a busy day at the office

Or so it seems... enjoying playing the keyboard at her mom's workstation

From what I observed, she is definitely not the type who can sit still. I think office desk bound job will not be her choice in the future. Haha.

madras lane curry mee

I've never been to madras lane for its famed chee cheung fun, yong tau foo or curry mee. But one thing is for sure, the curry mee gets a C from me coz it is almost tasteless. I've tasted better ones.

Next time I shall try the other two dishes. Hope they don't dissappoint me.

Port Dickson 26.07.14 - 28.07.14

During the raya holidays, we went for a short trip with my in-laws to PD.

But the in-laws are going a day later. With a spare free day for us, we planned to make a pit stop to melaka on the way to PD since there won't be much things to do in PD anyway.

Driving to melaka during holidays us akin to suicide but lucky for us, the highway wasn't that jam on that day. We managed to reach in 2 hours though.

But melaka as usual was freaking hot and we're super hungry as we skipped breakfast. Planned to make a pit stop in seremban for breakfast but decided to give it a miss as it was jam in the seremban exit.

Being a long holiday, all the famous eateries were queuing will tourist. It was only after a while we managed to find a nyonya restaurant. And we only have an hour to eat as they are expecting a group of tourists too. No choice, eat lah! Isabel's was sweating from top down!

Got our ass up once we are full and we went for a walk. Got to know there's a new attraction in jonker street. Mamee house. More like a cafe though. Seems isabel liked mamee monster a lot, hugging it non stop. 

Next we went to the obligatory stadhuys. Melaka is not complete without going there huh?

Hello kitty thishaws seems to be the craze in melaka these days I guess. Most of it are adorned with hello kitty.

The weather is so hot that we left for PD after a cendol and a short walk. Isabel can't stand the heat anyway. Previously, wife and I would continue walking till we literally drop!

After another hour drive, we had finally arrive our destination, Regency Tanjung Tuan.

Isabel checking the around the apartment upon arriving.

For those who never been to this apartment, let me just tell you, don't bother staying there. There's no hot shower, the tv doesn't work. the air conditioning for our master bedroom doesn't work and when we called the receptionist on that matter, it took the technician almost 2 hour to arrive. and yet he failed to repair it. TWICE. We don't even bother to get him to adjust the TV. And the toilet are dirty too. It took the hotel more than 10 room service staff to clean an apartment but yet the apartment are not clean... We thought of changing the apartment but we decided not to due to certain reasons.

I have nothing to say if the apartment is rm300 per night. But no, it is rm600 per night, so I think we deserved more than that.

Enough ranting about the lousy stay. At least the dinner for our first night is something to be happy about.

Mother and daughter were busy checking on what to eat.

We decided to have Mexican food that night, something not associated with PD at all. The restaurant, El Cactus serves delicious Mexican cuisine at reasonable price. One thing though, remember to put on mosquito repellant as while you enjoy your quesadillas and tacos, the misquote will be having a feast on your legs!

We retire early after dinner as we were dead tired after the first day.

The next morning, we went to another popular breakfast place, PD Eating Point.

The place serves pork-free every day breakfast fare. You get the usual wan tan mee, English breakfast, noodles and nasi lemak all pork free. The food is normal to us but the staff are quite friendly. Price is a bit on the high side though.

With time to spare while waiting for in-laws to arrive, we decided to go to PD Waterfront for a stroll.

Isabel having fun walking around the car park while watching the sea in PD Waterfront...

I find this place quite nice. There's no beach for you to play water but there's quite a number of cafes and eateries for you to hang out. You can relax in Starbucks or McDonald's located in front of the sea. Nice...

Well, in-laws reached not long after that and it is time for lunch. We had no idea what to have for lunch but ended up settling for banana leaf rice. I don't remember the name of the place but it is packed! There's two banana leaf rice restaurant in a same row of shops but both are full house. I guess maybe Indian food are limited in PD.

After a short rest, it is Isabel's favourite time. After her vacation in Langkawi, she seems to like swimming very much. And there she was, swimming unassisted with only a float on her hands. Even the lifeguard was impressed! 

And oh before that we also had a walk along the beach. But she wasn't so fond of swimming in the beach. So we just settled with walking around.

If lunch time was considered packed with people, we totally were not prepared for dinner. After searching around the Internet, we decided to go to Weng Yin Seafood Restaurant as it is THE place to go for seafood. But woooah, the place was packed! We forgot it is a long holiday and the place must be packed.

No choice, we go to the seafood restaurant a few metres away. Same thing. It was packed too. Okay, now it is Plan B (actually there was none. Haha), that is to drive along the stretch of road until we find a seafood restaurant that was not so packed. A few hundred metres, there's one but still packed. Okay, so we drive again until we found one not so packed.

Or so we thought...

