My Grandma's 90th Birthday

We celebrated this auspicious day late last month. In fact we celebrated her 90th birthday twice and she still hasn't reached her 90th birthday.

Last year, we had a family (she bore 15 children and most of them came with their children and grand children) get together in my parents house. Everyone thought the big 90 was last year. So many voices, so many plans and in the end someone volunteered to have the celebration in my parents' house. My parents were okay with it and we got to see our long lost cousins.

Early last month, my mom told us that we have to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday end of the month after our Kuching trip. We were like ..whaaaat? Didn't we celebrate it last year? It seems that someone miscalculated and this year is her actual 90th birthday (Chinese). According to our calendar she's 89 years old, but the Chinese always add an extra year to the actual birthday.

Rachel suggested going for Min Kok's morning dim sum because she has not eaten dim sum for a long time.

It was a Friday and the only family members who attended were Rach and her husband, my parents, Tusi and I.. and of course my grandmother lah. Looking at her, I was amazed at her good health. She can still walk, eat, bathe herself,... in other words, she is independent. She does go for checkups now and then but she is healthy. She doesn't take any pills at all. Amazing right? And what more, her skin is not darkened with brown spots aka pigmentation. One of these days I'm going to find out her beauty secrets.

Ah.. there is one secret which she told me a long time ago. She asked me to eat fish. At that time fish meat was not one of my favourites. She said that people who worked in air-conditionered place should take fish meat so that their skin will not be so dry. Ever since that day, I started eating fish and actually like eating it. :)

We celebrated her birthday dinner in Regent Restaurant.

8-course dinner plus a plate of longevity noodles.

90 and healthy... wow. I hope when I'm at her age, I will be as healthy and no pigmentation problems like her. :)

Glo

What dish washing liquid do you normally use?

I use Glo. I Like Glo. I think that Glo does its job. It removes the oil from the plates so efficiently. It used to cost less than RM3. Last year the price shot up. Whenever there was an offer for Glo, I would buy 1 or 2 bottles for my mom. Last year's price was RM3.99 on the average. This year the price shot up to RM4.50 (and later after the Goodmaid warehouse sale, I saw that Glo was priced at RM2.89 per bottle at some of the supermarkets). Thankfully I only use 1 bottle a year.

Recently, I went to the Goodmaid sale in Senawang and bought quite a number of Goodmaid dish washing liquid for my mom. I didn't buy any for myself because I still have a bottle of Glo in my storeroom. The one that I was currently using was about to finish and so I took out a new bottle.

This is the bottle I am currently using. It's a has 1000ml in it.


The newer bottle is the same size as the old one.. but wait...

.. it has only 900ml.

I bet some of you don't notice this right? We always take things for granted. Sigh... I will still use Glo even though they have reduced their ml. I think that they should you know.. tell the consumers that they are giving less quantity. It's the right thing to do.

The Birds at KL Bird Park

A closer look at the birds in the KL Bird Park. I won't be able to name all, so please help me.. :)


These are Sun Conure a.k.a love birds (I think).


Cattle Egrets


Pied Imperial Pigeons


Great Hornbill


Rhinoceros Hornbill


Rhinoceros Hornbill


Western & Victorian Crowned-Pigeon


Flamingos


Pied Imperial Pigeons


Asian Fairy Bluebird


Indian Blue Peafowl


Indian Blue Peafowl


Indian Blue Peafowl


Ostrich


Spotted Dove


Cattle Egret


Sacred Ibis


Milky Storks


Pelican


Red Junglefowl


Oriental Pied Hornbill


Purple Swamphen


Black Swan


Southern Cassowary


Emu ( I think)


Emu (I think)


Chicks


Rainbow Lorikeet


Changeable Hawk-Eagle


Greater Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo


Albino Crow


Birds of Paradise.. lovely huh?


Birds of Paradise


A painting

KL Brid Park

I've heard of the Bird Park in KL many years ago but I have forgotten all about it till Matt suggested an outing there. He wanted to bring Wayne and Om (relatives of Matt and Minch) and asked us if we would like to bring Sze-En and Brian along too.

