Kuantan, Cherating - Drama, Drama!

17 Dec'08 - 20/21 Dec'08


Hubby and I drove up to Kuantan for a short holiday.

After scouring the internet, we decided on Holiday Villa as it looked rustic and reasonable. We don't like those hotels where they all kind of looked the same.


The reception area



We stayed in a 'villa' - hmm.. more like a hut. It was rather quaint.


A cosy room with a small sitting area.




There are 2 swimming-pools.






The breakfast area by the beach.



We drove up to Trengganu to visit the classy Tanjong Jara Resort








Inside the spa's compound.





The sea were a bit rough as this was the monsoon season.





The beaches are rather disappointing. The sands are coarse, not soft and white like in Bintan.





After our lunch at Tanjong Jara Resort, we started to drive back to our hotel.


Drama no. 1
The traffic light was flashing orange and so hubby slowed down to stop.

I saw this public bus from my passenger side mirror. The bus got closer and closer, hmm... how come so close har? I thought to myself, maybe they're like those S'pore buses where they like to stop very close behind another vehicle? Hey, that's really, really close.

Before I can say anything - bam!

Both of us jerked forward. Luckily, we were wearing our seat-belts.

Guess what the bus-driver said to us in Malay? Aiyah! why you stop? Just go lah!
Huh? the light was turning red and also it was very dangerous to run the red-light as we were at a cross-junction where there are many cars coming from front, back and also the side-roads.

When we got bumped - hubby let out *&#@ softly - wah, in all the years we are married, he had never utter any bad words - he's really, really upset.

Here's hubby looking visibly upset.


It wasn't that hard a knock but as you can see, the car was already being pushed from the white line onto the yellow box.


Another close up look of the damage.


Hubby saw his baby bashed up, wah, so heart-pained leh.

But we are learning to look on the positive side of things - it could have been worse - at least we are not injured or caused anybody to be injured.

Thank you up-there for looking after us.



Went to one of the hotels (The Legend) along the beach for batik painting.


I chose to paint turtles. The turtles are already being outlined in wax.


Painting in the colours. Hubby helped a bit.


My finished turtles! Hubby said it looked like "Turtles in Outer-Space" instead of "Turtles Under The Sea".




Drama no.2
Had some emergency back home. I went to the Kuantan airpot the next morning to try to find a flight back to S'pore immediately.

Had to pay full fare on Malaysian Airlines. There were no direct flights and I had to connect via Kuala Lumpur. Unable to book the immediate connection flight from Kuala Lumpur to S'pore, so I had to try my luck at the transfer desk in KL. Luckily, managed to get a seat.

Thank you up-there again, for helping to get my flight to S'pore smoothly.

I felt rather bad to leave hubby behind to drive back alone to S'pore. We were unable to drive home on the day that I had to leave as hubby had to go to the police station the next day to collect his accident report.

Hubby said that we shouldn't drive up to east coast of Malaysia anymore cos always got something negative happen.

The last time we drove up to east coast, Mersing, the car that we drove (his fren's malaysian car) could not start after we want to drive back to S'pore. We ended up having to take a taxi from Mersing to Johore where his friend is staying. As for the car, his friend drove up to Mersing with a mechanic to fix it and get it back.

No more east coast Malaysia for us anytime soon.

All in, a very drama holiday.

Hamster Drama 2

How to tell your hamster is getting old? - by his ears. If his ears are getting dark, it means he's getting on in years.

Bob's ears was turning kind of blackish around the rim of his ears and it was expected as he has been with us for about 1 and half years and hamster's life expectancy is about 2-3 years.

So I was not surprised that his ear was turning dark. But after the falling into the drainage pipes episode - his ears turned even more black and was dry and crusty (i touched his ears) which I think was due to the soapy water he was soaked in.

So I was looking into his cage to see how his ears are and I saw only 1 black ear.

OMG!!!!! his the other ear dropped off??????????

I kept looking for the other ear and I saw a big hole at the side of his head - yeeeek! his ear really dropped off and left a big hole?????

I looked closer and there is a flap, not just a gaping hold. I think he's grown a new ear!!!!!!

But it looked kind of big compared to his original ear. Hubby said that it's most probably the same ear, just that the black crust had dropped off and that the ear is that size - just that his fur covered the ear before and so it looked small.

You be the judge of it........... I still think he grew a new ear........



see his normal left ear which is kind of tapered? It is still dry and crusty.




see his new right ear? - it looked much rounder and bigger like a funnel.



I wonder if his left ear is going to drop off too.

Bob is back to his normal self and wanting to run around.

I noticed that when I handle or touch him now, he is not so unwilling anymore - I guess he know that we 'sayang' him as we had saved him.

Ah Yat Seafood

28 Nov'2008


Hubby's birthday today and we went to Ah Yat Seafood at Turf City for dinner.

We wanted to try the bamboo clams as recommended by hubby's parents but no stock.



Wow, so many different types of seafood......




We chose the live scallops.......



and an Alaskan King Crab as hubby had never tasted it before.
They are humongous...


This was the smallest as there're only the 2 of us eating.





The live "fan" scallops was rather disappointing. Rather tough.



Now the Alaskan King Crab was something else........

We had one half of the crab cooked with black pepper and




the other half in some special pumpkin sauce. There were curry leaves in it, so it tasted a bit like Indian curry. I like it but hubby thought that it was too rich.







Birthday Boy digging in.......



Wow, the Alaskan King Crab was so meaty! Every claw was full of meat. The shell was thin and we just use a pair of scissors to cut thru it to get to the meat.

