs there are really cheap. Fuzhou Road (福州路) has lots of multi-level book shops. I was spending a lot of time there glancing at books and CDs. Daddy who doesn’t read Chinese, kept himself occupied by going through CDs so he didn’t mind the wait. I bought quite a lot for myself.

While glancing at books, I probably left my own guide book on the shelf and later could not locate it any more. Luckily, this happened on our last day of the trip, and I no longer need to reference it. Still, I was a bit upset because I like to keep my guide books as a remembrance/record of a trip. 🙁

Luckily too, we’d identified the restaurant to have our last dinner before the guide book went missing. We headed to an old restaurant Lao Zheng Xing (老正兴) on Fuzhou Road for our last meal in Shanghai.

Our last meal in Shanghai consisted of : Fried fermented or smelly tofu (臭豆腐); Toufu with crab roe; Fried local vege; Fish and turnip soup

♥Nov 10th (Sat)♥
We headed back to KL in the early morning flight.

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Because I speak and read Chinese and Daddy doesn’t (he actually speaks passable Chinese but he didn’t want to do any talking), I had to do all the ordering, enquiries, directions asking, navigatitions, ticket purchasing, forms filling etc etc. Tired, you know.

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How are the people in Shanghai?
Besides my colleauges, I think most people are quite rude or maybe they are too busy to be nice.
When we asked for directions, it was never nicely told. They would be pointing impatiently and said, “那边!” “”There!”
When we were blocking someone’s way, instead of saying “Excuse me”, they shouted at us, “EH! EH!”, like it’s your fault for inconveniencing them.
In those lower end restaurants, waitresses were impatient you took time to order or checked out the menu.
You find spit every where. People smoke in restaurants!
Men who are alone get approached by pimps offering them female companion in the busiest street. Daddy was offered that service from a very decently dressed man when I was not by his side for 1min!

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Do you wonder how Zara and Zaria cope?
Zaria was fine, as she’s used to us leaving her at home while we go to the market or bring Zara for her lessons.

Zara on the other hand was another story. The first 2 days, she eagerly waited for my return. When the door bell rang, she rushed to the door and happily announced, “My mummy come back already!”. When we called home, she came to the phone and said “Mummy, you bought me any surprise or not?” or “I miss you mummy. Are you coming home?” and then she’ll be sobbing.

Then on the 3rd day onwards, she used a different technique to fight her feelings. She kept telling Tuyam she didn’t like me any more. She said things like, “Ask mummy don’t come back any more!” “I don’t like mummy.” “If mummy come back, I will put her in naughty corner!”. She refused to come to the phone when we called home. However my maid said occasionally, she would cry sadly for no reason.

Both girls were very happy to see us when we got home.

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What happened to breastfeeding?
I expressed 3 times a day when I was in Shanghai. Morning and night was easy, because I did it in our room. The afternoon session can be a bit of a challenge. I did it in the toilets at the Museums (which is cleaner); did it in a quite corner of a restaurant with jackets drapped over me; did it in smelly toilets in restaurants. The worse was in the Shanghai Airport nursing room. It was labelled a nursing room, but it was also a place where cleaners store their carts with all the detergent and mops. In the 30mins I was there, many cleaners attempted to get into the room, even male cleaners! I had to be really fierce and shouted at them, and then they stopped stepping in and waited outside instead. 😛

I should have brought my nursing cape, which would make expressing easier. 🙁

What did I do with the milk? After this experience, I didn’t want to store and bring them home. I drank them all. Yes! Every bit of them. I expressed, I drank. No wastage! Daddy said I actually had better complexion and I glowed after a few days. Haha. Belief it or not?

Continue from here. (If you wonder how many more parts there are, there’s only one more left).

♥Nov 7th (Wed)♥
With an overnight bag, we rushed to the train station early morning to catch the fast train to Hangzhou (杭州). We got a first class ticket, the coach was really comfortable and it only cost RMB68 per tix. Daddy and I slept through the ~1hr20min ride.

When we arrived at the Hangzhou station, there were so many elderly ladies offering their help (accomodation? maps? directions?), but we just shook our head all the time. With the information listed on their website, we managed to take a bus from Hangzhou Train Station, walked for 10mins and arrived at Mingtown Garden Youth Hostel (明堂-杭州湖中居青年旅舍), located at West of Xihu (西湖), which is the best place to stay as it’s not as busy as the East (high rise and buzy streets on the East).

We had some problem checking in as Daddy left our passports in the Motel back in Shanghai. The staff in the hostel was helpful, although they could have rejected our stay; they called our Motel, requested the Motel to provide them with out info. Motel168 wasn’t very cooperative, in the end, we promised we’ll fax them our passports and Visas and they agreed to let us have our room (which was pre-booked by phone).

Just like what was written on the guidebook, and the website, the hostel is surrounded by lakes and gardens, absolutely beautiful! We have a room all to ourselves with ensuite bathroom (just in case you wonder if we needed to share our room or toilet). The room was very comfortable. Clean room, clean white sheets, beautiful pine wood ceiling and a window opening to the back garden. Best of all, it didn’t stink of cigerette smoke.

After our lunch, we rented a bike each, and started exploring the area.

We cycled up some slopes and visited the Dragon Well (Long Jing) tea plantation (龙井茶园). It was lovely, so green every where!

