exactly 2 years ago, aniq had a milestone moment with his first visit to the dentist, at 2yrs 2mths old, and auni was, well, -2mths (ie. unborn!):

uh oh, i sense a cliche coming now —> “how time flies!”

it’s become a yearly routine and this being his third visit, he knows the drill, so to speak – come in, play with toys, talk to the doctor, sit in the reclining chair, open mouth, scrape, spit, brush, choose a reward from the treasure box.

of course, it helps that he gets HEAPS of praises from the friendly doc for his good teeth and behaviour. sheesh.

his canines have this greenish stain which we can’t remove with a toothbrush despite our nightly attempts. apparently it’s common among kids (actually, even more common are blackish ones instead of what doc described as aniq’s more ‘textbook’ green), and simply genetically inherited. case in point: his cousin, adam, came in right after, and was found to have the exact same green stains on his teeth. sooo, it just HAS to come from my chlorophyll-rich side of the family tree. (by the way, adam would need braces some day, coz his mouth is so small, his teeth would be overcrowding. braces! so cute, right?)

but the stains were easily removed with the right tools (doc said to DIY with a toothpick next time). the ‘gappy’-ness of his teeth makes it hard for food to get stuck in between, so they’re generally easy to clean. remember when you aunties called him ‘madonniq’? turned out to be a good thing after all, heh.

pronounced as cavity-free, his good-as-new, post-polished teeth (i’m not kidding, they look awesome, sigh – dear aniq, please pleaseeee don’t ever mar them with smokes and coffee in the future) were photographed by the doc, and then it was auni’s turn.

okaaay, so ALL the doc managed with our wriggly worm of a girl was count her teeth (16) and made her promise to let mummy or daddy brush them every night (to which she nodded in a very ‘macam paham’ way), before she successfully made like a slippery eel and slid out of her daddy’s clutches on the reclining chair, and ran off to play in the wendy house at the waiting room.

better luck next year, doc.

M: auni, tadi makan apa? (what did you eat today?)
A: asi! (nasi = rice)
M: lagi? (some more?)
A: eeken! (chicken, obviously, duh) ayam! (she has, as at last check, on 3 feb 2000hrs, decided to answer this instead of ‘eeken’.)
M: lagi?
A: opok! (keropok = fish cracker)
M: eh? sedap? (nice?)
A: dap!
M: pandai! (clever)

and when asked the various body parts in malay, she will obligingly twitch or point accordingly. yesterday, she saw her oma half-undressed and went, “eh, tak alu!” (no shame!).

ah. there is hope yet for you, my young padawan.

=========

M: aniq, ‘fish’ dalam melayu apa? (what is ‘fish’ in malay?)
A: …
M: (prompting with first syllable of ‘ikan’) eeee…?
A: eeee… er san!
M: O-O <--- (talk about culture shock.)

=========

in any case, they're both smitten by upin & ipin, you know, identical twin pre-schoolers who are the cutest cartoon characters, like EVUH, hailing from a fictional kampung in malaysia. (well, there was Lat the Kampung Boy back in the days - remember him? - but upin & ipin are so... arrrgh, DEM CUTE, and there are two of 'em!) the husband and i totally approve of the series, more so since the dialogue's so chuckle-worthy and in malay, and, i mean, WHO NEEDS TO LEARN SPANISH LAH, RIGHT?

so smitten by the characters and their antics, that even the little one has taken to mimicking the dialogue. a particular one that stuck to her was where the token effeminate youth in the kampung insists that his name's not Salleh but Sally, and attempts to spell it out: "S-I-L-L-Y", dismissing his misspelling with a flick of his limp wrist, "apa jer lah, tak kuasa aku." ("whatever!" - another thing about the beauty of localised humour - the english version simply does not translate sufficiently. right? betul betul betul?)

maybe i should send them to a kampung in malaysia, if anything, to brush up on their malay.

speaking of kampungs, the other night, in one of my meandering discussions with the little boy after an episode of upin & ipin, i described to him how in kampungs, they have no toilets with a flushing system, and potty business had to be done in an outhouse or behind bushes in the forest. (AS IF i know anything about rural life, hah! but mothers being mothers, must sound convincing and knowledgeable lah, right? betul betul betul?)

