Year end concert again wor...

Grandmother's stories series tergendala sebentar for some important news update..

which are...

1. I finally went to Jogoya for a very satisfying time stuffing myself silly, after yearning for it for a few weeks. Perhaps I kept praying for it a lot, my wish came true as one of the thousands credit cards merchants my hub has, gave a half price off for just 2 days last week. *burp*

2. the children's graduation concert over liao. Suddenly it hits me that my baobei no.2 is no longer a kiddo, he's *sob* going to *sob* primary 1 *sob*... which means I will have an even hard time getting him up even earlier in the mornings soon! *wails*

Receiving my "Best Mom of the Year" award on stage.. (I can say what I want on my blog!)

Giving his "thank you" speech... which starts off with "First of all, I would like to thank my mommy for giving birth to me... bla bla bla.."

*gasp* I bet she wouldn't want to be reminded of this years later...

Moonwalking.... almost!
Dancing to the song "Thriller".. can recognize this step moe?
Very useful when you want to "release gas"...

OK, enough of making fun of them. They put up a good show indeed, and I'm sooo proud of them. It's time to reward them to Genting, for that's what I promised didi if he cooperate with the teacher and not play the fool during practices and rehearsal. Everything went rather well, except before the show started, their papa had to piss me off (again!) and I had my sweet revenge during the show. All I need to do was just to show him the aromatic coffee I prepared in a little bottle before we went out and I finished it off without a drop for him.. padan muka dia.

Grandmother story part 1.

Admittedly, I must say, I'm not very interested in my grandmothers' stories all along. As in my own grandmas, grandpas, their lives, their characters, my own roots.

My memory of them, are both the paternal and maternal grandmas were still alive during the childhood days. I didn't get to see both sides' grandpas.

But recently, I realized it's good to know more about them from my parents, before it's too late. So, when my dad was here, I asked him about them, and when my mom's here, I would do the same. Now, before I forget again what they told me, I think I shall write some grandmother's stories for my kids, just in case... you know.

Let's start with my father's side. Apparently, my yeye has a wife in thongsan before he came over to Mal in a boat. I was told that the wife was a samphoejai which means she was betrothed to him before she was born. They didn't have kids, hearsay no formal wedding was even held.

Anyway, he came in a boat, dunno how got to know my grandma (most likely introduced by taikamjea la) and got married, start to build a family. He started doing odd jobs, and later slowly moved to having his own timber business, and I remember us going to the factory, called Nam Loong along Jalan Lahat.

My yeye was a very strict person, without a smile on his face, but not quite the same when around his grandsons. My brothers, especially the eldest, had the privilege of being loved by him.
He doesn't talk much with my mom, my mom's recollection of him is that he's a strict but kind man.

My marmah was a a very yeh-man-nai-nai. When I asked my dad how she was in person, the first response I get was "Harumphhhh! Very yeh-man geh. Always want things her way". Apparently, it wasn't quite a nice mother-son relationship. Such a pity that there's the impression of his own mother, huh?

He said there was once he talked back on her after she scolded my mom unreasonably. He remembered how fierce she was and how she didn't talk to them for days on end.

As for me, I can only remember we used to visit her very other weekend in her home, which is now my 2-phak's home. It's a big bungalow in Pasir Puteh (I think!) with a good extra land for farming fruit trees. She was old and frail, sickly and not very the "sayang" type. My brothers and I were led to her bed, and greet her "marmah!" and can run off to play after that. I don't have that moment of "ahh.. my cute grandchild, come here and let me sayang...". Sigh!!

She died when I was still a very small child, and I attended her taoist rituals for 3 or 4 days, but without any shows of sadness, it was to us, a "get-together" with our cousins around.

And that concludes my story of my paternal grandparents. Oi! wake up lor! Now I present my grandparents pics, want to see anot?

Here.

Have you tried baking?

I'm so a baker these days. Cupcakes, carrot cake, back to cupcakes, then back to carrot cake. Ya ya, I know, I should try some other recipes. But these 2 are my favorites at the moment, and certainly it gives more push when I can look forward to eating my favorite cake after all the hard work.

So I was craving for the carrot cake I had in a hotel on my last birthday. Even spreading around the word on how good that cake was. Then I couldn't tahan anymore and I wanted to try and make it on my own.

I got all the stuffs, kept procrastinating, and finally I made my first attempt during the holidays when I had VIPs in my home for a few days. And I thought "whoa!!! This is almost as good as the one which I was yearning for!" Wow! Am I talented or what?

But it was too little among so many of us. Though not all appreciated it, but a visiting friend from Penang said it's good. I'm sure he and his wife weren't lying about it... I was pretty sure as I was scanning their faces for any hints of twitching eyes. hmm...

