This should probably go into castitas.com but I feel like writing on my main blog. Kratom (known as ketum in Malaysia) is a leaf with psychoactive properties, confirmed by this scientific article. I have been searching for it for quite some time, it’s sold in certain parts of Malaysia (especially in the rural cultivation community) in bags of homemade prepared liquid ketum.
Unfortunately, the Malaysian government decided to ban ketum a few years back and the only ones available are highly dubious and sans quality control. Tobuy kratom online is illegal in Malaysia, which is really unfortunate.
It is rather ironic that I have to travel all the way to Amsterdam to experience a psychoactive plant that is indigenous to MY OWN COUNTRY.
Kratom (ketum) is available in most smartshops in Amsterdam for about Euro 15. This is not your garden variety kratom – much like salvia divinorum, it has been enhanced – this is a 5x extract of kratom. This means that the liquid concentrate is 5x more potent than what is naturally available. You can perhaps use cuttings of the tree to grow the tree.A great way to describe kratom potentiators is that they basically “spice things up” – pushing the biochemical reactions this all-natural plant causes throughout the body to even higher levels, ramping up its potency, it’s bioavailability and its duration in the body to heights that it wouldn’t have been able to reach all on its own. Before we even get down to the best kratom for energy, it’s important to understand that Kratom is a natural herb that does not work in the same way to everyone.
I have to be honest here…I’m rather disappointed with the kratom/ketum experience. I had expected too much of an opiate high due to its properties. I was told to buy kratom and take half a bottle by the smartshops but I ingested the entire bottle on an empty stomach. I was expecting something like DHC (dihydrocodiene) or at least plain old codeine. Kratom is not like that at all.
I started feeling the effects at T +0:30 (30 minutes after dosing for those unfamiliar with the nomenclature of trip reports) – a general feeling of well being and (surprisingly) serotonin release. It doesn’t feel like traditional opiates (e.g. the nodding off, itchiness and other miscellaneous properties) but more like certain opioid analogues.
It should be noted that the effects of kratom is VERY MILD. I shouldn’t have written that in caps (and bolded it to boot, FML) lest people get the wrong impression and think that it’s strong. It’s not. Go in without expectations, consume with an open mind and let the ketum experience wash over you.
…just don’t expect too much.
I can describe the feeling further to those who are familiar with recreational pharmaceuticals. It feels like 200 mg of tramadol. Tramadol is another substance in the happy opiate family but it produces none of the classic recreational opiate subjective feelings. It’s a bit of a stimulant combined with a general sense of well being.
…and that is essentially what kratom (ketum) gives you. It releases serotonin (which won’t go down well with fundamentalist opiate users) and gives you a happy sense of well being for about 4 hours. You’ll feel a significant bit of nausea while coming up and crashing but it’s nothing a bit of cannabis won’t fix.
I truthfully am more than a little disappointed with the kratom experience. What irks me the most is that I had to travel thousands of miles to consume a psychoactive plant that is native to my country. -_-
Additional info site:
The problem with getting used to taking opiates is that you will eventually experience opiate withdrawal symptoms once you stop abruptly.
It was a boring Sunday and we decided to get ourselves acquainted with nature by heading down to Lambir Hills National Park. Lambir is a 31 km drive from Miri (according to the roadsigns) and is said to be one of the most bio-diverse parks in Malaysia.
We departed a little bit late due to some domestic issues but managed to reach the park at about 12 pm.
We were a bit apprehensive about getting down with nature at that hour, considering its fiery temper – namely, the sun, but surprisingly the sheer amount of trees in Lambir Hills National Park totally negated any heat from the sun.
Lambir Hills National Park is home to a few waterfalls, but the most popular one is Latak Waterfall. There’s a good reason why Latak Waterfall is so popular – it’s neither the highest nor the most tranquil waterfall in Lambir but it is the nearest.
It only takes a leisurely 20 minute stroll to reach Latak Waterfall in Lambir Hills National Park. You’ll pass by two smaller waterfalls on the way but it’s not accessible unless you’re willing to scale over untamed forest brush to get to what amounts to a glorified puddle with a trickle of water from above.
