School holidays are here again!

I'm forever lamenting here in this blog that time flies way, way too fast. It's one month since I updated this blog. We're in the midst of school holidays, again! This time it was preceded by the Hari Raya holiday which fell on last Thursday and Friday and school has been out since then till end of this week.

It's a good thing that C didn't get any homework at all from school this time around. Either that, or she decided not to bring the work home! She's capable of that at times! But I trust that the teachers really didn't give any homework this time :)

As usual, we, or rather C, has grand plans to do many things during her free time. But since she is the type who dawdles and lives in the moment, she is pretty slow (by my standards) in getting things moving.

She however surprised us on the first morning of the holidays by waking up at 6.30am. On normal school days, that would be rare as we'd have to shake her out to get to school on time! She couldn't go back to sleep so I jokingly suggested she went and got breakfast ready. Lo and behold, she did. She came to us with a notebook and pencil and asked us for our breakfast orders *rolling my eyes*

While E and I continued to laze in bed for a while, she made sandwiches with butter and jam, and a fried egg for E, cereal with milk and an omelette for me, plus coffee for both of us.

 

 

During the Hari Raya break, we caught two movies, Wolverine and Percy Jackson on two separate days, at two different movie theatres. The two sweet-tooth people in my family had to have popcorn, of course.

 

Apart from movies, tv, iPad and computer games and videos from Brainpop, C started another 'storybook' of her own, writing an assortment of her own stories.

 

Yesterday, we sent her to a 3-day, 2-night nature camp at Janda Baik. She was so excited to go that she awoke at 4am. After dropping her off and returning to KL, E and I decided to visit Petaling Street, KL's Chinatown.

 

It's been more than 10 years since I last went there. Things have changed in that old part of KL. The roads were rather messy with the construction of LRT tracks. Some old buildings were demolished to make way for them, what a pity. What's 'Chinese' that remains of Chinatown is the food, some of the shops selling clothes, bags, shoes, etc. As for the stalls lining the roadside selling all sorts of knock offs, most of them are now manned by foreigners like Bangaldeshis :( 

 

 

Murals by a group of people who want to preserve the heritage on Jalan Sultan where six lots of buildings have been demolished to make way for development. Watch this video for more info:

 

 

Foreigners manning stalls

 

But some 'historical' gems are still there if you've lived in KL long enough to know. For a foodie like me, I took note of the stalls that have been faithful residents there for decades, although they could now be manned by a younger generation.

 

The daughter of the original salted roast duck seller is now continuing the business. They have been here for decades, selling their roast ducks and wrapped duck feet delicacy out of this cart by the roadside.

 

The roast duck seller's well-known name, 'Sze Ngan Chye' (Four-eyed Guy). This highly recognisable signage with red and white letterings in this typical typeface has not changed at all. Talk about strong branding! 

 

 

This 'air mata kuching' (longan drink) stall has been here for as long as I can remember, at the corner of Hong Leong Bank. It used to be a must-buy for E long ago during our single days when we visited this place, so yesterday, he re-lived 'history' by buying a cup, now priced at RM1.50. Those days, they served it in a bowl and many people would stand around the stall, drinking from the bowl.

 

 

This is another decades-old stall selling fried snacks and some specialty Cantonese kuih, including 'sat kei ma', 'siu hou chou', 'ham chim peng', 'mah kiok', 'hup tou sou', etc.

 

 

On our way home, we had to stop at a the traffic light junction facing Central Market. The former wet market of old, now a cultural/handicraft centre named Pasar Seni (Art Market) is now painted in light blue (I remember it as greyish or green back then). Alongside it, the alley has been transformed to what's called Kasturi Walk, with a giant wau (Malaysian traditional kite) fronting it!

 

 

It's good that I got to visit Petaling Street and drive past the areas surrounding it yesterday to take a look at the changes in town. Puduraya, the old central bus station got a facelift and the busy roundabout there is gone. The Klang Bus Station also got a facelift. The heart of old KL feels totally different from the one I used to know when I first moved here to live and work in the early 1990s....

 

Driving past Jalan Pudu on our way home, I could still at least feel that there wasn't as much change on that road, despite some new buildings coming up and the Pudu Jail gone. The popular Teochew porridge shop behind Berjaya Times Square (I can't stop thinking about food :-p) is still there too! 

 



 

Half a year's gone by!

Whoa! It's mid July already! It felt like just yesterday when I was thinking to myself on the first day of July that we've reached the half-year mark of 2013....So much to do, so much not done...the must-do's keep taking priority over the want-to-do's...it's just so exhausting and demotivating for me. But didn't I just go on a holiday to Singapore about 1.5 months ago? Speaking of which I have yet to write about the things we did and the places we went to there. Will I ever write about it? At this juncture, I'm doubtful....

Continuing from the previous post where I mentioned my brother and his family visiting, well, they left last weekend. We ate a lot, we caught up and chatted. We took a family photograph back at my parents' home :) The kids and C had fun together but typical of children, they fought a fair bit too, especially between C and her eight-year-old cousin. They are similar in some ways -- must always win and have the last say, practise tit-for tat, and will make very good lawyers in future. Meanwhile, the cute little five-year-old was happily tailing the two older ones everywhere and joining them in watching tv, playing toys and games on their handheld gadgets. There were times when the two older ones didn't give in to her and let's just say, the house was hardly quiet during those times.

