Nature trek at FRIM

On Sunday, ACE and some friends went on a nature trek at the Forest Research Institute Malaysia in Kepong. After some basic research through their website and some info from a friend who had been there before, I called them and booked a guide earlier in the week.

Their guide service costs RM80 and they can take a maximum of 20 people. You can make payment and meet your guide at the one-stop info centre at building D6 after driving past the main entrance where you pay your entry fees. They recommend you start your nature walk at 9.00am.

Our guide, Encik Wahid, took our group of 10 on a walk through a nature trail and showed the kids interesting plants and animals. He described the names, features and uses of the plants. He told us of the different types of wood - strong (hard), medium and soft - that the trees provide, which could be used to make things from pencils, to furniture, bridges and railroad sleepers, for example, depending on the type of wood.

Did you know that we need two trees per person to have enough oxygen in the air (that's why we need to protect Mother Earth from over-development, logging and deforestation), and only about 25% of sunlight penetrates the forest?

Caitlin and friends on the trail

Along the trek, we saw unique plants, their flowers and fruit, a giant milipede, a centipede, a cicada (we heard them first before spotting one),and two forest crested lizards. We also saw scratchings on the ground at two separate areas made by wild boars in search of worms, according to the guide.

The fruit and flower of the sea poison tree (local name: putat)

The mud tunnel or mud tube created by the cicada nymphs as they emerge from underground where they've remained for 2-5 years (some species up to 17 years!)

The Crown Shyness Phenomenon - the leaves of the Dryabalanops aromatica (kapur/camphor) trees do not touch each other!

A giant millipede

After the one-hour trek, we proceeded on an uphill climb to get to the Canopy Walk. Although the distance was only 500m, it was a challenging climb through the forest, for us with 'old, creaky' bones and our city kids. But they took it all in stride despite complaining a little of tiredness, and getting impatient as it got steeper towards the top. Upon reaching the entrance hut of the canopy walkway, we sat for a short briefing by the people-in-charge -- no running, jumping, keep a distance of two planks (5m) between each person, no turning back, the maximum number of people allowed at each of the three viewing platforms, etc. The canopy walkway is about 30m above ground, or 300m above sea level.

Entrance hut of the canopy walkway

The 150-metre long suspension-bridge canopy walkway

After completing the 150m canopy walk, we then had to trek down another trail to get back to ground level and head back to our car. Along the trek downhill which was also quite steep and slippery at some parts, we came across a picnic area and a small waterfall.

The entire trek up and down plus walking on the canopy walkway took about two hours. By the time we got to our car, we were all soaked in perspiration, rather tired but happy we got to experience a jungle trek and walking among the treetops of a tropical forest. It was C's first such experience and she enjoyed and learned quite a lot.

If you wish to visit FRIM, check out their website for more info on the activities available. Besides nature trails and the canopy walkway, they have a picnic and camping site (C wants to go camping next!), a botanical garden, mountain biking trails, birdwatching and treasure hunt activities. You need to pay an entrance fee (RM5 per car with driver, RM1 per adult and free for kids below 12). The canopy walkway charges RM5 per adult and RM1 per child below 12. It is closed on Mondays and Fridays. Beginning, January 2012, FRIM will be increasing these fees. Non-Malaysians are charged a different (slightly higher) rate :(

Remember to bring insect repellant, drinking water, a camera if you wish to take photos, a small towel or wet wipes (to wipe off your perspiration!), and a change of clothes if you wish to feel more comfortable after the hike. It would be handy to have a small plastic bag too to collect whatever rubbish you have like used tissue paper/wet wipes, sweet/food wrappers so that you can discard them later properly in a dustbin, and not litter the jungle.

That's how ACE concluded the second week of school holidays. Another four weeks to go before we get back to routine and C goes to Year 4 in school.

There's still school books and Christmas presents to buy...

I (yes, me!) survived the first week of school holiday

Last week, I survived the first week of C's school holiday pretty well. In between some piano practice and BM tuition, she watched TV, read, and made breakfast. I'm glad she enjoyed doing some stuff in the kitchen and I hope this will be the beginning of some independence in the near future where breakfast is concerned, especially on weekends when we are not rushing to get to school on time.

Before the school holiday, she had made a potato soup for dinner. Then she made pancakes (as mentioned in the preceding post), omelet(twice), and Milo. Over the weekend, she made a pineapple upside down cake (with my supervision) by following the recipe I provided.

I hope to continue to get her excited about cooking simple food in the next few weeks.

While E was travelling for work for four days last week, we were left with E's duty of what he terms as 'poop patrol' i.e. taking Rusty out for his night-time walks. While I walked him and used un-Earth-friendly plastic bags, C cycled.