M: ingat tak, citer upin ipin, kawan cucu tok dalang sakit perut, nak pegi toilet tapi dia takut pasal dah malam abih tempat dia jauh? ahhh.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. kat kampung takde toilet.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. macam gitu. abih ingat tak, kawan cucu tok dalang nak berak, dia sembunyi belakang semak-samun? (at this point, even i can’t believe i just said ’semak-samun’, an almost archaic word for thicket/undergrowth.)
A: why??
M: ye lah. pasal takde toilet!!

you can imagine how this conversation went on – endlessly.

like this bridge we trekked last weekend, in our attempt to bring the children close to nature.

well, as close as we could get to the semak-semak, anyway. no potty business going on here, though. it’s as sterile as everything typically singaporean is.

and mummy – again, ever-convincing and knowledgeable – explained away the many whys. sometimes with more than a “ye laah”.

yes. trees and branches may fall. take care.

berhati-hati di semak-samun, kenak-kanak.

(warning: this is gonna be a majorly pictorial entry.)

bali happened for us on 14th dec, an impulse holiday decision, just because mummy needed a distraction. :p

it was our kids’ second flight, the first being earlier this year to kota kinabalu. on their way to become seasoned travelers, hopefully?

we did the touristy thing – rode on the horse-cart, got excited at finding familiar brands at the mall (there was a Topshop!), looked out for the famous Hard Rock Cafe, strolled along a very crowded and hot Kuta beach, ate….

the intercontinental resort bali where we stayed was fabulous, and HUGE! doesn’t look so from outside, but everytime we walked the length from the lobby to our rooms, we’d exclaim in amazement at the vastness of the resort. it was vair pretty at night, with candlelights flickering all along the walkways. we’d even brainwashed aniq into bringing his “wife” here next time and taught him to say that the hotel is “romantic”. coz it was! and he should!

more touristy stuff on day two – our reliable travel companions, len & ren, hired a driver and a small minivan to bring us to the market at Ubud.

a lot of interesting hand-carved wood works and handicrafts…

had Padang food… which wasn’t that great here, unfortunately. we thought our own padang food in singapore was better. (sg patriots we are, see?)

but the kids had fun. yes, aniq, must marry first, then bring her to the “romantic” hotel, ok. and check out the name, heh. (we missed you, baby Natra!)

we’d heard so much about the factory outlets there that they practically became our holy grail. but we didn’t manage to find many, and the few that we managed to discover along the way, were not as sale-worthy as we’d imagined. mostly surf gear and beachwear, and since i couldn’t fit into a bikini (hurhur) and am not a regular beach-goer in any case, no damage was done.

we were also told about the seafood at Jimbaran bay – some said not to bother, some said it was worth a try. and being the tourists that we were, we tried it. so happens that it was energy-saving night, where the government imposes blackouts on a regular basis in the effort to conserve energy (and money). so everywhere was almost pitch dark, save for the moonlight and generator fluorescent lights flickering away where we had our dinner, along the windy, sandy beach. we gotta give it to the ambience, it was pretty romantic, with entertainment in the form of children performing traditional dances on stage. but the seafood, sadly, was not up to our standard (compared to the wonderful spread we had at kinabalu), and the bill had us admitting that this was indeed a ‘tourist trap’.

the husbands had gone off for a massage at one of the many spas nearby on the first night, so the third day, it was the wives’ turn. (we’d brought the kids to the in-house kids’ club, Planet Trekkers, where we paid around $8 per kid to play for an hour before bedtime to tire them out when the daddies were out.)

len and i left the kids after breakfast in the good hands of the daddies, and headed out to a spa just across the resort for a full-body balinese massage. meanwhile, the kids enjoyed their pool time.

so much that some crying was inevitable. LOL!

ahh, this is the life, yes, chewren? (they’re bored coz they’re waiting for their beloved mummy to come back, heh.)

refreshed!

back in town, we had the best meal of the trip – at bubba gump shrimp & co.! yes, how unlikely, but we’re spoilt singaporeans that way, we like good service, good food, comfort, kid-friendly… and the bill came up to the same as our jimbaran seafood meal, so it was definitely worth it, since everyone (including the kids – yes, our eczema-prone kids!) lapped up the delicious shrimps and desserts.

