Perth Holiday: Day 1

Day 1
Saturday, 14th March 2015

This school holiday, we headed down south to experience early Autumn in Perth, Australia.  It was a place that me and kids have never been before, but Daddy has visited once before we married.  Our 5hours flight was schedule to leave KLIA2 nearing 9am, which means we had to leave our house at 5:30am and therefore, wake at 5am.

Prayer answered that the flight was uneventful and only slightly delayed due to the strong winds from the cyclone in Perth.  We picked up our rented car, a four door Hyundai, from the airport.  Find our car at the carpark just 5 minutes walk away was pretty easy eventhough it drizzled when we arrived.

To keep themselves busy, daddy uploaded movies into his laptop.  On the flight to Perth, they watched Mulan half way...

... and slept the other part of the journey

Below are pictures of our 2 bedroom fully equipped, fully furnished, spacious and very clean apartment.  Our host stays just downstairs and it comes with a carpark in the garage too.  Oh, and free unlimited wifi as well,

 It's just a stone's throw away from Shenton Park, but King's Park would be quite a challenge for Asians who are not used to walking (no offence to anyone, but generally we are a pampered lot!)

From top left:  Kids room, masterbedroom, utensils and appliances, cupboard in Room 2

                         

From left:  Looking down from our balcony, the dining table in the living room, sofa 

                         

Apartment comes complete with appliances and utensils. On the last day I opened the cabinets and discovered that they even had baking items

This dryer washer came in very handy as we washed our clothes at least 4 times here.  Detergent and hangers are all provided too.

After we settled in and bathed the kids, we headed out to buy grocery before dinner.  First stop Woolworths, but...

I miscued on the opening hours for Woolworths near our apartment, and we realized this only after paying for our parking.  Then we headed to Coles nearby but that was also close.  Finally we headed over to IGA along Vincent Street which was opened 24hours and suggested by a liquor store operator.  Here we bought bacon, cheese, sausages, bread and milk for our breakfast supply on top of other grocery.  Oh, and first hour parking was free too!  

Our dinner venue was Alfred's Kitchen located some 25 minutes drive away.

Our dinner at Alfred's Kitchen.  We ordered 3 burgers, their famous pea and ham soup, and chips in gravy.  Very filling and highly recommended!

A simple no-frills menu on the blackboard.  At Alfred's, all patrons order at the counter, get a number, then wait for the number to be called, picked your order up, and take a seat anywhere on the benches just outside.  We dug into our burger dinner whilst enjoying the cool evening air.

First Time Experience - a Voice Over Audition

A friend asked if Vic and Will would like to try out a voice over audition for Disney.  I received the script and asked both children if they were keen... I was expecting my Vic to be the shy one but she turned out to be very sporting whereas William did not want to even have a go.  Not even when I said that his friends were going!

At first I thought it was only in English or that they could just choose one language.  But later I was told that they child have to try all 3 languages.  Again, Vic was very sporting and did not whine or opt out.

So that Friday when our appointment was made (had to cancel piano class too to meet the timing), she had lunch in the car, and we had a dessert at the Fu Chow Restaurant in Damansara Kim as we were early.  The soy pudding that we both had was the worst we ever tasted - watery, blend and the durian flavour one tasted like a load of chemicals.  Don't believe me?  I dare you to try it out.

Back to the audition, Vic did her best.  Made mistakes along the way, but the guys were really patient with her and allowed her to try a few times.

Vic in action!

                           

The script

Mummy is proud of you, baby girl!  

Holiday in Ho Chi Minh: A Day Trip to the Mekong Delta

Sunday, 7th December 2014

We booked a day tour to the Mekong Delta - just the four of us on a private tour with a guide (comes with many good reviews on the Tripadvisor and seemed very charismatic but...) called Jason.  He may not have lived up to expectations based on his reviews, but we ain't gonna let a bad guide ruin our holiday.  So we had fun... no matter what!

We paid a total of USD220 for the four of us, which includes everything from hotel pick up, transport, boat rides, a vietnamese home cooked lunch with his vietnamese family and tips.

We stopped by the Monkey Bridge at Long Dinh for quick photography and toilet break.  This is along the way to Mekong Delta

Cruising on his boat and relaxing on his brand new hammocks

Rice Paper Making

Rice paper drying on bamboo sticks

Each one of us got to try our hands at making rice paper.  It looked easy but looks are deceiving because it takes delicate skills to lift the rice paper up without breaking the thin skin.  As our reward, we were allowed to eat whatever we made... LOL (I guess that means, it's such bad quality that it can't be sold)

Me at work

Heading towards the Mekong (land) Market.  He did not bring us to the floating market, but I was not disappointed as I was already mentally prepared, and it was still run walking around the market being able to feel and see the activities and produce.

Some of the things sold at the market.  My S95 camera battery was running low so I had to toggle between that and my S4.

Colorful produce on display for sale.

Vegetable produce.  I noticed that the radish and carrots were thin and "organic" looking

Dried seafood

Oval shaped watermelons.  I bet these are very sweet!

Fresh fruits - which we had no chance to buy

Our guide was in such a hurry at the market, and many times we had to keep up with him.  I only had time to quickly aim and snap photos, with no chance to really admire the items for sale.  The only chance I had to purchase something was RICE!  Yup, you heard me.  We bought 2kg of good quality Vietnamese rice to bring back home since we had sufficient luggage space.

Sampling Local Fruits on Mrs Hai's Fruit Boat

We were given different types of fruits to sample but the hygiene of the boat and utensils leave much to be desired aka dirty la!

