Sitting like Kim

I got this inspiration to sit in this stylish pose from watching "the sentinel". There was a scene where Kim Basinger waiting for her Secret service agent in her residence (I think) and she was sitting like this.. I thought "Hey, the way she sat looks very nice. I should imitate that one day at home."

So, here I am.. what do you think?

Let's go to the zoo..

MY idea of a fun zoo is something similar to Jurassic Park. That would be one hell of a terrifying yet amazing place to visit.

Alas, the zoo in our time is a place where we see animals lazing around in cages. In my opinion, they do seem pretty pathetic, it feels like they were prisoners without the capability to voice out their frustrations. There's exactly this difference of going to Aquaria and Redang.

Anyway, I brought the children to see if they had enjoyed seeing real wild animals in any case.

3 families and a couple were there together with us to make it merrier.

We arrived just in time to see the animals show.




There were an orangutan by the name of Manja performing her tricks. Her outstanding act was given a thunderous applaud by the overwhelmed audience. It was even mentioned in the papers the next day... (Manja shows off new skills in Zoo Negara)


Apart from Manja, there were another younger orangutan by the name of KT, Johnny the Solomon cockatoo, Jimmy the great hornbill and Bart the sea lion putting their acts together.

Johnny went up to people in the audience, plucked cash right out of their hands and flew back to his trainer with his loot. One of the contibutors captured in print here.


As you can see, he just likes to touch everything.






















When the boys saw the giraffes, they exclaimed "Madagascar!!!".

What was so funny about the elephant sprinkling sand from its trunk to its body, I wonder...but this guy here just laugh uncontrollably with its act.








I feel the little jumbo here seems to be crying to be carried over the moat and send him back to his own home. He would have moved another inch closer to us if he could.





The free tram rides service in the zoo. As can be seen, some of the friends opted to ride it in the beginning, while the rest of us chose to walked first and take the pleasant leisure of being driven around after tired walking.


This cute section called Children's World has baby farm animals to get up close with.

Curiosity of a child is so great. She would have done anything to see what's inside there.
Overall, it's a pleasant place to take the children to, if the weather had not been that humid and warm. But what to do.. that's our country's all year round tropical weather is. The place had been planted lots of trees to provide a shady environment to overcome this disadvantage, but I feel it could be better than this.

Masterpiece

My son saw me scanning a document today, and quickly ran off to do a quick sketch of his best illustrations of animals. Then, he made me scan it for him, and after which, he did not know what to do.

So, I thought, why not share his sketchy drawings here. I must admit, he is sure a better artist of animals than myself. I never do know how to draw animals, not even a single freaking one. Dammit.





And then, I helped him spelled octupus. The rest, I have no idea how he knew. What a great mom I am, huh?

*Shame shame*

"Cow one" day..

"Cow one" is the direct translation from Cantonese which means BIRTHDAY.

I should have celebrated this day with my mom, as she painstakingly gave birth to me 35 years ago on this day. Hadn't thought of that before until I gave birth myself. Damn lot of pain. Guys would never understand what we women had been through.

I never do celebrate my own birthday though. This year, since it was back to homeland, we had a small celebration dinner with close friends. It's just what I wanted, a simple and pleasant evening, done in a low key manner, with my favorite cake and my children.
















My biggest birthday present seems to be the one who came from Indonesia. Just wasn't packed in a box with ribbons and birthday wrap. She claimed she's 36 and her eldest child is 25. Why, if she's really 36, then I should be celebrating my 18th birthday that day only. Who's she trying to fool anyway?

Oddly, she seemed to be trying too hard to please us. As she came the very first time, she ran to my children and hug them like she haven't seen them for a long time. Isn't that a bit too much? Sigh.... And the way things are looking, I think I would have a long way to go to educate her.

An unfriendly phone conversation

Ever tried to make a booking for movie tickets thru the phone?

This is how it goes...