We also went out for lunch twice in malls and did some window shopping (which I didn't enjoy because I kept hearing complaints of boredom if we were not looking at kids' stuff!).

Monday was a public holiday so E did not have to go to work. I had managed to get a good deal I found on Groupon, and we went to a new karaoke place at a new mall with a mum I know from school and her kid, C's friend. The kids enjoyed themselves singing their favourite songs, while we adults also chipped in with our oldies, sentimental hits, ballads and some contemporary ones. Of course, C had to sing songs by her favourite singers Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift besides this one that the two kids kept singing repeatedly.



Yesterday was spent at home. C read and played with her four-year-old cousin who visited in the morning.

Apart from going to the supermarket this morning for some grocery shopping, we've been at home today. C's busy filling in her journal, and 'writing' by pasting cut-out letters from old magazines ala scrapbooking.

The weather is gloomy and I feel sleepy......

Smile and/or shudder - school holiday starts today!

The six-week year-end school holiday officially starts TODAY! C woke up and it was obvious that she was happy as she was drawing pictures in a notebook (yet another new one...aargh!). She announced happily that today is the first day of the school holidays, and said she'd like pancakes for breakfast when I asked. I told her she should make it herself because I was feeling lazy. In the end, she sort of did with some help from me. She measured out the flour, baking powder, got the eggs, read and followed the recipe, mixed the batter, set the table and even washed the utensils used in the preparation. I was surprised she did all that without me asking! Must be the holiday 'angin' ('crazy' wind). She found the teddy bear-shaped mould and said we could make the pancakes in that shape, so we did.

After breakfast, she went back to her drawing and reading while I put out the laundry and did some gardening. So far today, because we're all busy, we've not got into each other's hair but I shudder on the thought that we've another six weeks to go! I've a few activities planned for her with a few classmates and their moms but they're just a few....I guess I'll have to have a few more up my sleeve. Together with practising her musical instruments and going for music lessons plus attending BM tuition and hopefully doing some homework, I'm hopeful that the six weeks will zip by very quickly. And there's also having to go to school to pay next year's fees, buying school books and uniforms, shopping for Christmas presents for family.

My parents have plans to go on an overseas holiday starting Dec 23 and my dad has offered to sponsor us to go along. Dec 23 is the only time they are free as my brother and sis-in-law have taken leave from work to look after their son, whom my parents help care for on weekdays when they are at work. As much as I'd like to take up my dad on his offer, it's not so feasible as that would mean being away at Christmas, i.e. not spending Christmas with E's family who celebrates it in a routinely traditional way every year....

It's a dilemma. I want (or rather need!) to go on holiday and spend time with my side of the family because we hardly do so, yet there's the other family I'm married to to consider....E's family spends way more time together compared to mine. They find reason to get together and celebrate every occasion - birthdays, anniversaries, festivals/religious events, Mother's/Father's Day, and there's 15 family members altogether so you can imagine how many get-togethers there are (and how much time and money is spent on food and presents...)

As I was in the garden this morning, I came across two small butterflies mating so I told C she should come and take a look. It was a 'National Geographic' moment as we observed the butterflies moving about together on a leaf as if they were doing a waltz :)

A fun day, especially for C

Again, WOW! Another week has passed me by so quickly! The activities at school are finally coming to an end with this week being the last week of school before we break for six weeks. Today, C is off on her field trip to a chocolate factory and ceramic art place.

Yesterday, E and I attended C's school annual Speech Day & Concert. We didn't stay right up to the end as towards the finale, they were giving out prizes to the older kids. As it was almost time for lunch, we decided to head to Mid Valley Megamall which was about 10 minutes' drive from the concert venue. We hoped to get tickets to our much-awaited Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn as we didn't manage to make any online bookings.

After parking our car, we headed straight for the cinema and luckily, there was hardly any queue as the peak lunch hour crowd had yet to appear. We got tickets for the 3D version for the 2.10pm show. We then headed to lunch and dropped by MPH bookstore as we had some extra time before the movie.

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, directed by Steven Spielberg, is a movie adaptation of the popular comic series by Georges Prosper Remi, better known by the pen name Hergé,a Belgian comics writer and artist.

Tintin comics have been one of my favourites during my childhood days when I used to borrow them from the school library and friends to read. I doubt I ever managed to finish reading all the comics in the series as such books were not so readily available in smalltown Melaka back then in the 70s and 80s. Now you can find the individual comic books in hardcover and paperback, and also the 3-in-1 hardcover collection in major bookstores in the city. And thanks to YouTube, I can also catch up on the stories in cartoon version for free without having to buy the books or DVD. There are quite a lot of episodes lasting between 20 to over 40 minutes uploaded by some YouTube members who are obviously Tintin fans too.

