He Ain't Heavy

...he's my brother

I think most of you know that my brother is a music DJ who has been spinning in various clubs in KL. He has been a DJ for more than 10 years and have seen grown into international club scenes. He has played in Japan, Australia and Indonesia. He is now the resident DJ at a new club in KL called Euphoria by the Ministry of Sound.

In case you are wondering or never heard him play before, here is where you can go and check out his album, his mixes, his music!! Go listen, it is good!!!

4 July 2009

We went back to Melaka this weekend.

Ah chooooo!!!!

 
JX helps himself to the fridge these days. 

A real smile?

The kids with great grandparents

 
The kids with grandparents

JW with her ye ye

3 July 2009

This is a rare moment where my 2 kids cooperated into taking photos together. I am glad I took out my camera at the correct time and I think these were great shots of them both. Shien Wei has been bugging me to take photos of them since he is so far away!

This is JX's smiling face, smelly face and funny face (all in one face)!

Don't you just love love love this shot?!?!?

My Babe

Don't think I ever showed this pic taken by An & Lee

DXB to KUL

I know we haven’t been away long enough for anyone to miss us but yes we are back in Malaysia!!  We are back in Nilai!! 

We have been in Dubai for exactly 2 months and now we are back for a holiday.  Some of my friends thought that I moved back for some serious reasons and won’t be going back to Dubai.  The kids and I are back here for a long holiday till end August.  Well not so much of a holiday lah since Jia Wen will be going back to her old school here in Nilai and things will be back to normal like just before we left for Dubai.

SW couldn’t come back to Malaysia with us so I took another flight alone with the kids.  But thankfully, the trip back was good.  Had a bit of a problem in Dubai airport struggling with JX and my shoe’s “mouth” opened and I had to go buy a new shoes!!  Other than that, it was a perfect flight for a mother with 2 young children.  JW and JX both behaved very well on flight.  I knew I wouldn’t have problems with JW except for her constant non-stop questions but I was very afraid of JX misbehaving onboard.  Knowing JX, I was afraid that he would want to get out of his seat and want to walk / run around.  But miraculously, he sat down the entire duration of the flight except for when I brought him for diaper change in the toilet.  He was an absolute angel in the plane.  He slept the first 2 hours of the flight which allowed JW and I to have our meal quietly and when he woke up, it was his turn to eat.  By that time, the cabin crew had already taken my tray away and I could concentrate on feeding JX.  The kids had chicken nugget served with hash brown and baked beans.  After the meal, ICE kept him entertained throughout the flight. 

EK (Emirates Airlines) has a very very very cool in-flight entertainment (IFE) system called ICE which is so sososo cool.  It is like SQ (Singapore Airlines)’s IFE system.  The movie and music selection is unbelievable.  It is impossible to ever finish the list of movies they have.  They have all categories from nostalgic black and white movies to kids’ movies and shows.  Fantastic.  JX basically flipped from one channel to another and it was good for him as it had all of his favourite movies.  As for JW, she watched Brides War and Home Alone 1.  JW didn’t sleep a wink throughout the flight nor did I. 

EK is very good with children.  The first thing they do is they will give each children the airline souvenir.  This time, the kids got a knapsack with a storybook, eye mask and a soft toy in it.  They even gave their EK Kids’ magazine and colour pencils.  Another thing that was cool was at one point of the flight, the cabin crew walked around the cabin with a poloroid camera taking pics of kids and then put the picture into a simple photo frame as souvenir!!  It thought that was pretty cool.  We didn’t get this when we flew to DXB.  Perhaps it is done on selected flights?  Not sure. 

The flight back was good until we arrived at KLIA.  The messy part was at the health check point.  Every passenger (including kids) have to fill up a declaration form to declare that you are healthy, etc.  Guess where were they handing out the forms?  They were handing out the forms just before immigration where EVERYONE from EVERY flights converge!!!  So you can imagine the traffic!!!!  People (like me) had to sit on the floor to fill up the forms and they needed flight details, seat details and passport numbers!!!  So imagine children scattered around the crowd and you have to fill up the such a detailed form X 3 and at the same time you have to take out your passport to write down the passport number!!  Crazy madness!!  Why couldn’t they have given out the forms on board like how they give out immigration cards?!!?!?  Or at least give out forms as people get out of the plane so that at least you don’t have hundrreds of people filling up the forms at ONE point!!  I tell you – some things will never change!!

