School holiday

This week sees C at home with me for the one-week school holiday. We spent three days visiting Kuantan, Cherating and Chukai last weekend, returning on Monday evening. C enjoyed herself totally on the beach 'jumping' waves, playing with sand, and swimming in the pool at the resort we stayed in. She also decided she didn't need arm band floats while swimming in the adult pool because I had taught her how to tread water and she felt she had sort of gotten it right. It was good exercise for her three days in a row with all the hours of swimming and treading water attempts and jumping up and down over the waves in the sea.

We took a drive to visit the Turtle Conservation Centre in Cherating. It was located outside the entrance of Club Med. It's a small place with an exhibit room providing posters, and replicas about the life cycle of turtles, threats to their survival, conservation efforts etc. There were also small ponds where some turtles were kept. The place does not collect any entrance fee. You just need to register upon arrival and if you wish, make a donation.

After the short visit, we drove on to Chukai (in Kemaman, Trengganu) for lunch. We had Chukai's famous stuffed crabs at one of the popular restaurants which had stuffed crabs as their specialty. After a satisfying lunch of stuffed crabs, steamed fish, stir fried kailan and rice plus drinks, we headed back to Kuantan. On the way, we stopped at one of the numerous 'keropok' stalls to buy some for family back home.

Kuantan and Trengganu are known for their seafood,seafood produce like salted fish, dried squid, and fish, prawn, sotong keropok. You can buy the pre-packed ones or loose ones by weight. Most of the keropok sold are those that you have to fry yourself. I was actually looking for those that are ready-to-eat but not all stalls or shops have those. There's also the keropok lekor and satar that east coast is famous for. You can get the normal keropok and keropok lekor in KL but I've yet to come across satar here. We bought some satar to try. I like it. It's fish paste mixed with coconut and spices, wrapped in banana leaf into a triangular shape, skewered and cooked over a grill.

Thanks to the GPS, we didn't have problems finding our way to places that we wanted to go. It also brought us to some popular food places, making our visit (and our tummies!) more satisfying. We didn't have to depend on hotel fare to feed our tummies although breakfast was the usual buffet fare that came with the hotel package and one 'free' Chinese dinner thrown in.

The food places we visited were Tong Juan Restaurant in Chukai, East Grill Steak House in Kuantan and Hoi Yin (good curry mee) in Telok Cempedak, Kuantan.

C's favourite part of the trip was the pool and beach. She had protested continuously throughout the one-hour drive to Cherating as she wanted to stay in the hotel to swim. My favourite part of the trip was seeing Caitlin enjoy herself at the pool and beach and learning to tread water and try breast stroke moves with her arms, getting a two-hour treatment at the resort's spa and eating the tasty stuffed crabs and curry mee (yummy!).

The drive back home was faster and nicer compared to the journey there. It was smoother compared to the initial traffic jam we faced getting on to the Karak Highway and the heavy rain on one stretch towards Kuantan. Caitlin entertained herself during the four-hour journey there and back with her books and some Pokemon figurines E packed for her as a surprise.

As for pictures of this trip, it'll have to wait. It's a busy week this week with Caitlin at home, having to prepare her for her school test next week and her music mini-concert end of this month.I'm also behind with one write-up that's due in a couple of days...

Rusty spent the weekend boarding at the vet's. He got a proper 'haircut' from the groomer there and looks more handsome than cute now. He was very happy and excited to see us when we went to collect him. Among the three of us ACE, I think I'm the one who missed him the most when we went on our short holiday.

Remember the tortoise and the hare?

I'm the kind who likes to get things done quickly. I don't like to waste time. C and E are the laid back kind who take their time. I like to move fast. C takes like five minutes at times (and I'm not exaggerating) just to get out of the car after I've parked, turned off the engine, gotten myself out and ready to start moving to wherever we are headed for.

This evening, the same thing happened as we were headed to a cafe for dinner after her music lesson. It was past our usual dinner time, plus with her being a slow eater, I knew we'd be home later than usual taking into account the heavy evening traffic. And I don't like lingering around the car whether getting in or out of it in public, especially when it's dark.

