my Faces of Cameron

almost everyone's favorite haunt... Cameron Highlands. This yr alone been there the second time. Only 3-4hrs drive from Penang to Brinchang. This time stayed at Srawberry Park Resort at ~50% discounted rate (Ramadhan promo yayy!) for 2 nights while Seku and family joined us on Sat and stayed the night at the nearby Titiwangsa Hotel.

we did our usual outings there (breakfast at Sg Palas Tea Plantation what else! hha) but also tried out new stuffs like checking out hotels that we have never stayed before (and shortlisted Parkland and Titiwangsa as target places to stay in our next trip), eating at new restaurants - plus durian and langsat desserts by the roadside (yumm!), visiting Mr Lee and co's organic farm, taking the others through the interesting Time Tunnel (and Ivy packed 30 strawberry ice-cream sticks back for her nanny :p ) ...and best for mama and papa, a brand new visit to Kea Farm's Rose Garden (totally fell in love with the place!) and Bharat's Tea Plantation on the way back.

Awesome wkend trip and company! ...21-23 Aug09

memorable couple of days with old friends

mama and papa took 2 days off work this week to meet up with some old old friends back from undergrad days... oh actually from pre-U days!! everyone's gone fatter, balder, wrinkler... but in our hearts nothing actually changed. we went exploring in town, laughed and mused old times over lunch, dinner, supper then breakfast, fought over who should be paying when and where - and then cheated lol... and best of all, mama and papa got to celebrate birthday for one of them with his whole big family in their old big home :) we had such a wonderful time. all of them have kids already - except a sister who's a year younger than us and still proudly single - and everyone brought something till we ended up with 3 cakes and 105 candles hahah! we also got to join them in their family Fri short prayers - which was quite interesting and touching in the fact they they embraced us in it and never made us feel awkward in any way... we parted yesterday with promises to visit each other again and probably plan for a trip to Bali together all rolicking and noisy in a van... imagine! now that'd be totally fun :)

the day we made a BIG decision

hey baby... you must be tired of the loooooooooooong journey home huh? don't worry, mama and papa today have made a big decision to try help us all speed things up... we hope to see you next yr, my baby Tiger :) Amen.

i need... !!!

yoyo... guess who???

scary Influenza A(H1N1)

...it's the worst influenza season mama's known so far (in mama's lifetime and not counting equally deadly plagues of past). started as some abnormal cold symptoms in Mexico earlier this yr and within a few mths, it's become a pandemic now. most everyone is afraid to be in the public. 1 sneeze and everyone flees. and most everyone's caught the cold. mama's got the cold about a mth ago but confirmed in clinic that it was not the H1N1, instead was common flu and cough. but sure took the longest time to recover.

hhhztchu!!! geez... there goes. just jinxed it shxt.

Link

here here... sending YOU shortwaves!

now this is quite wierd... past few wks, it's happened 3x. I would be caught up with a sudden thought of a dear friend and would remind myself to send a note to that person. But before i actually did later, a mail from that person had landed in my mailbox! it's definitely a pleasant surprise, though can't help feelig wierd. these were friends that we had not contacted each other for ages (and one of them was my very dear old friend whom we lost touch after Form 6... erm 16 yrs ago!)

well no matter what... this is what friends are for, being there ALWAYS!! :p

yip yip hooray!!!

life-saving buoys!

...as usual when I go idle even for a second, or as of now too hungry to think of anything else, I start thinking of a thousand ways to get a baby. Massage, heaping on organic foods, more sleep, less sleep, some workout, no workout, positive thinking, yoga, or being nonchalant about it... of course IVF (and here I go imagining myself wagging my finger to my OB&GY absolutely no twins or triplets or etc in the plural!) and even the idea of a surrogate, and adoption. And then feeling like a complete failure and an incomplete person all at once.