Yeah, we found a table the moment we walked in. But the place was so busy that the staff can't found the time to clean our table or take our order. Instead, we have to walk to the waiter to tell him our order. That is not the end of it though. The food took an hour to arrive. By the time it arrived, it was around 9.30pm. And Isabel had fell asleep by then. Food was so-so but we were not complaining as we were so hungry at that time.

The night ended with a late birthday celebrating with father-in-law before retiring for the day.

On the third day, I decided to have some me-time and take a small walk along the beach and relax along the way.

The beach in PD is not something to be shout about but it was good and peaceful enough on 7 something in the morning.

I decided to walk towards the end of the beach to see what is beyond there. Feeling a bit adventurous in the morning. Hehe.

And woah! So this is where the rich people in PD stay. With their own yacht and all that.

And so before we left for KL, we went for another walk in the beach.

And surprisingly she wanted to go to the sea with her Tata! But she is still unwilling to dip her body inside the sea water. Oh nevermind, she'll have her dose of swimming pool water not long after that.

After a quick dip in the swimming pool, we depart separately with our in-laws as we wanted to get something special from nearby PD. 

This is the thing we are looking for, Lucky King Bun in Lukut. Basically it is a curry chicken wrapped in a big bun. No photo of it opened coz our photography skills sucks. The price for it us quite reasonable (forgot the price though) and you can choose a few other flavours too. We choose curry and Dong Po combination. Taste good especually the curry flavour. The queue will be very long especially during long holidays. So the trick is to go to the back of the shop to buy it! We accidentally found about this trick as our gps led us the wrong way earlier. Talk about blessing in disguise!

And oh, we also went to get seremban siew pow on the way back but the place was full of people. Parking is hard to get too. I don't bother to take a photo of it. Note to self, do not bother to go there during long holidays unless you like long queues.

Overall it was an enjoyable trip for the whole family except for the choice of accommodation. When will be our next trip? Haha.

Happy wedding day to Kuan - 19.07.14

It's a big day for my ex-roomate and a fellow blogger. Wish him a happy married life for him in years to come!

Isabel's first haircut at salon

Well, it's not really her first time as she went for her hair shaving in salon when she was in her first month. But then again shaving is totally a different thing from cutting, right?

What a surprise. Isabel willingly let the hairdresser cut her hair today! The last time we tried to cut her hair ourselves, she was crying as if we were slaughtering chicken.

I guess she only wants her hair cut by a professional hairdresser. Hmm...

The end result of her. A total coconut shell hair style. All Asian kids will have this time at one point of their childhood. Hahaha. 

Happy dumplings festival 2014

we sort of cheated as we made these one week earlier. Half a day of hard labour for making these delicious buggers! Thanks to the wife yo!

Happy dumpling festival to all!

KO!

Having only less than an hour of nap and going out almost a day, isabel had KO'ed on her car seat. Haha.

Langkawi trip afterthoughts

those carefree days when going to a vacation means just having to bring a few shirts and underwear (at least for me) are over. Now with a daughter tagging along, it will never be the same.

Now, if my wife can cram the whole house in the luggage, I'm sure she will definitely do it.

For this maiden trip with our girl, it has been a very blur kind of trip from the moment we leave our house.

Last time when we are in a vacation, we will were always on the move. We will only return to the hotel at night. Now, we get so tired easily from bringing the baby along that we need to return to the hotel after a few hours. Plus she need to have her short nap too.

During this short trip, we had lost our daughter's cap during the cable car ride and also her pacifier on the last day. If we stayed any longer, I have to idea what else will be lost. Haha.

But I guess all this small problem is just for a short while. When she gets a little older, there will be less hassle for us. Plus, nothing makes us happier than bringing our daughter together for a short family vacation.

We will have more vacation to go!

Pulau Langkawi (10.04.14 - 12.04.2014) - Part 2

going to merge day 2 and 3 as there was nothing much on the final day of the vacation :)


Day 2

second day, i woke up with a great muscle pain on my right calf. this must be due to the the all the carrying and 7 hours of walking a day before the Langkawi trip (no joke). but it is not a big problem and we proceed with our trip anyway.

Isabel waking up feeling refreshed and getting ready for the next destination.

which is of course Langkawi Cable Car. the ticket is only RM15 for an adult (with Mykad).

