30 May 2006
Of Bento and Sukiyaki

Last weekend we went to our regular Japanese restaurant for lunch again. My boy always refer to this place as 'Sukiyaki' because most of the time we were there he will insist on ordering Sukiyaki set meal just because of an egg! *roll eyes*

On the left is the Sukiyaki set meal that comes with rice, chawanmushi, miso soup, pickles, egg, two slices of fruit, and a scoop of Haagen Dazs ice-cream that's served after the meal is finished. The set is priced at RM18++. Pretty reasonable huh? The portion will really stuff you to the brim, I assure you! This statement however does not apply to the mumbling guy though...LOL! :P

The last time Domestic Rat was there, she didn't get her ice-cream that should come with set lunch. Poor thing! So to avoid dissapointment, I asked if the ice-cream promotion is still valid after placing our orders. The waitress assured me yes. This time around it was nice of them to give us three different flavours (since we ordered three sets); we got rum & raisins, green tea and strawberry. Yummylicious! Look at how my girl dig in to her strawberry ice-cream!

This is the Makunouchi Bento I had; comes with rice, shashimi (salmon, tuna and squid), tempura (two prawns, aubergine, fish fillet, sweet potato and carrot), small piece of saba shioyaki, chawanmushi, miso soup, two slices of fruits. Priced at RM24++. Heheh, what's missing from the photo is one of the tempura prawn and the dashi sauce; my boy has sunked his teeth into the prawn before I could snap a photo using my handphone!
 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/30/2006 05:38:00 pm | Permalink | 14 comments
26 May 2006
Boy's Mid-year Progress Report
The forgetful me missed the parent-teacher day at my boy’s kindy last Saturday. The circular about the change of date was distributed a month ago; which explains why I didn’t remember. (Aih… I shouldn’t be making excuses…) I had to go to the school on Tuesday to get his report card and progress update from the kindergarden.

Anyway, I just wanted to make an entry here so boy gets to read it in future.

My boy is making good progress in all the subjects particularly Chinese. It seemed that he has a lot of interest in the subject (from teacher’s observation) because he was very attentive during lessons and being one of the first to spot the teacher’s intentional mistake in strokes of the character. No wonder he scored very well in the test. I had been honest in telling the teacher that I didn’t spend enough time doing revisions with my boy (actually quite embarrassed when I told the teacher).

Overall he is meeting his developmental milestones; in fact the teacher says he is very bright. Miss Tan has only one thing to say, that he is 孩子气 (childish or baby-like behavior). She asked me how he treats his sister at home. I told the teacher that sometimes the sister bullies the brother instead by pinching or pulling his hair, that’s when fights ensue *roll eyes*. “难怪啦！原来是跟妹妹学的。”(“No wonder!!! So he learnt from his sister…” the teacher exclaimed.) “Why?”, I asked; apparently there was a time he mischievously pinched his classmates or pulled other’s hair.

Ms Tan said he is quite independent in school, and that he is quite fast in completing his tasks. This is certainly a surprise to me! Because at home, it takes ages for him to complete his homework. I’d have to supervise him; otherwise he’d be fiddling with the eraser or playing with pencils if he sees me not noticing. He is very chatty in school as well. She sensed something was amiss when he was unusually quiet, and upon checking found him to be running low grade fever (he was well when sent to school).

Teacher observed that he is creative and likes drawing things that do not conform to reality well. She was telling me that once he coloured a tiger green while his classmate was trying to correct him that it should be brown and black. I see this in a positive light though, that he thinks out of the box. As a parent, I’d want to let him express himself freely and nurture that creativity than kill it.

Another surprise for me is that he tells the teacher a lot of things, including when his sister had fever, that his sister was admitted to hospital and so on. He seldom tells me the happenings in school, unless I asked. Sometimes even if I asked, he’d only give a very brief account. I think this is where I slack too; improvement from me will be to make an effort to ask him how his days at school went.

What makes me most happy 欣慰 at the end of the day is Ms Tan thinks Ian is very special. * :) beaming* I don’t know if she tells every parent their child is special; somehow my instinct tells me she meant it. It was just very heartwarming to have the teacher tell me my child is special.
 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/26/2006 05:01:00 pm | Permalink | 9 comments
18 May 2006
Langkawi Trip - Day 3
Since we had visited the places we want, we took it easy on the 3rd day. Only woke up at 9am to freshen up for breakfast. After that we let the kids play in the pool again. After that we pack our things and checkout at about 1 pm and headed for Langkawi Parade again as MIL wanted to buy something. We left the shopping mall at about 3 pm to go to Kuah Jetty.