Anyway, I made my 2nd attempt, double all the ingredients up and enjoyed the aroma spreading to our nostrils. Mmmmm... how good it was.



It appeared too much and I don't like to keep cakes for more than 2 days. So I cut 2 portions up and gave it away to 2 of my neighbours. Ooh.. the joy on their face, the surprise feeling, it's double joy for me to know they appreciate it. I want to keep baking and keep on giving. It feels so good. The same therapy of lying down with closed eyes for a few mins, listening to your own snores, opening up the eyes and see details of things you've never really seen before, breathing in, breathing out (ah-choo! that therapy hearsay need you to be naked summore! easy catch cold la wei!)

Pangkor Island Beach Resort

We started our journey about 9am, after dropping off my parents at the KTM station for their train to Ipoh. Our target was to catch the 1.30pm boat to the island and having no time to stop for breakfast, we bought some buns and snacks for that to be munched in the car. It was quite a leisure drive all the way, I even managed to steal some catnaps while the kids snoozed at the back as well.

We reached Sitiawan 12.30pm meeting their grandma and grandpa for lunch together. Then we scurried off to the pier at Lumut. The check-in was pretty straight forward, I was happy we need not lug our bags up onto the boat and just wait to board it.

The boat was quite comfortable, it has 2 levels and the upper deck has an open area like this below.


I was happy snapping pictures away of the kids and around me. Very soon, we arrived at the pier and everyone unboarded to an awaiting bus, which took us into the hotel. It was very closeby and less than about 3 mins or so, these singers greeted us with a welcoming song. I imagine them to be the little one and his boss in Fantasy Island. (the plane! the plane! - playing in my mind)

Waited to check in and finally got the keys for the grandparents. They stayed in Garden Wing while we were booked in to Ocean Wing. The difference in price is RM80 per night, seeing the 2 rooms, I think the difference was really justified. It was such a big contrast staying in Ocean Wing compared to Garden Wing.

Next! Time to hit the beach and sand, what else! Hub was suggesting to go to town, but really, noone was so interested except maybe the grandpa. But I didn't care, I said they can go if they want to but I'm staying put.

We changed and went to a nice spot on the beach and the korkor headed straight right in, after applying sunblock lotion. The other 2 stayed on to play sand while I did some yoga. Ooh.. sheer pleasure.

We just stayed there till almost sunset, and I joined the kids in the sea for awhile when it wasn't so hot. But meimei didn't quite fancy the waves and I took her and didi to the pool to play instead. Went back up to the room and showered.

We had dinner by the poolside, the food we brought from Ipoh and KL. If you ever go there, either you pack your food along or pay for the buffet dinner. The town was too far away and it would be even more pricey to go out and eat.

At night, we walked around and stopped on one of those lazy chairs to laze around. Didi played games with the waves for a very long time while I look over him. The rest sat at the chairs over the far back. Some couples were holding hands walking on the beach, and it was quite a romantic sight indeed.

There are many hornbills there, and feeding times are observed to ensure these birds are well nourished.


This the view outside our hotel room. A sticker was on the door to the balcony saying "Please dont' feed the monkeys. Please lock your door". Those monkeys know how to open the doors and totally ransack your things. We learnt the lesson from Berjaya Langkawi.





The next day, after breakfast, we went cycling and I thought the pictures of the kids' smiles on those bikes were priceless. Really cute and happy pillion riding.

Korkor was the only one struggling to conquer the bike. But he failed as it was much too big for him. The only right size was taken up by someone else just a moment before him.

The grandparents went back at noon that day, and we spent the rest of the day doing pretty much the same thing as the earlier one. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing to blog about.

We had steamboat dinner that night and meimei almost fell asleep before it was over. We head back straight to the room after that, saw the "Superhero Movie" on TV and went to sleep.

*yawn*

(More pictures on FB. Lazy to upload them here. FB easier)

Pangkor used to be our favorite destination for a holiday get-together with our friends when we were young. I remember much clearly of these few incidents.

1. The first time, it was to follow my brother, CY, and his friends. We explored a bit and discovered an empty beach, so we played on the sea for sometime. Soon, I saw 2 guys among the few of us who weren't in the water, whom doesn't belong. I soon came ashore and realised they were buggers who were about to rob our cash or whatever we had.

The scary thing was not that but when one of the stupid idiot who didn't know how to count, was trying to count how many of us there, and was irritated by the towel which were on us, the 3-4 girls in the group. I was practically shaking when he barked at me to take my towel off! Lucky they didn't harm any of us, and took our cash and someone's sunglasses away. We quickly rushed back to our chalets and soon happily laughing away again. I suppose nothing much can dampen teenagers' holiday mood, when noone was really hurt.

2. Then some years later, I went with my own friends but I only remembered vividly I was taking care of a guy who had a deep crush on me, having fever. And he was such a baby when taking medicine, I had to basically "tham" him to eat. (If you are reading this, can I slap you now, albeit some 20+ years delay?)