Anyway, here are some pics I took.  I hand carried my D60 this time so I could take some pics.

All set.  Waiting for transport. 

We were supposed to take a taxi to the airport but so happen a EK bus was coming to pick a staff to the airport so we got a free ride to the airport.  

 
I had to fit JX with a harness so that I can control him and not have him run loose in the crowded airport.  It did help.  Please don’t judge me for doing this.  I have 2 kids to look after, bags and I had to do all the checking in all on my own!! 

EK provides complimentary strollers to use in the airport.  You can get this as you get off the plane and when you get into the airport.  It is a nice stroller.  Too bad JX doesn’t do strollers!

 

Waiting to board

When I fly with the two kids, I sit in between them so that I can attend to them easily. 

This is how I normally let the kids sleep.  They are always buckled!  If both of them sleep at the same time, both their legs are on my lap!!

JX was watching The Wiggles.  He doesn’t really like having the headphone on but he did once in a while.  Most of the time he’ll just watch the shows without the headphone which is fine because he already knows what they are saying in most of the cartoons anyway!! hahha… 

A clean 1904

Went to clean the new apartment the other day so that when we get the green light to move in, Shien Wei wouldn’t have too much to do.  All he has to do is literally move in! 


This was what I swept!! 

They put up the curtains a few days before I went to clean the apartment.  Looks quite alright. 

 

 

Our master bedroom.  Now I can’t wait to go back to Dubai and live in this apartment!!

18 June 2009

OJW & OJX

JX getting in touch with his feminine side!

This was my birthday treat.  Cold Stone ice cream.  What they do is, they will scoop the ice cream out and then they will roll it and shape in on a cold marble stone before serving.  This way they are able to mix the toppings you have chosen well into the ice cream.  They guy that served us could even toss the ice cream in the air!

JW’s choice – strawberry icecream with M&Ms.

Ladies Choice

Enjoy this video on JX singing and dancing to a Hairspray number.

I Love You Daddy!

 

Happy Father's Day Daddy.

I love to play with you. 

I love to paint with you.

I love to draw with you.

I love to do homework with you.

I love to play Lego with you.

I love to play blocks with you.

I love to go to Shabu Shabu with you.

Daddy, I love you. 

 

Love from Jia Wen

Happy Father's Day

 

For generations Daddies have been;

The man of the house
The breadwinner
The protector
The provider
The keeper of the family's name
The fixer of pipes and wires
The one who teaches their kids to ride on two wheels

Daddies are more than just a person who puts food on the table.  Daddies are people who we all look up to, not just as a figure in a family - there's so much more.  Daddies are role models, examples to their children.  We are no one without our daddies and that's the truth!!

I regret that I am usually so far away from my daddy on Father's Day but I do hope he knows that I love him very much and appreciate all that he has given me, even those hard mathematics teaching days!!!  :-)

 

Happy Father's Day!!

JX & Pixar

 

Did you know that Michael Keaton was in The Cars as voice of Chick Hicks (the green racecar)?  Did you know that Peter O'Toole was the voice of Aton Ego of Ratatouille?  Did you know the guy Cliff from the old comedy Cheers (John Ratzenberger) was voices of Hamm (the pig) of Toy Story 1 & 2, Mack (the trailer) of The Cars, the circus master (the flea) from The Bugs Life, and waiter from Ratatouille, and also the Himalayan monster from Monsters Inc?  Haha.. I know it, I know it all!!  hahaha.. 

How do I know?  It is because I watch all those EVERY single day!  And those are not my choice of shows to watch neither is it Jia Wen's.  It is Jia Xiang who chooses to watch these movies.  Bad uh?  Oh well, let me show you what good is it coming out of this Pixar overdose?  Jia Xiang is learning fear, humour and hmmm... some words. 

Fear - you know the part in Ratatouille where the old lady starts to shoot the rats in the house?  Jia Xiang would hide under the cushions or behind someone whenever that part of movie comes on. 

Humour - Jia Xiang gets it when something is funny is going on.  Like when Linguini accidentally throws the frying pan out of the window of his apartment and hits a car.  He'll laugh at parts like that. 

Words - Oh well, maybe not a very good progress in that department. 

After watching these cartoons so many times, it is amazing that I too am not bored of it!!!  I can still sit down with JX and watch the shows like it was our first time. 