Me : [Dialing 0383123456]

Lady : Welcome to GSC Phone Reservation. Please note that for Midvalley, Rm1 will be charged upon ticket collection. To return to main menu at anytime, press 0. Midvalley, Press 1..... (If you are waiting for 1U, then you have to wait for a couple more seconds as it's the last on the list. If you already knew the sequence by heart, you may just be smart enough to not waste anymore of your precious time for the lady to stop talking and pressed the number corresponding to the cinema of your choice)

Me : <>

Lady : Midvalley. Friday 5th May, Press 5, Saturday 6th May, Press 6... (See how it goes?)

Me : <>

Lady : Saturday, 6th May. Mission Impossible 3 Press 1, (Now, concentrate on listening to the movie you wanted. If you missed it, you have to start all over again from the beginning. Too bad if the movie of your choice is at the last end, you have to bear with the heat building up at your ear by now)

Me : <>

Lady : Mission Impossible 3. 11.30 am, press 1, 1.35 pm, Press 2..... (gosh! I had to wait until she mentions 11.50pm, to be honest, it wasn't too much fun by now, but for the sake of watching Tom Cruise in action, I was prepared to sacrifice and bear with it)

Me : <>

Lady : 11.50pm. Please enter the number of tickets you wish to reserve. The maximum number of tickets is 6.

Me : <>

Lady : Please enter your phone number followed by the hash key.

Me : <0123456789#>

Lady : Your phone number is (pause) 0 (pause) 1 (pause) 2 (pause) 3 (pause) 4 (pause) 5 (pause) 6 (pause) 7 (pause) 8 (pause) 9. To confirm, press 1, to reenter, press 2, to return to main menu, press 3. (My condolence for you if you keyed in one number wrongly, you have to do it one more time. Worst is you meant to press 1 but wrongly pressed 3...)

Me : <>

Lady : You have reserved (pause) 2 (pause) tickets for the movie (pause) Mission Impossible 3 on (pause) Saturday, 6th May at (pause) 9.50 pm in (pause) Midvalley. To confirm your reservation press 1, to return to main menu press 2.

Me : <>

Lady : Please hold while your reservation is being processed...

Me : <>

Lady : Sorry the show you selected is fully reserved. Please refrain from leaving your vulgar message behind.

Me : What the fart! Going thru all THAT bullshit pressing jobs to get this??!!

I think it must be the telephone companies who happily helped to develop this phone service for the cinemas (for FREE!), so as to get revenue for the people who stupidly pay for the additional phone charges. Guess they would have wanted to ask you press for your DOB, IC number, number of family members... But I think it was just too much and the cinemas didn't allow that, as it would be much too obvious, right?

Isn't it silly? But I have to admit I was the silly-er one to have tried to book tickets for midnite shows and get rejected like this, not only once, but 3 times, to be precise. I swore I never gonna make another phone reservation for movies anymore.

Later.. I made that effort to fill in the form to be a registered member from its website. Well, sure a lot easier booking from there. And what's more, I claimed my FREE ticket as a birthday treat from GSC just by printing out the voucher and filling in the details. Go now and register online, so you can reserve your tickets from the internet, a much pleasurable process, unless you are much obsessed with the voice of the lady cinema, or with the pressing of numbers on your phone.

Photos from Redang sea-venture

Warning : This is going to be a long post with 52 pics! (Don't blame me if your pc hanged for this)
The only other time I was in Redang was 16 years ago (wasn't it just yesterday? Oh, yeah, I am in my mid 30's now... so old.. sob!). At that time, as students, we could only afford anything where there's basic civilization to do nature's call or have a decent wash. But we had fun. As usual. Nothing would dampen our sense of adventure. We stayed in P. Perhentian and braved the rough seas on a skimpy boat to go round island. Yeah, nothing had stopped us. Just need to throw up a couple of times, but yes, we survived..

This time round, it's slightly different... the mode of transportation, accommodation and company of people. Sure... 16 years passed, right? I was looking forward to see if the island still has that charm, if it still possess the special magic to delight me immensely from swimming in crystal clear turquoise water with thousands of wonderful and colorful fishes. That was what I still remembered from the last trip.

