The road trip - Part 2

Kuantan was 2 years ago. How time flies. The kids have grown and so did the adults - horizontally.

We almost could not make it as the hub crashed the car for the 2nd time this year. I fear the day I receive the insurance letter premium renewal next year.*shudder*

With a timely stroke of luck and blessings from my parents, we took their car and head off to Malacca with the usual suspects - The Lims and this time, the Tans joined as well.

We stopped over at JB for the famous bak kut teh for breakkie before the long drive.

Arrived around 1-ish and we were famished! Nancy's Kitchen was highly recommended by one of my colleague who frequently visited Malacca.

 

 

  

 

The kids of course enjoyed each other's company. Jayden is a water kid, he needs to at least have a dip in the pool, despite the rainy season.

I can so understand why we can complete Malacca in 3D2N. There weren't much tourist attractions to begin with. But the beauty of travelling with a group is that we get to explore the places together, unravelling hidden food gems - every meal is a fiesta!

Thanks for the awesome company Lims and Tans! Let's do Part 3, 4 & 5 soon! ;)

Eat, play, shop

Yes, this was basically what we mainly did on our recent trip. Ever since I visited Hong Kong last summer, it has become a yearly ritual to come to this shopping haven and sweep everything off their sales. Of course this time, there was a little tweak in the itinerary.

The son came along. After having combed 4 Club Meds for the past consecutive years, we decided we should break away from the beach vacation and introduce the boy the other side of the world. Also to see if he can sit through longer flights - Bless the inflight entertainment and iPad!!

Off to HONG KONG!!!





And so we arrived at our hotel - Regal Hong Kong at Causeway Bay. For once, we acted like responsible tourists and even bought an Octopus card for Jayden.
Since we arrived in the early afternoon, we decided to visit the Peak on a weekday to avoid the crazy crowd we encountered a year ago.
The Peak

Guess who took this photo for us? :)

 
We monkeyed around, took photos at breath-taking Hong Kong. Had our dinner at the infamous Bubba Gump (no photos as I edited it and it didn't save somehow) before hitting the sack. We had to perserve energy for the big tour the following day.

Day 2 - Hong Kong Disneyland

It drizzled in the morning and we were lamenting if we should still head to Disneyland. We wanted to avoid the weekend crowd. But it appears, everyday looked like a holiday at Disneyland.
Filling our stomachs with yummylicious dim sum before the long walk.
I ordered every single item that was recommended. People usually go to the one at Mongkok where you usually queue like crazy for an hour before you get a seat. Having an impatient kid with us, we decided to pay a slight premium for our comfort level and went to their IFC branch instead. Turned out not a bad decision, no queue, food was just as good. :)

  Our photographer for the day aka the Son asked us to say "Cheese", hug each other and smile. :) 
 As usual, the hub and the son had no impatience to wait for the Finale, much to my disappointment. And so we went to the City of Lights.  
Day 3 & 4 - Shopping Time!

The next 2 days were saved solely for venturing good food and appease my shopping hunger. I can see that the kiddo is not complaining either as he sets on a quest to hunt for his Cars Disney collection at EVERY Toys R Us outlet. We combed almost all of them and he never left one empty handed. *hears wallet crying*

 When one comes to Hong Kong, one must eat breakfast the Hong Kong style way. :)    
As you can see, we left the country satisfied with beautiful memories created, another inch to the waistline and an empty wallet. We almost had no HKD to have lunch at the airport! Hur hur.

Jayden @ 4.5

We have moved into our temporary home for about a month and a half now. Nothing has changed much except getting used to a new environment and a smaller space. Most of the stuff are still in boxes which we have no intentions of unpacking unless absolutely necessary.

Sleep had been an issue. Not only because it's a new place but also largely due to the unforgiving weather coupled with no air-condition in the house. (YES. NO AIR-CON)

And so to get our minds off the hot climate, I decided to cook (after a gazillion years later) on the HCP (Happycall Pan), which was bought half a year ago!

The son was my guinea pig when Dylan was outstation in KL. Safest choice to cook for a kid - Claypot chicken rice with lots of hot dog. Conclusion: He loves it! :)

Other than cooking, I got the son to understand the concept of housechores. I let him had a go at stiring the hot syrup to make Jelly! He was very delighted of course and stirred it really carefully without getting too close to the fire. End result: Ice cold jelly on a hot hot day!

So at 4.5 years old, Jayden has grown to be quite an independant boy. He wears his own clothes,  helps to do simple chores in the house and brushes his own teeth. Though sometimes, the kiddo does ask for treats in returnbut we gladly rewarded him.

This year on Mother's and Father's Day, we both received a personalized card from the son. Although I cannot compliment on his abstract drawing, the thought of it just fuzzes my heart even though he made our faces green. Tee-hee. And in return my son, we're bringing you to Hong Kong Disneyland in July! It's your first trip to a non-beachy country. We hope to create more beautiful memories with you. We love you too - Daddy & Mummy

Goodbye to our nest

They say a house is a true reflection of oneself. How true indeed.

