Picking up Debris

This is a late post.

One day, Juan Or told Mommy he wanted to eat the Mamee noodle snack. Since he had already eaten his dinner, Mommy allowed. So Mommy opened the snack packaging for him and handed the whole packet to him and Mommy went off to do some household stuff.

Some time later, Mommy came back to where Juan Or was and found the Mamee noodle all over the floor and in small bits and pieces some more! So apparently this boy had a good time playing with Mamee instead of eating it! Grrrr! Mommy immediately ordered Juan Or to pick up all the bits and pieces of Mamee and put them into anything to contain them, otherwise Mommy would beat him up!! *Wink* So happen the most convenient comtainer to put them was his toy wash basin. Juan Or then went ahead with picking them up. After continuous picking (mind you, the bits and pieces were not only all over the floor, but also on the carpet and on the tea table!), Juan Or realized that it was not that convenient after all to pick and then walk or move back to the toy wash basin repeatedly. So he 'innovated' a bit by holding a disposable spoon (which was one of his play items scattered on the floor), then picked up the bits and pieces and placed them into the spoon. And once the spoon had about quite a lot already, then only did he transfer them into the toy wash basin. And the same process repeated. See photos of this boy at work.....

Because his toys are also scattered on the floor, sometimes in the midst of picking, he would temporarily be distracted from his work by playing with the toy. ^_^

But never mind, so as long as he gets back on track to continue picking, Mommy doesn't mind. It's OK to have a bit of distractions once in a while. ^_^

Now it's back at picking from the tea table again.

But oops, sometimes he forgot that all these bits and pieces were to be disposed off (since he had stepped on them and mixed with dust on the floor!), instead he put them into his mouth to eat! *Slap forehead*

After eating, he went on with his picking again.

The end result? Well, yes, he did a good job for a toddler his age. All the bits and pieces of Mamee were meticulously picked up and now ready for Mommy to sweep away the MSG particles. Good job, Juan Or! *Muah!* ^_^

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*Mommy is in the midst of clearing leave for this year, so off and on, when Mommy finds the time and chance in office, Mommy will post up something here. Currently Mommy is very busy with finishing up work so that Mommy can go on leave with a more peaceful mind. Thanks for visiting, keep your comments coming and most of all, thanks for your understanding. Mommy will go bloghopping again whenever possible. Sorry for not being able to visit your blogs in return as often as Mommy wanted to.*

Thomas and Friends Books at Bargain Prices at Bookalicious

Mommy accidentally found this interesting bookshop at The Summit, Subang, called Bookalicious. This bookshop has something like the concept of  Book Xcess whereby it sells books in excessive prints for a cheaper price and of course it still sells some current titles for normal retail prices. Maybe you can call it as a hybrid concept of that of Book Xcess and the bookstore giants like MPH and Borders. Only thing is that in terms of variety of books, it cannot fight Book Xcess or the bookstore giants, but still some books there may interest you if you pay a visit.


Currently, Bookalicious has the "Buy 2 for the price of 1" and "Buy 3 for the price of 2" promotions plus a host of books that are sold at irresistable prices. Mommy found the complete set of Thomas and Friends books under the "Buy 2 for the price of 1" promotion. One Thomas and Friends book costs RM13.90, so Mommy got two of such books for RM13.90 only, i.e, actually RM6.95 per book! Woo-hoo! Later, when Mommy checked MPH's online bookstore website, Mommy found the exact same book is selling for RM13.90 also. Woo-hoo! So the Thomas and Friends books are really a bargain! ^_^

Not just that, Mommy first bought altogether 6 Thomas and Friends books, and the shopkeeper gave Mommy a paper bag. Then later, after paying and after loitering around the area waiting for Papa, Mommy decided to add two more Thomas and Friends books, so now the shopkeeper gave Mommy a bigger Christmas Edition paper bag to contain everything!

That day, Mommy could see Juan Or was very happily holding the paperbags of Thomas and Friends books. You can see the happiness from  his face and the way he walks and moves that day, but too bad, Mommy forgot to snap a photo of this happy boy.


Later, about one or two weeks after, we went to The Summit again as our weekend outing and Mommy bought two more Thomas and Friends books to complete the set (a complete set consists of 10 books). Mommy also saw this hardcover storybook compiling stories of not just Thomas and Friends, but also Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam and one postman character (can't remember his name though!). However, this book is more expensive - RM39.90 - supposedly reduced from the original price of RM49.90. But Mommy thought never mind, don't need to calculate so much since the book looks very nice, the pages are of very nice texture, has very vivid colours and pictures plus the book was printed in Italy.