Then yesterday received a mail from an old friend married overseas now, and she is expecting no 2 end this mth. She was much more a workaholic than me so it was totally a surprise when she told me she's stopped working for some time to take care of her babies... and found out another colleague who had trouble conceiving has just delivered a 3rd. Just in time to buoy me old woman :D

Someone by Jacob once told me, God put ppl in your life for a reason. Sometimes I just can't beat this... thanks all my dear encouraging friends, fams... love mmuak!

shopping for Nephew...

...today marked the first day that mama shopped baby stuffs for Ting ku-ku (though ah ma and ah kong paid the bills heh heh). Mama and papa miss you.

down memory lane... Endau Rompin

...now the next winner of the DML series is our 2004 Endau Rompin trip weee! :)Organizd by a dear friend Auntie SK. We got ourselves south to Endau Rompin park in Johor at night by a chartered semi-size bus (mama think there was like 25 participants in all departing from Pg). Keh Pa and Keh Ma, auntie Sarah, Uncle Ong and Uncle PC bumped along with us in the bus all chatty and excited before dropping pomptly unconscious zzzzz in our seats after an hr :) ...it was after work time after all...

This trip saw Keh Ma, Keh Pa, Uncle PC and mama lost from the group for almost 2hrs in the jungle - becuase we were too busy stopping here and there and everywhere taking pictures of 1-cm bugs on trees, leaves... boot prints. And papa got into such a frenzy worrying that we just lost our heads when we finally - and miraculously - were spotted and returned back to the main group. As normal when mama and papa lost our heads, we yelled at each other for 5mins spewing all the worst language ever (from mama mostly shy shy) and then we'd smooch and be lovey-dovey the next 5mins.

The trip saw everyone struggling for hours hiking to Buaya Sangkut the first camp morning. Mama has to say the destination was not much for the effort (and mama's camera ran out of batt after 3 pics there arghh!). But the ensuing river swimming made it all worthwhile :):)

The trip saw mama and papa losing our heads again when mama slipped and fell at a curious site of round water-filled holes with many many slippery rocky footpaths. Fortunately nothing broken - A80 was saved in exchange for a pretty painful gash on mama's elbow - or rushed into the waterfalls... phew!

Best of all the trip gave us a very fun and relaxing canoeing downriver back to our hostel on the 2nd day. As usual, the Famous 4 (wink wink) shared a canoe and we thoroughly enjoyed our lazy downriver ride amidst the beautiful mist-covered sceneries all around.

..hmmm thinking back, it was sure a memorable adventure (albeit a soft one, nothing like scaling Gg Tahan thingy). See papa below... all smiles walking back from a visit to an orang asli village... ah! We want to go back there and to the canoeing especially (and minus the being lost part)... join us baby!

DML: down memory lane

the Monkey & the Mirror

hey baby, want to share this interesting little story...

"Once upon a time, there was a monkey who found a mirror. 'Oh,' she said very quietly to her dear friend, 'what a horrible face. Her grimaces! Her wrinkles! I would die of misery if I looked even a little bit like that! But I have to admit I have some friends, I can count them on my fingers, they do look like her.' Then her friend the bear answered, 'Instead of looking at others, look at yourself.'" (Schaeffer, 1974 - in the novel called Anya).

Such is human nature... mama always believe in being true to yourself and with whatever it is, love what God give you... remember that ya.

cartoons here!!

...watching Jungle Book on disney channel right now :) never knew watching cartoons could be this much fun!! here i am grinning ear-to-ear looking at baloo, baggy (bagheera), hathi, nagaina... and of course mowgli. even shere khan is not scary :p have been couch-potatoing whole evening watching pocoyo, tom & jerry... tigger & pooh, rocket man (not cartoon tho)... one after another just clicking clicking clicking...

this is really a loadful of new fun *clap clap* hahhhaha (and no need bananas anymore!)

things to get when...

1. Stokke
2. Happy Safari Mobile
3. Beatrix Potter's collection
...

for Lo Ting & Karen...