back at kuta, we hunted for bargains. some tshirts, little dresses and knick-knacks for the kids, and souvenirs for those at home. none for myself, again. the markets are pretty much like those in bintan, lombok, kinabalu (where we’ve been), so there’s nothing terribly novel or exciting to buy.

i was determined to spend SOME time at the beach (seemed that there just wasn’t enough time, when the beach was RIGHT THERE), so on the final morning, we woke the kids up and shooed them there, unbathed (coz if they set foot in the hotel room’s bathtub, they could take all day!). like in KK, the sun rises really early, so we always woke up to a very bright morning even though our watch showed that it was still early. the resort, being the kid-friendly one that it is, had beach toys for sharing.

we attempted to bake in the sun (not very successful, since we had so little time) and had a bit of a swim. the waves were pretty good, although when we went that morning, it was low tide. i wouldn’t say that the beaches we saw in bali were fantastic – i believe thailand probably still has the better ones in the region? – but i don’t know, despite the beauty of the place, i could somewhat feel the environmental repercussions of its tourism.

yes, us tourists. in the big fancy (but damn nice) resort.

i think 4 days weren’t enough (!!) to fully experience bali, but thanks to our great company, it was a worthwhile one and time well-spent bonding with the kids (who had the most fun, in the water, heh).

and so that wraps up our trip to end the year. what will 2010 hold for us wanderlusts?

*hums ‘empire state of mind’*… (yeah, right!)

a short slideshow of our trip to bali recently, where we stayed at the intercontinental bali resort for four days. proper entry later, my hairy valentines.

on a lazy sunday evening last week, i managed to get the gang to join me prawning. its my first time prawning and i guessed for them too. we tried the one at punggol, there are a few all over the island, from bishan to pasir ris but the punggol location seems central to the rest of them. its $15 an hour but its get cheaper if you book for 3 hours which is $30. and you could barbeque the prawns there too!

rendra waiting for the bite that never comes!

the prawns were nothing to shout about, they were of decent size but the pond’s water looked rather clear so we could really see the prawns swimming along, haha!! anyway, we just prawned for an hour each. we got to choose our rods and were also given powdered bait which i suspected were dried worms. we tried the baits for a few minutes but it seems that the prawns were not biting. finally we got the live worms that they sell at the counter. and these worked like a charm! among us we caught around 11 prawns in an hour, not bad for beginners like us!

happy with our catch of the day!

anyway, we decided not to barbeque the prawns there as lenny offered to make sambal prawns
we ended the day with dinner at jalan kayu instead. for more pictures check out my flickr!

and i thought i was never gonna taste the slurpy eggs anymore in my lifetime, when a trip to batam reunited me with one of my childhood comfort food.

like a lost lover found, the taste was all too familiar, memories of my childhood kept flooding back as I took large slurps of the runny egg. some may enjoy it while others just detest the slimy texture and taste but i belong to the former.

we used to buy them every time my family goes for our weekly marketing at geylang serai which is now just a distant memory. i guess, i was like aniq’s age when my dad gave me a taste of the telur penyu. maybe we were trying to save the turtles from extinction when the government totally ban the selling and buying of this delicacy. But for whatever reasons, if you feel like tasting the good ‘ol telur penyu and reliving your childhood, it’s just a ferry ride away.

we traveled up johor bahru to check out the night scene on a sunday evening with my dad and brothers. since we half expected the woodland causeway to be jam pack, we decided to go by tuas instead. luckily, traffic was a breeze there. wanted to go jusco but tesco attracted us with kenny rogers. the place was so-so, perhaps more suitable to the local clientele. got my ayamas and ramly fix in tesco before heading to the main destination.

pandan city is located just south of jusco, the place is a hive of activity, kindda like the geylang bazaar but at least 4 times bigger. tried out the famed “gearbox tulang soup” which aniq loved and got a nice ramly burger special with cheese for myself. the rest bought sate, ikan pari bbq and roti john. didn’t really explore much as monday is a working day. it was rather chop chop but aniq and auni seems to enjoy the journey especially little auni who finally bonded well with her grandpa

click on pictures for an expanded view. more pictures at our flickr site!

so many things i wish i could capture here about her.

the precious wet kisses she plants on our lips. her sweet-sourish scent, a mix of sweat and saliva. the blinding glow that emanates from her and bounces off you with every grin she flashes.

but words will never fully capture her true essence.

