Merry Christmas!

Believe it or not, this is not just our first christmas tree at our home sweet home, it's also MY very first christmas tree. As we are not celebrators of this festive season except enjoying the day off from work, guess it's not a surprise I was asked this question, not once but few times, "You purposely went out to BUY this tree?". Let me clarify for all, I didn't. I was out getting groceries stuffs, and saw this unbelievable promotion...RM11.70 for this 6 ft tree. Like what JM said, it would be doing injustice for myself if I didn't buy it. And it can be kept for next year's X'mas, and the next, and the next....

Even Adrian felt it was a very good bargain.

Honestly, it feels nice to have this beautiful tree in the home. Made us in the mood for Christmas. Especially when suddenly, we have a little eve dinner party to add on the cheer and joy. Lacked some carolling and gifts exchange only. Maybe can improve on that next year.

A pleasant co-incidence CY's and family were home this holiday. My parents and SH's came too. It was perfect time to spend it together comfortably at home. What did we do? Surely can't run away from the chinese customs, we did it the CNY way... with some money involved.



What a pity, there was no turkeys or christmas cakes and puddings for the festive season, again, it's the chinese dishes to make up for it. Somehow, unexpectedly, unplanned for, these are the guests we had for our christmas eve dinner. CY's family, his inlaws, KT's brother and wife with her sister and boyfriend. A kinda funny good mix of people, all related in a way, which makes us all a family actually.

Then the children's corner. This time, the cousins were not fighting with each other anymore. Only the youngest 2 girls were fighting for toys or attention some of the time. It was a good reunion party for me, just wishing KY's family were here too though.

Merry Christmas, all my readers, family and friends, and let's all embrace 2007 to make it a better year ahead, filling it with more gatherings and reunions to spend more time together. It's a piggy year, our year. Yay!

A tranquilizing time in Avillion.

I do hope that Avillion would give me a free night's stay for advertising its hotel. Unfortunately, I am not a famous blogger who gets a good number of hits on my blog everyday, so no hope in that.

The hotel has 3 pools for its guests, the wading pool for young toddlers, the slightly bigger pool for older children and the adults pool for old people. We of course went for the middle one.



The serenity of a lotus pond to soothe your eyesight and mind while waiting for the checking in process. Checking in wasn't slow, but the room clean up took a long time for us to barge in to.




So, the boys hanged around while waiting for the longest time.

Adults pool, strictly no children are allowed. I suppose the adults do obscene things in here which are prohibited from children to watch.



Sunset by the private beach at the hotel's side.




The water was icy cold that day..but still, the children didn't mind.


Halo?? This slide for children only la...

Chloe had a splashing time on the slide, while Adrian didn't dare go near it. Such 2 opposites.




I sometimes wonder how many nights I can stay there till I find it too boring and prefer to go home? Then again, given the steep price of each night's stay, I think the pocket would burnt out first before my patience does.



The boys went crazy when they saw the white sand. They can throw the sand in the air like it's water..my God! We just had a nice clean bath before we came out to the beach again, and oh, well, they need another shower before going for dinner. Let them play and get themselves dirty again, after all, that's what holidays are meant for, huh?


This ain't exactly a private beach only accessible by the hotel's guests, but a good part of it was maintained clean and nice for us to enjoy it. The sand was fine and squeaky too, but compared to Redang beach, I think I still prefer the latter.



A view from the chalets.



4 of them went for banana boat, and canoeing. Me? It was too exciting and sun too hot. I would get sick if I did. I was already as dark as a Negro by the time I got back. Sigh!

Nevertheless, I had a wonderful time with the family, had great sex, and hadn't slept so comfortably well for a long time.

Chalet on water, PD.

This hotel room is just fabulous. Once we entered the room, it was love at first sight. We especially loved the beds and the shower room. The king sized bed has soft white drapes around it, which I think no girls in this world hated it. I mean, real lovey, softy girls. Makes you feel like a princess when you are sleeping in it. Those drapes were tied in nice little ribbons knots, and these little ties can be used for another purpose at nights. ;)



The additional sofa bed is just appropriate for our family of 5. The boys slept there while the little girl tucked comfortably in the little babycot. It's very cosy lying in that corner with the bamboo shades on its 2 sides. Made us feel horny too actually.

The excitingly hornier part of the whole room is the bathroom. It comes with a private room for toilet, 2 wash sinks, a bathtub, and the interesting shower area. It has this "open" concept where there's an opening on its rooftop, and another opening to view the sea. Taking a shower there felt like being naked in the nature, especially when it rains. Feels real good.

