Final Post For The Year

How time flies! 2009 is zooming past us and very soon it is the time of the year again to celebrate as we usher in the New Year. Have you already decided where to go for countdown celebration tomorrow night? No matter where you go or even if you had planned to spend the last evening at home, I hope you will have a wonderful time with your family.

Before I end this post, I leave you with some of the photos taken during our trip to China last month.

Have a Happy New Year, everyone!!

Moments before boarding the plane. The 2 girls had fun running back and forth the travelator. I've lost count the number of times they went on the travelator.


The girls were seated together and I was just next to Jasmine. Sharlene was rather excited after boarding the plane. She kept turning to the back and chat with daddy who was sitting behind her. They even brought their old maid and donkey cards along and insisted that I play with them. We played a few rounds and stopped just before their dinner sets arrive. Sharlene didn't like the food, she only took the snack.


It was pretty chill during the first 2 nights. I’d to constantly remind Sharlene to zip up her coat and put on her gloves. This gal liked to remove her coat and kept saying she's not feeling cold.


The different night scenes in Guilin.


Mountains and river in Yangshuo.


My first time seeing a real panda. The one and only panda there. Ohh, she was really huge. Hmm, I didn't know that panda likes to munch on carrots too...


The gals with their new friend, Ivy. She is a year older than Jasmine.
3 of them were seen together most of the time.

Once again, wishing all of you a Happy and Prosperous 2010!!

Our Trip To JB

We started our journey on a Saturday morning. Had planned to leave home earlier to avoid being caught in a traffic jam during school holidays...but it didn't materialize as our 'driver' woke up late. After breakfast and transporting our stuff into the car, we only left home around 9.30am. As expected, we were caught in a crawl midway but after that it was a breeze and we reached JB in time to join my parents for lunch.

So, what was my gal up to in the car for so many hours? Since it was early in the morning and she’s so alert, we started off with simple reading. It’s one of those short interesting stories that she likes. Finished reading to her the whole series of 6 books in a short time. Then her mind began to wander to something else...FOOD!! We always get ready snacks for her to munch in the car. Ok, let me recall what she ate on that day. Hmm... 2 slices of peanut butter sandwich, some crackers and boiled chickpeas.

After satisfying her desire for food, I was hoping and hoping she will close her eyes and sleeps for a while, at least, .....but this girl, she just didn’t want to! Hence, I didn’t get to rest my eyes too. Throughout our journey, she entertained herself and us by talking non-stop and singing her favourite tunes. That certainly kept our 'driver' alert :D We enjoyed every moments of her cute antics and our little conversations. Soon she got restless in the car and kept asking me 'Are we reaching popo’s house yet?' 'Why take so long?, 'Daddy, why you drive so slow, ah?' and so on...


I’d wanted to snap a photo of her but she purposely flashed out her rabbit when I clicked on the camera. She announced in the car that her rabbit is now called Floss. Previously she just called it rabbit. (Floss is the name of a rabbit in one of the books that I read to her titled The Missing Rabbit).

Sharlene took this pic of chickpeas. I was kind of surprise as that was the first time she took pix of food. Guess she saw me doing it sometimes :P

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The next morning, my dad brought us out for breakfast at Restaurant Ah Koong at Taman Sentosa. Here’s my bowl of delicious fish-ball noodles. Yums!


She enjoyed her noodles as much as we do...

More pix of Sharlene having fun here.......

Back home, colouring again...


Fooling around with Ah Yee. We were at a lighting shop to view some lights with my mum.


My bro was having fun with her and she's trying to bite his hand instead. Ouch!


Extremely hyper on that night…


Ooooo….I so love my chupa chups lolly.


Inside Toy r Us @ Jusco Tebrau City - Hey mummy, do I look like a superstar?


Enjoying durians which I’d bought from Jusco supermarket.

Our Trip To Penang

Although the kids had a short school break last month, we managed to take them to Penang for a holiday. Even before the trip they were so thrilled about it as they always associate Penang with sandy beaches and lovely swimming pools. As for the adults, we always love the wide array of hawker food there. Yum, Yum!!

As usual, we traveled in 2 cars – altogether 10 of us including the kids and sister-in-law’s maid. It was raining cats and dogs on that morning. Sharlene was a little upset, as we didn’t allow her to be in the same car as her piao cheh. When 2 of them get together in a car, all hell will break loose...hahaha. So normally for long distance trips, we will just separate both of them to avoid us shouting and screaming at them. However, when we were roaming around Penang town, Sharlene sat with her beloved piao cheh in my sister-in-law’s car most of the time.

Before our main destination, we followed sil and family to Taiping and spent a night there. Didn’t do much in Taiping as we’d already been to Taiping Zoo and Taiping Lake Garden whereas my sil and family went to temple and cemetery to offer prayers to their ancestors in association with Qing Ming Festival (Chinese All Soul’s Day).