Motherhood

 

I had so much on my mind over the past few days about what I should blog about but now that my fingers are on the QWERTY, nothing seems to come to mind!  There's bits and pieces scattered all over my brain and can't seem to put it all together.  Every 15 minutes or so, I'll go like "hey, I should blog about this, hey I should write about this, hey people might like to know about this", etc.  You must think that I am a scatterbrain or the heat is really frying my brains out. 

So ok, here goes whatever comes out of my scatter brain.

Since some rules and laws have been slightly enforced upon JX lately, things are a little bit better in the house.  The screaming has come down by a notch or two.  He is being taught some rules and things shouldn't go his way all the time.  The enforcement agent aka mummy has been a little bit more harsh on him lately as he was really getting out of hand. 

This exercise does reaffirms the fact that "no two kids are alike" and therefore, different "enforcement" methods apply to different kids and it is really a matter of "playing by ear" on most times.  Sure you can read and follow books and advice from the "experts" like Supernanny or Dr Spock but you can't follow them word for word.  Books are only there as a guide and most of the books we read or idolise were not written based on our individual cultures.  Those books were "carefully" written so that they don't get sued!!  Like Russell Peters always say "Beat your children for crying out loud!".  I know I know, not a good example to be quoting from but he has a point!  Okay I think by now, you must think that I am a child abuser but I am telling the truth about what all parents truly thinks about this issue, right? 

DISCLAIMER:  The above paragraph is strictly a personal opinion.  Should you choose to agree and/or follow, it is YOUR CHOICE!!  This author or the author's family can in no way be liable for your actions towards your children or your children towards you. 

Having said about how much we can really follow the books, I am however a firm believer of Dr Richard Ferber on Ferberising children. 

I think the reason why JX is out of hand today is because I wanted to be different with JX compared to how I was with JW when she was this age.  I know that I was very (very) firm with JW and it could have been the reason why she can be "cold" and a little unloving.  I didn't want that to repeat and have JX turning out like that too so I became soft with JX in the hopes that things would be different with JX but I guess that "softness" made him a monster.  He is however a very lovable boy. 

I think sibling rivalries are pretty common and it is a comfort when I hear from my friends that their kids fight like hell too.  I sometimes think that I am alone in this and my kids are the only children who fight with each other. 

JW has the makings of a class monitor and in the further future - a lawyer.  She is strong, smart, a sore loser and a proud girl.  You will never want to argue with her about something that she knows she is right about.  Never ever try to do that.  She will never let it go even after a few months!!  My BIL can vouch for that. 

Despite the huge difference in characters, both siblings however do enjoy 1 common thing - musicals.  They both enjoy watching musicals.  They both enjoy watching Hairspray, Mamma Mia, etc.  Hairspray is on everyday and JX dances to "Ladies Choice" all the time.  He can even sing to it too (will upload video asap). 

My kids!

Yakult, Yogurt and More

 

Did I mention before how much a pack of Yakult cost here?  You wouldn't believe it!  Guess yet?  RM10.00 per pack?  Wrong.  RM15.00 per pack?  Wrong.  RM20.00 per pack?  Wrong again!!  It is RM40.00 per pack!!!!  You are gawking right?  I did too when I first saw how much it was.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it that I stared at the price for so long that it slowly became RM4.00!!  haha...  Yups, it is about RM40.00 per pack depending on where you buy it from but that's about the average price.  And I always thought Yakult is the most expensive in Malaysia for its type of drink.  I was already complaining how expensive it is in Malaysia compared to Vitagen or Nutrigen but seeing how ridiculously priced here, I am buying all Yakult my kids want to drink back in Malaysia man!!  And when they are in Dubai, they can lick the floor for their bacteria!!! 

Yogurt is big here but only plain yogurt!  They sell plain yogurt but the tubs here and you can find a whole aisle just dedicated to plain yogurt of different brands.  PLAIN Yogurt and they are cheap.  You would naturally think that since they sell so much yogurt, you would expect that they would have fruit flavoured yogurt cheaply as well, but no!  Fruit yogurts are very expensive here compared to Malaysia.  I mean for a land where yogurt is obviously important to their diet, you'd expect the fruit-mixed yogurt to be cheap too right?  Well, it isn't the case in Malaysia.  Once my blender comes, it is time for my kids to learn how to eat homemade fruit yogurts. 

Nescafe 3in1s are very expensive here too.  It sells for nearly RM20 or more per packet here.  Thankfully Shien Wei is the only one who drinks coffee in the house and we still have plenty from what we brought from Malaysia.  Milo is also expensive and hard to get here too.  I haven't really checked out how much it really is here but the biggest pack I have seen is only 400 gms and that costs more than RM10.00 I think.  Luckily my kids haven't learnt to drink Milo so our Milo consumption isn't great.  Shien Wei and I enjoy the occasional hot Milo at nights. 

