Top of the world

Hubby has pretty slim legs and ankles (so unfair), compared to the size of his body, so he has always perceived himself as ungainly and rather far from graceful! There was a point in time when he said that he would never attempt mountain climbing; what with his lack of agility, he was sure it would end up badly!



Therefore, I'm so proud (he's even more pleased) that on 21/07/09, he reached the summit of Mount Kinabalu. It is the highest mountain in the Malay Achipelago, with it's highest peak, Low's Peak, measuring 4,095 m (13,435 ft) above sea level. It is located in Kinabalu National Park, which is a World Heritage site in Sabah, Malaysia. (Wikipedia makes it so easy to sound smart!!)


gorgeous sunrise at the top

here's where he had an encounter with the unknown... (think 'Sixth Sense')


beautiful natural bonsais on the way up


good food after hard work... (looks like snails with algae growing on them if you ask me...)

Grandpa's 70th birthday

Grandpa celebrated his 70th (according to the Chinese calendar which adds a year to the conventional age) birthday on the 18th of July at Toh Yuen Restaurant at the Hilton Hotel.


The kids had great fun over the weekend with their cousins who came back from Vietnam and Miri. Their great-aunt also celebrated her 70th birthday the day before.


Since everyone was around, the whole Ng Clan went to have our extended family portrait taken at Alvin Leong's studio. It was a lengthy, sweaty affair, with cranky babies thrown in. However, I'm sure that in the future, we'll all be happy we took the effort to document this moment in our busy lives, which seem to pass by all too fast.

Hybrid word inventions

Claire has this knack for inventing new words by splicing and merging two words of similar meaning together:

1. plick: (verb) a combination of 'pluck' and 'pick'. Eg: Mum, can I plick this flower?

2. splace: (noun) a combination of 'place' and 'space'. Eg: Move over!! I have no splace to sit!!

This one took me a while to figure out:

3. backstan: (adverb) a combination of 'backwards' and 'gostan' (a Malaysian slang derived from the English phrase "go astern"). Eg: Look mum! I can walk backstan!

up Mt. Singai

On Thursday afternoon, we brought the kids to Bau, to climb Mt. Singai. It's a relatively mild climb, but definitely still tiring, with steps provided all the way to the church at around 1/3 of the way up.


It's beautiful and peaceful there. There are quarters, a cafeteria, an amphitheatre and a grotto complete with fish pond.

Annie had school till 3pm, so dad went to bail her out at lunch time, with some bogus story about having to do her passport!! *tsk, tsk, tsk*


Solomon obviously enjoyed himself the most, what with the good excuse that he still cannot walk!

The small ones were rather tired but Alaena didn't once complain! Claire however, was grumbling most of the way!


Eva fell asleep on the way down so dad had a real good workout!


The reward at the end of the ardous climb was... SUNNY HILL ICE-CREAM!

Lost at sea?

Sunday hubby and I went scuba diving again. My body is still aching all over because the two of us were almost swept out to the big angry sea, never to be found again!! (Note: This is based on a true story. Certain parts have been dramatized for viewer's enjoyment.)

The day started out sunny and the sea was pretty calm. We did our first dive and explored the coral and rocks near the island. The visibility was rather poor though and there were no big fish to be seen. Some of our friends had caught big, huge (for our standard) lobsters/crayfish. Claire just told me the week before that she wanted to eat lobster. So, hubby and I decided to hunt for lobsters on the next dive.

On the second dive, we managed to catch two lobsters and were very excited, as this was a first for both of us. So, we went further down the coastline, hoping to find even more! They stick their antennae out from under the rocks and you need a certain skill to yank them out without detatching the antennae. We were not prepared with a net to keep them, so hubby stuffed one into his BCD pocket and I held on tight to the other! Luckily we met a fellow diver later who had a net and gave one lobster for him to keep.

By the time we surfaced, our boat was quite a distance away. That was okay, we just had to inflate our BCD, roll onto our backs and leisurely kick our way back.

Alas, the sea was much choppier than before, and after about 15 minutes of kicking, we realized we weren't moving much, if we were moving at all! When we stopped kicking, the current swept us even further out! *panic*

So we had to blow our whistle and wave hubby's bright orange flipper, hoping the rest on the boat would see us. (hubby didn't bring his 'sausage'; an orange, sausage shaped float which you inflate to get attention) The boat didn't budge, so we were worried that they could not see us at all.