Om couldn't make it for the trip because she was in Butterworth with her dad.

Our trip started off like this -

8.15am - Breakfast as Ah Seng's coffee shop
8.50am - Fetch Brian from his house

9.am - 10am - Journey from Seremban to KL. Sze-En as usual, slept in the car. Not sure whether she was prone to car-sickness or just wanted to make up for the loss of sleep this morning.

It was hazy.

I managed to capture this shot of he twin towers and the KL tower because we didn't know how to get to the bird park. I googled for directions on my phone and it says 'once in Jalan Parlimen, turn to Jalan Cenderawasih'. It didn't say left of right. We were on the Istana Road and once we entered into Jalan Parlimen, we kept a look out for Jalan Cenderawasih. We didn't know that we have to turn to our right almost immediately after we were on Jalan Parlimen.

We went straight and ended on Jalan Tun Perak ( I think) and u-turned as soon as we were able to.

We arrived at the Bird Park- Can't believe it took us 1 and 1/2 hours to get here.

The entrance and exit of the Bird Park.

The price of the tickets were expensive for foreigners. RM42 (EURO 8.40 , USD 12) per adult. Malaysians who produces their MyKad (Identity card) will only have to pay RM15 (adult) and RM6 (children between 5- 12). We happily showed our MyKads and paid RM87 for 5 adults and 2 kids. While we were waiting for Minch to get Wayne ready, I went over to the ticket counter again. I noticed another set of promotions and asked the person in charged of issuing the tickets about these promotions. She said that if we have any of these cards ( they include J Cards and Metrojaya cards ) we get an additional RM 5 off. I told them I have a J Card, but she said that we had already paid for the tickets and she couldn't give us a refund. So sad :(.

The map of the Bird Park.


A welcome signboard.


A picture with our new feathered friends. A polaroid picture cost RM10.

Pictures with the bigger birds cost more - RM8 per person, and we have to use our own camera. Otherwise it would cost RM25 per polaroid picture.

Sze-En was not scared of the birds but Brian.. you should see him he was trying to be brave yet he was terrified till he push his head backwards until we could see his double chin.

We could take pictures with any of these birds.


These are some of the birds we saw in the bird park. Some of them were just walking around like as if they owned the place. :)

We went for the 12.30pm bird show. It was entertaining. Usually they have 2 birds competing with each other.

There was a playground too. Wayne decided to miss the bird show for this. Later after the show, Rachel and I allowed Brian and Sze-En only 4 minutes to play here. Sze-En said that this is the longest slide she ever played in.

This is part of the Bird Park. It is very big.

Feeding the little parrots. I believe they are also called lories (Singular - Lory). Rachel paid RM2 each for Brian and Sze-En to feed the parrots.

There were some koi fish. At the ticket counter, Rachel bought a few packets of fish food. The children specially Wayne were enjoying themselves very much.

Monkeys, what are you doing here? This is a bird park. :)

Two days after climbing Nuang, I had expected my muscles to ache... but it didn't ache that much. Climbing these stairs weren't painful for me at all. :)

We had dinner here at the Hornbill Restaurant.


I had beef burger.

The food is so-so, but I love the settings. It's all wood. We saw a hornbill up close too.


At the gift shop, Brian bought a hat and Sze-En a pair of binoculars.


A mummy hornbill feeding her baby.... but it looks too old to be a baby...

Since Brian and Sze-En spent all their money in the gift shop, I volunteered to pay for the ice-creams. Before they had their toys, they wanted to spend the remainder of the money on ice-creams.

We spent slightly more than 5 hours here at the bird park. I really love it here. We could have walked more, but Rachel had to be back by evening.

On the way home, Sze-En slept in the car again. She was exhausted. I know the feeling because on the way back to my house, I slept in the car too.

Check out the birds at KL Bird Park in the next post.