I won't go into the covid situation, as I covered all that in yesterday's September review (TL;DR -- still bad).

And that same post also explains why a mountain of activity has to be packed into this week and next week. All of it tedious, frankly. Going for routine medical tests; shopping for stuff that we've postponed buying for ages and now urgently need (including a new computer for Nigel), or for stuff we need for our upcoming trip to the British Isles; sorting things out at the bank...

As of today, "tourism" is again a permitted activity, and we had planned a little trip out of Kuching. (This would have been the first since last December. I'm aware that I keep repeating this fact, but I still can't quite believe it. I know weevils who have travelled further than we have this year...) Anyway, Kuching was doing one of its floor-to-ceiling rain days, and dealing with the bank took ages and ages and ages, so our "tourism" was put on hold yet again.

After months of leading a pretty sequestered life, it feels uncomfortable to be in and out of malls and hospitals and banks, especially given Kuching's current covid stats. Hence my "living dangerously" title. But, needless to say, we're being as careful as we can.

Otherwise it's been a week with lots of good food. (We're trying to fit in as many favourites as possible before we head off to a different culinary scene.)

We never tire of Foochow food, and the 626 Traditional Foochow Delicacies Cafe is another good source. Their version of noodles with ang chow (rice-wine lees) and zao cai fen gan (mustard greens preserved in that same ang chow) was great, as was their noodle-less take on the famous red wine chicken soup: bite-size bits of chicken, lots of floaty egg, and a really winey broth.


Another day we treated ourselves to bak chang, which are sticky rice dumplings. It's months since I last indulged, and this week's specimens, from Aimy's just up the road, were excellent, stuffed with beef or chicken plus chestnuts and salted egg yolk, and wrapped in pandan leaves. Normally, rice dumplings are wrapped in bamboo leaves, but as soon as Nigel brought the parcel up, we both went: "Pandan!" And sure enough, Aimy makes her halal version of bak chang from "glutinous rice and savoury fillings wrapped in pandan leaves". (And if you've never tasted pandan, this little piece will give you some idea of what you're missing. The scent and flavour are almost mystical...)




Having hired a car to help with the mountain of errands we had to run, we were also able to pick up our favourite char kuay teow from Jalan Padungan. The trick is to eat it right away... Delicious...


Confucius's birthday is celebrated on 28 September. I have no idea if this was the reason the temple by Petanak Market was burning such an impressive number of enormous incense sticks that day, but it's my best guess. It was very photogenic, anyway.



And to close with, a couple more snippets from our walks this week:




Tomorrow, rain or shine, we're heading to the seaside to see the sun rise...