Apparently, they did notice a black speck in the sea with an occasional flash of orange. The whistle was useless though. Anyway, they were waiting for others to surface and get onto the boat, before they could come rescue us. In the meantime, I held onto hubby's BCD and we had to keep on kicking, to stay within sight of the boat, because we were drifting towards the other side of the island.

A half hour of kicking later, they finally came and fished us out. Even the boat had trouble going against the current!

Geez... I sure hope at least I burned a lot of calories that day!

Well, I can't say my Sunday was boring, that's for sure.

And guess what? After all that, Claire decided she didn't want to eat lobster after all.

Devil's advocate...

So yesterday we were driving home from Grandpa's place and Claire and Eva were fighting over a toy (their favourite past-time). One of my usual methods to get them to share is to lecture them about the Devil and their Guardian angel.

It usually goes this way; 'If you are good and listen to your Guardian Angel, she will love you and take care of you. However, if you are naughty and do what the Devil tells you to do, he will love to follow you around and be your friend!'

This method usually has a high success rate when used on Claire and Annie. Not so much for Eva...


After settling that tiff, Claire was playing by herself and pretending to talk on the phone;

Claire: Hello Devil, don't disturb my sister okay? Thanks, bye.

pause...

Claire: Oh ya, Devil, I forgot to ask you; are you a boy or a girl?

pause...

Claire: Oh okay, never mind. Bye.


Later, they started arguing again because Eva put her shoe-clad foot on the car seat and refused to listen to Claire's instructions to remove her foot.

Claire: Mummy! Eva put her leg on the cushion!
Mum: Eva, put your foot down.

no response...

Mum: Eva, put your foot down.

no response...

Mum: Eva, if you don't put your foot down, I'll tell the Devil you're a naughty girl who doesn't want to listen to her mummy!

no response...

Mum: I'll tell Miss Tan!

quickly removes leg...

Eva: Okay no more!

Apparently Miss Tan (her playschool principal) is scarier than the Devil!


Dad: (just for fun) Is Miss Tan a boy or girl?
Claire: Girl!
Eva: Boy!
Claire: Girl!
Eva: Boy!
Mum: Miss Tan is a girl.
Claire: Nah...
Eva: Girl got long hair!
Mum: Girls can cut their hair short like boys.
Eva: Only boy got short hair!
Mum: No, girls can have short hair as well. She is Miss Tan, that means she is a girl. If she is Mr Tan, then it's a boy.

long pause...

Claire: Who is Mr Tan?

Monkeys jumping on the bed

Saturday night, Annie had her cousin Allyson come for a sleep-over. It was already pretty late at night and the girls were still 'rioting' in their room, when Annie suddenly came over to our room, holding her head and telling us she had knocked her head on a corner of the wall and was bleeding!

There was quite a bit of blood, so the first thing I did was to apply pressure till the bleeding stopped. Upon further investigation, we found the wound to be a small gash which did not look too deep.

So, hubby and I piled the whole gang into the car, (all 5 kids, since we were 'maidless' and could not leave them at home!) and headed for the 24hrs Accident and Emergency clinic at Kuching Specialist Centre.

In the car, I took the opportunity to 'nag' the kids, "This is why I tell you all over and over again, do not jump on the bed!"

Eva promptly replied, "I didn't jump on the bed! I only be the crocodile!"

So I concluded that they were jumping from bed to bed, trying to escape the 'crocodile' when Annie hit her head!

Then Eva launched into the very appropriate nursery rhyme;
"Five little monkeys, jumping on the bed.
One fell down and knocked his head.
Mama called the doctor, the doctor said,
'No more monkeys jumping on the bed!'
Four little monkeys...."

3 little monkeys + 1 crocodile (far right)

Anyway, Annie was really worried and asked what would happen at the hospital. I tried to prepare her for the probability that she might have to get stitches. So, I explained that the wound didn't look too bad and hopefully she would not need stitches. Even if she did, it would only be one or two. It would hurt a bit, like going to the dentist.

She started freaking out because she did not believe the last bit and she really has close to zero pain threshold!

So dad tried to help, "It's not going to be painful. They'll give you an injection first and you won't feel..."

"INJECTION?!" cry, cry... sob, sob...

Ooops... wrong approach...