Then we rode through Xudi Causeway (苏堤), which cuts across Xihu from North to South (~3.5km), and then have dinner in Wei Zhuang (House of Taste) (知味观。味庄). This restaurant serves the best food that we’d tasted in our trip, every thing tasted so delicious especially the nice dainty dim sum dessert. Too bad I was running a flu, some of the taste were a bit muddled.

Bestest duck! A cold dish, but very delicious; prawn triangles; I didn’t like the fish (baked and accompanied with home made creamy sauce), but Daddy thought it was uniquely prepared; the dainty dessert : some pastry with lotus filing and chestnut stuffing rolls.

After the yummylicious dinner, we cycled another 5Km in the dark to get back to the hostel. This was when we could really feel the chill, but it was still bearable with just a light fleece jacket on.

♥Nov 8th (Thurs)♥
In the morning, we woke up to birds chirping outside our window. We had a simple breakfast at the hostel and started exploring the gardens around the hostel by foot. The gardens are actually very beautiful, with lakes and bridges and streams everywhere. We also took an hour boat ride (battery operated so we just needed to ‘steer’) at the lake, pretty relaxing.

Beautiful views around West Xihu

Some of the plants and objects I found in the gardens

Then it was time to check out. We left our baggage in the train station, and explored a bit of the old town. Things here are actually cheaper than Yuyuan, and I was really amused by the street food available. 10 fried scropions for RMB5 anyone?

We didn’t try any of these, but we saw quite a lot of people buying them.

♥A Chinese Medical Hall which has been listed as Historical Heritage in Hangzhou, they were giving away free herbal tea, which Daddy and I took two cups each.♥♥Street performer getting to work♥♥Xihu beer that Daddy took with words : Free From Formaldehyde (do they actually brew beer with Formaldehyde in China?♥♥Hangzhou station, people were trying to get into the platform to get into the train♥

We headed back to Shanghai on the 5:20pm train, and back to the smokey Motel168.

continued from here

♥Nov 5th (Mon)♥
Breakfast was streetfood. Although breakfast was included in our Motel rate, it was lousy. Our Motel is nearby Yun-Nan Road (云南路) which has many small local restaurants. In the morning, lots of stalls are scattered along the street selling green onion pan cakes (葱油饼); You-tiao (油条) and other savoury and sweet pastries. I’m able to fill my stomach with just RMB2 or less, what a steal. Daddy on the other hand, has too much concern over the hygenes level of the food, he preferred having fruits (he’s the healthy eater at home).

We started with a stroll to HuaiHai Road (淮海路), which is like our Bukit Bintang. Lots of high rise and super big department stores.

Around Shanghai :
♥Maple Leaves♥ ♥A muriel outside a toy shop, I thought this looked like a work of a Malaysian Cartonist♥/span> ♥A sign appearing in all underpass “Beware of Slip  – Shouldn’t it read : “Beware, slippery” or some thing else♥
♥Sun Yat Sen former residence (孫中山故居)♥ ♥Daddy slurping some grass jelly/cincau in a Taiwanese cafe. He loves this♥
♥Seafood available on Yun-nan Road. Can you spot the cage of exotic birds with another cage of snake above them? (I can imagine the stress these animals feel)♥

We visited the Shanghai Museum in the afternoon. It was quite good (it was more to make me feel good that I visited places other than the malls).

Items which caught my attention in the Museum

♥Nov 6th (Tues)♥
We were off to Zhouzhuang (周庄), one of the most famous old water township in China.

We initially wanted to take a bus to Zhouzhuang and do our own walking, but it so happened that the next available bus came with a tour guide, and we only had to pay RMB5 extra. It helped to have a guide, as we were able to know what is famous in Zhouzhuang and the history behind the town.

♥Lunch at Zhouzhuang : The vege tasted something like a cross between water cress and choy-sum; the prawns small but sweet; the omelette was fried with local white bait; and dish in the middle is steam Ba-yu (巴鱼) which translates to Palm Fish as the fish is the size of the palm, only available in Zhouzhuang♥ ♥live Ba-Yu, a fish which is not fully evolved from a reptile, so they have lungs. Emperor used to eat only the lungs as a delicacy (LB, any for you?)♥ ♥Famous pork knuckles (for sale everywhere around Zhouzhuang, all claimed to be ‘original’)

Zhouzhuang is made famous internationally by a famous Chinese painter Chen Yi Fei; old bridges, waterways, boats, willow trees lining the walk way. No cars are allowed in the town. However, recent years, the place has become very commercialised with everybody trying to push their wares to tourists visiting the town.

Cobbled street, water ways, boats, bridges are all famous sights in Zhouzhuang

That day excursion was good, not too taxing for Daddy, and we were able to take naps on the bus journey (~1.5hrs to fro).

When we arrived Shanghai, we rushed to the Wang Bao He Restaurant (王宝和酒家). I have a few team members who are located in Shanghai, and my boss suggested we meet and have a team dinner. Since it’s hairy crab season, we went to the most famous crab restaurant in Shanghai, and had the ‘crab banquet’. There were like 12 or more dishes all prepared with something from the crab or to compliment the crab. And the final dish was a hairy crab each. It was a very expensive dinner, costing RMB550 per head. Fuyoh!

These were some of the dishes I managed to capture. The rest ended in the stomach

It was a good meeting with the team members, all of whom I’ve met for the first time.

As for the Hairy crabs, I still find Malaysia’s crab the best! I’m not so much of a crab roe/egg person I guess.