***

it’s a rare thing when mummy gets to leave both children behind with their daddy for a night out. (sad and unbelievable, but strangely true.) so when i do, it better be for something good.

like good food, good laughs, good company. that kinda stuff.

yeah, mummy’s deprived like that.

but no complaints, huns. you lil ones are good company too – just a lot messier. and i have yours every night.

so we saw singapore got thrashed by liverpool. so kallang stadium turned into a mini anfield overnight. for once the away team had the most support. pity the lions, played as hard as they could but they were simply outclassed by the mighty reds. the atmosphere was electrifying to say the least. the songs and chants were sung loud and proud. those who don’t know the songs were given song sheets. the script was followed to perfection, the introduction of kuyt and riera tore the lions apart, with torres scoring a goal for himself. final score 5-0. yes, its great to be a liverpool fan!

the fans were simply fantastic! more pictures at my flickr site!

HAS IT BEEN A WEEK ALREADY??

ugh, nothing more i hate than a blog entry backlog.

ok ok, let’s summarise, chop chop, before the juices run out.

so we went to kota kinabalu, which is like, in sabah, malaysia, right? no idea why we decided on this place, all i knew was, i needed a quick getaway, the budget was family-friendly enough, and it was NOT a roadtrip. (i miss airplanes, can?)

the highlights:

1) it was the kids’ virgin flight, and they did well enough, considering how it goes against the grain of nature to force two irrepressible, wriggly little beings to stay put in a cramped space for more than two hours. were they impressed with the view and the fact that they were being propelled through the air at an incredible speed in a metallic vessel? not really. then again, neither was i when i was their age and my parents hauled me on our annual vacations. wait till they have to pay for their own fares.

2) we stayed at the shangri-la tanjung aru, and it was worth every damn hard-earned dollar converted to ringgit. the kids loved the bathtub – they made a beeline for it the moment they stepped into the room, and every morning when they woke up. in fact, every time we returned to the room, they’d climb into it first and demand to be soaked. they have never been cleaner in their lives. and because the rest of the KK clan came as couples, we were also given the same honeymoon-ish treatment of rose petal-covered sheets. sorry auni and aniq, for downgrading you to a baby cot and a sofa bed respectively. wait till you have to pay for your own hotel rooms.

3) there’s a nearby tanjung aru food centre a walk away from the resort where we discovered the most exquisite, heavenly, orgasmic mango juice in a large pint mug that cost a mere RM6. one sip and your eyes POSITIVELY roll upwards, it’s that good. they must’ve used a whole lotta mangoes coz it was really thick and sweet. (but i guess it depends how lucky you are with the batch of mangoes they use coz on the last day when we bought it again, it wasn’t as sweet. that’s the thing with fresh fruit juice, the inconsistency.) plates and plates of hot keropok lekor just kept coming to our tables (coz someone kept ordering more and more). and of course, the much-talked-about bbq chicken parts, in particular the, erm, rear end. proper name: pope’s nose. crude name: jubor ayam, in short, “jubs”. it brought finger-lickin’ to a new level. of course, it was a favourite with the guys, and only the guys, while the girls demurred. i mean, ge-rosss.

and by guys, i mean ALL of them, aniq included. does he know which part of the chicken it came from? does he care? of course not.

4) i wouldn’t say the filipino market was exactly a highlight, but someone’s got to contribute to the sabah people’s economy. this was a place full of traditional handicrafts and knicknacks, and pretty much looked like the inside of geylang market, actually. oh look, i found a sarong wrap.

the girls had two packed cartons of dried salted fish and… i don’t know, other dried stuff from the sea, to bring home to cook. (seeing as cooking is a foreign concept to me, i did not partake in this particular ‘group buy’.)

