Always missing our highland home 🍃I always think it’s a wonder how my cousins & I, eventhough we weren’t born in the village, and some were born & live overseas, we still call the highlands our home. Kelabits are so spread out across world (the aunties call it our global longhouse), yet we’re a really tight-knit community with strong roots to this land, the mountains & the rivers 🤍 everything and everyone is somehow so familiar. This is Bario, a collection of 16 villages in the Kelabit highlands. My great grandparents came from one of these villages, Batu Patong. Currently no more than 20 people live in Batu Patong village. Listen to ~ Sunhat Song, from my latest album 💛 on Spotify, iTunes etc. 📍Bario, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo #bario #kelabit #sarawak #sarawaktravel #highland #home #borneo #mountain #nature #naturelovers #wanderlust #wanderer #mountains #hillside #naturegeography #moretodiscover

It’s a fact that Old Airport Road Food Centre has its fair share of famous stalls - the kind whose names pop up whenever certain hawker dishes are discussed and also requested by friends from overseas when they visit (oh, don’t we all miss that!). These hawkers attract non-stop queues and get shared constantly on social media. And then, there are the rest. A couple of days ago, inspired by Instagram Stories posted by @danielfooddiary a while back and more recently, by @kfseetoh’s call to support our hawkers before they disappear, I decided to do my part, and try food from a stall at this venue that I’d never ordered from before - one which isn’t, at least as far as I can see, famous or popular. Anyway, “51 Old Airport Road Char Kway Teow” was my pick. Got to admit, my decision was influenced by the three elderly folks I saw operating it as a tight-knit team. The menu here comprises of #charkwayteow in “black” and “white” as well as an interesting-sounding dish of beansprouts with cockles. You can choose to pay a little more to top-up on the ingredients you like. I wouldn’t say their version is the tastiest around but it does have some “wok hei” and because pork lard is used, results in a flavourful dish. Their style of #friedkwayteow leans towards the wet side, so when you order it for takeaway, be prepared for a little clumping (but nothing a pair of chopsticks can’t easily sort out). What’s cool is this stall does not pre-fry their yellow mee and kway teow, so if you crave a “pure” version with only kway teow, you can always request for it.

I got hit up to feature in @couriermedia’s book about small business owners late last year. The book gave me a chance to talk through my process around building small businesses. When I think about each progressive year, some things get easier, other things get more challenging, but the psychological battles seem to be the most persistent. With growth comes expectations on both a financial front but also a responsibility to your team. For the foreseeable future, it seems like my destiny is to keep things lean and light. My current state of mind isn't thrilled with the thought of balancing quality and scale. I don’t get excited about the ongoing responsibilities of managing a vast team nor creating an increasingly larger business that should also grow to serve their ambitions. Instead, it’s been far more compelling to keep a tight-knit circle with which you can connect with individuals on a more direct level. I think the biggest challenge of the whole entrepreneurial journey is optimization. Your success is dependent on your ability to manage (with relatively less) resources and deliver things to a standard that keeps you excited and engaged. But the biggest tip? Find the partner who you can trust, who continues to impress you, and most importantly, you can share the wins and losses with. ilu hahaha @alexmaeland. Big thanks to Henry Tobias Jones (@henrytojones) for the words and Commonstudio (@commonstudio) for the afternoon of photography. A few shots of our walk around SSP can be seen at the end. The book is available now at select bookstores and via @couriermedia’s site.