MANNERS AND OTHER MATTERS

A sign  on our hotel balcony in Langkawi After being back at home for 5 days after a fabulous week with my daughter in Malaysia, today I am leaving for almost a month in France.  I am joining a very special friend in Paris and we are going to navigate our way through the tiny villages and coastlines of Brittany before, as we say in Australia, “going off the beaten track” to see what else we would like to explore. I am taking my favourite French recipes and some new ones on my IPad so that I can try them with the French seafood, which is so very different to ours Downunder. I absolutely love cooking so I am excited about the many possibilities I have for success, and even perhaps some failures. And I will try some "fusion" experiments with some recipes I picked up in Malaysia. Spicy crab, sauteed stingray, steamboat chicken and more... The food in Malaysia was wonderful.  From the food stalls in Chinatown where we sampled spicy chilli crab, sautéed stingray with saltwater...

In the courtyard of the Masjid  Jemak I have recently returned from having a great week with my daughter in Malaysia.  While I had previously visited Kuala Lumpur to make presentations at conferences and visit clients when I had an office in Singapore, I had never had the opportunity to explore the city. And what fun we had! The shopping was amazing…ranging from Chanel and Gucci boutiques to the stalls of Chinatown with the “knock off” Longchamp and Louis Vuitton bags, badly copied CDs and millions of copied watches.  But unlike Bali, the street vendors were not “pushy” and loud, but respectful as we wandered around the colourful and lively stalls.  The city was decorated everywhere we went with Malaysian flags, draping from all the buildings, whether they were in the city centre, Chinatown or the Indian section of the city.  The Malaysian National Day was celebrated on September 16. During our selfstyled  “cultural tour”, where we walked for kilometres...