Here's how the compilation storybook looks like in two of the pages. It looks very nice so much so Mommy can't resist buying! ^_^

You may notice also that Mommy bought another book, a non-fiction one on Chinese emperors from the Xia to the Qing Dynasties, all in English! All the while, Mommy only saw such subject of book written in Chinese Language to which Mommy doesn't know how to read! So call it good luck that Mommy found this book in Bookalicious! ^_^ However, this book is quite expensive - RM38 - and no original price was indicated on the sticker tag. Anyway, this book is in hardcover and thick glossy and full-colour pages, which is what Mommy likes.

So if you would like to visit Bookalicious one day, here's the address:

Lot G35, Ground Floor,
The Summit,
Subang USJ.

As for landmark, Bookalicious is situated near a tenant selling pianos called Piano Station. You can also see the Facebook page of Bookalicious here.

Mommy is Going Choo-choo Train Crazy!

Woo-hoo! It's the Litt Tak Toys Warehouse Sale again which started on 1st December 2010 and ended on the 5th. And Mommy is really going crazy already this time. Yes, Mommy is going choo-choo train crazy!

It all started like this. You may remember reading blogposts here not too long ago that Juan Or's latest interest is the choo-choo train. He loves looking at real choo-choo train photos in books, loves looking at real choo-choo train exhibits at the National Museum, loves looking and riding on the LRT type of 'choo-choo train'. loves watching Thomas and Friends' Misty Island Rescue, loves playing and parading his Thomas playset train as he sleeps or watches cartoons and loves his Thomas and Friends storybooks. Then somehow this choo-choo train thing also got into Mommy's head as well as a result of sitting down together with him to watch Misty Island Rescue over and over again plus a host of other choo-choo train-related activities! Not just that, Juan Or is still at the destructive stage whereby he handles his toys roughly and his Thomas playset train is no exception. His Thomas train has endured all kinds of falls from all possible domestic distances and usually these are hard and uncushioned falls onto the floor! Yet his Thomas train is still in one piece, the electronic part is still functioning well, and no parts of the train is chipped or cracked or got dislocated. Conclusion is the Thomas and Friends playset made by Takara Tomy or Tomy is of very good quality and is really the you-get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing. And boy, Thomas playsets are costly too and so to get it cheaper, Mommy bought a starter set from a previous Litt Tak Warehouse Sale (Litt Tak is the distributor in Malaysia for Tomy brand)  for RM55. That also Mommy was gambling with the possibility that Juan Or may not be that keen on Thomas. But now it's confirmed that Thomas trains are indeed Juan Or's interest (and Mommy's interest too! ^_^), so Mommy went looking for more Thomas and Friends sets for this round of sale. By the way, previously, Mommy bought a China-made cheap cartoon train set for only RM10 (from Litt Tak as well) but unfortunately (and as expected too), the train cannot withstand Juan Or's roughness. The joints started to break and so the components fall apart.


Here's Mommy's yield for the day. You can call Mommy crazy.....hehehehehe! 

This time, the starter sets have gone down in price - from RM55 to RM50 per box! So Mommy bought Percy (green train) and James (red train) to complement and expand the existing Thomas train set.


Since Mommy's objective now is to expand the set with different kinds of trains, Mommy got Stanley set (off-white train) for RM75 and a black colour train (don't know what's his name) that comes together with Thomas train set for RM90.

This is a racing train set  - Thomas the steam engine racing with Spencer the diesel engine - for RM85.

Mommy added these single-type trains as well - Gordon (the blue train) comes with 4 straight tracks for RM35, and Thomas with the Chinese dragon and a Troublesome Truck that comes with DVD for RM45.

And then Mommy can't resist buying these as well, RM8 per box. These sets come with tracks as well but of course the tracks are not compatible with Tomy's. Yes, Mommy knows although these are those China-made and not-so-good-quality type of train sets, but Mommy bought them more for their design being  very realistic, classic and detailed. It's more for display and collection, not really for Juan Or to play with because these will definitely fall apart under his hands! By the way, Mommy saw the same train set (and same brand too!) selling in Tesco currently. The only difference is that Tesco's has all the coaches and cargoes that are also found in the ones Mommy bought, altogether in one box selling for RM29.90 (before discount is RM45.90)! Woo-hoo, what Mommy bought is a bargain!

Anyway, Mommy will only be introducing the sets or trains to Juan Or one-by-one, depending on him showing outstanding good behaviour or good deeds. ^_^ You may be wondering, what then if Juan Or's interest in choo-choo trains doesn't last? Well, these will become Mommy's collection then and become exhibits in Mommy's future home-made 'Toy Museum'!

