Thursday, February 17, 2011

Juan Or Meets Small Kucing!

On the 6th day of Chinese New Year, Mommy has brought Juan Or to meet Small Kucing and his Mamarazzi for the first time!

Juan Or was hesitant to step into Small Kucing's house or even to face Mamarazzi at first, but luckily Small Kucing has many toys (including Lego and choo-choo train toys) to entice Juan Or, so very quickly, Juan Or settled down comfortably!

Here's the two of them, posing together. See....Small Kucing is so much taller (almost 15 cm taller!) and more packed in body mass than Juan Or even though both of them were born only 3 months apart. Hehehe.....now Mommy is wondering what secret formula food did Mamarazzi gave Small Kucing to eat?




Small Kucing was very kind to share his toys with Juan Or. But of course as most boys do, at one point, both of them played to the extend of fighting for toys. Juan Or (with crying face some more!) chased after Small Kucing to grab the toy he wanted! Their antics were so cute! ^_^




Not just that, Small Kucing was also a good Big Brother for feeding Juan Or with cultured milk drink. Yes, Small Kucing was actually holding the bottle for Juan Or to drink from it - like a Little Emperor! ^-^



By the way, Mamarazzi was very kind and generous to buy satar and lekor from Kuala Terengganu for Mommy to take back home to eat.*Thanks, Mamarazzi!*



Besides the satar and lekor, Mamarazzi also gave cookies and arrowhead chips which she had fried herself. The arrowhead chips are so tasty so much so Papa had already finished all of them before Mommy could even find the time to take the photos! But there's also something extra for Juan Or from Mamarazzi herself.....






It's a present! Wonder what it is.....







Then Juan Or tried pulling out the thing inside, but it just wouldn't come out, so he became agitated....



So finally Mommy had to pull it out for him....and turned out it's a cute KFC coinbox!



But of course for now, Mommy has to keep the coinbox out of Juan Or's reach first since the 'little house' is made of ceramic lest he drops and breaks it! So for now, the coinbox is an ornament in the display cabinet! ^_^

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Juan Or's Early Days of Chinese New Year 2011

Chinese New Year, or rather the mood for the celebration, actually starts on the eve itself, and that was on 2nd February 2011. Papa was on leave, but Mommy decided not to take leave from work since Mommy's work is under the flexi-working hour system. So all us, Papa, Juan Or and Mommy spent almost a day at Mommy's office before going for the reunion dinner at the in-laws' house.

As usual, Juan Or refused to eat anything when at the paternal grandparents' house. Don't know why but he seemed naughtier in many ways when he's there. So he ended up playing masak-masak (cooking) with his cousins only -  Juan Juan and Ah Xuan from My Little Sprouts. 




CNY Day 1

Juan Or was all dressed up, drank him milk and preparing to go for the open house at Papa's boss' house. By the way, the red packet Juan Or is holding was given by Mommy.








So we had our brunch at the open house and as usual, Juan Or refused to try any of the food there. The food served was buffet style. There were mutton rendang, big prawns (but they were rather tasteless!), mix vege (very good!), satay, laksa, shaved ice-cream (good!), char kuey plus a few dishes more but Mommy can't recall already. Anyway, Mommy dared not take photos there because of the many watchful eyes. ^_^


After the open house, we went to Juan Or's paternal grandparents' house and stayed there for dinner as well. Again, as usual, Juan Or refused to eat anything there so Mommy had to pack some food back home for him to eat later on.



CNY Day 2


We went ot Mommy's father's house and then to Mommy's maternal grandmother's house in Klang/Port Klang for visit and as expected, Juan Or fretted and cried a lot, so we did stay that long for each visit. After all the visitation, Papa decided to bring us to Jenjarom to visit the Dong Zen Temple, famous for its beautiful garden, especially during Chinese New Year.

Juan Or's favourite at the garden is the fountain.


There were other things to see too, such as....



.....and this.....








....and this.....







....but Juan Or refused blatantly to enter the hall. Instead he chose to cry and cry and cry!