Latak Waterfall on the other hand is a comparatively majestic 25 meter wall of water rushing down from a cliff above. You can hear the roar of the waterfall before you even see it…which is true of most waterfalls anyway so I don’t know why I’m mentioning this.
It is however quite grand, better than my expectations. The pool of water created by the waterfall cascade starts out shallow and quite suddenly drops down in depth.
I guess a trained eye could see it from above based on the color of the water but it surprised me when I stepped from waist deep water into what seemed like an abyss.
I think the buoy line warning swimmers not to frolic beyond a certain point is there for a good reason.
I would guess that it’s about 5 meters deep just before the buoy, it’s bound to be deeper at the base of the waterfall but unfortunately there was a guard on duty that day so I couldn’t venture there.
The place seems rather lively even for a Sunday – there’s family bringing their kids swimming, a couple of giggling college girls (and one shemale) plus your regular assortment of the dredges of humanity making a ruckus.
This is Jeanie doing some sort of yoga pose in the water and failing badly.
Latak Waterfall has BBQ pits for your use and changing rooms are within walking distance from the falls. The water is VERY COLD and that’s a great thing. The only downside is that there’s a lot of stones which can cut your feet and random flotsam drifting around the outer fringes of the pool.
I don’t think the water is the type you bottle and ship too coz we both got very itchy soon after coming out of the pool.
Nevertheless, it’s a nice diversion on a weekend and well worth the RM 10 entrance fee. There are better and more private waterfalls in Lambir Hills National Park but you’ll have to be prepared to walk 3 hours to get there.
Take only photographs, leave only footprints.
It was a well spent Sunday – relaxing by the waterfalls with an occasional dip into the cold natural pool, looking up at the foliage above.
Nasi Lalapan is an Indonesian dish that’s very popular in Miri. I went to Muara Restaurant just now based on Jeanie’s recommendation to check out this unique incarnation of Indonesian cuisine. Muara Restaurant is self-dubbed “The Founder of Lalapan” – very lofty claims indeed.
This is the original restaurant at Miri Waterfront Commercial Centre. There’s another newer establishment in Miri but the first Muara Restaurant is located at a much more appealing location – it’s right beside the river!
There is a very nice breeze and you can see the bustling activity of the river right from the vantage of your dining table.
Muara Restaurant is supposed to serve the best nasi lalapan in Miri and coming from Jeanie (who doesn’t like spicy food) it was intriguing enough for me to check it out.
We went there well past lunch hour (it was around 3 pm) and there were still heaps of diners eating nasi lalapan – a great testament to its popularity.
Nasi Lalapan is basically a dish of vegetables, tofu and meat arranged around a unique sambal based sauce. You can choose the meat that goes with your nasi lalapan – there’s everything from chicken to prawn. The rice is served separately on a plate and there’s also a bowl of soup to go with your meal.
Jeanie had the Nasi Lalapan Empal (beef) which costs RM 8. Here’s a top view of what nasi lalapan is all about – starting from the 12′ o clock position, there’s tempeh (a soy product which tastes like nuts), a piece of deep fried tofu, the meat (in this case, beef), some greens (spinach if I’m not mistaken), cucumber slices, uncooked long beans (called ulam in Malay), a lime, and some cabbage.
You start eating nasi lalapan by squeezing the lime into the sambal based sauce and mixing it up. The sauce is the cornerstone of lalapan and it tastes great – spicy, with visible flakes of chilli and a tangy finish.
The vegetables can be picked apart using your fingers and dipped into the sauce. I saw people eating it this way so I emulated them.
It tastes much better when you use your hands to eat. Primal. 😀
I really liked the beef in Jeanie’s Nasi Lalapan Empal – it’s smoked beef and tastes delicious, with a lingering sweet aftertaste.
I chose Nasi Lalapan Keli (RM 10) for my late lunch. Ikan keli is catfish and I was surprised when the plate of nasi lalapan came out – the fish is humongous! I forgot to use something as a reference point so you can’t appreciate the sheer size of it, but trust me, it’s gigantic!
