Of short stories and languages

While cleaning out Yiu Yiu’s school bag at the beginning of the school holidays, I found a little pink notebook.  On the first few pages, to my pleasant surprise and amusement, were these jottings:

I hope she’ll continue writing and penning down her thoughts – not only will it be fun for me to discover them, but it’s a good avenue for her to express her creativity and improve on her English.  I used to speak to her in English but somehow after she got into Standard One this year, we spoke mostly in Mandarin, to hubby’s dismay.  Firstly, my Mandarin isn’t really up to mark and secondly, by not speaking in English with me, her English may deteriorate so it’s a double whammy.  So now, we made a pact with each other to consciously speak in English, and reprimand one another if one of us starts to speak in Mandarin J

She did not pick up her notebook at all during the school holidays.  We’ve kept her occupied with some revision workbooks to brush up on her BM, the subject that pulled her down substantially in her final exams.  Thank goodness for the babysitter who ensures she does at least 2-3 pages of the workbooks daily, in between time on the iPad.  Otherwise, she wouldn't have done much as I had been so busy at work over the last 2-3 months due to two vacancy gaps that I had not spent any time revising with her.  

It’s just another three weeks before school reopens and we need to hit the “Back to School” promotions at the malls to get her ready for Standard Two.  We don’t need a lot actually, probably just a new school bag and transparent book covers/wrappers.  She had already collected her textbooks before the school holidays, so we don’t need to compare college textbooks.

Visit to Pulau Ketam

In between Deepavali and Nuzul Quran recently, I was on leave and we decided to visit the famed Pulau Ketam.  We left after breakfast, and made it in good time to the Port Klang jetty to catch the 10.45am boat to Pulau Ketam.  Since it was a working day, the jetty and the boat was not crowded at all, contrary to some blog postings I read.

Kids posing at the jetty

It was a comfortable 45 minutes ride, and passengers were entertained by an old Hong Kong vampire movie J  The ride took us past the port with plenty of container ships docked, followed by open sea and mangrove swamps.

As usual, the kids entertained themselves with gadgets

Whatcha' looking at?

Crabs...lots and lots of baby crabs, as tide was low when we arrived

View of the village from the jetty, at low tide when we arrived (L), and during high tide, as we left

Upon arrival, we just walked around the village, which is built on stilts.  There are no cars nor proper roads, and the main mode of transport it the bicycle.  It was a hot day but I suppose it’s better than a rainy day, which had been the case during that time.  I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Police station

As the inhabitants of Pulau Ketam are primarily Chinese, there are quite a few Chinese temples

Kids breaking into Gangnam style in the middle of the village square

Houses on stilts

A very primitive public toilet in the middle of the village.  It consists of just a simple hole inside the zinc structure

 The village's secondary school

 Another temple

Boat yard 

A much nicer and modern primary school

 

Shrimps out in the sun at the dried shrimps factory

Workers sorting out dried shrimps at the factory

We walked around a large part of the island and by finally had enough, and settled down for lunch at about 2.30pm.  We chose Restoran Kim Hoe, located at the beginning of the main road as one walks in from the jetty.  Though Pulau Ketam is famous for its seafood, our meal was disappointing.  The sweet and sour crab, and the gungpo mantis prawn, didn’t taste good, neither was the seafood fresh.  Luckily the seafood vermicelli and the fishball soup saved the day.  We also ordered a plate of lala chien from one of the stalls nearby - it was pretty good.  The meal, with rice and drinks for 3 adults and 4 kids, cost about RM 150.

One of the many lala chien stalls in the village

As we were walking out to the jetty, we spotted this uncle selling fried ice-cream near the police station.  We bought two to try - it was basically ice-cream sandwiched in a bread pocket, and deep fried briefly, giving a crunchy outside layer, and cold delight in the centre.

We caught the 4.45pm boat back to Port Klang, and I can finally tick Pulau Ketam off from my Cuti-cuti Malaysia list.

Coffee bean

No, this post is not about The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf!

I was grinding coffee on the dining table after dinner last night and as usual, the two girls wanted to help aka kaypoh.  When Yiu Yiu almost spilled the container containing the ground coffee, I shooed them away and they retreated to the living room.  Not long after, Yan Yan started crying, and mumbled about something stuck in her nose.  By the time I managed to find the torchlight, she had quietened down so I was hoping that it was just a false alarm.  When I shone the torchlight into her nostrils, to my horror, I spotted a coffee bean in her right nostril.  Apparently Yiu Yiu snitched one to play and passed it to her mei-mei when she asked for it, and the little monster decided to shove it up her nose!!!