1st day...
We took the flight from Subang to Redang itself. No more 2 hours of rocking boats on the sea from the coast of Terengganu. What a relief. The journey from KL took 1 hour by flight. Sure beats travelling on the road for 8 hours and another 2 by sea.

The children were overjoyed to ride on an aeroplane once again! This is how Berjaya Air plane looks like.

The welcome sign to P. Redang when we alighted from the plane. The other 2 couples brought 3 stacks of beer to drink the nites away.

Riding on this I-dont-know-what-it's called thing is a nice change from the transports you normally use. The ride was breezy, feels close to nature, and most importantly, easy to board and alight. Especially welcomed when you are sticky with sweat all over.

Passed by the kampung, a small settlement from the tiny population in Redang. It used to be a village on water, kampung air, but some 10 years back, they were moved from the houses on flimsy wood planks to solid land. I felt happy that I was able to have walked on those planks before, a sight and experience which would not return anymore. This new kampung bears a mosque, school, some quaint little shops and modern looking bungalows.













Berjaya Redang Beach Resort (BRBR) was just a 5 mins drive from the airport. We checked in, had our lunch in the hotel's restaurant where they were serving overpriced "chap fan" to tired holiday makers like us. Well, why wouldn't we be tired when we only had 5 hours sleep the night before packing our luggages, and waking up early to get the children ready and drove to the airport amid the rush hour traffic? After fulfilling our hungry tummies, we tugged the children to bed and took a rest ourselves.

In the evening, we charged to the swimming pool and the private beach the resort boasts. The beach sand was fine and clean (there's pictures later to show my point). It was relaxing and a pleasing change from the normal routine. We had dinner in the kampung restaurant located right just outside of BRBR's. Not very cheap either as just some few seafood dishes, satay and roti canai made us parted with RM160.. These bastards sure know when and where to slash people nice and clean.

We soon retire for the nite, to regain energy, eagerly anticipating for next day's island snorkelling trip. This is how the room looks like...

Our room where we can still afford to squeeze all of us 5 in. When one of them grew out of the babycot, we would have to stop travelling altogether.




















2nd Day..

7am: Woke up early to find the dark sky forming and sounds of fiery thunderstorms swearing and threatening to BBQ us alive if we dare to step out from the resort. I wasn't a daredevil at heart, maybe I haven't done enough good deeds yet, I was sure afraid of venturing into the snorkelling plan that morning. By the time we had our breakfast and all, the sky seems to look friendlier, in fact it was like inviting us to proceed with our plans... so, what the heck, we thought... die die la!

We quickly make a dash to the meeting point, adorn on the life jackets and waited for the departure. Baby girl, too young for this adventure, or so we thought, was left with the couples who wanted to remain comfortably in the rooms. We, of course, were more than pleased as they volunteered to babysit her for us.

So, there we were, on our way to our first snorkelling stop at Turtle Bay. The locals claimed that we were able to sight turtles on the beach, but the only hitch is that we swim ourselves from the boat to the shore which looks like several miles away... I wouldn't have problems swimming that distance if it weren't for my boys.

Looking lost... "what am I supposed to do now?" he must be wondering... "should I wear my shoes or leave it here on the boat?"
The boys were not comfortable with the idea of swimming in the open sea at first. Adrian hesitated longer, but lucky I brought his own two arm floats together, he felt more relaxed with his own familiar floats than the life jacket he was wearing. They get the hang of it soon enough and we were able to see some of the fishes swimming around together with us. Each stop lasts 30 mins, and there will be another 3 stops before making the way back to the resort.

Meet the rising star of the upcoming movie "BeeMan" rehearsing now for the part where he saved the day again....

One of the stops where the eager snorkellers couldn't wait to jump into the sea.

By all 4 stops were done, the boys were looking forlorn and dead exhausted. Adrian wanted to pee at one point, and kept asking for the toilet. It was damn difficult to make him pee into the sea. Poor boy! Hope he won't have nightmares about fishes dying in the polluted sea.