It’s deep fried to perfection. The skin is crunchy and the flesh is tasty – delectable! The presentation is awesome too! They must have a really huge wok to be able to fry that mutant catfish wholesale. I particularly liked the precision in which they sliced the fish so that you can easily use a fork to spear a segment of the fish.
We also ordered a chicken drumstick – you can order the meat in the nasi lalapan variants separately. I saw a lot of people eating the chicken nasi lalapan and wanted to try it. Unfortunately, it’s nothing to write home about – I preferred my catfish and Jeanie’s smoked beef tastes much better.
Muara Restaurant has really good nasi lalapan. You can determine the authenticity of the food based on how many Indonesians visit the joint and the spicy tang of the sambal goes very well with the vegetables and meat. The dishes range from RM 8 – RM 15 depending on what you choose as your meat and the entire meal just set us back RM 21.80.
I only realized that they forgot to charge us for the chicken when I looked at the receipt. 😡
Senibong is a seafood haven located at Permas Jaya in Johor. I was very keen to try out this place since it has a reputation for having the freshest seafood in town. The restaurant we went to has been featured in Jalan Jalan Cari Makan, a local food TV feature. It turned out to be a truly extraordinary dinner!
Kampung Senibong is situated right by the sea and and boasts a long row of restaurants serving a wide range of various aquatic creatures.
Senibong itself is a village of seafood restaurants and all of them display the catch of the day – everything ranging from the relatively mundane fish to exotic stingrays.
I could be mistaken but I believe most, if not all, of the restaurants are halal. This is also another attraction since my experiences with halal seafood is limited, to say the least. The seafood I’ve eaten is usually cooked Chinese style and I thought it’ll be awesome to sample Malay style seafood. 😀
Senibong seafood is really just a long alley inter-spaced with private jetties owned by the restaurants. I imagine that’s where the fishermen unload their catch to be sold to the eateries. It manages to balance the fine line between commercialism and a quaint village like ambiance. I found the place very warm and inviting.
The lot of us descended to 6 Corner, one of the restaurants in Senibong. Dusk was just setting in and you can see the sea stretching out from the dining area.
I was told you can even glimpse Singapore from that vantage point.
Regardless, there’s just something about the sea breeze that whets your appetite like nothing else. 🙂
The first dish that came out was mussels cooked in a sweet and spicy sauce. The gravy was delectable! I nearly finished my plate of rice just from eating the mussels and the gravy inside.
I thought nothing could surpass that but then came the fish. It’s deep fried and cooked with Thai chilli sauce and pineapples. I’m not sure what type of fish they used but it didn’t come with a lot of bones, which is always a good thing. I sat on a table that has the fewest people, just so I could eat more of the food.
It turns out that the fish wasn’t sufficient so I was thick skinned enough to “borrow” the adjoining table’s dish. Heh! It really is that good. Who would have thought Thai chilli sauce and pineapples would make such a mouth-watering gravy?
This is the obligatory vegetable dish. I’m not keen on vegetables, especially when there are other more delicious fare on the table so I can’t comment on this. I ate some anyway.
This is just a plain egg omelet but 6 Corner somehow manages to elevate this simple dish into something extraordinary. The seasoning goes very well with the egg and the omelet neutralizes the stronger taste of the seafood dishes.
The deep fried whole prawns with chilli dipping sauce is awesome. I don’t know what they put into the batter but it tastes great and it’s crunchy enough to eat the entire thing whole – head and all. I also like the boat dish that it was served in.
I’m more blasé about the deep fried calamari. There’s nothing wrong with it per se, but the other dishes were so divine that this feels bland in comparison.
The tom yam soup is one of 6 Corner’s specialties as well. It’s very appetizing and spicy but it came rather late in the game so everyone was pretty full by then.
Just as we though the parade of dishes was ending, there was one last encore – black pepper crabs. I loved the sauce but I was too stuffed to eat more than a token claw.
