Three Generations

Hliza, her mother and her two daughters.

It is hard to describe the feeling: you feel you know someone from blogging, from sharing their views of the world, and yet you have anxieties before you meet them in real life.

I can tell you that Hliza, her sister, Nani, and their friend, Aizan, were all as warm and as gentle as they appear on their blogs.

We had a truly lovely time. We were collected by Hliza's sister, Nani, her friend, Aizan, and Hliza's two older children. They took us on a tour of Malacca before going to Hliza's mother's house for a most delicious lunch. I am going to have to increase my Malaysian recipe repertoire! Before luch we were given some nibbles that were delicious but defy easy description. Lunch included a Malay 'birthday cake' (yellow sticky rice, prawns, quail eggs), chicken rendang curry, 'flossed' beef rendang, an assemble it yourself laksa, charming little rice parcels made of coconut palm leaves and a chicken korma curry. To finish the meal off was a dragon fruit; the red fleshed kind rather than the white fleshed version available in Australia.

After lunch we visited a mushroom farm being set up by Hliza's younger brother before the other brother took us on a river cruise. On the way home we stopped off for a local 'drink' (who's name escapes me) that consisted of grated ice, coconut milk, palm sugar, red beans, some green noodlely things and possibly a few other things. Cool and refreshing.

A truly delightful day and we give a big 'thank you' to Hliza for making this visit to Malacca so memorable.
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