We had lunch in KFC after FIL and hubby returned the rented car. After that I went to the duty free shop to scout for Absolute Citron my brother had asked me to purchase for him. He sounded surprised when I told him that 1 litre bottle costs RM45 only. Anyway, our ferry was suppose to depart at 5:30 pm but there were 2 boats on that day, so whichever filled up with passengers first will set sail earlier.

The ferry of the return journey was rather old. It traveled at a slower speed compared to the ferry on the 1st day. Luckily we departed at 5 pm as the journey took 3 hours as oppose to 2.5 hours. I only manage to go up to the deck at about 7 pm after girl has woken from her nap. Lucky I still manage to capture the sunset with my camera. We arrived in Penang just in time for dinner. However most of the restaurants were full because of mother’s day; in the end we had dinner at Goodall kopitiam. That's our mother's day :P

夕阳西下

 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/18/2006 08:00:00 am | Permalink | 8 comments
17 May 2006
Langkawi Trip - Day 2
As early as 7:30am my boy started to stir in the bed. Must be he wanted to pee, I thought. True enough, after a few stirs he woke up and went to the toilet. He came back up on the bed, but it didn’t take long for him to start asking me to wake up. Haih… there’s no going back to sleep after the dragon has awaken.

The suite includes buffet breakfast, so we had quite a heavy meal. We went to the Oriental Village (that’s where the cable car station is) at about 10:30 am. While FIL queue up to purchase the cable car tickets, we spent some time in a fenced area where rabbits roam freely. My girl had fun patting and chasing the rabbits.

The ticketing staff told FIL that we had to wait for another 2.5 hours in a queue before our turn to alight the cable car (no thanks to the exceptionally large crowd). So we changed plan to visit Underwater World instead and come back in the evening or next day.

The Underwater World is quite nice albeit admission is kind of expensive. The place is not as big as I had expected; the 3D show has nothing 3D about it … could be because of the lousy 3D specs *thumbs down*. I took some videos of the penguins and clown fish because I didn’t manage to get any good photo shots of these animals.





We had late lunch at the Sun Café. The food was absolutely delicious with a fairly large serving. MIL commented that this is ‘real’ café food… like those you’d find in western countries. I ordered fettuccine carbonara to share with the kids (actually both of them finished 80% of the serving!!), MIL shared barracuda fish that comes with potato gratin (as a side dish) and potato & leek soup with FIL while hubby had sandwich (which looks like a burger), Sorry no photos because we chomped down the food as soon as they were served! :P

Before heading back to Oriental Village, we detoured to The Datai and The Andaman to have a look. Heh…we were curious as to what the resorts look like since they have such expensive rates.

Luckily the morning crowd at the ticketing booth had dispersed so there’s only a short queue to cable car. We were told that we are not allowed to stop at the 1st station as it was already quite late in the evening. The ride from base station to the top (and vice versa) takes about half an hour. The children had ice cream at the station. On our way down from the viewing deck, there’s a furry caterpillar on one of the step; I quickly snap a shot. Ain’t it cute?


Where is the horizon? 天与海连成一片的情景
After we got back to the hotel, we let the children have some fun playing sand at the beach. Again we head for the pool after we had enough of the sand. Don’t ask me why, but we went back to the same place for seafood dinner. So, if you asked me to list the good places to eat in Langkawi, I’d tell you Teo, Teo, Sun Café and Teo! Heh! :P
 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/17/2006 11:45:00 am | Permalink | 11 comments
16 May 2006
Langkawi Trip - Day 1
Early in the morning of Wesak Day, we stopped by the Buddist Association in Burmah Road to pray before heading to Pier Sweetenham to board the ferry to Langkawi for short vacation. The two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride starts right on the dot at 8:30am. Boy and girl were fascinated; both of them peered out of the window as the ferry sail out into the open sea.

Thank goodness none of us experienced motion sickness since the sea was quite calm and the ride stable. To escape the extremely cold air-conditioning in the cabin, we took the kids up to the deck to enjoy the breeze.

After arriving in Langkawi, we rented a car and drove to Kuah town for lunch. We had a very satisfied meal at a seafood kopitiam-restaurant; the steamed pomfret (tau-tae) was huge and fresh… mmm yummilicious!


After checking-in to the suite, we let the children have a dip in the pool. Like some desperately-in-need-of-sun-tan holiday makers, we played with the kids in the pool under the afternoon sun ~ 2:30pm! Luckily we only spent about an hour frolicking in the water, if not we’d end up as red as a lobster! :P

Next we went to Langkawi Parade shopping for some snacks and drinks. I got myself a pair of shoes and a sleeveless sweater each for boy and girl. I couldn’t resist buying the Valentino pants from children’s section (oh did I tell you that I am of petite frame and can fit most of the largest size of children’s attire? :P) since it was on 70% discount!!