Luckily she was not in pain nor seemed to be distressed but when she heard that we would be taking her to the doctor, she was hysterical.  I offered to let her sit on my lap all the way to the hospital to calm her down.

On arrival, the nurse attended to us but she clung to me and refused to be checked.  The nurse managed to persuade her to let her (the nurse) peek into her nostril by bribing her with a sticker.  The nurse said they would probably need to restrain her when removing the coffee bean later so I was mentally bracing myself for the worst.  We were then told to wait for the doctor who was attending to another patient.  I tried to prepare her while waiting for our turn – I explained that the bean needs to be removed, otherwise a tree would grow out of her nose J  I told her I’ll be with her, and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. 

She was pretty composed while we waited but started panicking when we went into the treatment room.  The nurse had lain the restraining straps on the bed, and covered it up with a piece of cloth but she refused to lie down so we had no choice but to force her down and bundled her up, much like being swaddled like a newborn.  

 This was the closest picture I could find to illustrate how she was restrained during the procedure.

She must have been terribly terrified L  She was screaming her lungs outs while I tried to calm her down for the doctor to be able to “hook” the bean out from her nose.  At some points, she stopped struggling and quitened down, probably because she didn’t feel any pain when the metal apparatus was inserted into her nose, before fear gripped her and she started struggling and screaming again.  The whole ordeal lasted probably 2-3 minutes, before the bean was successfully dislodged from her nostril and she was freed from the restrainer.  Thereafter, she hung on tight to me like a koala bear, until we rewarded her with 100 Plus, which she requested earlier while we waited for our turn.  She was back to her usual cheeky self not long after.  And said to me, “Mummy, tomorrow (she uses tomorrow to describe the future) I don’t want to put anything in my nose already.”  I'm just so glad it didn’t lead to anything serious, and she’s learned her lesson.

The offending bean

S.E.V.E.N

I promised Yiu Yiu a trip to Kidzania as her birthday present but as I had a meeting scheduled on Thursday morning and report card day in the afternoon, we went there on Friday with her cousin, Yihao.

When we got there, we found out that tickets were sold out for the day!  I don’t know who was more disappointed, the children or myself!  Apparently they had 19 school trips that day, so there were already like 1700 kids inside.  I was initially cursing myself for not purchasing the tickets online but on hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise, coz if I had, the children would not enjoy themselves as much, as they would probably spend much more time queueing than actually role-playing.

Since we were already out, and not wanting to send them back to school, we went to Kid’s e-World at IPC.  We spent the whole day there, stopping only for a quick late lunch.  Thank goodness they had free wifi inside, with very strong signal, so while the kids played, I downloaded apps into my new Samsung phone J

Expending some of her energy on the trampoline

Preparing to wage war with Yihao

We celebrated with my side of the clan, the babysitter and her sisters on Saturday at Ah Tuan Ee, SS2, with discount coupons that I bought.

Gulai tumis, sambal petai prawn, joo hoo char, inchi kabin, tau-u-kay, stir fried mixed vegetables

Birthday girl and mummy

She looked so intense when making her birthday wish :-)

I ordered the yummylicious durian mousse cake from M&M Café again – and it is still as good as we remembered it, with lots of durian flesh between the spongy cake.

And so these simple events marked seven years of joy that our first born brought to the family. 

 One for the family

Report card day

Yiu Yiu turned seven on Thursday, and it happened to be her report card day as well J  So how did it go…not very well, both results and celebration wise!  Will talk about her birthday celebration in another post.

I already expected her position to drop drastically, as she did really badly on both her BM Penulisan and Pemahaman and so I was neither shocked nor disappointed when I got her report card. 

I missed the first term report card day as I was travelling so this time, I got a chance to ask her class teacher more questions.  Apparently this girl L.O.V.E.S to talk and is constantly reprimanded for talking in class!  The teacher also commented that she doesn’t show remorse even when reprimanded.  Aiyo!  She also tends to have a mind of her own, and will sometimes defy the teacher’s orders (e.g. she will start scribbling and writing down the answers even though the teacher asked the class to put down their pencils and pay attention to the lesson first).  Double aiyo!  Nonetheless the teacher commented that she’s smart and a quick thinker.

So the onus is now on me to help her improve her BM.  Will need to scour the book stores to find suitable BM story books and exercise books for her to read and practice during the school holidays.  Now on the talking bit, how can I get her to stop talking in class?  Any suggestion, anyone?

