My Very Own Mortar & Pestle

Yup, I FINALLY own an old fashion mortar and pestle. I had no reason to own one before, but ever since my cousin told me that she uses this to pound the biscuits for her cheesecake crust, I started looking for one. I remembered seeing a simple one in Ikea, but when I went there 2 days ago, they said it was a discontinued item. :(

I went shopping again today to one of the local shops in town and bought one. It wasn't perfect, but I didn't really mind.

Sze-En was sick

Last week, Sze-En was sick. She had fever and a little bit of cough and running nose. It was the last week of school before her term break and her school was having their mid term exams.

So last Thursday, I went to my mom's house to "lepak" (hang around) and I saw Sze-En with a face mask.

She was told to wear her mask all the time and she could only take it off if she wanted to drink or eat. She has been such an obedient child, wearing the mask and drinking lots of water.. for this reason - she wanted to go to church camp the following week.

She even had all her dolls quarantined too. Hmm... should ask Tusi to make the face masks for all her dolls.

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.

Manholes in Kuching

Bet you never see a more interesting manhole cover right? This is (I think) only found in Kuching, Sarawak.

A closer look at the manhole cover. Some may ask.. why is there a picture of a cat on the cover? Well, the old spelling for cat in the Malay language is Kuching.

This is the normal manhole cover in Kuching.

Cheap Bread

Look what I've got from Pasar Malam today.

Bread, bread and more bread.

It was really cheap. RM1 for 1 packet. Usually they sell them at RM5 for 3 packets. I gave a packet to my sister to being it to class and another one to Sze-En to bring to school the next day.

Rats!

What do you do with the 4-legged creature that nibbles at your "ham-yee" (salted fish) when you are fast asleep at night?

Why, you take out your rat-trap and put their favourite food as bait and hope they fall into your trap. That was what Minch's grandmother did when she found out that a rat had eaten her salted fish.

Now they are wondering what to do with the rat.

I don't have a problem with rats but my neighbours told me that they have seen big rats attacking their food provision.

At the moment.. my only problem is the termites. :(. I'm sure they are still somewhere in the cracks of the walls or wherever.

Crystal Mining

During last Saturday's Kidz Safari event, Sze-En exchanged 60 tokens for this prize - A crystal mining set. She had to obtained 60 tokens and her mind was set not on the MP3 player but on this prize.

I guessed the prizes were motivating them to play the games. That's bad. Like as they laboured for their toys!!

The next day, after dinner, Sze-En asked me to be involved in mining crystals. I was so lazy but made an effort to help her with the mining.

She started of with opening the package and "setting the mine" up. Since she had done 5 other minings in the previous year, she knew what needed to be done. She asked me to get some newspaper so that we wouldn't dirty grandma's floor.

She started of with banging her plastic hammer onto the "clay mine". Based on previous experience, it would have taken her days and grandpa's real hammer to get the stones. So she asked me and later Uncle Michael to help with the mining while she dust the clay and supervised our work.

Soon we were able to get all the crystals out from the "mine". The were supposed to be only 8 stones, but we dug out 10. Either the crystals broke while we were trying to get them out, or there was really 10 of them buried in the clay brick.

I went home feeling glad that I had spent some time with Sze-En. The poor girl was all alone because her cousin Brian had gone to visit Mae-Z (another cousin) in KL.

Wombats

When I was in Australia last month, I made sure I got 2 soft toy wombats for myself. It cost only AUD2 per wombat and AUD10 for 8 of them. Sad to day, I didn't know who to give the extra toys too nor do I have enough space for 8 toys.

These are the 2 new wombats.


These are the 1st two wombats I had when Rachel went over to Australia some 17 years ago and got these cuties for me.

Ever since then everytime when someone goes over to Australia I will ask them to get me one or 2 wombats.

I have 12 wombats now including the 2 new ones I got from my recent trip to Australia. Esther saw this picture and got the shivers. It's so "gigik".

London, Here I come!

Hey, what's this? Some London brochures lying on the table. Is somebody trying to send me a message? Should I pack my bags now? Gosh! I've never been to London before. Oh boy, oh boy, I get to meet the Queen. What shall I say, what shall I wear? Should I start practising my curtsy now?

Wait, when am I going? (Checking the flight details.....).. Um.. where's my name? (Frantically searching for my name..). Oh... err.. my name's not there. Mctc is going with someone else. Help, my heart can't take it.. I need to sit down.

Got to call my lawyer. Oh, can't do that either. Mctc's going with him. Sigh! This is too much. I need a plan.

A Hat With A Mini Fan

This is a creative invention. A hat with a mini fan. Whoever invented this must be feeling hot all the time or has a child who is always complaining about the heat.

Tune Hotels.com, Penang

I have never stayed in Tune Hotels.com before. I heard it was a budget hotel under AirAsia. Tune Hotel.com's system worked similarly to AirAsia's flight system. The earlier you book, the cheaper you pay for the room. It's a basic no frills room and they only provide the bed (they promised the beds are of 5-star quality), attached bathroom with hot water and a fan. You need to purchase the air-cond usage starting from a 12-hour block which cost RM13.49 to 24-hour block for RM21. Towels, hair-dryer and toiletries are priced at RM5, travel shield (insurance) at RM6 and wireless internet, at RM12 for 24 hours.