After breakfast the next morning we headed to Penang to meet up with hubby’s cousin and family. We stayed in the same hotel again this time for 2 nights. This time around we went to Penang Hill (my 1st visit) and Mini Genting (my 1st visit too). I've not heard about this place before. Didn’t really have a good view at this place as it was raining when we reached there. There's a seafood restaurant inside there, so we just settled at the restaurant for dinner on that day . The food was quite alright...but I didn’t really enjoy it, as Sharlene wasn’t feeling well during that time and she even vomited on the wooden platform of the restaurant. That’s the time (after we left Mini Genting) we brought her to a nearby clinic.

Here's some photos taken during our trip -

~ On our journey to Taiping ~
Sharlene with her pink sunnies. Check out her favorite pink bunny lying next to her. Luckily, that’s the only one she’d brought along. Btw, everyone looked 'so pinkish', eh?

~ Port Weld ~
Went on this boat to go across the fishing village. RM1 per pax for river crossing. Brother-in-law’s sister stays there.

~ While waiting to get into the car ~
Hi, everyone! This's my little pink bunny. She's adorable, isn't she?

~ At the beach ~
Searching for sea shells

Picking up sea shells

~ Daddy and his little angel ~
Sharlene proudly showing off her half bucket full of seashells

~Banana boat ride ~
Not exciting at all as compared to the jet ski

~ Penang Hill Railway ~
Cable train ride. I didn't know that this train will not take us straight to the top, we actually have to change trains halfway.

The train was crowded with passengers and we'd to stand all the way up (about 30 minutes ride)

~ A playground located at Penang Hill ~
Sharlene got so excited when she saw a slide there and she played on it non stop.

~ Yours truly cycling with her nephew ~
Check out Sharlene and her nanny at the side of the road. She was yelling out for me. Mummy, mummy wait for me, I want to go cycling too....huhuhu

~ The kiddos at the hotel lobby ~
Bye, bye, Penang....we're going home today.

Shopping Spree in J.B

We went shopping in JB last week and visited quite a few shopping malls there. My sis tagged along with us and all we did were shop and dine. While hubby and my sis took turns to watch over Sharlene, I quickly grabbed some outfits from Metrojaya for Sharlene as I have not been buying her new clothes for quite some time. I managed to get myself 2 T-shirts and a pair of slip-on high heels too. Whereas, hubby got himself some very nice working shirts and 2 pairs of cuff links.

On our way home after shopping one evening, we dropped by Tesco to buy a box of doughnuts. The Big Apple Donuts & Coffee has opened its first outlet in JB. Oh, I love and simply couldn’t resist Big Apple Donuts doughnuts because of the light, fluffy and not so oily texture. My sis and I went to the doughnuts counter and pick our favourites.

Here's the variety of doughnuts we chose -


Back home, we almost finished up the 1 dozen of doughnuts leaving only the durian flavor and some cut up pieces of other flavors for my dad, as we couldn’t wait for him to be back from work to gobble down the delightful doughnuts.


Sharlene loves the doughnuts too especially the one with chocolate topping. She couldn't keep her fingers off the topping and kept licking her fingers which were full of melted chocolates. Looking at the way she eats, I was so afraid that she would drop her doughnuts and stain her white blouse. I kept reminding her to be careful and thank god, she didn’t dirty her blouse at all.

We're Back Home

We reached home today after spending 7 wonderful days in my hometown. We enjoyed happy time with everyone there - it was truly a great holiday for us!

We had a smooth journey just now as there were not many cars on the road and the weather wasn't too hot as well. As usual, Sharlene fell asleep soon after her milk session and only woke up about 2 hours later...and hehe, I managed to take a short nap too. Since she has taken a nap in the car, I'm sure she will only sleep after midnight. So, instead of bringing her to the bedroom, I just let her spend time on her own while I'm busy writing this post. She's very energetic now, walking up and down the stairs, talking to me, playing with her toys, looking at her books and disturbing everyone whom she has not seen for a week. Most likely, I'll have a tough time putting her to bed tonight. I really wish to write more but got to go now....can't concentrate writing as she is here disturbing me again :(

We're Travelling Tomorrow

and I have loads of packing to do now. So, tonight I definitely won’t be able to sit in front of the computer and blog-hop as usual. I’m going to miss the updates of all the mommies' blogs that I love to frequent. But once I reach JB I’m sure to visit those blogs again. As soon as my little monster is off to bed, I’m going to start stuffing our things into the bags. You won’t believe it that I have 4 bags to stuff and all our bags are rather large...haha, you tell me how to travel light with a toddler coming along with us :( 3 bags will be filled with Sharlene’s belongings.

