15 - 17 December 2008
Let's see... altogether there are 24 adults and 6 children who went for this Cameron Highlands trip. Rachel did a great job cutting and pasting it into 1 picture.
Thompson booked a 3 bedroom bungalow for this vacation. This is the 4th time he booked this place for the family. I've only been there once before in the year 2006.
15 December 2008 - We started off late because most of us were involved in the Christmas Musical the day before and some of us stayed back till 1 or 2am to help with the undressing of the stage.
Rachel and I (separate cars) left Seremban at 11.30am. Our initial plan was to stop at either the Tapah rest place or Bidor for lunch. Then someone mentioned that she wanted to eat at the Sungai Buloh overhead bridge restaurant (I think it was Sze-En) and so we made a stop there and had our lunch.
Sze-En wanted KFC chicken rice without the chicken and Mctc accompanied her by eating 2 pcs of chicken.
Then we hopped over to Burger King where Rachel, Rajen and Aunt Lily (aka Aunt Zainab) were having some whoppers. I had my Swiss mushroom burger and Mctc had his whooper.
Rajen promised Sze-En some baskin robins ice-cream and she greedily wanted 2 scoops of vanilla ice-cream. After one or 2 bites she didn't feel like having it anymore. Poor Aunt Rachel and Aunt Eunice had to eat most of the ice-cream. My father had the last few bites ... not sure whether he forced himself to finish because the last I know, he wasn't a fan of vanilla flavoured ice-cream.
Sze-En.. so stripy looking. :)
We stopped at the Tapah rest place. Sze-En had a crash course of geography lesson. Aunt Rachel showed Sze-En the map of Malaysia through her iPhone.
The toll cost RM35.70. We didn't exit Tapah. We took the longer route to avoid the winding road right after the Tapah to gate. We exited Simpang Pulai and it took us another 45 minutes extra to get to our destination.
We arrived at 6.30pm.. too late for tea. Those who arrived earlier had hot scones for tea. Dinner was at 7.30pm. We had Chinese food.
After dinner, the kids watched a movie in Jason's laptop while the adults played mah jong and card games.
16 of us stayed in Strawberry Park ... about 20 minutes walk from the bungalow.
Most of the time the older folks would play either mah jong or gin rami (not sure how to spell), and the younger adults ... well... we did what we liked... played tennis, read a book, played card games or went for a walk. Rachel and I brought our computers and we were often found in one of the rooms trying to get online with our mobile phones. The internet connection over in Cameron Highlands was pretty bad.
We had roast chicken and fish and chips for lunch the next day. It was delicious. The desert was a bit of a let down. The caretaker made apple crumble.. but there was more pastry than the apples. So you can imagine how deep we had to dig to get to the apples. Sigh...
This boy.. Jared is a darling. He is not shy and love to talk. It doesn't matter if you are 9, 19 or 90 years old. He can just start a conversation with you and keep you entertain for a while. These pictures shows that he is playing with the mah jong seeds (or do you call them cards??). He declared he loves to play mah jong and when the adults were having their lunch, he was seen playing with the seeds.
Soon it was time for tea. We had pineapple tarts and steamed corn. The apple crumble desert was left overs from lunch.
We went for a walk. The kids enjoyed the col air.
We had Chinese food again for dinner.
The kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The caretaker lit the fireplace and those who felt the chill were seen standing or sitting close to the fire.
The adorable kids.
After we checked out from the bungalow (and Strawberry Park), some of us had our lunch at the "Ye Olde Smokehouse", an authentic-looking Tudor-style with a 2-storey building.
More of this place in another post. (I hope!).
We left the mountains at 3.40, reached Tapah rest place at 5pm, left there at 5.45pm and headed straight for Seremban. We were suppose to meet Rachel at the Sg Buloh overhead bridge restaurant but Mctc zoomed past the turning. We reached Seremban at close to 8pm and had dinner with A.Chris and family.
While we were in Cameron Highlands, Thompson was making plans to book the bungalow for next year. Guess this place would be our yearly mini family vacation.
It was sent to the old address and I never got it till yesterday. The letter dated 11 Nov2008 was from the Income Tax Department basically saying that they had calculated the property gains tax for the house I sold in the year 2000. Yes, you read it right. Mctc and I bought the house in 1997 and sold it 3 years later. During that time if one were to buy and sell a house/property in less than 5 years, the profit gained from the sale was taxable. But if I'm not mistaken, the first house you sold would be exempted from tax.
This is how the property gains tax looks like.
It says here that I have to pay RM1237.50 for the property I sold 8 years ago. Are they slow or what? And what more, Mctc has received a similar letter bearing only his name saying that he owes them the same amount. So are we suppose to pay only RM1237.50 or 1237.50 times two? And I thought debts after 7 years were written off or have I been reading too much of the bible? :). I have to go and clarify with the tax department.