This is the view of the shower area and the bathtub from a little window of the room.

Say hi to the people below while you are showering..

.. and hi to the people from above.

The balcony is a good place to unwind too. Can lie there looking cool all day doing nothing.

The view from the balcony. It's 2nd class. First class are those chalets facing the entire seaview.

We walked around these chalets on planks which have slits to see the sea below. Awful romantically in touch with nature.

It's a good night's sleep for once, since the burglary thing. And hopefully, not another baby 9 months later. :)

Made us laughed

Last night, after bathing the children, the little girl wanted me to put the towel around her hair like how I used to. And this is how she looks..


I carried her up and took her to the mirror to see for herself how she looks like. When she saw her own reflection, she laughed like it's a big joke for her. It was really funny seeing her gesture. I then took a camera and shoot at her.

The aftermath.

It has now been a week since. These 7 days seemed to last like forever. I couldn't bring myself to brighten up or forget about the whole episode yet. I feel like a drifter turning paranoid when I am driving, getting in and out of the house or around carparks. Life sure has not been the same especially during night time. Home sweet home is not like before anymore. I would wake up in the middle of the night and don't talk about stepping out of the room, I wouldn't even dare to move an inch just in case there's a stranger in the room and aware that I has awakened. Locks would be checked twice or thrice to be sure that it's properly locked. What kind of a home this is? What kind of a life this is?

I really don't feel safe. Especially when I now know that someone had in fact been watching us, studying our lifestyle, our routine before he had striked. What if ..? What if...? Sigh! I hope I'm not turning insane.

The only factor which consoles the mind is seeing the care and concern from friends and relatives. It's true, at least we were not hurt and the children were not alarmed. Their funny gestures and cute expressions are the only thing which keeps my sanity in check and brings a smile to my face most often than not. Without them, I am unsure if I can come this far.

It's really a bitter fact. Thieves like these get scott free without having to worry much about police or the law coming after them. Victims like us (or rather, me) have to bear with the aftermath in haunting fear. Thieves are ruling the world so much that we hear of comments we should be putting at least a good amount of cash for them to take, just in case if they do come a visit, they wouldn't be offended and having to harm us in other ways.

And they do get smarter and smarter. Security guards and card access systems don't seem like any hindrance to them at all. I suppose to some, heavy duty locks or alarm systems are easy job for them to disable as well. Is there any day in the future where we can live without any fear at all?

Sorry for the negative sentiments.

My house got broken into!

Sharks! It was a nightmare. Happened on Monday dawn 5am. All of us were in deep slumber. I was awakened by the maid's eerie cries. When I came out, my mom was standing beside her. My maid's hands were tied up and a cloth was wrapped around her neck. I thought she was being possessed by ghost! Her voice was shaking and said "Ada orang", "ada orang"... We immediately opened the door and saw the grille door was still locked intact.

I told her she had a bad dream, she insisted, said there's someone in there. We looked around and saw there wasn't anyone in her room or the study. When we switched on the lights to prove to her there wasn't anyone around, only I realised our wallet and purse and my handbags were spread on the study table and holy shit! it was true! We were burglared!

Damn freaking scared, I realised this bugger even went to our room while we were asleep and took my jewellery box to the study to find his loot. Co-incidentally, he striked jackpot with all our foreign cash unlocked and took away my pathetic tiny collection of gold stuffs.

When questioned, my maid, who was still shaking from her trauma, told us that the thief wrapped her head with a blanket while she was still asleep in her room, and tied her mouth and hands and feet. Only later, when she realised he was gone, she came out from her room looking like a ghost with a blanket covering her.

Police came and went, I looked around and realised he had left a dirty t-shirt behind. I figured out he came in through the window by daringly climbing out from the outside corridor via the compressor. He had left a trail of dirt stains on the wall and had changed into one of our clean t-shirt before he went off.

What I couldn't understand was that how he seem to know where we kept our cash and valuables and why he had just tied up the maid and rest of us untouched. It's only natural that I have a suspicious mind over the maid. If my suspicion is proven true, then gosh, she should be the oscar bast actress award winner for this year! By far, all of us are perhaps 80% convinced she's innocent, but the doubt leaves me feeling uncomfortably unsafe when she's around.

Last night, I couldn't sleep the whole night through. I was trembling and shaking hard of coldness even under the blanket up till my neck. Damn freaked out I am when I think about a total unwanted, unwelcomed stranger right in my bedroom while I was asleep, I am unsure when I can get over this and get on with life as usual. I only hope before that, my hubby won't leave me to deal with the ordeal by going on business trip so soon.