Anyway, after plenty of waiting, the doctor said there was no concussion, no need for an x-ray and no need for stitches!! Hooray! All that had to be done was to (in Claire's words), "superglue the head"!

A bit of tissue glue, a waterproof plaster and some RM63 later, we were free to go. It was around 11pm when we got home. Solomon had already fallen asleep and the rest of the girls were already zombies!

So, I hope it was a very educational field trip for all, with the very important lesson; "No More Monkeys Jumping On The Bed!"

Marvelous Manado

It's been a loooong... week. Hubby and I came back from a diving trip to Manado, Indonesia, only last Friday, but it seems like ages ago! The reason being, we now have no domestic helper and we're taking care of all 4 kids by ourselves and working at the same time!

It's super tiring, obviously, but it also has it's plus points, can you believe? We now spend more time with the kids and they are also better behaved. The house, shop and car are all so much cleaner, as my standards of cleanliness are much higher than my maid's (bordering on 'obsessive-compulsiveness'). Daddy also has to be with the kids more and is not able to go for Happy Hour sessions! Muahaha!

But, I cannot neglect my shop for too long and hubby will have to go traveling sometime, so we are now on the hunt for a new maid before I pass out from exhaustion. All the maid service agencies I know do not have any maids available at the moment. And it doesn't help that Malaysia and Indonesia are at odds regarding Indonesian domestic workers' welfare; Indonesia has temporarily banned the 'importing' of their domestic workers to Malaysia... hip hip hooray... :(

So anyway, how did I end up 'maidless' you ask? Hubby and I got back from our diving trip to find that Paula our maid had been complaining of stomach pain, among other things, and had already seen the doctor twice (this includes a middle of the night trip to the emergency ward!)

After taking plenty of medication, she seemed to be getting worse and was in bed the whole day. We were genuinely concerned and ended up bringing her to the doctor another 2 times. By the last trip, the doctor confirmed that she was acting. That was when my concern turned into plain rage. She didn't care and was still moaning so loud at night, she almost woke the kids. I wanted to box her already that night! She said she was so very sick and wanted to go home, and if it wasn't a Sunday, hubby and I would've driven her straight to the agent.

Initially she was quite a good worker, but when she got a handphone, she started turning from bad to worse. We discovered a second handphone and found that she had been spending a lot of money reloading her phones. While we were away for only a week, she spent RM140 buying reloads from the shop next to mine! Obviously it was not her own money. Even though she was too sick to get up and bathe, she could still charge her phone and send text messages!

On Monday we sent her back to her agent and even though she was 'dying', she could dress herself up in her new t-shirt and shoes which I bought from our holiday! I'm just happy to be rid of her and do not want to know what else she was up to when she was living in our home.

Alright, enough about my disappointing 'side-kick'. Think happy thoughts...

Manado... Thank goodness she left after the trip and not before!! Otherwise we definitely would not have been able to go on the trip, and it was such a blast!

Feeding fish was way fun


Initially my fear of diving was caused by my fear of not knowing what is down there; underwater. My imagination would then go into overdrive and I would be half expecting something to grab my legs and pull me down into the deep blue... Don't ask me what, an evil octopus or a giant squid maybe? Hey, when you're scared, details don't matter.

Anyway, I was pretty much over that fear, having been down there and seen that; no, there are no evil octopi or giant squid living at 30m below water...but 50 m and more? Who knows what strange and fearsome creatures lurk in those depths?? :)

This time, it was a different kind of fear. The water there was crystal clear, so when you jumped into the water and looked down, it was like looking down from an 8 storey building! The only difference was that there was nothing solid under your feet! So this was more like a fear of heights!

However, this fear was quickly replaced by awe, as you find that you are not falling, but instead floating gracefully! It is indeed a wonderful feeling, to be 'flying' essentially, through the beautiful clear waters.

Waterproof camera casing


Oh, the coral reefs and amazing sea creatures were magnificent! Hubby bought me a waterproof camera casing, so now we could bring our trusty ol' camera down with us. We took many pictures of the colourful fish and cool sea life to show the kids. We saw rare and amazing sea-life, like Hairy Frogfish, Mimic Octopus, Flamboyant Cuttlefish and Pygmy Seahorse, to name a few.

The other 'monkeys' in our group.

