During our recent China trip, we stayed one night near the Yangcheng lake, hoping to enjoy a dinner with the famous hairy crabs. It turned out that we were a bit too early, the season was just starting. It became quite an adventure, read the report here. We had hairy crabs, but they were slightly disappointing because there was hardly any roe and that is what makes them a delicacy.

When, end of October, we noticed that the Dragon-I restaurant in 1 Utama had a hairy crab promotion, we could not resist the temptation..:-). The crabs are flown in twice a week from Shanghai, they are not cheap, price is RM 400-500 per kg. In Yangcheng we had to prepare the crabs ourselves, here it was done for us by two nice waitresses who created a real work of art. And as you can see, now there was plenty of roe. Not healthy but so delicious…:-)

The next day I went back to Lata Tampit, this time with Aric, to show him how attractive these falls are. It was a weekday,during my first visit the 5th tier was crowded with people camping, now there were no other visitors. Beautiful large pool.

On 8 November the yearly Kathina ceremony was held in Taiping. In an earlier blog, Kathina Festival 2013 , I have given information about the background of this Buddhist festival. This time I went with Aric who had never attended. About the Festival I will write a separate post: Kathina 2015. Here only one picture of the monks waiting for the devotees to present their gifts

When I am in Taiping I always want to have a look at the Old Resthouse, probably a masochistic streak in my character. It is a real eyesore, half hidden behind a fence that proudly advertises the heritage of Taiping. But of course I still enjoyed my stay, meeting many friends…:-)

Recently I have written a post Kanching Mission(s), where one of the missions was to check for my friend Joe Yap if there was a lot of rubbish. There was, so she started organising a cleaning operation. I could not attend the event itself, as I would be in Laos, but I met her in Kanching a week earlier, when she went there with some of her volunteers. I met her there with my friend Rahim.. He had never been to Kanching, so I showed him a few of the falls, before it started to rain.

About our trip to Laos I have published already a few posts. More will follow. Here only a picture of an alms giving ceremony in Luang Prabang.

Several of my friends were interested in Lata Tampit, so I went back for a third time. It will not be the last one, the waterfalls are beautiful, access is relatively easy, a pleasant half-day trip with a nice lunch as reward. Edwin suggested restaurant Wonderland Valley in Bukit Tinggi, and that was a good choice.

We don’t celebrate Christmas, but I decided it would be a good time to have a small party.  From this post you will have noticed that I am still addicted to waterfalls..:-), so I invited friends with a similar interest. My sifu Khong had recently created a personal book with all the waterfalls he had visited, I had borrowed the book to show it to my friends. There was food, a Western style buffet. And I had created a slide show of the waterfalls visited by me during the last 10-12 years. Without identification. After the dinner my guests had to determine name and location of the various falls. Big fun. A nice party

A few days later I was invited for a real Christmas party by my friend Philip. With a Christmas tree, a turkey and lots of other food. And even the singing of Christmas carols, where I surprised myself by joining the others in “Silent Night, Holy Night” 🙂

For New Year’s Eve, we have a tradition that we celebrate it at home, with a nice dinner. After the countdown we watch the fireworks at the Curve from our balcony. Nothing spectacular this time, but the dinner was a success.

And so came 2015 to an end. In that year I published more than 40 posts and albums!

I wish all my followers a happy and prosperous 2016!