We have been here for several months now and I can't say that we terribly miss Malaysian food (yet).  Shien Wei and I do adapt to local foods quite well and the kids are doing alright too.  I cook a lot at home so I try to cook things as close to home as I can.  As for the local food, Shien Wei and I enjoy middle-eastern food and haven't yet gotten sick of it.  We love to eat the Arabic break with hammous!  Hammous is a dip made from chick peas (kacang kuda) and the kids love it too.  The hammous is an essential here and you can get it almost everywhere.  Hammous and Arabic bread is the cheapest meal you can have here and famous amongst workers.  A pack of Arabic bread (5-5 pieces) is about RM2.50 and the bread is about 1 foot in diameter and a packet of fresh hommous is about RM6.00 for half kilo.  1 piece of bread is just about enough to fill you up and we often have that for lunch.  The Arabic bread is kinda like Naan.  Arabic bread is also known as the Labanese bread. 

Fresh herbs are also big here especially mint, parsley, coriander, dill and spring onion.  A bunch of herbs costs about RM0.90 here and they are usually very fresh.  They also have lots of red raddish.  I will have to find out what do they do with so much mint here.  As for fresh parsley, they have a dish called Tabouleh which is mainly chopped up fresh parsley with some lemon juice and olive oil.  It is served cold.  I tried it once and I didn't really like it.  It is an acquired taste as you can imagine how bitter parsley is. 

(JX just went in to the kitchen and asked to eat Arabic bread and pointed on the plate where the hommous should be.  He's happily dipping the bread with hommous and eating.)

The one thing we haven't been eating is fishes.  I haven't really bought fishes here because I am not familiar with the fishes here.  As it is, I don't really know how to buy fish when I am back in Malaysia so coming here is worse as most of the fishes here are not really familiar and they have English names!!  They do have Tenggiri which I think it is the King Fish here which is sometimes selling at RM19.90 per kg.  They have Kembong (Mackerel) - can't remember the price.  They also have salmon here. 

(JW too has just asked for bread and hammous).

Here I am typing about food and at the same time scratching my head over what to cook for dinner tonight!!  I have taken out minced beef and it looks like it is heading towards a pasta bolognase.  I am getting bored of cooking everday and thinking of what to cook.  I can't sleep at night thinking of what I am to cook the next day.  I wish I have Remy.  (hahah.. you must be wondering why I suddenly thought of Remy - Ratatouille is playing on TV right now - I watch it everyday).

There is a huge variety of fruits here both local fruits and imported fruits.  Most of the tropical fruits come from Philippines like bananas and pineapples.  Bananas as quite cheap and pineapples can be quite cheap sometimes too.  You'll be able to fine cherries, peaches, plums, nectarines, figs, oranges, apples, kiwi fruits, melons, etc no problem. 

Nuts are also big here.  There all sorts of nuts and I just went to buy some from a roastary.  I bought lemon flavoured pistachios for RM38 per kg and RM36 per kg for cashew nuts.  Is that cheap?  I am not sure but they were definitely fresh. 

Oh well, there's still so much of Dubai to be explored and hopefully when I return from summer hols, I am able to do more discovering as Emirates Airlines tagline goes - "Keep On Discovering". 

Lan Kwai Fong @ Dubai

We recently went to a Chinese Restaurant called the Lan Kwai Fong near Lamcy Plaza in Oud Metha in Dubai.  It was out first Chinese restaurant outing since we've been here. 

Food wasn't too bad for Dubai's standard but it was a satisfactory for Malaysian standard.  We had 5 dishes - Kangkong belacan, Hammour fish fillet fried with ginger, sweet sour beef in crispy basket (not yam basket), half a roasted chicken, sizzling taufu with snow peas and the bill came up to RM251 for 5 adults and 3 kids. 

 
Before ordering the kangkong, we were a bit worried how it would turn out because the menu said Kangkong fried in chilli sauce.  I was afraid that they would literally use a Maggi chilli sauce to fry it. Luckily it turned out to be belacan so it was nice.

Jia Wen and cousin Khyn Win

13 June 2009

 

I was having problem feeding him his dinner so he cried a little, then you'll see that he "seeked" solace from his father and then the next second, cried again!!