We finished the black-peppered half but couldn't finish all the pumpkin sauce half and had to take-away some of it. I think 4-6 persons can share that one crab.

The crab was rather expensive. It weighed 2.19kg and it cost $164.25 after the 50% discount! I was stunned for a second, if there're no 50% discount, I think I would have fainted but hubby really wanted to try it and to give himself a treat - so ok lor, I'm not complaining. Though I think this will be the last time ordering this crab or else maybe long long time later.

I would recommend steaming the crab as I've eaten it before and the meat is rather sweet.

If you go there to eat the seafood during weekdays - it's 50% discount off the price - during weekends, it's 30% off.

My Wedding (on Scrapblog)

Found a new interest - digital scrapbooking.

This site is just awesome. You can choose the designs from their templates or re-design it to make it unique. There are plenty of backgrounds, pics etc and music too to choose from. You can order and have them printed out into a booklet too - check it out at :





I'm slowly putting some of my wedding pics onto this digital scrapbook as I realised that all our wedding photo-albums are collecting dust in some obscure corner of our bookshelf (think most of you are the same, right?). It's rather boring pouring over the many, many pics inserted in those photos pockets, you kind of glaze over it. At least, with this digital scrapbook, it's colourful and interesting.

Of cos, I will not be putting in all the pics (too many!). Just some main ones. Most probably, I'll have it printed out in a booklet with all the designs that I had done.

I'll be posting a couple of my digital wedding scrapbooks and will be posting it as I finish each one.

Here's the first.

APPRECIATE

Read this story in someone's blog and found it very meaningful.


Someone said that we can do nine good deeds for someone; but if we were to fail him in one favour, he could wipe out memories of the nine good deeds and only remember our one failure!

How so very true - as sometimes I am guilty of it. I hope that I will be able to see and be aware and catch such negative thoughts more easily so that I can be more appreciative of the people around me.



A Story to live by

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind.

She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her.

She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I will marry you.'

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her.

When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend.

He asked her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?'

The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind.The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her.

She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.'

This is how the human brain often works when our status changes.
Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations.

Hamster Drama!

20 November 2008

Aiyoh, so much drama with Bob, our hamster.

As usual, we sometime let Bob out of his cage in the laundry area so that he can be free to run around instead of always running in the running-ball.

We will of cos close the bi-folding door so that he won't be able to run out of the laundry area to the rest of the house. But there were some times where if the wind blows from our front windows, the bifold door swings a little back and there's a slight gap from the bottom of the door - BOB sometimes do find his way out of the laundry area this way.

We let him out in the evening as they are nocturnal creature. Usually, he will auto go back to his cage to sleep or sometimes he will sleep in a corner but this time, we couldn't find him anywhere in the house.

So we suspect that - horrors - he could have gone down the drainage pipe (see arrow 1, there's a hole in the drain cover to put in a hose but that night, the hose was not in the drain-cover hole so there's a gap). We slowly opened up the cover expecting the worst, drowned and body floating? - but no leh, nothing.

This was in the morning, so hubby said that he's most probably somewhere in the house but if by evening, he's not back in his cage, he's most probably got flushed out to the sewage pipes.

I was so sad, BOB is so cute.

Anyway, hubby took half day leave and was back home in the afternoon. On a hunch, he took a look down the smaller pipe (arrow 2) which was where the washing-machine water goes to drain out - hmm...... saw something brownish but that could be the pipe stains but hey, wait!!!! "I can see whiskers moving, it's BOB and he's still alive!"

I looked down the pipe and called him "BOB, BOB" and he responded by trying to climb out of the pipe which of cos he couldn't cos too slippery.

Hubby took a clamp and put it down the pipe and BOB instantly clamour onto the clamp without prompting and hubby managed to clamp him out of the pipe.

He was still rather active and he quickly ran into his cage. He was shivering. I read that hamster cannot be wet for too long or else might die so I quickly brought out my hair-dryer and we try to dry him asap. He was so smart, he didn't like the hair-dryer blowing in his face so he turned around so that we can dry the back of his furs - he was showing us his ass.



BOB fell down the big drain-pipe (arrow 1). There's another smaller drainage hole inside the big drain-pipe where BOB climbed onto. The water does not come all the way up to the smaller drain-pipe or he would have drowned.
Hubby clamped BOB out from the pipe arrowed 2.



Blowing warm air.



Poor BOB, he looked tired and half-dead.



BOB is really a survivor. He fell into the hole and was wet all night.

On top of that, I, ahem, did some clothes washing and all the soapy water drained into that small pipe drainage which BOB was holed up in - and thank goodness, I did not do a hot wash!!!!!
The water temperature for my hot wash cycle is 95 degrees - he would be cooked alive!!!!!!!

RSYC - Christmas Bazaar

15 November 2008

It was open house at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club at West Coast and I had wanted to go to the christmas bazaar.

So disappointing, not many vendors, maybe around 20. I had been before to the bazaar being held at the usual Hyatt Hotel and there were way more vendors and varieties. Not many people browsing either. I guess it's just too way out just to specifically go and attend the bazaar.

No pics of the bazaar cos it was so dismal.

I like the RSYC though, it's small and homey.



On the way to RSYC, came across this little green scenery. I like it very much - look at all those bird's nests ferns. It seems like a scene out from Jurassic Park - a dinosaur is coming at any moment.

This was the original RSYC, way way back then........

Then it was relocated and rebuilt.....




And relocated and rebuilt again to this current RSYC.......