By now, you must be thinking that Mommy has really gone crazy, huh!? ^_^


By the way, Mommy's close colleague bought a toy bow-and-arrow set for Juan Or from the same Litt Tak Warehouse Sale. It was selling for RM5. As expected, Juan Or still doesn't know how to shoot the arrow despite his Papa demonstrating many times. Instead he played with the arrows' suction ends only and to date he has already bended one of the arrows. So Mommy has confiscated the bow-and-arrow set from him before more damage is done! ^_^

Toddler Clothes Hunting at Hytex Warehouse Sale

Recently Mommy noticed that Juan Or's homewear singlets for 2-year-old toddlers are getting tight and short already - something similar (but not as bad as that!) to how it looks like for the T-shirt that Winnie the Pooh wears. Then came the Hytex Warehouse Sale from 2nd to 11th December 2010 which got Mommy's saliva driping! Previously Mommy bought a substantial number of Winnie the Pooh T-shirts (both with and without sleeves) and shorts from the Hytex sale. But unfortunately what Mommy stocked up for Juan Or's 3rd year of age was not sufficient for homewear. So with this sale, Mommy was very excited and hopeful to get more T-shirts/singlets for 3 year olds.

This time, Hytex holds their sale at a multi-purpose hall - no longer at their factory's vicinity. Parking-wise, it was quite diffucult to get parking because the hall's compound itself has limited parking space. So Mommy parked at the roadside in front of a school. Others parked in front of people's house but not blocking their gates though.


There were many people there. Sad to say, this time, everything looks so messy - messy in the sense the racks were merely identified by the price tag of the clothes in it. Even then, you can still find clothes of other price range in the wrong rack (no thanks to some customers who simply chuck their 'loot' at their convenience when they changed their mind)! There is nothing to indicate what age group of clothes the rack contains. So in the end, customers really have to go to each rack to see exactly what kind (e.g. adult, teens, older children, younger children, toddlers, babies) of clothes are there before deciding whether or not to dig further into the rack.


Not just that, all the racks have clothes in heaps - nothing is organized unlike last time. As for toddler and baby clothes, Mommy could see lots of girl clothes whereas boy ones are so hard to find. Also, you can easily find clothes for 1-year-old girl toddlers but it's so very hard to find clothes for 2- and 3-year-olds. It's just so different now for Hytex sale. Last time, you didn't even have to dig deep just to find what you want and the quantity for each T-shirt design and for each age was plentiful. There were also a number of selfish customers who 'usurp' whatever they can reach without thinking whether in the end they are really buying them or not, and then they go to one corner, sit on the floor and start choosing what they want one by one. Those that they don't want they just leave aside on the floor so much so you can see a number of hills of clothes on the floor! So in the end, other customers don't really get what they want or don't get those nice ones since they are searching from the racks.



In the end, Mommy only managed to find one piece of Baby Looney Tunes T-shirt for age 3 for RM5 and a Pooh shorts for RM3. Mommy also bought one pair of toddler socks and 2 pairs of children socks, each for RM3, all are Looney Tunes design. This time's yield is really disappointing! *Sigh!*

 
In order to make the trip to Kepong more worthwhile ( since it's so far away from Cheras or even Puchong!), Mommy decided to buy some T-shirts for Juan Or for ages 6, 8, and 12! Only the green Tigger design (RM5) is for age 6 while the rest are for age 8 (blue one for RM5 and the rest are RM8 per piece).

Here are the Mickey Mouse T-shirts for age 12, each at RM8. And mind you, Mommy only managed to find these nice Mickey Mouse T-shirts (both for ages 8 and 12) from the hill of clothes on the floor left behind by those selfish customers! However when Mommy was still searching at the racks, Mommy cannot find anything like that. This goes on to show that basically these selfish customers grabbed all the good and nice ones without really thinking whether they really buy them or not and in the end just left them on the floor when they decided not to buy them and then led other customers into thinking that there is nothing really nice to choose from the sale! Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

The queue at the cashier counter was long but still manageable and clearing quite fast. Only cash payments are accepted. Mommy's total damage for the day was RM59. 

So, bottom line is that if Hytex doesn’t want to lose the trust of their old warehouse sale customers, they had better hold it in their own premise just like the good ‘ole days!

Christmas Deco at 1 Utama

This is an outdated post dating back to 28th November 2010.

It was Sunday, our family outing day, and Mommy decided to go to 1 Utama to see the Christmas deco. Our first stop was at Eneos, i.e., Jusco's DIY centre. At Eneos, Juan Or had a good time playing with real tools. Otherwise, if at home, Mommy won't let him play them for fear of him banging the tools into the furniture or worse still, Papa's flat screen TV! Arghhh!

Then we went on to see the Christmas deco. Turned out, the deco was still in renovation, but 90% of it was already done. This year's theme is Christmas scene in old English village setting with homely-looking old English houses and inns, and bridges on white background that seems to depict river that has turned into ice and covered with snow.

And of course, Juan Or and Mommy took some photos there as well (with Papa being the photographer!).

And of course as usual, before we left 1 Utama to go for lunch at McDonalds, Juan Or had his fair share of static kiddy rides with Thomas the Tank Engine being his favourite.

