CNY 2011

CNY 2011 came, and in a few days time, will officially be over. This year, we went back to Kuantan as usual, and we had a rather quiet CNY – not as much visiting nor visitors as in previous years.

We hit the beach twice, on the first and third day of CNY. Yiu Yiu really enjoyed having the waves splash onto her, while mei-mei was content just playing sand by the beach.

Enjoying McD sundae treat after frolicking at the beach

On our second trip there, I brought mei-mei into the sea but she didn’t quite like it. So back to the sand she went.

On the fourth day, we drove back to Ipoh. We would typically cut through Gohtong which exists at Kuala Kubu Baru and we would enter the North South Expressway in Tanjung Malim. However just the night before, hubby’s friend suggested that we try using the Bentong – Cameron Highlands way, which is supposedly faster. I was against it as hubby wasn’t sure exactly where to access that road, and we wouldn’t know for sure where we’d end up at. Anyway, the East Coast-Karak highway started to crawl right after the Temerloh rest area, so hubby decided to take a chance by using the new route – BAD decision – as we ended up reaching Ipoh after EIGHT freaking hours. The Gohtong way would normally take us 5.5 – 6 hours, but with the terrible traffic on that day (we were tuned in to the trafiic report, and it repeated reported the terrible crawl at Bentong and Karak highway), we couldn’t really be sure either.

The girls got to enjoy fireworks and sparklers in Ipoh, courtesy of their 大姨姨, who is becoming our family’s official supplier of CNY fireworks and sparklers :-)

This year's loot - please don't call the police :-)

The children with their CNY fireworks supplier

Sunway Lagoon

We had initially planned to drive back to Kuantan on Monday but we also didn’t want to waste the Sunway Lagoon tickets. However, since it’s been raining the past few days, we told Yiu Yiu that if it was still raining on Monday, we would have to forego Sunway Lagoon, and head back to Kuantan as planned.

We woke up on Monday morning with a very slight drizzle and since we didn’t want to disappoint the girl, we decided we’ll just give it a go, and she promised that if it got too cold or the rain got heavier, we’d leave. We hit the waters right away upon arrival, and though the sky was gloomy with the occasional drizzle, we were thankful that the weather didn’t get any worse. We spent the better part of the day at the wave pool and Kalahari Kids, before going to the man-made beach.

I asked Yiu Yiu to pose, and this was what I got. How? got model potential or not :-)

Cruising down the Zambezi River

I asked Yan Yan to pose, and this was what I got

We left the Water Park at about 5pm, so that didn’t give us much time for the rides at the Amusement Park, as all the rides came to a halt at 6pm. We managed quite a few rides nonetheless, and Yiu Yiu the daredevil (just like her mummy, haha) enjoyed them so much without any trace of fear! Good thing we went on a weekday, as there wasn’t many people and there was no queue at any of the rides.

Clockwise from top left: The Vultures, Butch Cassidy's Trail, Niagara Falls Flume Ride and Buffalo Bill Coaster

Lastly, the very mild, but colourful Chief Crazy Horse Carousel

Wild Wild West

Yogi Bear 3D special screening

I received a promotional email from Citibank last Wednesday, stating that cardholders who spend RM250 (can’t remember the amount now) in a single receipt between Jan 24-28 stands a chance to win four passes to the Yogi Bear 3D special screening & four Sunway Lagoon tickets. It was already Jan 26 then, and I didn’t anticipate that I’d be using my credit card for the next few days, but I sent in my sms registration anyhow. As luck would have it, I had to buy something for work on Friday, and swiped my card for RM810. At that moment, I thought to myself that that could be my lucky shot. True enough, that night itself, I received an sms informing me to collect my movie passes at 10am on Sunday at TGV Sunway Pyramid, and the special screening would take place at 10.30am.

So we headed to Sunway Pyramid on Sunday morning, collected our passes and trooped into the cinema for the 90-min show.We brought Yan Yan along – her first trip to the cinema. I was all prepared to have to bring her out should she start fussing halfway through the show but my little missy sat (OK, she roamed a little between our two rows of 2-seats) through the show! We were surprised, but glad nonetheless. Of course the popcorn helped a bit :-) It was the first time for us (hubby, me and Yiu Yiu) watching a 3D show.