Now that our guests have left, ACE is back to routine. However, the past two days were a little different. Cousin R, six years of age, is one active boy and he visited us on Saturday. He enjoys C's company (and adores 'che che' a lot) although the same cannot be said of C who, apart from Lego and tv, prefers other forms of entertainment at her age. However, they share a common interest in soccer. E who also enjoys the game took out his portable goal posts and set it up in our car porch. Saturday afternoon soccer between one adult and two kids took place. They had fun kicking the mini soccer ball around while the rest of us had fun watching.

C and I recently got ourselves rollerblades. We went over to the skating rink near the PJ Hockey Stadium and tried them out on Sunday evening. The last time I rollerbladed was before E and I were married when we and a couple of friends decided to make it a weekend thing together. I never got to master it then so it was back to the drawing board for me yesterday. I could skate, albeit slowly, and my stunts were limited to ungraceful landings on palms and knees and my saggy bottom. Hee hee hee. C did better although she is also a beginner learner. It's an age thing for sure. When you're young, you're fearless.

These physical activities are the wee beginnings of my desire to get C to be more active physically and for us to be outdoors more. I wish C's school is more supportive of female soccer. They initially discouraged C from joining but after she went and 'argued' her case to the principal, they allowed her to join the after-school practices last year. She was the only girl there. However, being a school that does not seem to emphasise too much on sports, their practices were axed when inter-school football season ended. Just last week, they announced that football practice is back on and C signed up but she changed her mind as again, she is the only girl on the field and didn't think she'd enjoy it this time. As much as I'd like her to be active in some outdoor activity or sport at school, especially in something she has interest in, I decided to let her forego soccer this year, looking at how she didn't gain much from last year's experience, being the only girl there...

Home Affairs

I've been too busy to update this blog. June is a busy month and I foresee in July, I'll be playing catch-up with many things.

During the school holidays, we spent three nights in Singapore. We went to Universal Studios in Sentosa Island and Gardens by the Bay in Marina. We enjoyed ourselves in the short time we had there. I hope to be able to write more in detail about these places when I have the time.

This week and next, my brother and his family from overseas are visiting. So for the past one week, I was busy cleaning the house from top to bottom to make sure everything is in order for our guests so that there are clean rooms and beds for everyone, including my parents who also stayed over. Imagine cleaning, dusting and tidying a three-storey home, five bedrooms, five bathrooms, without the help of a maid or part-time cleaners and you can get an idea of how much time it takes. I didn't even do any windows or doors.

I realised that it takes an entire week to vacuum, mop, tidy up clutter, wipe dust off, and wash bathrooms for the entire house by doing all these bit by bit each day since there are other routine stuff like cooking, watering plants, grocery shopping, paying bills, writing, sending and fetching C, to attend to within a day. 

Since Saturday, ACE had a busy time enjoying the company of parents, siblings and cousins, catching up after quite a few years of not meeting up, and ensuring breakfast, lunch and dinner are taken care of.

Today I have a little breather as they have gone out of town. However, there are other stuff to attend to. I wish time could stand still. I'm behind in my writing and there's always unexpected 'problems' to attend to.

Yesterday morning the aircon technician finally came. Our living room aircon broke down on Saturday, the day my brother arrived. And it was very bad timing because of the haze. All our doors and window were shut tight to minimise the foul air from entering and we had to rely on just one aircon in the dining room to ventilate both the living and dining area. Thankfully, the other aircons in the bedrooms were ok and we could sleep comfortably at night.

After the aircon was fixed, there was a fuse for the circuit powering my fridge and washing machine. So I had to make a frantic call to the electrician to come and fix it. Luckily he made it by mid-afternoon and power was restored to the all-important fridge.

Maintaining a house is hard work and time consuming. Besides keeping it clean, tidy and comfortable, you have to keep attending to other physical problems like roof leakages, cracks on walls, electrical malfunctions of appliances and wiring, plumbing, security, gardening and pets, if you have any.

A "home minister's" job never ends.....

With the recent spate of fixes to various parts and things in the house, some of which were due to inferior materials and shoddy workmanship by the property developer, C asked if we could sue them. She jokingly said she'd be the lawyer. E suggested we sell the house and live in a tent. As for me, it would be nice if I could resign as home minister and go on a luxurious Mediterranean cruise.

Dre-e-e-am, dream, dream, dream...(you know that old song by the Everly Brothers?)

Privacy?

I am wondering if I should limit readership of this blog to 'selected' and 'by request only' readers. The reason is that this blog has stopped being an income-generating one for quite a few years, therefore it does not require full public exposure....

Scholastic Books

I like Scholastic, the book publisher, because they have many nice children's books. They have a programme with schools for students to order books from their catalogues at a cheaper price, compared to the ones retailed at bookstores. There are also books that you can only get from this school catalogue that you cannot get at bookstores. Some book sets are sold at affordable prices too.

We have been getting many Scholastic books for C from this school programme since kindergarten. We are fortunate that her primary school is also participating in this programme so our 'supply' continues. Today, she came back with her latest order of 22 books amounting to RM244. She has read three in school and another one in the car on the way home.

Given a chance, she'll probably be reading all the books non-stop and finish reading all within a few days, so I told her she can read only two a day, and I'll be taking custody of all the new books. This is so that she will have time to do other stuff like practise her music, do new activities as the school holidays start next week, and not be sedentary with her nose buried in a book all day.

As for the two-week school holidays that starts next week, I'm hoping we will take the opportunity to utilise our time productively.