We planned a total of 18 dives over the course of 6 days. This included three night dives, something I found really creepy! I managed to complete all but one day dive (I was too tired)! Night diving was made less scary because I had hubby with me and knew he would keep an eye on me. It helped that there were 8 of us and another 2 local dive masters. I just held on tight to my torch and made sure we didn't get left behind all alone in the dark!!

Simply stunning...

The part I love best about night dives are the spectacular sunsets before the dive and also riding back to the resort on the roof of the boat! The stars were amazingly brilliant and I wish I had brought my glasses so I could pick out shooting stars!

Local food. (they also eat dog and cat!)


Manado is a small and quaint place. Other than scuba diving there isn't much else to do. I find the people there very friendly and polite. They like to honk their car horns when driving, and their gentle honks mean, "Hello" or "Excuse me". Nothing like our angry honks here which usually mean, "Get the *&%# out of my way!"

Lunch on boat roof


Anyway, I think I've got the diving bug now. It's a great past time and a good reason to visit beautiful parts of our world. I can't wait till our next trip!

This is the life...

Siaran Tergendala...

ANNOUNCENMENT: Supermum is now 'side-kick'less... kicked her lying @## back to Indonesia! *Sigh* long story... shall report another time. Who doesn't have an Indon maid story eh?

Anyway, I shall now have no time to pee even, much less blog. So, till I can find another to fill the vacancy; it's "Adios!" (can't live with them, can't live without them...)

Honeymoon

11/06/2009 2pm

*Sigh* I already miss my Little Monsters 1, 2, 3 and 4.

We’re at the KL LCCT Terminal waiting for our connecting flight to Manado, on the Island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Hubby and I are off on a diving trip for 9 days, without the kids. I don’t think I’ve ever been away from them for such a long period of time.

We’ve flown 1hr 45mins west to KL and later, we’re going to fly 4hrs back the direction we came, to reach Manado, further east! So now, we’re killing time at a coffee place, called Chocolate, and I’m drinking a sublime dark chocolate drink, akin to sipping melted chocolate! Endorphine high… heavenly…

At least this place has nice fat comfy chairs, LCCT is sorely lacking in comfortable waiting areas. The other option would be to pay RM88 per 2hrs to use the Plaza Lounge! What do you get? WiFi, air-conditioning, comfortable seating and showers. No thanks, I’ll just pay RM14.90 for my cup of heaven and open my Facebook Restaurant some other time! (I do miss my restaurant though… can almost afford a castle roof now!)

I did bring a book to read. I just finished Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ last night. I stayed up late just to finish it cos I only had a few chapters left and I didn’t want to lug around the whole book only to finish it on the first day of the holiday. It was also getting very interesting. Anyway, I brought the other book to read and when I took it out just now, I found out Sis no.4 gave me the wrong book! It was Book 3 and I need Book 2! Just my luck, the bookstore here has Books 1, 3 and 4! No Book 2!!

3:40pm

The flight is a little delayed. But good news: there's WiFi here in the departure lounge and I found Book 2 at the bookstore here! Hooray!

The International departure lounge here is much, much nicer than the rest of the LCCT. I was rather repelled by the washroom at the domestic luggage collection area. I was already about to pee in my pants and the was a queue in front of all 5 stalls! I had to scan the 'customers' faces and predict who needed to do the big one, to guess which line would most likely move faster!!

I detest public loos, especially wet ones. Luckily the lady before me flushed and besides the wet floor and overflowing sanitary bin, it was not too bad.

On our Air Asia flight from Kuching to KL, they were frantically paging a passenger on the plane. Apparently, he had boarded the wrong plane! He was supposed to be headed for Macau instead. Fortunately they got him in time. I can imagine the poor guy’s disappointment if he landed to find traffic jams and smog, as opposed to Baccarat and Roulette!

My kids love to fly Air Asia for one reason; cup noodles. One of the highlights of holidays for them is having cup noodles on the plane! Poor deprived creatures… mum does not buy cup noodles :)


I always encounter one predicament when flying with the kids. For want of anything to do, they'll definitely browse through all the reading material tucked behind the seats. This will undoubtedly include the emergency procedure sheet. Then they'll ask me all sorts of questions which I dare not answer honestly for fear of introducing the idea of crashing planes and inducing unnecessary fear!


Therefore;
1. The life vest is for babies in case they want to go swimming.
2. The plane is really special; it can even land on water!
3. It is so special that it is even equipped with slides for us to play!!

Hooray! Flying is fun!