This is the first time we saw a green radish.

In Chinese, no matter it is a white radish, purple radish, green radish or even carrot, we called them “LuoBo”.

“HuLuoBo” - Carrot.
“HongLuoBo” - Red radish.
“BaiLuoBo” - White radish.
“ZiLuoBo” - Purple radish.
“QingLuoBo” - Green Radish.

We bought it from a hypermarket.  My mum said that it is uncommon to see green radish here and it must be imported from other country.  My sister-in-law quickly took out a piece of newspaper and show us that there are different types (about 20 types) of radishes and carrots.  The articles with pictures was published in the health section of a Chinese newspaper a few days before we found and bought this green radish.

We were not sure how to cook it, and finally we used it to make soup.  It tastes similar to white radish.  I wonder if the green radish can be used to make Chinese radish cake (”ChaiTaoKueh” in Hokkien - a Chinese Dialect) which is usually made using white radish.  Chinese radish cake is our favorite delicacies.  Yes, it is delicious.

Related Post: Romanesco Broccoli.

Apples and oranges are the most common imported fruits in Malaysia. But, today we show you how SiewPeng arranged them and make them special.

They are both healthy food.  Apples contain a lot of minerals, and oranges give Vitamin C.

There is an idiom which says that, “An apple a day, keeps the doctors away.”
I say,”An orange a week, prevents your body from being weak.“. - (c) 2009 ColinJong.com

Today is Monday again - the first day of a typical working week, we wish you a healthy week ahead.

I hope more people are aware about this.  It is about our health.

I read this news from thestar online:-

[The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) has called on the authorities to ban bottled water in the country, while also warning consumers NOT to refill plastic bottles or reuse them as chemical leaching can pollute the water within and such bottles were made for one-time use only and would not stand up to repeated wear, dishwater treatment, direct sunlight, high temperatures or rough handling.] - from theStar online.

It is also not good for our environment because up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

You can read more about information and safety of plastic bottle at Wikipedia, Resin identification code, Safety of Plastic Beverage Bottles, and also Safety of Polyethylene Terephthalate.

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What else can we use to store water and allow us to bring it everywhere we go?  Glass, ceramic as water container material is not a good idea because they are heavy and fragile.  What about metal?  It is heavy too and you never know the water you drink can be polluted with ferrum (Fe) or cuprum (Cu).

I have a suggestion, why not use this:-

This is a bottle gourd. It is also called Calabash.  In Chinese it is called HuLu.

It is commonly seen in Chinese or Cantonese Kungfu movie, but not commonly used in real life.  According to wikipedia, [In the old days the Chinese doctors would carry medicine inside so it has fabled properties for healing.]

I have one planted by myself years ago.  The gourd that it produced was too small, the plant (an aggresive climber) only produced 2 gourds, and I removed it from my garden because it climbed over my other plants.  I have not tried to use them as water bottle because I only left one, I have forgotten where is the other one.

May be one day in the future, the farmers will do mass plantation of bottle gourd to make bottle or container for food storage.  Who knows?

***  If you want to try to use it as water bottle, you try at your own risk. ***

I guess there must be some process to make it become a good and safe water bottle.

This is the overgrown mung bean sprouts which we planted quite sometimes ago.  It looked too green compared to usual bean sprout.  It is not edible, but it looks artistic when the light goes through the leaves and draws the line in my photos.  Again, I used backlighting to shoot this photo.

They were planted in a small bottle of water.  What happened to their future?  They might have been planted onto the soil, and produces more mung bean.  But they dried after a few days later because we did not refill its water.

We did not use the correct traditional way to plant it, that’s why they do not look like normal bean sprouts.  From Wikipedia, I have learned that in order to plant bean sprouts, the mung beans should be watered for 4 hours under the day light and then they must be kept in the dark until they turn into bean sprout.  But we let it accepting light all the time, that’s why…

Bean Sprout is a popular and can be considered as one of the cheapest vegetable as a Chinese dishes.  It is very nutritious.  Some bean sprout are made of soya bean as well, and this version gives a bigger bean sprout.

In Hokkien (a Chinese dialect), it is called “Tauge” where Malays are also using the same word without translating it.  In Mandarin, we called it “Dou4ya2” locally (in Kuching or East Malaysia), but I have heard that it is called “Ya2Chai4” (Mandirin) in Ipoh or other part of West Malaysia.

One of the famous food in Ipoh is called “NgaChoiGai“, where “NgaChoi” means bean sprout in Cantonese, and “Gai” means chicken. :roll: Don’t get confused.

If anybody knows what it is called in Tamil and Hindi please let me know.

Some interesting thoughts struck me when we were putting on our masks the other day.

As we all know, masks have become increasingly important in our lives due to the invasion of the H1N1 virus.  The government has also gone to the extent of declaring the mask as a price controlled item in the market.

When we put on our masks, it’s like half of our face is gone.  Our facial expression and facial gesture cannot be seen that easily.  Hence, it becomes difficult to know if a person is smiling, angry or making faces at you when he or she is wearing a mask.  It also makes a person not easy to be identified or have their feelings read.  Do you know that you can actually get a lot of information from a person’s facial expression?  On top of that, it makes talking a bit challenging too.

And what if, I say, what if, we need to depend on masks to survive in the future?  This might due to many other reasons such as other viruses’ invasion, severe air pollution, a new trend in the market that we can’t live without or else people might think that we are weird if we don’t put on our masks when we go out, etc.

So, if these happens, there will be a lot of masks with different colours and designs to match colours on clothings, seasons, fashion and different occassion.  Wait a minute…I just recalled that we saw a kid wearing a small mask with Mickey Mouse print on it!  It has happened already! Hey, please feel free to share your interesting thoughts too if you come across one. But it must be healthy, please.

Alright, this is not a thought but something useful that we want to share.  There’s a thin metal piece embedded in the mask.  Don’t forget to bend it according to the shape of your nose to secure the mask in order to prevent viruses to enter from below the eye area.

Well, to end this post today, I would like to put up a text message on H1N1 that I got from a forward the other day.  Enjoy and have a good day, everyone!
‘One day, LittleMing was hungry.  So, he went to the Malay stall nearby to buy some food.
LittleMing: Uncle, saya mau H1N1. (Uncle, I want H1N1.)
Hawker    : Apa?? H1N1!!?? (What?? H1N1!!??)
LittleMing: Ya, uncle. (Yes, uncle.)
Hawker    : Apa ni?? (What’s this??)
LittleMing: Hamburger 1 Nugget 1, uncle.
Hawker    : Aaa…….’