The day before we went to Penang, I went into their website. I chose a basic room which cost about RM38 and a 12-hour block air-cond usage. The total came up to about RM54. I thought the price was good, but I didn't book the room. The next hour, I checked the room prices again. It went up to more that RM60 and still I didn't book the room. The 3rd time I checked, it was more than RM70. I told myself, forget it, I will look for another hotel when I reach Penang.

When we reached Penang, Mctc and I kept a look-out of all the hotels advertising their room charges on the banners in front of the hotels. There were some which we thought was alright, but in the end, we chose Tune.hotels.com at Jalan Burma simply because my mind was there plus it was near the city.

The hotel looked new. The lobby was at the 2nd floor.

We check out the room charges. All in, including the room, 12-hour air-con usages and some admin fees cost us about RM85. The receptionist told us that if we were to book 4 months ahead, the room would have cost RM9.90 excluding the air-cond usage and admin fees.

Not knowing how small the room would be, Mctc paid for it and we went up to our rented room.

The walk way. I thought the paintings were lovely. Something different from the normal boring white/off white walls we see at the other hotels.

The room, however was small. Hardly enough place to walk. We love the mirror behind the bed. It certainly made the room looked bigger. :)

And the flower paintings on the wall added character to the room.

So little space, not enough for a table and a chair. This fold table was perfect for the room. It was only meant for temporary usage because it would be a hindrance to the person sleeping at that side of the bed.

The basic facility - a fan. The room was small and quite stuffy for 2 persons. What we did was blast the fan and turned on the air-cond to the lowest temperature - 16C.

They have provided space for ads too.

The bathroom is very near the bed. In fact, if you open the bathroom door wide, it would touch the bed.

The bathroom. It was not too small, not too big. Just nice. I love the shower head. Big and so nice to shower with. :) The only thing I didn't like about the bathroom was the water kept dripping from the shower area to the toilet area. Mctc had to squeeze the mat dry after every shower.

Notice the engravings on the tap (faucet).

As soon as we slot the card (the card also acted as a door key), the clock began to tick. I wonder if the clock would stop if we didn't turn on the air-cond.

We used up about 10 hours and 15 minutes of air-cond. I did asked the receptionist if we could "keep" the balance and use it when we check into the next Tune Hotels.com. She gave a ngative reply. :(

So, will I stay in Tune Hotels.com again? Definately, but only when the price is right. :)

Rainbow

Two Sundays ago, I went for a walk in the Lake Gardens with my sister. While we were walking, the sky grew dark and we knewit was about to rain. Fortunately, it only rained after we have completed our rounds. It only rained for a while then it stopped.

On the way back to my parents' house I told my sister that we would be a rainbow today and true enough, at the next bend, we saw the rainbow. It was a long rainbow. I don't see this often.

The next day, the rainbow appeared again. I can't remember it rained that day, but this rainbow was more beautiful that the day before and it was another long rainbow... as far as my eyes could see. i was in the car when I took these pictures.

And did you noticed the 2nd rainbow? It was very light, so light that Mctc had to point that fading rainbow to me.

They Didn't Tell Me About That Bank

I did all my errands and finish whatever work I had to do yesterday so that I could stay home today to clear my hard disk space and pack for tomorrow's trip. Whenever I go for short trips or vacation, I like to pack a few days beforehand.

Yesterday, Mctc and I accompanied a lady to the Welfare Department to collect her portion of money. To cut the long story short, we didn't have proper documents and our trip to the department was in vain. We were told to come back the next day. We spent more than an hour fetching her from her house to the Welfare Dept and then back again to her house.

At 10.30AM today, we fetched her from her house to the Welfare Department again. We saw so many people waiting to get their allowance. The person we spoke to the day before was updated by someone and we managed to get the lady her allowance. We were also advised to open a bank account in a certain bank and copy the bank details to the department by the 15th of May.

Fine, I thought to myself. We should be able to settle the banking and return to the Welfare Department within an hour.

How wrong I was.

We reached the bank at 12.49pm. Our queue number was 1094. They were serving number 1038 at that time. We filled in whatever forms they asked us to fill, but couldn't complete 1 form, which is the beneficiary's particulars. The lady wanted to put her daughter's name, but she couldn't remember the spelling. So we had to fetch her back to her house to get her daughter's ID card. We had our lunch first before taking her home.

It was pass 2pm when we arrived back at the bank. They were serving number 1055 at that time. I was hoping we could finish by 3pm, but no!!! There were only 2 counters open, but only 1 clerk was working full time. The other was not often at her place. And they worked at snail's pace. Gosh!!!! Thank God I brought a book.

Anyway, we were there till 5.25pm. I really don't understand why they took so long for each customer. This has got to be the slowest bank in the whole of Malaysia. I know I shouldn't have said that, but they took almost 5 hours to attend to less than 56 customers. They skipped some numbers because some customers were fed-up of waiting.

We send the lady home, explained to her about why we had to open the bank account and all those rules and stuff she needed to do or follow. Then we did some banking ourselves and reached home at 7pm.