As I mentioned earlier, I will be going back to my hometown, Johor Bahru with hubby, Aunty YK and Sharlene. Hubby has to go to office tomorrow morning but he will be back by noon, have lunch with us and we are all ready to start our journey after that. I suppose a lot of people will be travelling outstation like us for the forthcoming Hari Raya holidays, especially the Malays who will be celebrating Hari Raya. Most of them will start ‘balik kampung’ (homecoming) tomorrow as all schools are close for the whole of next week. I really hope I’ll have a stress free journey to JB and there will be less traffic jam on the highway tomorrow.

Okay, got to go now. Have a great weekend :)

Penang Trip - Day 4

After checking out from the hotel we left Penang Island by taking the ferry ride. We followed the signboard to Ferry Terminal at Butterworth and upon reaching there we queued to get into the ferry which took us about 15 minutes. We went into the 1st section of the ferry, parked our cars there, switched off the car engine and got down from the car to enjoy the warm breezy journey. The ferry ride was short and it took about 15 minutes to reach the mainland.

The kids were excited about the ferry ride especially Sharlene who has never been on a ferry before. It was my first experience taking the ferry as well. During the ride we went up to the top deck of the ferry to view the scenery and took some photographs. And we spotted lots and lots of jelly fish in the sea too. It was really a great experience on board the Penang ferry for those of us who have not been on a ferry before.


During the 3 hours journey back home, Sharlene wasn't sleepy at all. She was very active in the car, she did her reading, counting 123, singing ABCs, happily singing nursery rhymes, writing and scribbling on her doodle board which I bought for her in Gurney Plaza and asked for food all the time. Instead of resting and napping in the car, we have to entertain and accede to her request.

She was eating oranges here, one of her favourite fruits and that's how happy and cheeky she looks when she gets to savour her most wanted food.

Penang Trip - Day 3

We made a trip to Wat Chayamangkalaram situated in Lorong Burmah. It is another Buddhist temple famous for its large reclining Buddha statue. The statue is really huge and magnificent. You have to remove your shoes before entering the temple. Thus, the place is very clean and well kept. There is also a 4 faced Buddha outside. Besides this temple, we also went to the Burmese Buddhist Temple which is just across the road from the Reclining Buddha Temple. It's another interesting temple....there is so much things to see there and we took quite a lot of photos inside and outside of the temple.


Kids being kids, they just adore the pool and beach and can't get enough of swimming and splashing in the beach. Once we went back to the hotel, the kids went down to the beach again. Another fun day for them!

Penang Trip - Day 2

We started our day very early, had dim sum for breakfast and went to a few places which we had planned a day earlier. Here's where we went....

Kek Lok Si Temple, a Buddhist temple located on a hill in Ayer Hitam. Again, we lost our way somewhere and got to stop to ask some locals for direction before we found the temple. While we were there, we walked around the scenic gardens, visited some ponds and shrines and other sculptures of Buddhist origin, made some donations and took some photographs under the blazing sun.

Sharlene posing with her favourite dog sculpture. Guess what she's holding on her hand? A packet of Tiger biscuits that she saw in the store located in the temple. She loves this brand of biscuits and was so happy that I bought it for her.

Do you want some biscuits?


After a good tour of the temple we left the place for lunch. Finally, we found a place for lunch nearby the temple but suddenly, it started to rain heavily and we'd to sit in our cars to wait for the rain to stop before we could get down.

After lunch, we set off to our next destination - Balik Pulau, a place famous for its durian plantations. And of course, our main purpose of going there is to taste durian, the king of fruits. Wow! the textures and flavors of the durian were sooooooo good, very smooth and taste bittersweet. But a bit pricey, at RM12 per kg. Hmmmmm....I really love it and wish I could have more. Are you drooling now looking at the picture of the durian above?...:)



Next, we went to this very famous stall along the busy street of Penang Road.


Although we had our lunch and durian for dessert just a while ago, we still went to Penang Road for the well-known assam laksa, char keow teow, ice kacang and cendol, a must have dessert with green noodles in thick coconut milk, brown sugar, red beans and shaved ice. Another not so famous cendol stall is located just opposite to it. All the food taste so wonderful here especially the cendol. *thumbs-up*



All of us went back to the hotel after the satisfying meal. Upon returning the hotel, it was just rest and relax in the room for everyone. Later in the evening, we went to the beach for some fun and the kids had a great time playing with water and sand. We even attempted the banana boat ride. 7 of us (including hubby and I) went for it. It was a good experience but I was a bit upset that no one was there to snap photographs for us. *Sigh*

Jasmine and Sharlene playing with sand

Daddy and Sharlene having fun together