It feels like I’m heaping lavish praises on the seafood here but I can honestly say that this is one of the best seafood dinners I’ve ever had in ages. It was truly an extraordinary feast. I ate so much I think my companions were taken aback.
I went on this trip to Pasir Gudang in Johor to catch the World Kite Festival 2011 a few weeks ago. It’s called Festival Layang-Layang Sedunia 2011 in Malay and I was surprised to see a lot of international participants. I also witnessed an awesome 400 meter long kite being deployed (that’s almost half a kilometer) which is pretty impressive.
It seems that the Pasir Gudang World Kite Festival is a big thing amongst kite enthusiasts around the world. I’m amazed that people actually travel to Johor just to fly kites for a couple of days. I used to play with kites as a kid too but never really got into it.
These people however are serious kite enthusiasts. I saw gravity defying contraptions being flown over the weekend and got a lesson on kites around the world while at it.
Here’s a video of the action at Bukit Layang-Layang.
The passion of the international teams is infectious. I ended up talking to some of them, trying to understand their love for the sport. These are people who lug their kites from various countries to Malaysia just for a few days of fraternizing with like minded people and showing off their carefully made kites.
The Pasir Gudang World Kite Festival is held at the appropriately named Bukit Layang-Layang (Kite Hill) and it’s a tourist attraction which the government has capitalized on. A lot of hotels have promotions for this and there’s even a kite museum at the venue.
The kites come in every shape and size. I saw everything from giant alligators to statue sized clowns being flown.
The larger kites require a small “pilot kite” to be raised before the actual kite can fly.
The pilot kite is a small parachute that gives enough lift to enable the main kite – in this case a gigantic squid by the team from Germany – to fly. It takes a lot of skill and effort to get this one afloat.
I found this one particularly impressive too – it’s a dragon kite that measures over 250 meters (!!!). This is from a team in Taiwan and there was a bit of controversy over which category in the competition it can go into.
I don’t know enough about the technicalities of kite classifications to comment, but based on the video, the organizers put them in the “line kite” instead of the “dragon kite” category due to some small design feature which violates the dragon kite specifications.
These type of kites takes a long time to setup and fly – it needs to be packed in a box and guided slowly out before the entire kite is sky bound. The longest one measures over 400 meters (!!!). That’s almost ½ a kilometer and it’s a wonder how they managed to get it up. It must be quite a task to retrieve it in one piece too.
Here are some of the other kites that I liked:
This is a box kite from Australia.
It’s hexagonal shape seem to go against every law of aerodynamics but they actually flew it quite easily.
Our very own country also came out with a starfruit shaped kite.
This is called a spinner – it doesn’t fly per se but floats and spins clockwise, thus the name.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s…well, it’s not Superman, but an eagle kite that flies like a real bird.
I saw this YouTube video of a dog totally owning a cat and now I can’t get that image out of my head. I had originally thought of this as a tiger pouncing on a shark but now it looks more like the large cat is about to forcibly initiate some inter-species coitus with the shark. It doesn’t help that the shark kite has a shocked expression on its face too.
Look! A flying acoustic guitar shaped kite!
An anatomically correctCupid kite. 😉
One of the girls in the China team has a rather improbable kite – it’s the tiniest one in the festival and it really flies. Yes, it’s the rose she’s holding in her hand. That’s actually a very small flower kite. Nifty! A rose by any other name is a kite. 😀
I went with Khairie and Mohd Zaid and got really sunburned over the weekend, but it was fun experiencing something I normally wouldn’t and talking to the kite enthusiasts around the world. It’s an insightful look into the kite flying subculture, one where even 86-year-old grandmothers fly all the way from Japan to participate in.
The Pasir Gudang World Kite Festival is an annual affair in Johor. They have a website with more information here. This is the 16th incarnation of the festival-cum-competition and it’s interesting to see people who are really serious about it gather from all over the world to indulge in their mutual passion.
Here’s another video of the scene at Bukit Layang-Layang during the event.