I still haven't done the things I wanted to do today. Going to do it within the next hour..

Wedding Invitationn

No, not mine. :)

Usually, when someone sends an invitation card, it looks something like this : -

It's a Chinese wedding invitation card. I can only find this. I must have threw away the others.

Yesterday, I spent the 2nd half of the day with Minch. I was at her house for a short while. Her mom dropped by to pass her a wedding invitation.

Yup, this was the wedding invitation. I have never seen a wedding invitation in this form before. Interesting huh? BTW, it's a kind of dumpling, with peanut fillings, I think.

The Breadman's Honk

Last time when we were staying in Seremban Garden, my siblings and I would wait for the "breadman" to arrive in front of our house. He drove a van and and by the time he made his way to my house it would be about 6-7pm. His honk was music to our ears.

Usually we would buy a loaf of bread every day and a bread bun which we called "sweet bread" every now and then and the breadman would write the expenses for the day in a little book. My mom would settle the bill at the end of the month. Sometimes we would get permission from my mom to buy junk food, which she allowed from time to time. I still remember, a loaf of bread cost RM0.55 and half a loaf of bread - RM0.30. Our bill for the month would come up to RM25 - RM30.

Now that we are all grown-up and could buy anything we want from the local supermarket, we weren't too excited about the "breadman" and his goodies anymore.

But hey.... it looks like Sze-En is experiencing the same feeling as we did last time when she hears the breadman's honk. The difference is, my mom allows her to buy ANYTHING she wants. Even when Sze-En wasn't there to choose her brain-damaging junk food. my mom wiould make sure that there was at least 5 20grams packets of junk food in the house or she would replenish the supply. Fortunately only I would observe these things. Sze-En's mother would freak out if she knew that my mom was constantly feeding to Sze En's addiction. :)

A Colourful Bird

Spotted this bird while I was walking at the Lake Gardens last month. A nice colourful bird. Anyone can guess what kind of bird it is? :)

Something Interesting

Guess what is this?

Looks like a vase right?


It's actually a hat. Amazing right?

My parents went to Guilin, China, 3 weeks ago and someone from her group bought this hat nad later decided he didn't want it. So he gave it to my mother who gave it to Sze-En. She loves it. She liken wearing the hat to that of a farmer. Everytime she wears it, she will pretend to be a farmer, using her plastic golf stick as a hoe.

I made her wear the hat upside down, but it was uncomfortable.

The Forgotten Barbie Doll

Last week I had a shock of my life when I saw termites attacking the boxes in my storeroom. It wasn't a pleasant day because I had to go through my junk to check how much damage the termites had done.

One of the items I managed to save was this barbie doll. I bought it in Singapore some time back and it was meant as a gift to someone special. Not anymore, because the hard plastic cover had some termite markings on them, so I cut open the cover and took out this beautiful barbie doll.

Now it is left sitting prettily on a box on my dining table. I am hesitant to introduce this doll to my 2 other barbie dolls.

They looked too tom-boyish for the new barbie doll.

When I was young I did not own a barbie doll. In fact barbie dolls were not create till I was .. um.. in my early 20s?? Or maybe i didn't know that barbie existed till I was in my 20s. It was too expensive to own one then. Okay, maybe I could have afforded it, but I didn't want to spend a fortune on a barbie doll.
My ex-colleague left to work in America and when she was going to come back to Malaysia for a short vacation, she asked if I wanted anything. Immediately I told her that I wouldn't mind a barbie doll, and so she got me one (the one sitting on the right). That was my 1st barbie doll.

A few years ago, when Ruth was still here, I went with her to Toy-R-Us. The dolls were on offer, and I think I got the one sitting on the left one for RM14.90.

I now have 3 barbie dolls. :) Should I name them?

Teh Tarik at Sheraton Subang

Two Saturday's ago, I attended a wedding in Sheraton, Subang. The wedding ceremony ended at about 5.30pm and guests were to stay put at the hotel till dinner at 7pm. The wedding couple had some snacks and drinks for us (but no chairs) while we waited.

A group of us were feeling bored and wanted to sit down and have a drink. Someone knew of a Mamak restaurant opposite the hotel and he said that the teh tarik and kuih-kuih there was quite good. But then it was raining quite heavily and we couldn't cross the street without getting wet. So we decided to have our teh tarik at the hotel's bakery section.

Most of us ordered teh tarik. We didn't how much it cost till the waitress told us that they were having a promotion. 1 glass of teh tarik cost RM18++ (gulp!) and if we were to order a pastry or a slice of cake it would only cost RM20++. Wah... so expensive... one glass of teh tarik outside cost only about RM1.20.

Kiasu people like us who ordered a drink had a cake each too. There were 13 of us. The bill came up to... I don't know... Rajen paid for all. It was certainly the most expensive teh tarik I have ever drunk.

Giant Mushrooms

Recently my parents went to Guilin, China for a vacation.

They saw some giant mushrooms and couldn't resist buying a few to let us see. Hmm... I wonder if they have already cooked and ate them. I didn't see anymore of these mushrooms when I was there yesterday.