A year has passed, and the New Year heralded a most promising new beginning. Irinah started off the term on a good mood – having won all the interhouse competitions last term – and hoping to win more in this short but packed term. As a house tradition, to allow the girls to bond with each other and get to know the new students, our House Night was spent on a day trip to visit some factories and farms around Tanjung Sepat.
The girls were not so enthusiastic about it in the first place, but their impressions changed when the trip finally came. Our first stop was the mushroom factory, where we spent some time at the showroom looking and buying the mushroom products. The girls were interested to try out the mushroom juices and exploring the variety of products made from mushroom.
Forget about Starbucks and Coffee Bean, the best coffee is already right here in our own backyard. After the mushroom factory, we continued our journey to the coffee-making factory, and had the great pleasure of sampling classic homemade Hainanese coffee at Joo Fa Trading, Tanjung Sepat. There in a humble shop house we met Mr Lim, the friendly director of this traditional business, who briefly explained to us the laborious coffee-making process beginning with the selection of the coffee fruits plucked from the coffee tree.
The chosen fruits are dried for roughly 10 days and are peeled to obtain the coffee beans which are then roasted for about 5 hours. The first batch of beans is then taken out, cooled and ground to make white coffee. Interestingly enough, to make black coffee, the beans are roasted together with margarine and sugar for a longer time before they are taken out and ground. After sharing with us the techniques of coffee making, Mr Lim generously let us try cups of his freshly-brewed and awesome-tasting coffee.
Next up was Kuan Wellness Ecopark, a place specialized in producing bird nest products. Upon our arrival, we were treated to a short documentary on bird nest products – from the type of bird nests to the process of producing bird nest products. The documentary also showed us the history of bird nest – ranging back to the old days when the Chinese army, led by Admiral Zheng Ho, was on a voyage to the Malay Peninsula. During a storm, they were stranded on a beach. They were running low on food supply, so the Admiral asked his followers to harvest the bird nests around them to be eaten. They could feel their energy returning and their complexion changed for the better. From that day onwards, bird nests are known for their nutritional values.
After that, we were taken to a seafood restaurant facing the sea. The cool breeze of the air and the tempting food took our breaths away. We immediately settled down to enjoy our lunch – SEAFOOD, of course. There were crabs, prawns, taufoo, lala, fish, vegetables, seaweed soup and rice. To top the delicious servings, there were watermelons for dessert, which were not enough to fulfill the cravings of the girls as people asked for more. But nevertheless, it was an enjoyable lunch, and then it was time to move on to our next destination – the tapioca factory.
When we reached the tapioca factory, we witnessed a couple of workers hard at work, cutting away the outer skin of the tapioca before it was further processed into the wide range of tapioca products. It was of the yellow variety, the same as those used for making tapioca flour. After that, the tapioca was sent to the machine to be sliced into standard pieces of tapioca which were then soaked and washed several times to ensure that the powdery substance was gotten rid off before they were dried and fried. Otherwise the slices would be stuck together and they would not be cooked thoroughly. After that the slices were seasoned with various condiments – curry powder, sambal, chilly powder, etc - to produce many flavours to delight the palate!
There were spicy tapioca chips and non-spicy ones, thicker ones and thinner ones, and they even had chips and crackers made from sweet potato, prawn crackers, dhall and many others. As the girls of Irinah milled about the shop, each fancying different products, the queue at the cashier was nonetheless edging longer and longer. Finally, when all was paid for, we left the factory with our hands full of the deliciously crunchy and fresh products from the factory.
After the tapioca factory trip, we went down to the beach for some fishing, locally called “tarik kisar”. We used a big fishing net and prepared it underwater. We had to catch the tide at a certain hour and we trudged about a kilometre out from the jetty, along the beach to the sea. The fishermen taught us how to pull the net into the sea and we made a U turn back to the beach. It looked easy but boy, if we hadn’t enough people, we wouldn’t have managed to pull the net in! With cheers of Irinah Dynamite encouraging the few girls, they managed to get the net in at last! Although we had scratches and minor cuts on our legs, we really had fun. It was a fantastic experience like no other!! Our catch for the day were prawns, jellyfish, stingrays, crabs and various types of fishes, and even a king crab! Some other girls were enjoying the water, looking for shells and taking photographs of the beautiful background.
Our last visit for the day was to the passion fruit farm – where the person in charge told us about passion fruit juice, the procedures and techniques of growing a passion fruit tree in our backyard. It takes 45 days from flowering to harvesting during the rainy season but during the dry season, it will require 60 days. The secret to getting a passion fruit tree to fruit abundantly is to pluck the old leaves away once a fortnight. The unripe fruit is green in colour and will turn to a reddish hue when it is ripening. The owner, Mr Khor, also planted many lime and kedondong trees. Interestingly, he also had a tree with “magic” red oblong fruits, about 2 cm in length. It seems that if you eat the fruit and coat the whole mouth with it, anything sour that you eat after that will taste sweet. Several of us had a try and it turned out to be true! What an amazing fruit!!
After visiting the passion fruit farm, we spent some time at one of the landmarks of Tanjung Sepat, and probably one of the most anticipated spot of the day – the Lovers’ Bridge. The cool air from the sea and the scenic view made the walk even more memorable for us as we treasured the moments shared with beloved friends.
To end the day off, we had our steamboat dinner at the restaurant close to our earlier fishing spot. Like our lunch, we had a variety of seafood for dinner – including crabs, fish, prawns, fish dumplings, squids, fishballs, vegetables, mushrooms and eggs. There was also fried rice for those who favoured rice. And the ground chilly and sambal mushroom to go with our food was very delicious.
After having our dinner, we spent some time watching the sunset and the girls could be seen taking thousands of photos with the picturesque background. At about 8pm, we boarded the bus and headed back to KTJ.
It was a memorable yet meaningful experience for the girls as they got the opportunity to increase their knowledge and enjoy themselves at the same time. The new girls are fitting in quite well and are starting to build strong friendship with the old students. Everybody enjoyed themselves tremendously and went back with smiles on their faces.