It has a very vibrant ambience and everyone was friendly and eager to help each other out. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the nature of the activity practically begs for a quote from the bestselling book by Khaled Hosseini:
Polly had her wedding last Sunday and I drove 1 ½ hours (yes, it really is that near) down from KL with my girlfriend, Cherry and Susan in tow to get to Tangkak, Johor on Saturday to attend the festivities.
My girlfriend was one of the sisters (ji mui) and after a night’s rest at a guesthouse the bride was kind enough to arrange for us, we arrived at Polly’s place at around 7 am to eat breakfast and start the preparations.
There was chicken rice, buns and other stuff and we had to eat rather quickly since the groom’s delegation was due to arrive soon.
Padlocks galore to prevent entry.
There was also this drink of prayer paper being burnt into water – it’s supposed to bring peace and harmony and I took a sip, despite being agnostic in my beliefs. It’s a Buddhist custom.
As tradition goes, the groom and his entourage of cars came amidst a lot of honking to announce their presence.
They disembarked at the front gate for the “sisters” (female friends of the bride) to grill the “brothers” (male friends of the groom) – this usually involves various stages which the brothers will have to go through in order for the groom to get to the bride.
The sisters act as a gatekeeper of sorts – asking the brothers to perform a multitude of tasks before being allowed deeper and deeper into the house.
This is a Hong Kong custom and I’m told it’s supposed to make the groom more appreciative of the bride due to the obstacles he has to go through to get her.
I remember faces being painted with makeup, drinks of Guinness with a raw egg inside (which is pretty delicious actually), and panties being put on by the groom’s band of brothers before they get into the house.
It was all in good fun…
…for all parties involved.
There was also a lot of interesting yoga poses that they have to perform before being allowed entry.
The brothers got back at the sisters after that by hiding all their shoes.
The groom finally gets to the bride! *applause
Anyway, the customary tea giving ceremony to the elders were performed at the bride’s place and at the groom’s place.
This took quite a while and sent us to three different places and we convened back at the groom’s place where the bride throws the flowers.
The bouquet of flowers somehow landed in Cherry’s hands.
Heh!
I also appropriated the flowers for a bit of camwhoring.
I like this mish mash of Eastern and Western traditions though when it comes to my wedding, I think I’ll forgo most of it in lieu of a more private ceremony at a beach or the highlands with an outdoor wedding ceremony.
There was a break after that before the lunch wedding reception so we took the opportunity to go back and take a 1 hour nap before showering and heading out again.
I was quite sleep deprived and needed the shut eye since we’re driving down straight after the wedding reception.
The lunch wedding reception was held at Bangunan Persatuan Eng Choon – a meeting halls of sorts. There’s a lack of restaurants with the capacity to fit the people invited in Tangkak since it’s a small town.
The bride and groom already had another wedding in Penang prior to this. It’s not uncommon to have multiple weddings due to relatives – my sister had 3 – one in New Zealand, one in KL and one in Sibu.
We were seated at a table labelled “Diploma Friends”. I don’t know Polly personally, she’s Jeanie’s friend and I guess that makes me the chauffeur cum +1 in this entire shebang. 😉
The first dish was refreshingly different. I mean that literally. It was a hot afternoon and the lychee, grapes and pineapple chunks on a bed of ice inside a hollowed out pineapple really did the trick.
There is also the more traditional “sampler” first dish. I think there’s a name to it, usually “Four Seasons” or something to that effect but I like to call it a sampler dish coz it comes in a smorgasbord of small servings. I like the unorthodox century eggs and peanuts in this dish. The satay was good and so was the cuttlefish.
The next dish is a combination of pork, yam and sea cucumber braised in dark sauce. It’s really good as well.
Of course, there’s the customary shark fin’s soup after that. I like the generous servings of shark’s fin inside – you can literally see the huge chunks in each bowl.
Here you go! I know a lot of people are against shark’s fin, but I’m neither a tree hugger or an environmentalist wannabe, I eat just about anything – my previous culinary adventures can be a testament to that. 😉
Polly works at a records company and she got this famous local singer to come and perform at the wedding reception. I don’t know his name but my girlfriend told me he’s the one who sang the Hokkien song “If I had a billion dollars”. No, not the “I wanna be a billionaire” song currently on the airwaves, this is old skool stuff.
