RamblingMoo

Another delayed post…

Last Sunday (also happened to be my birthday) there was a Penang Bloggers Meet. The meet was organised by a young chap, so most of the attendees were either teenagers or young adults (early twenties) except for shooi, 5Xmom and myself.

It was quite chaotic when I arrived with Darrius. The meeting location was at Starbucks in e-Gate. I did not stayed too long there as the group gathered outside and it was scorching hot. Soon Darrius and Bryan (shooi’s son) getting irritated by the heat so we shifted next door to Old Town Kopitiam after the arrival of Lilian (5Xmom). Though this is not the most ideal place but still better than the intense heat outside.

Allisia, who is not a blogger but a forum member of MMB came to join us shortly after with her family.

Shooi and Bryan, Lilian, Bryan, me with Darrius and Allisia with Yang

Bryan with Darrius

A shot with my cake and also Allisia’s lovely daugther, Jinny

The mommies group here is so small as compared to the one I attended in KL! Could it be the mommies here are more low profile??

KittyCat has wanted to come but she is still in Kuching so has to give this a miss. Anyway, we hope to have another meet soon (with more publicity) so can gather more Penang mommies.

Visit here for more cute shots of Bryan and Darrius and also here and here for the Penang Bloggers Meet 2007.

Wah wah wah…. the MEME power is still on the all time high. Guess with all the paid postings, lots of bloggers are happy to be tagged!!! Well, though I’m not so active with paid postings yet, I believe this is a good opportunity for me to get to know more fellow bloggers out there…. got to do some PR (public relation) before getting good PR (page rank) mah!

Was tagged by giddytigers, a new breastfeeding mom I’ve just got to know on ‘Who is the 1st blogger you’ve met?’

Here goes…

1. Who is the first blogger you’ve met?

Actually before I started blogging I’ve met KittyCat who happened to be my ante-natal course mate at Adventist Hospital. And co-incidentally she also frequent the breastfeeding forum MMB (My Mom’s Best) owned by 5Xmom.

2. Who is the ‘most wanted to meet blogger for you’?

I think I would love to meet NyonyaPenang if given any chance. I really like reading her blog for a dose of laugther. And there are some floogers (flood bloggers) like Aunty Yochana and Suyin for their ever inspiring cake decorating and recipes. And for more international front, I wish I have a chance to meet Simple America who has been a loyal supporter of this blog.

3. Who is the ‘I can meet, want to meet but somehow never got to meet’ blogger?

I guess it has to be Michelle. Vien from San Francisco has asked her to pass some stuff to me and I have yet to pay a visit to Michelle to collect the barang-barang. Best part is, she also stays in Penang!

4. Who are the group of bloggers you most wanted to meet?

Many of the blogging mommies and their kiddos whom I have yet to meet of course!

5. Do you have any bloggers/blog readers that you wish to meet right now?

Hmmm…. this one has to be IMMomsdaughter! Well, she has sent me a prize and also a CNY card. It would be nice to meet her in person to thank her! Another thing is, she inspired me to write for PPP but just too bad I can’t get my lazy butts to start writing any post yet! Another reason is, must give her some cookies mah!

Well, you have it there…. and now the lucky recipients are….. cheng-cheng-cheng…..

1. Ah Pek - Give u chance to boost traffic for your new home!

2. Mommy to Bee - More work for you!

3. Montessori Mum - Another linky exercise for you!

4. Mott - Wah! Finally can taggy you! Treat it as ‘hoi-lin’ or open the year…LOL

5. LaundryAmah - Can promote your new addy ah!

This is a little late but I have no idea that the 9th day of the Lunar New Year is a big thing to the Hokkiens here in Penang. It’s called ‘Tien Gong Tan’ or Heavenly God’s celebration.

I did not get to enjoy so much last year on this particular celebration since Darrius was just about 2 months old… still kelam-kabut (disorganised) with feeding and coaxing Darrius to sleep. However, this year we really get to see what is this celebration meant to the Hokkiens here… according to PiggyBeng, this day is considered the actual New Year Day for the Hokkiens as this is the day the Hokkiens has won over the Cantonese (ok… not sure if I got this correctly).

PiggyBeng took the day off so he can bring us around on the eve to see what people will do to celebrate. We drove around the city and some housing areas and witness people gave offerings of gigantic josticks, burning papers, lots of food (some even have the whole roasted pig) and sugar cane. Sugar cane is believed to be the saviour to the Hokkiens. Why? Caused when the Hokkiens were being chased by the Cantoneses, they took cover (hide) between the sugar cane trees and thus saved them from the Cantoneses and free from being executed.