A Caucasian's food trail

Over the last couple of days, I had the privilege to play host to a renowned gastroenterologist, a world authority on the management of upper gastrointestinal bleeding.  We invited him here for a series of talks to the local medical community.  With such an illustrious career, he turned out to be such a humble and pleasant person, with unconventional preferences with regards to food, compared to his Caucasian counterparts.

Days before his arrival, he dropped me an email, requesting to be taken to local restaurants on days when there’s no formal arrangement of meals.  He also specifically requested to be taken to a roadside durian stall!  I found it very amusing, as all the Caucasians I know would run miles away at the slightest hint of durian.

And so, our first meal was at Ah Tuan Ee at SS2, where we had ikan belah belakang, tau-u-kay and jeu hoo char.

After dinner, we adjourned to Donald’s Durian along Jalan SS2/24 where we feasted on two fruits, among them a musang king, supposedly the king of the king of fruits.  The two durians cost as much as our dinner!  And interestingly, while we were there, there was another Caucasian having a durian outing with his friends J

The next day we went downtown to Hutong at Lot 10.  Now I must be the last person in Klang Valley who has yet to patronize the much publicized Hutong, so I’ve got him to thank for inspiring me to make the trip to Hutong.  We shared a meal of bak kut teh, char kuay teow with duck egg, and beef noodles.

His last informal meal before leaving was at Kanna Curry House, and he liked it so much that he had a second helping of rice.

Another rather peculiar trait is that he doesn’t like alcohol, and would much prefer a Diet Coke anytime.  So there’s absolutely no need for him to learn how to quit drinking.

Exam season

The exam season is upon us, and it’s a stressful and anxiety-filled time - not for the kids sitting for their exams, but for the parents J  This time round, I’ve been really lax.  Yiu Yiu had her Penulisan exam for Mandarin and BM this week, and I hardly did any revision with her.  The fact that she wasn’t well earlier this week due to an attack of gastroenteritis didn’t help.  On top of that, her papa was overseas so I had to manage the girls by myself after work.  All that I managed to do was to go through her BM textbook casually, and let her practice on her cousin’s past year exam paper the day before both exams.

Luckily, her daycare centre had been conducting revision sessions with them for the past 2-3 weeks, with extra classes on Saturdays as well.  Otherwise, I may have to resort to home tutors to coach her.

Next week is the crunch time, where she’ll have six papers in four days.  So this weekend we’ll quarantine ourselves at home for revision.  Knowing her, I foresee a weekend of nagging, nagging and more nagging at her to pay attention L  Maybe I should just get a tutor from TutorSpree and spare myself the headache.

沒有人愛我了

Yiu Yiu had some orange juice in her tumbler and had just finished taking a sip from it when the naughty mei-mei snatched the tumbler from her.  Naturally she got upset and scolded Yan Yan.  Papa reprimanded Yan Yan and asked her to apologise to jie-jie.  Yan Yan refused and so papa scolded her and gave her a lecture about asking for things politely.  The little one sulked, went to one corner of the dining room, squatted down and said in a pitiful voice, “爸爸不愛我了。姐姐也不愛我了。沒有人愛我了。(Papa don’t love me, jie-jie also don’t love me, nobody loves me anymore).  I almost fell off the chair laughing, but I had to hold my laughter J

Hearing this, Yiu Yiu quickly went to Yan Yan, put her arms around Yan Yan and reassured her.  The sisters ended up hugging each other.  Sweet!  Yan Yan then, without prompting, apologized to jie-jie and papa J

Dining in Yangon

Bamar cuisine contains many regional elements, such as stir frying techniques and curries, which are not hot but richly spiced with among others, fish paste, onions, garlic, ginger, dried chilli and turmeric.  The most well-known Bamar-originated dish is mohinga, rice noodles in a broth made from fish and beans.  Vegetable fritters, slices of fish cake, hardboiled egg and crackers are usually added.  This is the most popular dish for Myanmar people, especially at breakfast.  It doesn’t look appetizing but it is really delicious - I tried this for breakfast at the hotel.  I even bought two packets of instant mohinga home, and they tasted pretty good too, even without all the condiments.

Photo from here

Dining in Yangon is not cheap, considering the standard of living of its people.  Here’s a round-up of foods I had while in Yangon:

My first meal was a traditional Bamar lunch in a local restaurant.  My guide and I had pork curry which was rich, flavoursome and with a stew-like consistency, a fishball dish and stir fried vegetables.  The meal came complimentary with some local salad, a soup (which was reallt nice) and sides of fermented beans and pickled tea leaves.  This meal cost us 4500 kyat (~RM 16).