Yiu Yiu with her 3D glasses, and Yan Yan with her popcorn

It was raining after the show and we decided to postpone the trip to Sunway Lagoon since the ticket was valid till the next day (Jan 31), in the hope that the weather would be kinder to us. We spent some time in the mall, and caught a lion dance performance.

Mum on print ad

This ad appeared on several Chinese dailies the last couple of days.

The lady in the ad is my mum, and the kiddos are my niece and nephew. The gentleman is unrelated to us.

My first reaction when I saw the ad? It was awkward seeing mum posing with another man surrounded by her grandchildren – how wonderful it would be if it was my late dad sitting there.

Happy Chinese New Year dad, wherever you may be.

CNY arts & crafts

Presenting the handiworks of my little missy:

The card and the small red lantern were made in kindy on different days this week, while the large octagonal decorative item was made in art class yesterday. The rest of the small purplish pink lanterns were made at home after she came back from her art class. She made them all by herself – I only helped to staple the handles.

She made four altogether – one each for papa, mummy, mei-mei and herself. She even wrote our names inside the angpow paper before cutting and stapling her handiwork.


And here’s what written on the inside of the card:

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. May the year of the Rabbit brings you and your family lots of hoppity hop happiness, love, prosperity and health.

What have I been up to?

Lots…work wise. Hence the silence in this space. Within the first three weeks of January, I’ve travelled to Penang for a dinner talk at this lovely restored mansion...


…and conducted a training at this new resort in Melaka.

These are all I got to see at the resort, as I arrived in the late evening, followed by a full day training the next day which ended at close to 7pm, before driving back to KL.

There’s another training to be conducted in KK this week before I take a break for CNY. But I’m looking forward to the trip to KK to stock up on frozen seafood for the CNY reunion dinner :-)

What a hectic start to the year!

Yan Yan – 17th & 18th month update

Today is the day my baby turns 18 months old, and she marked this momentous occasion by having a fight my mummy – by refusing her breakfast! Sigh! This girl sure has a fiery temper, and a rough demeanour to boot! She’s a real samseng compared to her che-che – climbing on sofas, chairs and table; messing up the display cabinet and kitchen drawers, which her che-che never did. Pray tell, is your second born more difficult to manage than your first? I seem to see this a lot among my friends.

Okie okie, enough of complaining – this is not a ranting post :-)

Physically, she's more steady on her feet but will on occasions, still trip and fall when she walks, or attempts to run. She obviously inherited mummy’s clumsy genes, just as her che-che did. She can walk up and down the stairs by herself by holding onto the railing, and on several occasions, gave me heart attacks when she suddenly appeared upstairs by herself when I hadn’t latched the safety gate properly.

She’s very slow in the teething department. At the ripe age of 18 months, she only has 4 upper and lower incisors to show, and still no signs of her molars erupting. We started her on brushing to get her used to the sensation of having a toothbrush in her mouth, though we haven’t been doing it regularly. She’s quite cooperative as she sees her che-che brushing every night, but tends to tighten her lips and sucks on the brush.

She’ll regard any little boy and girl as kor-kor and che-che, and a baby as well, baby. She babbles in her own language as if holding a conversation and her vocabulary now includes fan, book, read, (o)pen, shoe, ant, and body parts like eye, ear, nose, mouth, hair, hand, leg.

Video taken on 12.12.10 @ 16.5 months. She mistakenly pointed to her leg when I mentioned hand in this video.

She’s taking table food like the rest of the family, so eating out is much easier these days as she takes rice with dishes, or noodles.

Pretending to feed herself while waiting for food to arrive

And this is how messy meal times can get!

My only worry is that over the past 2-3 months, she wouldn’t drink her formula. She would only consume a grand total of 2-3 oz daily at babysitter and get her booby fix at home, so I’ve got to put my plan of weaning her on hold for the time being. But then again, this milk machine is also drying up so she probably doesn't get much anyway.

