Busy week... Time is passing... Deadlines are pressing...

Nevertheless, it's been a rewarding one.

Worth a mention:

1. Meeting up with friends we'd not seen for 10 years, and swapping stories about our academic experiences...



2. Continuing to eat our way around the culinary delights of Kuching. Highlights this week have been:

-- A very picturesque set of satay, eaten with sundowners, back at the James Brooke Bistro and Cafe.
-- Porridge in a claypot from Chong Choon. The famous laksa man is never there when we're clamouring for breakfast, but the porridge lady makes a very satisfactory substitute. The chicken and egg one is great, but the "special", with salted egg, century egg, and pork-balls, is special indeed -- and the claypot keeps it hot till the very last mouthful.



-- More excellent porridge from Min Hong Kee. This is a wonderful establishment, and as with many Jalan Padungan eateries, people cheerfully double-park to ensure they don't miss out. Normally we're there for the laksa, but on Saturday morning we coincided with the porridge guys. Concealed in the fabulously smooth porridge is a generous helping of succulent pork balls, and in time-honoured fashion, you also get a little dish of you tiao on the side. Note that to accompany your porridge in Sarawak you are handed sesame oil and pepper. Sarawak produces 95% of Malaysia's pepper, so I guess that makes sense.
-- Pork leg rice from another of Jalan Padungan's vast array of kopitiam options. I've not had this since Thailand, many years ago...
-- Pulut (sticky rice), all nice and smoky from being grilled in its banana leaf package.
-- More delicious kek lapis, from Warisan across the river. If anything, even better than the excellent last consignment (and they give you lots of samples to try).
-- Indigenous food. Our first exposure was ayam pansuh. This consists of chicken pieces, which are cooked in bamboo, and served with tapioca leaves in a lemon-grass-infused broth. It came alongside a wonderful nasi lemak at Lima Tujoh. Our second foray into the food of the first Sarawakians took us to The Dyak. Here, to the accompaniment of good old Christian songs like the Old Rugged Cross and What a Friend We Have in Jesus, we chomped our way through another bowl of bamboo chicken (or manok lulun); a portion of awesomely juicy/crunchy jungle ferns (lightly cooked with wild ginger flowers, anchovies, and chillies); a plate of local brown rice; and (probably the piece de resistance, though it was a closely fought competition) jani tunu or grilled three-layered pork (skin, fat, and lean meat), set off by two relishes. OK, so the desserts are not exactly authentic... But the "special" -- a combo of ice-cream and fermented rice drizzled with tuak -- should on no account be missed.





3. Walking. We have walked in the rain; walked past the old distillery, across the bridge, and back down the other side; walked in the old park where the band used to play back in the Brooke era; and walked in the nice residential area to the south of the old town...















4. Checking out the malls. CityONE Megamall is a little on the dead side, it has to be said. But it did allow us to catch Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which is an awesome movie. (The message, if such there be: Let your anger go. Even if doing that means sucking up injustice...) The Vivacity Megamall (they're all megamalls) is much perkier. And they have an amazing shop called Sports Direct where you can stock up on all the stuff you've been trying to track down over the last few months.

5. Meeting more kitties. Not only do you get cats on drain covers, and cats in parks, but you also meet vast quantities of the real thing. The most notable of the latter was the kitten who walked straight into the river... A group of us were waiting for the little ferry, so puss's exploit caused an instant commotion, and a young man quickly fished him out. But when the ferry came, the ridiculous animal kept attempting to stretch his soggy little body across the watery gulf onto the boat. The boatman picked him up this time -- "This cat's all wet..." -- and plonked him down further from the edge, but he really does seem to have a fatal attraction to water.