By the way, that buggler also took both my cheap handphones away too, so I lost all the contact numbers. Please sms or call for me to save back your contact, I have no idea what your number is. And don't be offended if I ask who you are when you call.

Sights of Malacca

The town has an impressive number of tourists around. It's the same kind of crowd you can see in the morning, afternoon or evening. I like the atmosphere of it, everyone feeling relaxed and happy, smiles you can see on their faces... it's carefree.

The beca flers enjoy a good income for cycling the tourists around with a charge of Rm40 an hour. It was stated on a signboard, if you find any quotations any different from that, you can make a complaint to the authorities, and they would do the necessary charges.

Flowers everywhere. It's nice to be greeted by these brightening colors of flowers everywhere.

There's even a windmill here! No need to go to Europe to see one. How nice!

The river wasn't kept in good condition though.

Snakes on a beca! Big one on that too. It's making money by allowing you to hug it and snap a picture with it. No guarantee it won't bite, ok?

Nite time on JOnker Walk. There was this pub along the road, which was playing good music from the 70's and 80's and the ambience was quite good. I was tempted to sit down and order a drink.

St Paul's Church and Historical Garden

This was the hotel where we stayed, the same place where my friend held his wedding reception. See the rooftop? That was where the BBQ buffet supposedly be held, but wonder if somebody up there was playing a joke on the new couple; signals showed clearly it wanted to pour when the reception was about to begin, making the hotel workers frantically moving everything to the ground floor. Guests were seated in the crowded space, and the sky cleared up when the dinner started. Hmm... anyway, that's not the main story here.




On top of St. Paul's Hill is the St. Paul's Church, once the prayer house of the Portuguese Catholics, then turned into burial ground for their noble dead by the Dutch. The tombstones have Latin and Portuguese inscriptions on them. St. Francis Xavier was buried here in 1553 before his body was moved to Goa in India.

Guitarist singing "Twinkle twinkle little star" to these 2, who were paying all their attention to him. Wonder if the song or the interesting instrument he was playing with held their undivided attention?

It was windy and comfortable in that shady place, a refreshing change from the terribly scorchingly hot hot weather.

Then, we headed straight back to the hotel to quench our thirst, and chill down in cool watertub. After a short rest, we went out again in search of chendol. Didn't find any, but came to this "Historical Garden".

There's this children's playground just next to our hotel. Undoubtedly, the children's all time favorite place!

And then we went back to our rooms, shower yet again and changed to our dinner wear.

Jonker Walk Malacca

Overall, Malacca looks pretty neat and tidy. The roads are wider than normal roads we see in towns, and trees are grown alongside providing the whole place a very greenery and calm feel. I noticed a zoo, a crocodile farm, and other touristy places from the PLUS exit at Ayer Keroh to the town center. Nice, but we didn't have much time to visit all those places though. 2 half days and 1 night were all we had.

We reached the town center around noon, the journey from KL unexpectedly faster than I anticipated. After checking in to our 3-star hotel located right at the heart of the tourist spot, we had our lunch at Jonker Walk, just a stone throw away.



Fancy eating golf balls? This little balls which look like fishballs which look like golf balls are famous all over Malacca. The difference is some places have people Q-ing up to get a seat, some places have only flies as customers. Jonker Walk itself has about 10 restaurants which serve them, I think.



Chloe practically ate 4 balls only. We had about 5 each, with one whole steamed chicken, all sapu up. Then again, the chicken taste and texture was only mediocre, so we thought.





After lunch, it's only natural we take a little walk, as some form of little exercising. Jonker Walk is said to be famous for its uniqueness blend of buildings, and the antiques which are sold there.





We didn't buy anything much, as we found out most of the items are "Made in China" or "Made in Thailand". Nothing fancy. The real antiques probably costs a bomb. We didn't bother to really find out as well.



Halfway through, we U-turn back. It was much too hot, and the things weren't pretty interesting for us.



We then proceeded to visit the famous landmark of Malacca.


Nothing better than a cone of ice-cream for each of us first. Grandma's treat.


The Stadthuys (1650) was the official residence of the Dutch Governor. It now houses the Historic Museum and Ethnography Museum which has many traditional bridal costumes and relics on display. Nearby, one will also find the Christ Church built in 1753, another fine example of the Dutch architecture.






More pictures at St. Paul's Church later.