The luxurious boat we were on. That's what you get from paying RM80 per person for a 3 and a half hour boat ride to 4 snorkelling stops around the island. You can find a cheaper deal for RM50 from the locals too, but the kind of boat would be different. Fyi, if you buy ahead in KL before going to Redang itself, they will give you some discount.

The jetty from the resort. See the dark sky up there? Luckily it didn't spoil our vacation. In fact, it turned out just perfect for us, no scorching hot sun and no pouring rain. When we got back to the hotel, all we wanted to do was to take a good shower, fill up our tummies full and hit the sack.

The children soon fell in deep slumber. I sneaked off to get my much awaited aromatherapy massage at 3pm. It was a real pamper to perfect the vacation. It was so good that I booked another session of body scrub for the next day as well. By the time I was scrubbed clean, my skin felt like it's been given a renewal of life.

When I got back, KT took his turn while I look over the sleeping children. With a cup of tea and papers to read, sitting at the shady porch outside our room was a pleasant, quiet and serene feeling. I hadn't felt so good for years.

Wednesday nite, the hotel restaurant serves BBQ buffet by the poolside. We reserved a table and while waiting to eat our hearts out, it's a good time to stroll on the beach, take pictures and relax our mind and souls.

This is one good way to bath yourself in the heat or simply do nothing but lying down drinking in the calm scenery.

Notice the children's expressions here...quite comical, I think.

Playing sand is a fun activity with them. Make sand castles, burying ourselves, make believe baking a cake, or just simply running your hands and feet on the sandy beach is a pleasant joy.




But somehow, Chloe doesn't like the feel of the sand. She just refused to have any contact with the sand. Perhaps she didn't feel safe on the soft surface.

Interested in a game of chess? That's one way to kill time here. Chess board is ready for you.

Or just sitting here on the benches by the beach, sipping your favorite drink, having a heart to heart talk with someone, sure guarantee you can dig any info or dark secrets from him/her.

See the fine sand here? The whole beach and seaside are filled with these nice looking sand.

Day 3:

Morning spent in Redang Marine Park. This time Chloe gets to go and not left behind. It was a short journey from the resort by a 5 mins ride on the bus and another 5 mins boat ride to the little island opposite. There were a lot of snorkellers there. The fishes were abundant as well, it was time well spent, with the children, and the fishes.

Chloe was up from the water soon after. While our friends helped us to take care of her, I had a great time swimming around with Joshua in tow, marvelling at the sight and experience swimming with the colorful fishes again. I love that moment, and I vowed to bring them there again to enjoy the enchanting experience again where they will be old enough to better appreciate it.

BY evening after the routine afternoon nap, we put on our swiming gear again and enjoy the sea, shore and pool again. Brother and sister dancing in the pool.

We went paddling boat too!

Furiously paddling to move the boat....

Some of the sightings along the paddle boat ride.

Fancy banana boat? I tried it once years ago, I dare not ride on it anymore now.

Dinner was at this only other serving restaurant outside of BRBR. The kampung fried rice was quite tasty, much better than chinese fried rice.

The shop selling swimming gear and other souvenir items. I didn't bother to check out the prices, feeling pretty sure the quotation would be way beyond our imaginations.

This is the name of that restaurant which have brisk business from patrons of full house BRBR.

Call this number if you choose to go for the local cheaper version of snorkelling round island tour.

That pretty sums up our holiday. The next time we are there again, I will be better prepared with more food to have a picnic on the beach, maybe try fishing from the boat and dragging either more family members or friends along. Surely the more the merrier.

Other activities for the nite:

1. Have a game of table soccer.

2. Mahjong tables and carrom boards are all over the place.

Or 3. Must-do! You can't leave Redang without doing this...... go swimming in the sea, blend in with the nature with nothing on, absolutely nothing! .......just like what we did here... such an amazing and thrilling experience!