5) the island-hopping was, as unanimously agreed, the MOST thrilling part of the whole trip! OMG. throughout the entire trip on the bumpy speedboat, you can hear, over the roaring motor and crazy splashing waves, screaming laughters (guess whose was the loudest??) to match a pack of wild hyenas on a daredevil roller-coaster. we just kept howling and howling non-stop, it was ridiculous, and worse, WE COULDN’T STOP THE HYSTERIA.

see the deceptive sun at the jetty? well, soon after we reached manukan island, the skies on the horizon turned grey and heavy clouds started rolling swiftly towards us. the passing shower played peek-a-boo with us a few times, so the gang stole every opportunity to splash around at the beach (auni was more than happy to be passed around) and do some snorkeling. with the waters looking choppier and choppier, we decided to skip the other islands and headed back to the main shore. with such choppy conditions, the ride back was EVEN MORE THRILLING. the waves kept crashing down on us, soaking us all thoroughly to the bones. i had to keep my mouth closed coz everytime i opened it, super salty sea water kept splashing in. great, if one had ulcers! and at the end of the ride, we ALL APPLAUDED at the (very skillful) speedboat driver for bringing us back in individual pieces. even the kids came out unscathed.

i wanna go again. LOL.

6) one thing we also agreed that we didn’t get enough of, was the swimming pool! since we were all soaked from the speedboat saga, we headed to the resort’s pool for a dip. was reminded of my swimming lessons as a child. note: seriously need to send aniq for swimming lessons. gah!

7) one thing we noticed was, the day seemed to move by pretty slowly, especially in the evening. this may have to do with the fact that, as izad mentioned earlier, the sun rises earlier than we’re used to, so it sets earlier as well, and whenever we check our watches, we’re always surprised that the night seemed to crawl. which is good! coz holidays are about time moving at a slower pace and all.

and here’s izad’s favourite part – the FOOD. heh. well, seafood, to be exact. that’s the specialty after all. rows and rows of seafood, fresh and barbequed or grilled to mouth-watering perfection.

there were sea bass, tuna, crabs, squids, prawns, lobster (this was the prized crustacean, placed in the center and attacked last!), and other fishes of which species i wasn’t acquainted with, topped with more bbq chicken and corn, and free flow of rice. i think each couple ended up only paying something like SG$30 RM$30 in the end. group buy! very good!

and after all that rustic ambience, we headed to a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in town to chill. here’s to modern life.

8 ) we managed to hire a van with a local driver to bring us up to the kinabalu national park, which was where the Poring hot springs and the Canopy Walkway were, a scenic 2hr+ ride up the mountain. while entry was cheap, bringing in mobile phones and videocams was not! it cost esah&fadz RM30 to bring in their videocam. why eh? why?? hmm. so anyway, it was quite a trek up the rainforest, and i was practically gasping for air midway, the anti-outdoorsy princess that i am. YES, i am after all, allergic to exercise in any forms. i stopped at the little hut just before hitting the canopy walkway with auni and lydia, none too keen on the idea of someone carrying the lil one (auni, not lydia hehe) up the precarious-looking bridge, but aniq on the other hand, apparently turned into spiderman as soon as he was let loose up there. why am i not surprised that he actually enjoyed the height and the adventure of it all. really, bertuah punya anak.

there were these really ol’ skool kinda bathing pools for us to soak our feet in the hot spring water. hot is an understatement. it was HOT. but bearable hot after a while. even the kids didn’t think the water was too hot. apparently you can boil an egg in there. i don’t care about the egg, just don’t boil any auni or aniq! horrorssss.

the driver took us to this beautiful lodge called The Pines, with lots of, duh, pine trees surrounding it. the air was crisp and cool, you forget that you’re in malaysia, or anywhere in southeast asia for that matters.

so here’s where all the most romantic, scenic pictures happened, lol!

and the perfect group shot happened at the most opportune moment. GUESS WHO FARTED OUT LOUD LAH.

9) another thing we miss (other than the bathtub) is: the morning breakfast spread. sigh.

and finally (seriously, i need to sleep. this entry took me all of 5 freaking hours!)…

10) the company. i think THAT was the ultimate highlight of the trip.

(our neighbour! and my bosom sister. )

thank you all, my brudders and sistas, for the memorable moments we shared, for lending a helping hand or ten with our kids, for the laughter and experiences.

till our next trip. here’s to, err… hawaii 2010?? (HAH!)
*cue hawaii 5-O theme song*