Here's the episode for Secret of the Unicorn.



C has also been enjoying Tintin for some time now as I had bought a few of the comics for her when they were on sale, and she gets the rest from her school library and friends. One classmate even gave her Tintin and The Land of Black Gold last month as a birthday present!

So the three of us thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Since it was a weekday and at an odd hour, the theatre wasn't full house. The pros to that was we didn't have to get caught in any crowds queuing to get our 3D glasses and to enter and find out seats. We had chosen a short row and had the whole row to ourselves. The cons to a less-than-half full theatre was that the aircon got very cold with less body heat to 'share'. Luckily C had her jacket on and I had brought my pashmina and we ended up huddled together under it.

The movie is entertaining, especially if you're familiar with the characters like Tintin, his wire-haired fox terrier Snowy, Captain Haddock and the Thomson and Thompson twins. However, the storyline is not entirely true to Herge's version. For example, in the movie, Tintin met Captain Haddock for the first time on the latter's ship, but in the actual comic, it was in the Crab with the Golden Claws episode that they met. And the bad guy (like many movies, there must be at least one!), Mr Sakharine, was not a descendant of the pirate Red Rackham and did not live in the Haddock family mansion Marlinspike Hall. Captain Haddock did not regain ownership of the mansion in Secret of the Unicorn. It was in the episode of Red Rackham's Treasure that Professor Calculus bought back the mansion for Captain Haddock if I'm not mistaken. Also, there was no Madame Castafiore in Herge's Secret of the Unicorn. Okay, I guess it's enough for now lest I reveal any spoilers!

I've to go hang out laundry now.

Activity-filled weeks

C's school year-end exams ended quite early this time and the school has stopped giving academic lessons. They are now busy getting organised for their Speech Day which takes place on 16 Novermber. Everyday, they are busy rehearsing their respective performances. And there's lots of free time in between for the kids to play games or read.

The Year 3 students this year are involved in two items for Speech Day - choral speaking on the theme of 'harmony' where the children will be dressed in various national/international costumes, and singing a Chinese, Malay and English song in a choir.

C was earlier in the choral speaking team but she prefered (or rather loves!) to sing so we requested for a change. To C's delight, the teacher allowed it. Apparently, the teacher had chosen her for the choir at first but because the choral speaking team needed more kids who could speak/pronounce well, they decided to put her in choral speaking instead. This week, they will be having a full dress rehearsal at school and two other rehearsals at the actual venue.

Caitlin's school hall is too small to accommodate all the parents who will be attending Speech Day so every year, their Speech Day is held at an auditorium of the church the school is affiliated to.

The very next day after Speech Day, there will be a field trip. Last year, C missed the trip to a rabbit farm because it clashed with her drum exam. This time, C gets to go to a chocolate factory and a ceramic art centre.

Last week, the school celebrated Children's Day. In the past years, parents were requested to organise the party (food/activities) for their respective classes. But this year, the PTA committee decided to centralise it by organising it for the entire school. The celebration was held in the school quadrangle with singing, speeches by the PTA chairman and the principal, fun activities, a short skit by the teachers, performances by the Year 5 and 6 students, some fun exercises by Ronald McDonald (yup, they catered McDonald's meals for the kids) and the highlight was an educational dog show by the police K9 unit.

A video of teachers and kids having fun singing:



A video of the Year 5 and 6 kids dancing:



With all these activities, no pressure from studies and the coming long school holiday, C is really taking it easy these few weeks. She spends most of her free time reading (she's got a relatively big stash of unread books). Over the weekend, she resumed her 'writing' in yet another 'diary'. Every now and then, she'll write stuff in some notebook and she has a few in her 'collection'. This time, I told her she should stick to just one notebook so that all her thoughts and self-chatter (a more appropriate term in my opinion!) are properly kept in just one notebook.

The past few days, she's written the most in her history of journaling. Every free moment she had, she'd be writing and 'talking' to her diary - mostly about what she was doing at that point in time, what she observes around her, what she thinks E and I are doing/thinking. She adds colour to the text by using various pens, crayons, pencils, and drawing pictures and pasting stickers. She'd also share her writings by reading it aloud to us. I'm glad that this time she shared it with us. There had been times when she'd say it's secret and would write 'warning' instructions preceding her writings.

I am wondering how to keep her occupied this coming holiday which is between 19 November and 3 January 2012. I doubt we're travelling anywhere on vacation. If at all, it might be adhoc, short local trips. We seldom take major holidays locally or abroad as we can hardly afford it. Last year, we bit the bullet and went to Hong Kong, and we're still paying for the 'after effects'!