Then he went to 'ride' with Stuart Little.....

......and then in an alphabet car.

Actually Juan Or was not really keen on riding the alphabet car. It was the bear that he was more interested in. He even went to the extend of hugging.....

.....and kissing the bear! *Muah* Not just that, Juan Or also said,"Sayang (love) Bear-bear!"

"OMG!"

Don't be deceived by this sleeping boy who seems to be so peacefully asleep and minding his own business. For your information, Mommy only had the opportunity to snap this photo while waiting for the traffic light to turn green when we were about to reach the babysitter's house (to which by then Juan Or had already dozed off).  This was what transpired earlier......

Early this morning, Mommy was getting ready to go to work. 'Getting ready' here means packing putting Juan Or into the car, buckle him up and then go lock the wooden door and grill, and then unlock the gate. After unlocking the gate, Mommy went into the car to start the engine and Mommy remembered seeing Juan Or sitting quietly and not doing or holding anything unusual (he was already awake then).That time was about 6.50 am and it was still a bit dark.

Fine, nothing strange, right? Then Mommy reversed the car out of the house, got out of the car again to lock the gate and went back in again. Something unusual caught Mommy's attention from the corner of the eye (though it was still quite dark) so Mommy turned to look and OMG! There are thick, dark and big scribbles on Juan Or's side of the car wall! OMG!

Well, Juan Or appeared so innocent and appeared not to be doing anything unusual whenever Mommy turned to steal glances at him and here it is, all of a sudden, scribbles all over the wall! He must have 'hijacked' Mommy's brow pencil (that's why the lines are thick!) and went on with his drawing frenzy just in the nick of time when Mommy was locking the wooden door and grill and unlocking the gate! Hmmmph! Grrrrrrr! Call it scribble, artpiece or vandalism?

Santa Claws at Manhattan Fish Market

Shortly after the Cherating trip, Papa and Mommy were still on leave (15th November 2010). Recently, Papa saw an advertisement by Manhattan Fish Market on a dish called 'SANTA CLAWS' which was actually the claws of those huge, expensive crab that you normally see in those Chinese restaurants that offer live seafood with aquariums (of exotic live seafood) decorating their shop. Manhattan is selling the dish for RM35.90. Papa reasoned that since such giant crab is very costly to eat in Chinese restaurants and also there's no guarantee whether the crab tastes very good for such price paid, Papa said why not go to the Manhattan Fish Market in Sunway Pyramid to give it a try (at least we don't have to buy the whole crab just to taste it!), so off we went as the family outing of the day.

We reached Sunway Pyramid early, partly because Papa wanted to make use of free wi-fi to check prices of shares.So while Papa 'internetted', Mommy looked over Juan Or as he fooled around with a piece of bendable straw that Mommy took from a muffin kiosk.

After that we headed off to Manhattan Fish Market but found the restaurant was still not open yet. Never mind, so we took Juan Or to loiter around and we found this choo-choo train deco at the M&M's stall. Since we had a lot of time to kill, we allowed Juan Or to linger at the choo-choo train to his heart's content.

See the smiling M&M's figure at the choo-choo train? Juan Or loved to put his hand into the figure's mouth to be 'gobbled'.

Finally at 11 am, the Manhattan Fish Market resturant opened and Papa ordered for a plate of 'SANTA CLAWS. Here's how it looked like!

A closer look at the claws......

Both Papa and Mommy shared the dish while Juan Or looked on and fooled around. Don't be deceived by this photo below as if Juan Or was waiting to eat his share! Not at all. He refused to try anything from the dish, instead he climbed up and down the bench, walked here, walked there, so much so the Manhattan staff had to give him Mentos candy to keep him at bay! Well, that's good service by Manhattan! ^_^

So how did the crab taste? Well, nothing to shout about, really. Taste-wise, the flesh is naturally salty, but as you continue to chew the flesh, the saltiness revealed sweetness. However, the sweetness is nothing compared to the sweetness of those mud crab flesh! So our conlusion is the very high price you have to pay for when eating those huge or almost giant-like exotic live crab in Chinese restaurants may not be very worthwhile after all compared to paying RM70 or RM75 per kg for eating live Sri Lanka mud crab!

After Manhattan, we headed to McDonalds for our proper lunch, and then to an indoor playground set for Juan Or to play.

Somewhere near the playground was a stall selling toys and Juan Or was attracted to one toy puppy that yaps and moves. That was the first time Mommy saw his fondness for animals (though it wasn't a real animal!). He even patted and sniffed the 'puppy', and even said,"Sayang (love) puppy!" Even when Mommy coaxed and took him away from the stall, he still turned back to look at the 'puppy'.

This sums up our humble outing at Sunway Pyramid. :-D