At our house we also did not spare on the offerings except less the roasted pig lah! And another thing, we went ahead with the fireworks too! SIL’s hubby got a few boxes of the fireworks which he got from his relatives. We tried to put them up during the eve of CNY but got visited by the mata (police) and kena stopped! We have to keep and realese them when everyone is doing so on the eve of the 9th day! PiggyBeng actually asked what is allowed… guess what they said???? Only POP-POP!!!! (For those who do not know what is POP-POP, it is the very small crackers that kids throw on the floor which will sparkled with a pop! sound) Btw, we got a 2nd visit from the mata again! So, gave angpows lor! What else right???? And we continued after they left!

Anyway, the entire night was like a showcase of fireworks everywhere in the island. The ping-ping-bang-bang sound started even before midnite! There were many really nice looking ones around and we tried to capture some but they all turned out too small…

Here we captured one which were quite far away from our place….

Hehehehe…

Another year older… *sigh* and getting wiser too?

(A little birthday cake which I baked for myself)

Kinda late to announce but better late than never right?

I celebrated my 3*th birthday today but had an early celebration with the two love of my life the day before. We went to have Japanese food at this Tao-Cuisine & Sushi for lunch over at e-Gate, Penang. This is our first time dining there and surprisingly the food and service was better than we have expected! Too bad we can’t try all the food on the menu (we had a-la-carte buffett) but all of us had a great time. PiggyBeng stuffed himself till there’s no more room left! We even skipped dinner!

We did not manage to snap too many photos on the delicious dishes as we are too hungry that time and started digging in the moment the dishes arrived! Only a few shots here and there…

Top to bottom : Sashimi Deluxe, Unagi with rice and Motoyaki Scallops

I like the Spider Rolls (soft-shell crabs with cucumber), Tempura prawns and Sunomono (Tako or octopus). As it is in ala-carte, the portion served are for either one or two person which is quite a good portion… except for the JJ rolls (tuna with avocado) which has 6pcs… too much rice so filled up our tummy very quickly. We hardly had any chance to order any other rolls!

From Darrius’s cheeky grin, you can tell that we are one of their happy diners!

What a way to welcome the year of the fat Piggy!

Never expected this to happen so soon but…yeah… it is almost impossible to avoid something like this to happen especially for someone who just started to walk… and like a drunkard too!
Darrius got his first tatoo from the table’s leg yesterday… yeah… the real painful one which he screamed so loud his tears just shoot like a fountain! *Ouch* Not going to say much and let the photos tell the story….

My mom has been reminding me to be more alert in any case something like this could happen but guess I was rather lax with Darrius thinking he will be fine… *sigh*

It was that 5 seconds my eyes was not looking (was about to switch off the fan) and I heard the ‘bokk’ sound and 1 second later a loud scream from Darrius. Luckily I acted fast enough and ran and hold him before he fell backward as he was screaming in pain.

We quickly put ice pack on the swollen area for about 10 minutes (he was squirming around and tried to wriggle away crying loudly) and we managed to suppress the bruise. Today the bruised area looked much better but his eye (left) still a little swollen.

Well, this could be the first but definitely will not be the last… guess I have to really be on my toes from now on as Darrius is walking! Time to lose some weight too!

Gosh! Time really flies… just a blink of the eyes and Darrius is already 15-month old today! Can’t believe my little kaypoh-chi is a big boy lioa… *teary eyes*

A little update on Darrius’s developments:

His hair is still not growing much. Teeth is still 7 but saw one more sprouting out on the left. Weigh is about 10.5kg and height is still unknown. Dislike milk powder so giving him boxed full cream milk instead and so far he’s ok with it. Likes to eat what we are eating and pushes his own food away. Can play by himself for a longer period.

1. Can walk very fast and even make 360 degree turn but sometimes still quite wobbly and tend to fall down.

2. Able to understand a few simple commands such as:

• sit down
• lie down
• stand up
• walk-walk here/there
• come here
• go there
• give mommy/daddy/whoever is around
• put your toy(s) down
• drink your kut-kut (water)
• eat your porridge/cereal
• hug mommy/daddy
• kiss mommy/daddy
• sayang (love/caress) mommy/daddy
• hold this
• do you want this/that? (will shake his head if he don’t want and point if he wants)

3. Know how to demand for things such as:

• always ask for his books (during his meal time…. quite annoying)
• asked to be carried (lifting both his hands)
• ask for his water bottle (kut-kut)
• point for his milk (my breasts)
• ask for his pop-pops by saying ‘popps’ (rice crispies/fruit loops)
• asked to walk by saying ‘wokk’ (so that we can put him down and he can walk by himself)

4. Know how to lie or pretend - when he wanted to get down from the high chair, he will pretend to want to pass motion (will make the eemm-eemm sound with a red face) and hope we will take him out.