Other than revealing the style we've incoporated into our house, I am also ashamed to admit the amount of clutter we have accumulated over the years. Before marriage, it was just a roomful of things and a suitcase packed to my new home. I have lost count of the number of boxes I have packed, half of which are things that I have no inkling clue of the last time I saw or touched it.

I am only glad I've managed to sell off some furnitures and appliances to make space for the temporary smaller place we'll be holding up at for the next 2.5 years before our EC is ready. Some asked why did we not consider buying a readily available development - well, with the current ever-rising prices, it takes alot of courage to sign your name under that large mortgage loan. We were actually thinking longer longer term. Hopefully, we can use this 'mortgage-free' period to accumulate our CPF savings and invest in a 2nd property in future. :) Hopefully.

Ok back to the our house. Dylan has been urging me to pack since the day we sold our house. So kan cheong spider. I hesitated for quite a while. Not because I was lazy to pack, but I was overwhelmed with emotions. After all, this is the first home I've owned, built, decorated and have had lots of memories in it. Saying goodbye was not that easy.

I started to re-collect the times where we went around house-hunting - covering places from the North to the East almost every weekend. 35 houses, we viewed 34 houses before we were satisfied with the 35th one. And the ironic thing was we wanted to find a house which was very much in its raw state from HDB. Alot of places were nicely decorated but it wasn't our style. We wanted to over-haul the entire place. So, we thought finding such a place was almost impossible, cause who wouldn't renovate their house right?

Well, no. 35 house proved us wrong. The place was as raw as it can get. Almost zero renovation done except for the kitchen cabinets. PERFECT. We even managed to seal the deal 30k below valuation. Where to get such deals these day right?!?

My last words to my beloved home (I know very cliche) - You've provided us good shelter and ample space throughout these years. You have also kept our friends comfortable and made every gathering enjoyable and memorable. Thank you for bringing us warmth and I hope you'll be happy with your new owner. I'm sure they will continue to keep you clean and tidy. Farewell my humble abode.

Luck ran dry

We had 2 piece of good news at the start of the year.

#1: We've sold our flat for a decent price! Offer came in when we were travelling in Bangkok in early Feb. Although I must say, we never expected a middle age lady to appreciate our house reno. But still, we're glad that we're going to handover our nest to a nice lady. I felt a momentary loss when I accepted the cheque. After all, we have stayed in this home for the past 5 years. I didn't know we can experience seperation anxiety at this age too. Hahaha.

#2: We've bought our new place when I was travelling in Taipei!!! All happened in a span of less than a month. We spent a few months of deliberating on where our next place should be - priority was the Son's future school. But after reading all the possibilities and non-possibilities of trying to secure a school purely using distance, we decided to play safe and just put Jayden at either one of our school. No need to lose hair anymore. Heh.
So choosing a home become no boundaries. We wanted somewhere near in-laws but anywhere near Bishan is very very expensive. :( My only bottom line is I do not wish to stretch the dollar and stress ourselves over mortgage. So we shelved finding a private condo and decided to go for EC. After all, it is our last chance to get a subsidized house from HDB.

So we went around to look at a few current launches. The only EC that caught our eyes was Twin Waterfalls from Frasers. We love their layout and location was very near future Watertown - the next Centerpoint in a suburb. So we took our chances and went for the balloting. And bless our souls, we got it! :D Very high floor, the layout we wanted - everything penned out nicely!

So everything went well and smooth in Feb and early Mar. But our luck suddenly ran out in mid-Mar.

Dylan got into a minor car accident - thankfully unharmed but the car is disfigured. :(
A series of unlucky things happend on me too.

I am hoping it is just a temporary 'suayness'. After all, the biggest contentment is that we've found our new place but only ready in 2015!!! We'll take this 3 years to save up and hopefully can invest in another small unit for future investment. :)

As for now, we'll be busy busy busy in moving to a temporary shelter.

Let's hope April will be a good month for us!

That once a year family trip

I've tried to adhere to my minimum once-a-year trip for the son. And undeniably, Club Med has been our unanimous choice over the years - food and activties all taken care of.

This time, we were more excited because Jayden has come to realized the concept of going for a holiday = lots of milkshake, sand, play and basically no school!

When you fly budget, there is no such thing as in-flight entertainment, so please bring your own. This trip has made me re-think the idea of getting an iPad - it is more lightweight, has all movies integrated in one source (don't need to bring multiple CDs and worry about being caught for buying pirated), can play games, etc. I think I've just made my point.

The best thing about Club Med is that, food and drinks are perpetually available from as early as 6am to as late as 2am. I confessed my 1kg weight gain reflected during the medical check-up to this sinful trip.