 

Queuing up for cable car. Isabel was very excited when she saw the cable car. i was freaked out on the thought of sitting in a glass compartment which hangs only on a cable going up high.

and i mean very high! can't blame me for freaking out, right? hehe!

taking an photo on the viewing platform. and this is only a pit stop, mind you. there is a skybridge on this level too but it has been closed for maintenance for many years. pfft!

the last stop. the temperature was cooling, but the heat from the sun was melting us at the same time!

family photo in the cable car while on the way back.

other than the cable car, there is also an oriental village down there. but i think it is forgettable. and so we left right after the cable car ride.

since we have no plans for the day, i decided to take the longer route to Kuah town. and boy, that was a real petrol waster route. nothing much to see on that one hour journey as we mostly pass by villages and hills, not much seaside to see though.

had a great Thai food at Wan Thai. food was really great and the price is reasonable too. too bad no photos as we were famished at that time.

after lunch, it is off to some chocolate price survey at the town and back to another session of power nap and a dip in the swimming pool again...

the plan for the night is to drive back to kuah town after the nap for a dinner at Teo Seafood Restaurant as we read about the rave reviews there and then stroll at the Eagle Square to have the obligatory photo with the big eagle there.

but turns out is is not a good idea to drive from Cenang to Kuah at night. the road was dark, creepy and there was not much car. but we still drive there nevertheless. reached the restaurant and we see a large crowd there. we decided to skip this and also the eagle square and return to the hotel right away...

the 17km journey feels like eternity. moral of the story, not going to drive that stretch of road at night next time. too creepy. the hair at the back of my neck were standing at that time. huhuhu...

as for the eagle square, next time then!

dinner was spend tapau-ing food from the malay restaurant next to our hotel. not bad though.


Day 3

time sure flies fast when we were having fun. an this was the last day of our vacation. nothing much was done on that day. woke up, had breakfast at the hotel and off we go to the shops beside Underwater World to get our fix of chocolates, liquors, cigarettes and perfume before going back to the hotel to pack and leave for the airport.

stopped at one of those stalls along the beach nearby airport for a laksa and cendol. the view was nice, the same cannot be said for the food though...

at the airport waiting for check-in. Isabel was tired and i think she knows that holiday was over from her look in this photo. again, she had been a good girl throughout the flight back and slept for the whole journey.

it's been a short and tiring vacation but it's been a great one. and i know there will be more fun vacation to come. this is only the beginning!

Pulau Langkawi (10.04.14 - 12.04.2014) - Part 1

it's been almost two years since we actually went on a vacation. there weren't any vacation for both of us last year due to arrival of Isabel.

but this year onwards, we will have to include our daughter along for vacation! and so, we decided to have a pilot test for her by bringing her to langkawi by flight.

and boy, bringing a baby along for a vacation is really a different level of game. i'll post about it when i don't feel lazy in the future...

in fact, the chaos started the moment i stepped out of our home. noticed that i wore a different flip flops? i only noticed that when we reached the airport. haha.

fortunately, Isabel adapted well to the flight. gave her a pacifier (to ease her ear pressure) and some kiddy videos in the phone, she is an angel throughout the 1 hour journey

the distance from the airport to our hotel in Pantai Cenang area was less than 30minute. we chose Favehotel, nice, clean and cheap hotel which fulfills our requirement for a family trip. bought a 3D2N pacakage (2 days breakfast included) with a Myvi auto for RM490 in Matta fair. quite a bargain right?



Isabel hogging the bed the moment we reached the hotel!

after a brief rest, we wasted no time for our next destination, the Underwater World Langkawi. entrance fee is not cheap , RM30 for an adult (with Mykad), but i think it is worth it.

upon entering, we are greeted by various birds which are not restricted in cage. the birds are free to fly freely in that area.be sure to lookout for the parrot that can greet hello!

seals are swimming behind us. don't let Isabel's moody face deceive you. she was in fact very exicted and was screaming around excitedly although she was a bit scared of certain big fish and don't dare to tough the aquarium! haha.

and the main attraction there, the penguins! everyone was excited as it was their feeding time too! don't miss this and make sure to check the feeding time beforehand. i've forgotten the time, i think it is around 2.30pm.

other than penguin feeding, there was also another feeding time at 3.30pm where the divers will be in the aquarium to feed the fishes. damn, the fishes are so pampered here.

decided to 'dump' her to sit in front of the aquarium as my body was aching from all the carrying (nope, we did not bring a stroller along).

once we were done with the Underwater World, we were back for a power nap. once Isabel is refreshed, off we go to the hotel swimming pool!

the kiddy pool is slightly deep than an average baby. so we have to hold her while she splashes happily in the pool. so happy that she cried when we carried away her away from the pool later on.

i'm sure she will be tall enough to play on her own in the kiddy pool the next time we come back to this hotel!

dinner time, we were thinking of what to eat, at first we we thinking of having our dinner at Orkid Ria (maybe next time) but we went to Little Mexican instead. taste not bad but the portion is quite small though.

at first we planned to go to the pasar malam nearby but we decided to give it a miss as it is just like other malay pasar malam that we have frequesnted before. so we decided to walk along the pantai cenang area.

we were dead tired that night. and to think of it, we only spend less than 12 hours in Langkawi...