5. Able to identify some of his body parts such as:

• where is your botak head? He will put up both his hands and rub his head
• where is your big small eyes? He will use his index fingers and point to his eyes
• where is your teeth? He will put one of his index finger and poke his teeth and says ‘teethh’
• where is your flat nose? Will put one of his index finger and ‘korek‘ (dig) his nose
• where is your hand? Will use his left hand and point his right hand
• where is your big fat leg? Will shake both his legs
• where is your belly button? Will use both his hands and touch his navel
• where is your milk-milk? Will use both his hands and point to his chest

6. New vocab:

• nor-more (with hands gesture)
• un-ti (aunty)
• aor (owl)
• pearr (pear)
• booat (boat)
• yammy-yumm (yummy-yummy)
• frag (flag)
• beebi (baby)
• yabbit (rabbit)
• kaa-kurk (supposedly is Tesco but dono why it sounded more like Yakult!)
• pettir-pettir-pettir (no idea what this mean but he loves saying this)

7. Bad habits

• still asked to go poo-poo in the midst of his meal
• bite/chew on anything his hands get hold of
• like to drink water (while bathing) from his bath tub whenever I’m not looking
• can be very temperamental
• still likes to scream
• pushing his ears when he’s angry
• spit out food
• rubbing his eyes ver hard till his eye lashes ‘hair’ drop
• likes to bite his shoes

We really enjoyed communicating with him now as he started to recognise many things and able to communicate back to us. He has good memory retainment too as he is able to remember things or words we showed/taught him just once.

However, he is starting to do a lot of annoying things such as pressing the on/off switch on the TV, banging things on the table, open/close the cabinet doors, punching on his daddy’s keyboard, banging the remote controls till the batteries drop out, lick the wall and a lot more… *sigh*

It is getting harder to restraint him too as he will scream and wriggle whenever we tried putting him into his playpen/stroller/high chair. He will demand to want to ride on those kiddy rides when he sees them or have cheap thrill on those displayed kid’s mobiles.

That is all for the time being… I might have missed out some details as I can’t really recall everything now. It has been a hectic week filled with Chinese New Year activities.

Gong Xi Gong Xi!!!

On the 1st day of the Chinese Lunar New Year is also my gong-gong’s birthday… what an auspicious coincidence!

Daddy and mommy brought me to Ipoh (mommy’s hometown) to meet up with gong-gong, poh-poh, kau-fu (mommy’s brother), kam-mo (kau-fu’s wife) and all my all my suk-gongs (granduncles), suk-pohs (grandaunties), yee-yees (aunties), kau-fus (uncles) and all relatives as every year all of us will gather there for Chinese New Year celebration.

We stayed over at Yee-suk-gong’s house and went to Sei-suk-gong’s house for the yearly Chinese New Year party. As it was gong-gong’s birthday that day and we took the opportunity to celebrate at the party.

Look at me and my gong-gong… And look at those yummylicious cakes! Mommy baked and frosted a chocolate peppermint cake coated with honey chocolate for the occasion. My kau-fu bought another cake from Secret Recipes as he worried there were not enough cakes to go around since there will be so many people coming to the party.

I was having great fun since I can walk now… and I was busy exploring the entire place. My yee-yees (aunties) took turns to bring me around the house and also let me walk here and there… so I must admit that it is great to be the youngest around!

V-Day came and went… though this day is no difference with any other day but deep down in our hearts, it is a day to celebrate our love with the one we loved.

My PiggyBeng is not a very lomantic person and he never really believes in flowers, chocolates and what more teddybears but he will buy me parfumes, holidays and LV bags… He is also a man of very few words but we can chat the entire night… Though he dislikes public display of affections but under his cool exterior, he is one caring, loving and affectionate husband and father.

Even though we did not celebrate V-Day like other couples but the time we spent together is enough to speak volumes and what’s more…

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He bought all these barang-barang for me all the way from the U.S…

He went around hunting for the Wilton muffin and mini muffin pans, the mini muffin cups, my favourite Habanero flavour Doritos, cranberries, sunflowers kernels and many more which I was too lazy to lay them all out…

Though these stuff may not cost much but it’s the thoughts that counts right????

To my Dearest PiggyBeng (if you are reading this)…

I lup U deep-deep! *muakz!*

Life has been really hectic caring for Darrius alone when PiggyBeng is not around. Though MIL and SIL’s family are around but their never ending activities outside the house always left the 2 of us at home most of the time… so I have to entertain Darrius all by myself the entire week… so to speak and do all the household chores as well…. more people more works as the oven hot weather brings in more dust!
This is quite a delayed post… a review on one of the restaurant we frequent on this little island we lived… Went there recently… last month actually….
This seafood restaurant was quite ‘fong kong’ (famous)  in the past according to PiggyBeng but with the mushrooming of many more seafood restaurants around the island has actually sent this place into cold storage… They has since closed half the restaurant as there were very few customers patronising the place now. Each time we were there, there were less than 3 tables occupied. My guess could be they are too isolated and hidden so not many people knows how to get there unless those lived around the area or those who has been there in the past….