Jayden trying to fake a very excited smile

So after all the calorie-infused junk food, it is time to tour around the resort. Another bonus point for the trip was that the son had just turned the minimal age to join the mini club.

Finally!!! Dylan and I can have some US time to try out other activities in the resort. Another plus point to be in Thailand - massage palours are EVERYWHERE - every nook and corner. I managed to sneak out near the resort and get my daily dose of muscle kneading. :)

Ahhh...bliss. Let's enjoy the sunset for a while...

Well, the following day didn't turn out as what we had planned. Jayden had a fever on the 1st night and so we decided to bring him along while we cabbed down to Patong.

And to bring a restless 12.5kg child along is certainly no joke. We never knew exerting eye power to keep watch on the boy can turn out to be so tiring.

But of course, he knocked out first...

So while the boy is soundly asleep, we had to reward ourselves with authentic Thai food! I was slightly disappointed that Club Med served only international buffet as their guests were mainly Caucasians. But how can one come to Thailand and not have a taste of their cuisine?!?

Where is my Pad Thai, Tom Yum Goong, Green Curry and Mango Sticky Rice!!!!!! Cannot do injustice to my stomach right!

It is not long before the terror is up to his tricks again. We stumbled upon Hard Rock and Jayden caught me by surprise this time. "Mummy! Look!"

And there, I took a photo of him posing spontaneously like the mannequin.

Not bad huh. Even know how to close his eyes

And when we thought his silly tricks were over, Jayden insisted on taking a photo with the DSLR. As you can see from the photo, I am not smiling. *breaks into a cold sweat*

One of the activities at the Mini Club

And the highlight of the trip - SNORKELING! This would not have been possible if Jayden didn't stayed at the Mini Club. We were out at the sea of half a day and I even had time to go for a massage session before picking him up! Ultimate shiokness!

And that pretty much sums up our family trip for the year. I have also exhausted almost all of the Club Med options - Bintan, Bali, Phuket.

Son, we hoped you have enjoyed yourself with us so far. We have tried to create many happy memories for you and certainly hope you can remember them as your grow up. But even if you forget, fret not, we still have the photos, videos and not forgetting the credit card bill to remind you. Just kidding.

Looking forward to your next trip!

And so he is 4

Once again, before we head off on our long-awaited family trip, I am compelled to write about the son's 4th birthday. Unbelievable Four.

I have been trying to keep a low-key celebration so as not to give the boy the notion that birthdays are lavished with tonnes of balloons, a humongous cake and gazillion of presents. Ok I'm exaggerating but the point is to keep it simple. But simplicity is always an understatement when it comes to the only child of the family.

So first, let's draw attention to the food spread before we go into the party details. We had seafood with a full sea view at our table. How nice. My dad aka the grandpa suggested to have a family staycation over at Changi Beach Club. I thought this was really a nice idea to bring Jayden to see my childhood playground - this is the place when I was young, where my family would frequent to on every single-never-missed weekends, where I would look forward to meeting my friends and do all sorts of silly things that you don't even need an iPad/Facebook to pass time and where we practically grew up in.

Food galore *nom nom nom*

Introducing Uncle Melvin - they are exactly 24 years 3 months and 19 days apart - both also pig la. You can see that Jayden is giving a patronizing smile because Uncle Melvin didn't prepare any present. *gua gua gua*

And this is Uncle Dickson. Considering that the bigger 'pig' didn't really get along with this younger brother, I am surprised that Dickson has a knack with Jayden. Of course, bribery with a gift always helps. See, even the dimples are showing.

How to miss out the hosts of this staycation - Ah Gong and Ah Ma. Thank you for making it possible!

As you can see, towards the end, the boy has practically lost all the energy to smile. He just can't wait to open up the presents. Tsk tsk.

See what I mean?

And then it's time to cut the cake and get down to the crux of the itinerary... ... SWIMMING.

Again, I'm glad that we had another family bonding time with my side of the family. The birthday boy had his fun but of course the fun never ended there...

The following day, we met Godma Liv for... ... *DRUMROLL*

*** ICE CREAM ***

No words can express his contentment.... Except probably this... ...

*beaming* We had no rules that day. Jayden picked his ice cream creation and had it all to himself!

** ACTUAL DAY CELEBRATION **

Armed with a bag full of goodies and his 'self-picked' cake, we head off to his school for his celebration finale.

Dear Son,

Thank you for staying healthy and happy for the past 4 years and growing. We hope you have enjoyed your journey with us so far. We know you enjoy annoying us with your endless antics but sometimes it's good to mellow down and go slow. Please continue to bring joy to our lives and create beautiful memories. Hope you'll enjoy our family vacation to Club Med Phuket tomorrow! Stay healthy, stay cheerful, stay as my little baby always.

Love,

Daddy & Mommy

P.S Jayden says thank you to all Aunties & Uncles for the lovely presents and well wishes!