3. Ahh.. the most memorable, I suppose was the farewell break, after we know we were going to start our separate ways soon. I knew I was to go to Penang, Hui Ling to KL, Kok Lan to Spore and Wai Leng... somewhere. 4 of us went to Pangkor, had so much fun chatting, playing, dancing on the sunset beach, toasting each other good luck and many more weird and funny wishes for our undertakings. One of the best night I ever had with my girlfriends as I remembered we laughed till our sides ached.

OK, no more boring stories to share. That's all. Have a good weekend and Happy Mid Autumn Festival, you people.

2 lessons in 1 day.

The first day of school for korkor after the one week long break, I assumed school activities resumed to before and that he would stay back on the first day. So the gear was still in low and I didn't feel like cooking lunch for the 3 of us yet. After picking the 2 from the preschool, we went to had our lunch in a nearby aircon tai pai thong. Then I suen-pin grabbed some stuffs to stock up our food as I still hadn't yet to do so from the holidays.

When we reached home, I was surprised to see korkor sitting in front of the lifts, waiting for us to come home. Poor boy! He waited for almost an hour for us. I was so full with guilt, slapping myself (albeit an imaginary one) to make that assumption he would not be home till later.

And that was the time I realised why I hadn't taught him survival skills 101 on what he can do if there's such a situation. It struck before I was able to get to that chapter.

Anyway, it reminded me of the time I was out in the hot sun waiting for the doors to open too, after school. I was about 15, I think. It was an hour's wait as well. I was staying with my aunt then. At least my son didn't have to wait for me under the hot sun.

Later in the day, I received a call from a so-called florist. She asked for my address as she has a delivery to me, and it's supposedly a surprise gift. I asked who the sender was, but she wouldn't tell, insisting I would know when I get it later on. I was in a rush for something, and I didn't have the clear mind to think of the rightest thing to do. So, I gave her my street name, omitting out the unit # and ask her to deliver it to the guard post. She happily replied ok, and that her delivery man would call me when he arrives later on.

For the next 2 hours or so, I was very worried on the authenticity of the call. I find it weird, as the sender would surely be someone I knew, and would most likely know where I stay as well. Could it be my hub, playing a stupid trick? Nah.. don't think so! Certainly not! Hmm... then it might be my secret admirer from my younger days??? hehe... (as if I would have, huh?) Maybe it's the ahlong who got the wrong person and I would see red paint all over my door very soon. Uh oh... then I was recalling all the enemies I made in the past....sei-foh!

It was sit-not-stand-not-walk-not for the next few hours. I was fidgeting whether to correct the situation, but really, I can't do much, can I? I can only hope the call was authentic.

After much anxiety, finally the delivery man called and I went to the guard post to see who's the fancheong sender who gave me the few hours of trauma. Heiz... lucky all went well, it wasn't any of my enemies. Well, at least, I learnt from this mistake, never to take for granted any suspicious calls in future. I really need to be firmer. Don't be so trusting. Never know, crooks are really smart right now, aren't they?

The place we went to

Quite an impromptu decision to go here and a mere 3d/2n stay, I surprised even myself to find 600+ moments captured in my camera. When I look back at the pictures, the pictures replayed so many simple joys, yet so precious to me. And it's certainly much much nicer to look at than those "look here and smile" kinda pictures. The only downside is that there are really not many of them with me in it, I was 99% of the time holding the camera. sigh.




But before I went into some boring details of this trip (in the next post), I just want to say, I took my dad to watch "District 9" at GSC in KL here. It was so gross, I almost puke watching it. But I'm really happy spending the time at the cinema with my old papa.

Bukit Tinggi snapshots

My 3rd time visiting that place, 2nd time for the kids. There are really not many activities to do there and korkor was complaining about it after awhile.

My inlaws were to stay overnight at Colmar Tropicale with my bro-inlaw and his wife. We didn't join them because we thought we'll be going to Bali and I need to pack our luggage. Lucky we didn't, coz we were not very impressed with the hotel room and the pricetag for 1 night rental to it.


After taking our breakfast and lunch in KL, we started our way uphill only about 2 or 3pm, which was kinda lucky as I read from the news that Karak highway was pretty jam in the morning for the balik kampung rush.

After checking in, we just walked around and went up to the room to eat some light snacks.

And then we walked on the street some more. Which was pretty draggy as there was only 1 street available and we were trying to walk really slow.

Of course, my entertainment is to take pictures of the kids and anything that catches my eyes.

... and camwhore a bit too.

We then hopped onto a free transportation and went to Rabbit Park to visit our bunny rabbits again.


And pretty much sums up the day. Sigh... where else can we spend a day in KL?