Sitting on a sampan on quiet canal.  This ride took around 30 minutes and the children were amazed at seeing so many mudskippers along the way

Fooling on the boat... it's a good place to relax and even take 40 winks

Local Lunch at Hoa Khanh Village in Cai Be

We were shown how to cook the Mekong soup - fresh corn, egg and other types of vegetables.  Also very tasty

Elephant ear fish waiting to go into the pot

Steam elephant ear fish (eaten wrapped with fresh lettuce).  First time we eat steam fish with lettuce but it was very very tasty!  

Cooking show!  Vic and Will got to wrap dumplings

The land around the house is planted with many different types of fruits and vegetables, the organic way! You can literally pluck the fruit from the tree, give it a little wipe with your own hands or against your tee shirt, and then bite into it.  Here the kids are plucking star fruits.  The uncle brought them around to pluck guavas and starfruits, and we saw ginger plants too besides others. 

Part of the Purple family... they very very hospitable and friendly although language is a barrier.  Our guide is useless la.  His family were the ones were made us feel at home whereas he was merely an overpaid transporter

Walking back to his Toyota car

The end of the "day trip" to Mekong.

Our Little Science Projects: Tadpoles and Caterpillars

One Friday night, as my helper went out to throw the garbage, we heard her scream!  It wasn't the kind of "Help me, I am being attacked" scream but something else.  So hubby hurried out first followed by the kids, and then moi (not because I was afraid, but I was upstairs getting ready to go out).

I saw the four of them huddled around my flower plant (don't ask me for the name of the plant, because I don't know) and then my helper pointed out the bald parts!  My goodness, I got a shocked as I saw the many stems without the leaves and flowers.  The plant, quite a big sized matured one, was being attacked by tens of caterpillars!  

Fat and juice caterpillars found.  This is as long as one's third finger!  Just look at the evil eyes!

                                          

I dare not say hundreds, but we easily caught more than 20 that night and threw them 1km away near the bushes so they can continue their buffet (but with a different spread).  When we got back after cell meeting, we continued our midnight rendezvous to pick out more caterpillars.  We used the light from our smartphones and a big torchlight (my Christmas present from father-in-law which always comes in handy, haha) to help in our search.

We found easily 10-20 more, then decided to call it a night after locking them up in a container (with holes for ventilation).  

For the next few days AND weeks, my helper continued to find and pick out more caterpillars, all of different sizes.  We tried garlic spray on them but it didn't work, and another time I decided to make my own concoction of neem oil spray on the plant, but that burned many parts of my plant.  The plant looked miserable, so finally I decided to chop it off and leave the roots in, hoping that it will grow again.  Alas, it didn't!  

In between all these, we kept the caterpillars that we caught in two containers and some eventually turned into cocoon-like, but later died.  It looked really scary and geli too.  A pair of wooden disposable chopsticks were our only tool to "touch" them. 

One day, Gong Gong came to visit and left a word of wisdom to my helper, that the containers should be left open for more ventilation.  So she obediently did.  The rest of us, by then, lost most interest and enthusiasm over these worms.  

When one turned brown and into cocoon-like again, we thought nothing much about it, as many previously died after a while.  My helper kept checking on it by jabbing it with the chopstick to check if it was alive!  

One night, we discovered the cocoon has opened!  Everyone got so excited to see the new butterfly.  I was very curious to see it's glorious colors, but alas... it looks like this...

One day old!

William had the honor to pray for it before we released it in our humble garden that night.  I think he prayed something like God to take care of it, and may the butterfly come back to visit us again....

The next day, the kids checked our flowers and happily discovered Ms Butterfly (or is it a moth?) hanging around...

                            

Well, that's the end of the story... after nearly 1.5 months, two plants and many dead predecessors... this one made it!  

Then came the tadpoles... 

One evening the kids were cycling at the park near our house and there was a puddle of water.  As we needed to slow down and get around or jump over it, we noticed there were many many tadpoles swimming in the puddle.  The kids said they wanted to rear them and daddy... aah, good ol' daddy will always try to oblige them.  As for mummy, the thoughts of caterpillars and tadpoles that will grow into frogs (and no prince charmings) is too yucky for me, so I played no part in this.

After dinner the next day, daddy and Victoria dugged up the tadpoles from the park

There were so many of them!

And some grew into this big in no matter of time, with a little leg growing.  We fed them small fish food 

Since they were growing fast, daddy said they have to be released back into the "wild" so they can feed on other insects and mosquitoes.  With that, one evening we took a drive in Daddy's car to a designated spot where there's always water (thanks to Syabas laziness to fix a burst underground pipe) and released them there.

Guess who had to sit behind with the tadpoles??  That's the only role I played I think... besides holding the torchlight here - from the comfort of the car!

Bye bye taddies... hope you don't get run over by the cars hope you grow up big and strong and eat up all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood

Christmas Christmas Christmas!

Aaahhh cchhoooo!!  Too many cobwebs on my blog now.  Looking back at the things we did for Christmas last year...

Christmas shopping at the Big Bad Wolf Sale held in MIECC, Seri Kembangan.  Mama and Yeh Yeh gave them each a budget to purchase any books they like, of course subject to mummy's approval (so they don't get all activity books)

We went early at 730am, and this was the crowd a week after the sale opened.  Not crowded and easy to move around but only for a few hours before the crowd came in.

Went to Pavillion shopping mall to admire the decos. 

After Pavillion, we dropped by a nice spot to take the best shots of the KLCC Twin Towers.

Christmas pot luck dinner with the cell group

A day out to bless the OAs

A weekend in Penang.  See cheeky Vic with the cream on top of her lips?  That's her favourite toy, Doggie

Church celebration on Christmas day at Agape Assembly Church in Seremban

Posing with presents cousins in Yi Yi and Yi Jiong's new home