L’Opera is idyllically situated in an old colonial-era building set amongst manicured gardens beside the romantic Inya Lake, a short walk from the Inya Lake Hotel where I stayed.

Photo from L'Opera website

Its menu features traditional Italian cuisine like homemade pastas, authentic wood-fired oven pizzas, cold cuts and cheese, fresh salads and many main dishes.  The breads were delicious, and they came with a variety of dips.  I had the grilled pork chop – it was OK, tasted like any other grilled pork chops.  This meal cost about USD 16.

During the training, we had lunch at the hotel.  The lunch set comprises (clockwise from right) deep fried fish, stir fried vermicelli with pork, stir fried bean curd, pork curry and chicken. 

Monsoon Restaurant and Bar is housed in a classic colonial town house and serves a mixture of Burmese cooking with dishes from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.  The atmosphere is relaxed and cosmopolitan but service was a tad slow.

Our (my colleague and I) meal of stir fried kalian, pork curry (again), Laotian stew beef dish (which to our surprise, came in a soupy dish) with rice and drinks came up to about USD 30.

The managing director of the Myanmar office took us for a team dinner at Phai Lin Restaurant, which serves Thai and Chinese cuisine.  We ordered mostly Thai dishes and they were all pretty tasty.  No photos from here, and the one below of the exterior of the restaurant is borrowed from here.

Shanti Indian Cuisine serves buffet-style meals with meat dishes, vegetable curries, soups and Indian breads.  Desserts include homemade Indian sweets, yoghurt and fruits, and coffee and masala tea to round off the meal.  As we had this meal after the field visit, our Myanmar colleague paid for this but a search on the internet states that it costs 2900 kyat (~RM 10) per person.  Not sure if the information is outdated but it seems a tad too cheap – food wasn’t great though.

Padonmar Restaurant is housed in an old residential house built in the 1920s, its original structure and charm still maintained.  The name Padonmar means lotus flower, and it has two separate kitchens that whip up traditional Myanmar food and Thai cuisines.  The restaurant is decorated with rich, wall paintings of Bagan temples.

Photo from Trip Advisor 

My colleague and I had pork curry with mangoes pickle (I think you can tell by now that I’m in love with the pork curry), Yangon chicken curry, traditional Karen soup (which was very yummy), gourd with vermicelli soup, aubergine with dried shrimps, rice and drinks.  The total bill came up to USD 28.

Some of the restaurants provide free wifi access, and my colleague even managed to dial in for a t-con while waiting for our food at Padonmar.  I, on the other hand, was looking at a website about Meritline, trying to purchase a memory stick online.

One thing I dared not try was their street foods, just to be on the safe side, hygiene wise.  Here are some random shots of street vendors in Yangon.

Yangon – Inya Lake Hotel

I was booked at the Inya Lake Hotel during my stay in Yangon.  It is located amidst 37 acres of verdant gardens and along the shoreline of the serene Inya Lake.  The large, 4-storey colonial style hotel has 129 guestrooms.  A check on Trip Advisor before I left revealed that it is a very old hotel with rundown rooms so I was prepared for the worst.  And since I had expected the worst, I was pleasantly surprised when I find that it’s not that bad.  Sure the room is dated with old furnishings, but it was very spacious and has a clean toilet (which is the most important to me).  The bed was comfortable with clean sheets and pillow cases.  The lift smelt really musty though.

Beautiful view from my room

It had a decent breakfast selection with a variety of breads and juices, egg station, bacon, sausage, baked beans, grilled tomato, French toast, stir fried vegetables, fried rice and noodles, porridge, Burmese noodles and pancake or waffle. 

My room came with complimentary internet usage and I was pleasantly surprised with its rather good speed.  My only grouse was the occasional dropped line.

An interesting fact about this hotel is that the entire 2^nd floor is occupied by two United Nations offices, the UN World Food Programme and the UN Office for Project Services.  Some rooms on the 3^rd floor are the residence for the employees of these two offices so you can see lots of foreigners in the hotel compound.  I also spotted the International SOS office near the car park of the hotel.

However, the rate for the hotel, USD 150/night during the period that I was there, is way too steep.  If I were to pay on my own, I would definitely not stay here as I don’t think it’s worth the price.  You can get a room at the much newer and nicer Traders Hotel, which is right in the centre of Yangon city, for the same price.