The name of the restaurant is Batu Maung Seafood Restaurant… which was actually located in a uphill corner in Batu Maung… near the Bayan Lepas industrial area. There is a Chinese temple next to it but I can’t recall the temple’s name…

Though the restaurant is nothing to shout about in terms of deco but it has a nice view of docking fishing boats as there’s a jetty outside. You can have a choice to sit outside (no air-conditioning so have to feed the mozzies :P) or inside with air-conditioning. Service is quite good (I think the staff are mostly family members) and they don’t charge service charge.

This is what we normally order….

The gigantic ‘kapah’ which is called bamboo calm. In Cantonese it’s called ‘chok-than’. It is sooooooooo yummy especially cooked in ‘kam-heong’ style (dried prawns, curry leaves and lots of chillies).

Next…

Another type of calms (sollie forgotten to get the name) which taste like ‘lala’ (another type of calms but flatter). Also very yummy with ‘kum-heong’ style.

The following is ‘tin-kai’ (water chicken or padi field chicken or FROG) cooked in kong-po’ style. We don’t normally order this as we prefer crabs but since we are not ordering crabs this round so we go for the froggy…

My best recommendation is the following….

Combination of salad and cereal prawns…. very the yummylicious! I espcially like the cereal ones as it is soooooo crispy and fragrant!

For all the yumminest, surprisingly they are reasonably priced too… and that was what always make my PiggyBeng happy…. yummy, big portion and price is right!
On top of that, at the end of your meal, they will throw in a plate of freshly cut fruits of papaya, watermelon, guava and mango for FREE! Now, ain’t that a good enough reason to dine there? So, in case you can’t get a booking at some over crowded cafes or restaurants for this Valentine’s, do consider bringing your loved one(s) to Batu Maung Seafood Restaurant… nice ambience by the sea, great tasting food and lots of privacy…. (Sorry folks from other states… unless you are already here in Penang!)

p/s: You won’t get to spot PiggyBeng and myself too as we are having Hokkien Mee at home! (cooked by PiggyBeng lah!)

Ok… I know it’s nutty but I just got tagged again… this time by Vien! So fast I have to open ceremony for February with my 1st Meme. Not to mentioned this is already my 3rd Meme for the year!

So, what are the 5 things you’ve yet to know about me?

1. My face was filled with moles (not freckles but those black spots) before I was to marry my PiggyBeng. According to the old folks, it’s better to clear/remove them before entering a new life as these moles are considered as burdens or baggages (not sure true or not leh). I tell you, the process was a real torture! They actually dig the moles one by one and insert some kind of dried grass and burn it with a joss-stick… then it will have this ‘crack’ sound which indicates the root is dead so the moles will not return…. *heng ah!* I’m not that vain ok to ask for this but I don’t think I want to ever go through that again! *double ouch!*
2. I gained 7kg in 2 weeks! 10 years ago, during my 1st trip to Hong Kong and GuangZhou… I have been eating and eating for the entire trip and ended up smashing the scale! It scares the hell out of me so I went on a crash diet when I return and after 1 month I went back to my pre-Hong Kong trip weight. *pheeeew*

3. I was an IRC junkie for 5 years. Yeap, that was before the blogging phenomena. I used to go for weekly IRC rollerblading meets, bowling meets, KTV meets, BBQ meets, kopi-sessions meets, scuba-diving meets, yam-cha meets, boogie meets and whatever meets (except rave party meet)…. been there done that kinda stuff…
4. I did bungy jump. It was during my company’s annual D&D in Batam Island. I did it in the spur of the moment… never regret the experience!
5. I was once a shoes fetish. I have collection of shoes like Emelda Marcos… LOL When I buy shoes, if I like the design, I will get minimum 2 pairs of the same designs in different colours. I ever bought 5 pairs (different designs) in a single day…. sioa (crazy) hor? LOL (Nine West only lar… can’t afford 5 pairs of Faragammo in a single day!)

There you have it… now you know I’m a super sioa person….

And now…. the lucky recipients:

1. Oscar’s Mommy - You can do this when you recovered from your flu

2. ShoppingMum - Extra traffics??? LOL

3. Simple America - Wooohooo…. my 1st tag to you this year!

4. Yvonne of Etcetera~Etcetera~Etcetera - Do this during lunch break… hehehehe

5. Wenn - Yeh! Yeh! Yeh! Can tag you this time!