He did a parody of other well known Chinese artists and I can’t get most of his references coz I don’t listen to that genre of music but it was quite entertaining.
During the interlude, there came a dish of prawns – it’s done in a yin yang presentation, with half of it being deep fried butter prawns topped with mayo and the other fried in hot sauce.
I preferred the butter prawns and it was so crunchy that you can eat the entire thing, head and tail. At least that’s how I eat my prawns. A lot of people are surprised that I can eat the entire thing without shelling. I guess it’s equal part laziness and having a taste for the shell – I think it tastes better whole.
Another must have dish during weddings is fish – this is a steamed fish which I can’t identify. However, I really liked the soft texture and the sauce that it was done with. I like this kind of fish, I don’t know when I started liking fish, since I never used to as a kid, same with vegetables.
…then came the best dish of the wedding reception. This is hands down is the most delicious thing that I had that day. It’s roasted suckling pig.
I like the thinly sliced crispy skin and the BBQ sauce served under it. The presentation is really awesome too – you can clearly see that the entire pig has been served.
The tongue of the sucking pig was something I had to work very hard to get. I like the taste of tongue – you can find canned versions of it but the best thing is to eat it fresh in England or Australia.
There were a lot of dishes that day – this is paper wrapped chicken. It’s cooked inside wrapping to produce meat that literally melts in your mouth. It’s tender and all the flavors are preserved due to the cooking method.
I couldn’t eat very much after that but there was a serving of sliced abalone, ham, broccoli, mushrooms and a rare (and expensive) type of seafood that I don’t know the name of. It’s chewy and it tastes like clams.
The final dish was rather unique as well – it’s ice cream! I found that it suits the weather rather well. We saw one person eating it with chopsticks and another eating it with a soup spoon at another table. Jeanie thought it was pretty funny and I took several photos of me doing it as well.
When in Tangkak…
…do as the Tangkak-ians do.
Cheers to the newlyweds!
All the best in all your future endeavors! 🙂
I really enjoyed this experience and though I was just about nodding off on the drive back, a quick pit stop and an energy drink resolved that.
It was a really fun weekend and a good opportunity to meet the girlfriend’s friends. 😀
I just made a 1 ½ hour drive down from KL to Tangkak in Johor to attend a wedding with Jeanie and two of her friends. It’s a very small town and we spent most of the day in Muar before heading over here.
The groom’s house has been decked out with an outdoor canopy catering to numerous guests during the night before the wedding. There’s food and beer under the tent, it’s a midnight vigil of sorts. 😀
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this in a Chinese wedding. I’ve seen this sort of setup in Malay weddings but never in Chinese ones. I’m told it’s quite common in the smaller towns in rural areas. Imagine the logistics of having to block off an entire residential street with the permission of all the neighbours!
Anyway, the soon-to-be-wed couple were kind enough to provide accomodations for us. We’re bunking in a room inside a guest house just opposite the groom’s place for the night.
The pre-wedding rituals (Jeanie is the “sister” – ji mui) is going to start early tomorrow morning and we’re heading home to KL straight after the lunch wedding reception so it’s time to grab some shut eye coz I nearly fell sleep driving today. 😡
I was at Johor during the past weekend and managed to participate in a traditional kueh making workshops of sorts during my time there. This kueh is called rempeyek and it’s made with batter and then deep fried.
There is a contraption where you pour in the batter, add peanuts and ikan bilis (anchovies) before you dunk it into boiling hot oil.
I shot a video of the rempeyek making process with the help of Iza a.k.a. Bulb. I made mine with extra peanuts and made sure to keep track of the floating bits of kueh so I can eat the one that I made with my own hands. 🙂
The recipe for rempeyek goes like this:
Batter
200 grams rice flour
100 gram corn flour
2 cups of santan (coconut milk)
½ teaspoon jintan manis (pounded)
½ teaspoon jintan putih (diced)
½ teaspoon ketumbar (grated)
4 red onions – finely diced
2 onions – finely diced
Salt to taste
Condiments
300 grams peanuts
Ikan bilis (anchovies)
I managed to get the recipe from the kind folks at the place. It should be noted that the peanuts should be fried beforehand. The rempeyek will float to the top once it’s cooked and once that’s done, you put it on serviettes to soak up the excess oil.