So we had no choice but to go back immediately. In the car, Juan Or quickly dozed off to sleep. Papa drove us to The Summit for lunch at MacDonalds before heading back home.

Back at home, Mommy cooked an abalone dish and kai lan vege for dinner, plus a soup dish (ABC soup) as well. This was our first home-cooked CNY meal!



Here'a closer look......the kai lan vege dish....







......and the abalone dish. There are altogether 5 abalones in the can which cost RM80 (after discount given by one Chinaman shopkeeper), so 1 piece costs RM16! *Gulp!*




CNY Day 3


We went visiting as a big family to Papa's side of relatives in Seremban. Overall, Juan Or behaved quite well (though not too well all the time!) when going into people's house. Mommy managed to capture a photo of Juan Or together with Juan Juan.



By evening, we went back to our own home and Mommy cooked dinner again.  Since there was not much time left for preparing dinner, Mommy cooked can food again - pacific clams - but this time with fresh shitake (instead of dried mushroom) and eryngii mushrooms. For vege dish, Mommy cooked kai lan again because the vege cannot last that long in the refrigerator anymore.So, this is our second CNY home-cooked meal.



By the way, this is also our first Chinese New Year in our own home after moving out from Juan Or's paternal grandparents' house. ^_^

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Fishy Tales at Aquaria, KLCC

Yesterday was Federal Territory's Day. It was an off day for Mommy but not for Papa. So it was a fun day for both Juan Or and Mommy - just the two of us. Mommy decided to bring Juan Or to Aquaria KLCC, somewhere that Mommy had wanted to bring Juan Or to long time ago but just wasn't able to due to time constraint and other factors. Federal Territory's Day was a very good day for outings to Kuala Lumpur because there would normally be no traffic-jams, less crowd plus lots of parking space available.


We reached there at around 10.40am. The traffic was very smooth all the way from home to KLCC. Mommy parked at the open air parking space (RM8 per entry for whole day) neighbouring to the entrance of KL Convention Centre and Mandarin Hotel. Since the time was not too far away from lunch time, Mommy decided to postpone going to Aquaria, instead we went to Suria KLCC first.


To go to Suria KLCC from KL Convention Centre, Mommy decided to use the garden way instead of the underground pedestrian tunnel. The garden route has more things to see even though it was much hotter (the sun was already bright and hot even though it wasn't noon yet).  Mommy managed to capture a view of the scenic city.....






....and the iconic Petronas Twin Tower.






Along the way, Juan Or managed to see his favourite.......fountains!






This boy was very mischievous - he knew that Mommy wanted to capture his photos, so he purposely didn't want to keep still and even played catching with Mommy! Even in Suria KLCC, Mommy wanted to capture him with Chinese New Year deco in the background, but he was not cooperative at all - kept on turning his face away or showing his buttocks to the camera!




We went first to Parkson's toy section to see (not to buy!) Thomas and Friends toys because that is Juan Or's current craze. So this boy had a heavenly time trying and pressing whatsoever exposed buttons on those toys, and arrange and rearranging the toy boxes on both the floor and shelves.




After we were done at Parkson, we headed to Kinokuniya to see whether there were any non-fiction books on choo-choo trains. Turned out, there was none so we went for lunch. Mommy wanted to take Juan Or to KFC to eat the chicken rice which he loves, but unfortunately, the restaurant was on renovation. Luckily there is a concierge counter next to KFC, so Mommy simply asked whether KLCC has any MacDonalds or not and turned out, there is! And apparently, the MacDonalds at KLCC does not have its own proper restaurant plot unlike Nandos, KFC, Sushi King and the likes. Instead, MacDonalds is located together with other small eateries at the KLCC food court area. Along the way, we spotted a giant bear at Harrod's entrance.



After the lunch at MacDonalds, on the way out of Suria KLCC but just before reaching the underground pedestrian to KL Convention Centre, we managed to steal some time to check out Thomas and Friends toys at Toys R'Us.