She still naps twice in the day most days, loves dancing to music and scribbling. She’s also developed a liking for books, and will shove a book into my face and insists that I read it, but her attention span would only last all but 2-3 pages.

Taman Tun Park, after a long hiatus

It’s been more than a year since we last went to Taman Tun Park so last Sunday, sis and I brought the children there. We went there quite early, about 4pm so there wasn’t anyone at the stream. But to our disappointment, the stream was rather dry, which surprised me given the wet spell currently. Anyway, that didn’t deter the children and they wasted no time getting wet and messy with the sand.

Grabbing a quick snack before...

Joining her che-che in the water

After that, the children worked off more of their energy at the exercise area.


Hope we’ll be back soon, and not wait another year before the next trip.

Bird Park revisited

This year-end school holidays have been a quiet one for Yiu Yiu. We didn’t plan any trips away from KL as I had just joined my current company and didn’t have the luxury of having annual leave to clear. Other than the trip to Aquaria with Yihao, she has been spending most of her time playing and watching Astro 小太阳 (Xiao Tai Yang), a Chinese educational channel with local, Singaporean and Taiwanese programs. The only good thing that came out from this is her improved command of Mandarin and vocabulary. She is obviously more comfortable with the language and feels comfortable conversing in Mandarin with hubby and my mum.

Nevertheless, I took last 3 days of 2010 off, and we made a trip to the KL Bird Park, our second trip there after the kindy’s trip in 2009.

We arrived just in time to catch the Bird Show at 12.30pm.

After that, we took our time walking around the park, and left at about 3.30pm.

Refreshing, cool ice-cream for the children

I can have my cake and eat it too!

Feeding the fishes

I’ve never seen a peacock raising its feathers into a fan in display, and in this trip, I managed to catch not one, not two, but four peacocks displaying their colourful feathers. And on the way out, I caught a peahen raising its not so attractive feathers too. What luck!

Nambawan

I came across this restaurant while browsing Buffafly’s blog. I googled to find out more and found really good reviews by many food bloggers. Turned out, the restaurant is located at Sri Manja Square One (off Old Klang Road), opposite Sri Manja Court, where we once lived before moving to our current house in early 2007. The commercial area of Sri Manja Square One started operation just before we moved out.

We went there for lunch today, and since it was still only slightly past 12noon, we were the only customers there so our meals came in a jiffy. One of the reviews did comment that service was poor during peak hours, so I guess it pays to be there early, especially if you have hungry children.

The restaurant wall is adorned with blown-up pictures of dishes on their menu.

Back to the food, I ordered the famous pork burger (RM6.90) for myself and the tomato meatball spaghetti (RM8.90) for the girls, while hubby ordered the roasted pork belly (RM13.90). The pork burger lived up to its rave reviews with a thick, juicy and tender patty. Accompanied by lettuce, cucumber, tomato, mayo and a slightly tangy sauce, each bite was thoroughly satisfying. The girls’ spaghetti came with four generously huge pork balls, which tasted as yummy as the burger patty. There was a generous amount of sauce too, unlike some other restaurants which can be a little stingy with the pasta sauces. Hubby commented that his roasted pork belly was nothing extraordinary, but I liked the tender, succulent meat underneath the crispy skin. It came with a brown sauce that’s subtle enough to not overpower the taste of the pork. And we both loved the dollop of apple sauce at the side that provided a nice contrasting tartness to the meat.


For those who are worried about the porky taste/smell as I am, rest assured that none was present in all our orders. For non-pork eaters, there’s a variety of beef, lamb, chicken and fish dishes, as well as a selection of pasta and sandwiches too. The only thing missing, as would be expected from a Western eatery such as this, is dessert. I could be mistaken, but I don’t remember seeing any dessert on the menu.

Most reviews commented that their servings are small but at the end of the meal, I was satisfyingly full, yet not too stuffed. But perhaps there’s some truth in the reviews, as I did polish off the girls’ unfinished spaghetti.

By the time we left, the restaurant was slightly more than half full. I will definitely return for more tasty, wholesome and affordable porky fare.