So without a thought, my 'hurry up, faster' mode kicked in. Now that I think about it, I think I'm in that mode most of the time when C is with me. In the mornings, it's 'hurry up, faster, eat your breakfast, wear your socks and shoes, you're gonna be late for school. In the afternoon, it's 'hurry up, faster, turn off the tv, do your homework, it's gonna be dinner time soon'. At dinner, it's 'hurry up, faster, chew and swallow, eat faster'. At bedtime, it's 'hurry up, faster, brush your teeth, stop reading, change and go to bed, it's past your bedtime'.

Going back to this evening while getting out of the car, C said (after getting out), "Mummy, you're always like the rabbit, always want to be fast. You know, it's better to be like the tortoise."

Sigh....it's times like these you wish they didn't know how to apply what they've learnt!

Mandarin comments

Once in a while, I get comments about my posts in this blog that are written in Mandarin. Thanks to those readers who drop by my blog and share their comments. However, I am rather Mandarin-illiterate and can only manage to speak basic Mandarin, write my name and my ability to read/write Mandarin is rather limited.

I am therefore unable to read and understand the long Mandarin comments. I have managed to make out some which appear to be spam or those with the intention to 'advertise' their own links, while others remain undetermined. Today, I received one which directed me to what is obviously a website with adult content. The pictures clearly suggest so with young Asian women flaunting their cleavage in seductive poses!

As such, I have chosen not to publish any Mandarin, or other foreign language comments unless the English translation is provided. And even if the comments are in English, I reserve the right to accept or reject based on the validity, relevance and decency of the comments offered.

Child of technology age

In the car, Caitlin was verbalising a dream, another one of her ambitions:

"If I'm a boss, my office will have pink walls, and everything in all shades of pink. I'll have a pink notebook with mouse and mousepad. (Guess what her fave colour is?)

My secretary will be A (her classmate). (Because she's her friend).

My office desk will have four drawers. There'll be book shelves, a refrigerator, coffee maker, cups and food, a pink swivel chair, sofa, shoes, clothes, make-up. (She listed all the clothing items in fact. Why so many clothes? In case she spills coffee on what she's wearing...)

My car is the looong type which rich people always drive (we then told her it's a stretch limousine). I'll have a pink stretch limousine with flower patterns on it. On the two front doors, there will be the XXX (company which E works for) logo. (Wow, so young already know branding!)

How do I become a boss?"

I said, "You need to study hard and improve your handwriting" (her handwriting tends to be untidy)

She said, "But I'm using the computer-lah!"

It's March already....

I've just been busy with stuff -- everyday stuff and other stuff. Sometimes I wish there's more than 24 hours in a day, or that humans don't need to sleep. Imagine if we don't have to sleep at night, we'd have the extra 8 hours or so to do other things.

The weather here continues to super hot with sudden short bursts of moderately heavy rain in the evenings, making it very humid. One can just sit down and watch tv and start perspiring even with the fan on. Only the airconditioning will help. But once you step out, for even two minutes, you start perspiring again. I think one can just get a tan by driving around running errands, sending and fetching the kid, no need to bask in your bikini on a sun-kissed Caribbean beach.

It's 10 days or so to the school term break. It's only for one week and when school resumes, there'll be this year's first monthly school test. On normal days, we are not able to find the time to revise any schoolwork. Will have to make it a point to help her do some revision during the one-week break. However, we also hope to take a short break somewhere.

As usual, we don't plan our holidays. It's always ad hoc. And most times, I'm the one who has to get the plans in motion. It can be tiresome when it's always you who initiates and takes action on plans. I guess that's the nature of a person who wants to get things going as soon as possible and be done with it, as opposed to another who is laid back and sometimes leaves it till it's too late. There's this Chinese (I think) saying that likens this procrastination habit to "scrambling to dig a hole only when want to sh*t".

Nobody's perfect, I remind myself. Just 'march' on this March, and smell the roses along the way. Don't smell the sh*t. Ha ha!