This is the rempeyek that I made. I like the taste of this classic kueh. It’s a traditional savory local delicacy of Malay origin and I’m glad I had the chance to try and make some. 🙂
Wicked the Musical is one of the best musicals I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. It’s currently showing at Apollo Victoria Theatre in London. Yup, I caught the West End cast in this award winning production! 🙂
Wicked is actually based on the first of a trilogy of books by Gregory Maguire called Wicked – The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Most of you would have watched or read The Wizard of Oz at some point in your childhood. It’s a good movie but ultimately suffers from being based on a children’s book – it’s all black and white, good versus evil.
As you grow older, such concepts are foreign, nay, an insult to your intelligence, in a world you know has no such absolutes. It’s all shades of gray and Wicked will appeal to the older audience. The book and the musical adaptation has quite a few differences though – the book is darker and Dorothy does not make an appearance in the written word.
However, I love the musical coz it weaves everything together and portrays Elphaba (the name of the Wicked Witch of the West) as a revolutionary who fights for the rights of Animals. She is ultimately a very misunderstood character and you can’t help but feel sorry for her.
I managed to get reasonably good seats for 62.50 pounds (about RM 300) – it’s the very front row in the middle of the Dress Circle. I was impressed by the props on stage as well – the animatronic bird (?) hovering over the stage like a large pterodactyl that comes alive when the Wizard of Oz makes his speeches is awe inspiring!
The orchestra playing in front of the stage is so good that I went and bought the CD + program for 20 pounds. Wicked the Musical is probably best known for the song “Defying Gravity” which also appeared in an episode of Glee (the one with the wheelchairs in Season One).
I won’t spoil the story for you but basically the musical is about Glinda (The Good Witch of the South), Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West) and Nessa (The Wicked Witch of the East) during their days in school.
The witches weren’t known as such then (Glinda is such a selfish airhead) and the incredibly sad and touching series of events which culminated in the death of Nessa (damn Madame Morrible) and the vilification of poor Elphaba will bring a tear to even the most stone hearted man.
The production runs for about 3 hours, including an intermission between Act I and Act II and I cannot recommend it strongly enough for those with an interest in theatre (and even those without). If you only watch one musical in your lifetime, let it be Wicked. I got so angry at Galinda and felt so sorry for Elphaba even though it’s just great acting.
Amsterdam is famous for a raw herring dish served with onions and pickles called Hollandse Nieuwe. The best ones are usually found in stalls scattered around the canals. The traditional way of eating herring (as related to me by a Dutch citizen who saw me eating it and asked me what I thought of it) is by taking the tail of the raw herring, slathering it with onions and eating it whole.
However, the way herring is served in Amsterdam is sans tail. The herring’s tail has been amputated somewhere during its voyage from the North Sea. Instead, it’s sliced into manageable pieces and sprinkled with raw onions and some pickles. You’re supposed to eat it with a toothpick – mine comes with a nice Dutch flag on it – this is the famous stall in Koningsplein where you can get herring and broodje haring.
The herring (spelled haring in Dutch) is fresh and this place has a very healthy turnover of customers craving for some raw sea produce. It costs Euro 2.70 (about RM 12) for a whole herring and you can add Euro 0.50 for a broodje haring.
Broodje haring is basically an entire herring sandwiched between a bun. There are two types of buns in Frens Haringhandel – the traditional one is the soft bun. I would recommend eating just the herring but if you need a bit of carbohydrates to fill yourself up, the boodje hearing is a great option.
Fresh raw herring in Amsterdam is divine – it’s surprisingly creamy, a word I wouldn’t expect to describe fish. The haring has been deboned and practically melts in your mouth. It’s also slightly salty and totally unlike sashimi – definitely a must try if you happen to go to Amsterdam.