Upon reaching Aquaria, we were greeted by this banner displaying the entrance fee.



For Malaysian adults, the fee is RM35 (provided you show your identity card as proof) and free of charge for children under 3 years old. For that purpose, Mommy did bring Juan Or's MyKid to make sure his entrance is FOC (he is just 3 to 4 months short of 3 years!)! For the benefit of readers out there, Mommy did snap this banner's photo showing the operating hours of Aquaria. By the way, Aquaria allows the payment of entrance fee via credit card.





The insides of Aquaria are mostly dark, so Mommy did not capture much photos there because Mommy's handphone camera cannot do well under poor lighting condition. There is a section for creepy crawlies and turned out, Juan Or did not like that section. But for the sake getting the money's worth for the entrance fee paid, Mommy carried him up to see the creepy crawlies on display. Juan Or showed an unpleasant face and kept on saying "Scared! Scared! Ai (Want to) go home! By the way, Mommy also showed him those big and dangerous spides (tarantulas) and his immediate reaction was "Scared!" Hahaha.....now Juan Or knows that Incy-Wincy Spider is not that friendly after all! *Evil grin*


There are also some small sections displaying live mammals - the water rat and a raccoon family member called coatimundi. Turned out, Juan Or likes the coatimundi (photo below) and even ran alongside the glass barrier whenever it scampered around. At one point, the coatimundi climbed the rocky wall and started rubbing its genitals on the rock so much so the penis became erect like a big, fat, red lipstick! And Mommy heard one Middle-Eastern lady laughing out loud on seeing that! ^_^




There are also many live-sized aquariums and many fishes, both small and giant-sized fishes to see.



Mommy particularly liked this funny-looking fish, but don't know what it is called as.




There is also an 'underwater tunnel' for you to 'feel' what it is like to be among the fishes swimming around you. The tunnel also has the walkalator so you don't have to do the walking. For Juan Or, the attraction is the walkalator and not the fishes! *Slap forehead!*



When in the tunnel, Mommy spotted this giant scavenger fish - looks very much like the 'bandaraya' fish suctioning itself onto the tunnel's ceiling.



We also saw the giant-sized arapaima....



and a huge turtle which Juan Or was fascinated with.



There are also corals to look at.



All in all, we spent a little more than 1 hour in Aquaria. We headed back home after that and Juan Or dozed off immediately in the car. But then of course, Mommy being the type who likes to run several errands in a day's outing, also managed to do one banking transaction, bought a set of odd-shaped tiny screwdrivers from Mr. DIY (for Juan Or's Thomas and Friends set) and also bought XXL prawns from Tesco Puchong before heading back home (reached home at 5.15pm), and still managed to cook dinner. ^_^

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Trip to Morib and Tanjung Sepat (Part 2)

After Morib Beach, we headed on further down to Tanjung Sepat for lunch. Tanjung Sepat is a small fishing village with a very simple jetty. The jetty has a long passageway with a width just sufficient for a motorcycle to travel on. So if a pedestrian wants to walk there, and if a fisherman's motorcycle happens to pass by, then he/she has to really squeeze to one side.




It was neither low nor high tide  when we were there. Papa took Juan Or to see the tiny crabs crawling on the mud at the low tide section and then to see the sea water at the higher tide part of the beach. 



After that, we headed to Lover Bridge Restaurant for lunch.







As usual, Juan Or would play with and eat ice while waiting for food to arrive.




Before the food had even arrived, his part of the table was already all wet.






Finally the food arrived. The first dish was baby shark cooked in curry-type style.....





.... second dish was sweet potato leaves cooked with garlic and bird's eye chillis, .......






....and the last dish was mantis shrimp cooked with dried chillis.






The baby shark dish was very tasty, the vege dish was good for Mommy but for Papa was so-so only, and the mantis shrimp dish was not good this time. As for Juan Or, he refused to even try any of the dishes save for eating plain white rice (as usual!). And the bill? Papa found it a little more expensive than he expected.



After lunch, we headed back home.