The first day ended with us having dinner at the same place we had lunch. Well ILs wanted to try some other dishes since we are certain they serve good food. At night the place was quite crowded, proving we made the right choice. This time we had steamed prawns and bamboo clams to name a few, and they’re scrumptious!! *burp*
 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/16/2006 09:28:00 pm | Permalink | 10 comments
10 May 2006
Filler Post
I did this quiz as well when I did the previous.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Spatial Intelligence

Your Dominant Intelligence is Spatial Intelligence You've got a good sense of space and how the world around you looks. You can close your eyes and "see" images. You have innate artistic talent. An eye for color and shapes, you're also a natural designer. Since you think in pictures, visual aids and demonstartions help you learn best. You would make a good navigator, sculptor, visual artist, inventor, architect, interior designer, or engineer.

And... do you wonder what I actually work as? Heehee... clue is... one of the above ;)

 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/10/2006 07:56:00 pm | Permalink | 8 comments
08 May 2006
What's In My Name
A lot of bloggers have done this before some time last year or the year before last. I did too, but the draft remained in my now defunct secret blog because this site was non-existent then. I did a name analysis for myself at http://miva.zodiacal.com/acro.mv just for fun.

According to the website, recent studies by name societies disclosed that names influence character and do have a definite bearing upon one's life path. Letters carry their own energy patterns relating to personality traits and needs. Name analysis using letter qualities is called acrophonology. I used to wonder why certain people have a name that suit them so much, like they've sort of grown into that name. You find their personalities sort of reflected in their names. After discovering the above site, maybe this is the explanation; not only English names has a hidden meaning to one's personalities, my guess is Chinese names do too.
My first name means
I take pride in my physical appearance (told ya I'm a narcissist :P). I am a loyal friend (as long as the trust is not broken). I have tremendous need for self-identity (that explains why I prefer my own style, as long as I look good and feel comfortable. I don't like to follow something that's too popular. Hmmm... should I quit blogging? :P). I can easily detach from people and situations. I enjoy unconventional friends (not too sure about this though). My independence and freedom are important to me (err... isn't this true for almost everyone?). I can handle details well. I have a methodical mind. I can be quite inventive and quite curious (in other words, I ask A LOT of questions if you don't already know :P).

My last name means
Take advantage of all opportunities. I must develop my creativity and talents. I am determined to prove myself to others. I have a great deal of loyalty to those I love. I have much inner strength. I just learn to give 'wise' service and not be a matyr. I am a hard worker when I make up my mind to do a job. (Heh, this must hold true for all in the same clan! Kihkihkih...)

Now you know a little more about the self-proclaimed domesticgoddess... ahaks!

 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/08/2006 10:27:00 am | Permalink | 9 comments
04 May 2006
At the Beach
Originally we wanted to go to Penang Hill on Monday but it was raining cats and dogs there so Papa suggested to go the beach instead. Further more, a larger crowd would be expected since it was a public holiday.

We went at about 4pm but the weather was just nice as there was an overcast. Papa and my brothers joined us. All of us just played sand :P

My boy asked me to take picture of his 'sand-castle'! Psst... it's just a hillock... OK a hillock-sand-castle LOL! Anyway as a loving mother *ahem* I snapped a photo with my handphone.

Papa (my dad), with all his creativity, built a sand-crocodile! Yes, a buaya... kihkihkih! I helped him with the 'details' on the croc's back. Here's how it looked.

A buaya at the beach!!??!!

Look at the fat tummy and tail!

A closer look in front. The croc looked kind of tame huh?

 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/04/2006 08:10:00 am | Permalink | 13 comments
03 May 2006
Day-Trip at Taiping Zoo

Saturday was a sunny day in Penang. We had planned to go for a day trip to Taiping Zoo. So after we had lunch, we departed at 1pm towards Taiping. The journey on the highway was smooth, with the kids knocking off to dreamland rather quickly.

As we drove into Kamunting, it started to drizzle. The drizzle soon turned into heavy rain as we rushed towards the zoo entrance. I guess Taiping is just trying to live up to its reputation as the ‘wettest town’ in Peninsula Malaysia LOL… *shrugged*

Not wanting to be soaking wet like chicken-in-soup 落汤鸡, we decided to take the half-hour tram-ride that covered the whole zoo while waiting for the rain to subside. Luckily after the ride the rain reduced to drizzle again. The kids were on stroller and buggy so we parents have to brave the drizzle and walked :P

We spent a whole 3 hours at the zoo. By 5:30pm the children were already fussing about wanting to go home, I guess because they were sweaty and not comfortable. So we bid farewell to the animals and made our journey home.


Can you see the chameleons?



 
posted by domesticgoddess at 5/03/2006 12:03:00 pm | Permalink | 7 comments