Melaka 9-10aug

Given the long weekend, and Tue being a school holiday, what better reason is there not to go out to explore?

This time round, it was a short road trip to Melaka, and papa xun's second attempt at driving long distance. We had the great company of in-laws, sis-in-law, uncle morris, auntie and cousin sonia. Packed into 2 cars, we departed from S'pore at wee hours of 6am from tiong bahru.

Here's one of the few snapshots that I took. We stayed at holiday inn. Rooms are bright, clean and neat, not forgetting to mention that it's affordable as well.

We had a great time shopping and the greatest gainer is none other than baby! Although we had lots of hand-me down as well as some previous purchases, we couldn't resist these little cute outfits! Moreover, they are from gap, h&m and polo ralph. Prices are sooo attractive.

Adding onto the collection...

Another interesting place that we visit where kuais were sold in a kumpung area. This shop distributes to hotels and shops. We bought some really authentic nyonya kuais and dumplings. Don't think we get to see these blue coloured kuais around.

The room full of kuais!

korea trip

Finally, we are back from korea. The trip was really enjoyable and hassle free. We made new friends, had fruitful shopping at dongdamun, had an unofficial photographer for our babymoon and tried a myriad of activities that we won't try here in S'pore. Also, we had a record breaking number of days for eating pork and kimchi, which was almost practically everyday.

Some other highlights of the trip:
1. 3 days @ jeju island which has a nice weather and we stayed in an excellent hotel (Lotte)

2. Half a day at Everland theme park


2. Horse riding & go kart



3. We were dressed in hanbok after kimchi making



4. We picked strawberries off the vine and chomp immediately

5. We ate abalone fresh and raw from the sea! (S$5 only!)



6. We bought bottled form 6 years old ginseng which was acclaimed have health benefits. Other than that,we bought raw honey that helped solving indigestion problem. It was different from normal honey as it is insoluble in water and honeycombs can be seen when water is poured onto it. It does not contain extraordinary high level of glucose, instead it was high in fructose which can be taken by diabetics.

7. Some of our favourite shots from our new friend's camera. Never did we expect a tour to be filled with people of around our age, and the incredible thing? Majority of them are teachers too!

KL

And so, we managed to have a short get-away with the May Day long weekend.

We bought a package online which only cost SGD120++ each for flight, hotel and airport transfer. It was a rather boring trip, not much shopping nor good food to rave about. It was so uninteresting to the extent which I didn't want to take any photos. The consolation is that old town is really cheap (like as if we can't get it from JB) and we managed to try some of Malaysia's famous food which were all gathered in isetan's food mall.

I guess having Xun by my side 24-7 for the last 2 days is the best perk of this trip :)

Snapshots from the land of the rising sun

For your viewing pleasure: Part 1, Part 2.

As for entries, I guess I'll be doing it at a snail pace as I had my bit of fun, and it's back to work now.

folate, calcium and everything good!

Recently, I've been researching and reading more on supplements as I realise that my daily diet isn't enough to sustain a healthy and functioning system in the long run. I'm amazed at the tremedous pyradigm change after I did my research. I used to frown at the thought of drinking milk. However, after reading ieat blog and some articles, they led the usual non-dairy me to instill a daily cup of milk to ensure adequate, or at least some minimal calcium intake. (hey, this is no bragging ok. i'm already into my second cup since i bought my anlene milk powder yesterday)

Calcium

Calcium is very important for ladies who tend to suffer from osteoporosis especially after menopause. For me, it is particularly relevant since I've some predisposition. My mom has been suffering from on off bouts of joint pain and is scrambling to drink anlene at her age on top of the huge dosage of glucosamine. Since one's bone mass can only be built before reaching menopause it is essential that one develops a good bone density before bone mass loss sets in at menopause.

ieat author was blogging on Nestle Omega Plus Acticol which is a low fat milk with added Plant Sterols and Omega 3. Both cholesterol and plant sterols are essential components of cell membranes and cholesterol are found only in animals. The studies have shown that a diet high in plant sterols does actually lower blood cholesterol levels because the plant sterols compete with cholesterol to be absorbed in the gut. 2 cups of this product daily ensures the required amount of 1.3 grams of Plant sterols by US FDA recommendation that is needed to lower cholesterol.

With such strong recommendation, I decided to head for gaint to get Nestle. While browsing the shelves, anlene chocolate flavour milk powder caught my eyes and I got that instead!

Folate
Vitamin B9 (folic acid and folate inclusive) is essential to numerous bodily functions such as nucleotide biosynthesis.

Folate is necessary for the production and maintenance of new cells. It is especially important during periods of rapid cell division and growth such as infancy and pregnancy. Folate is needed to synthesize nucleic acids (most notably thymine, a purine base). Thus, folate deficiency hinders DNA synthesis and cell division, affecting hematopoietic cells the most because of the rapid cell division nature of the red blood cells.

Deficiency of folate in pregnant women has been implicated in neural tube defects. It must be noted that NTD's occur early in pregnancy (first month) therefore women must have abundant folate upon conception.

***

This year, we hit a record number of travelling. We almost topped off with 2 more trips to Hawaii with Ade and family, and KL with Arleney. For a moment, I was quite disappointed but I think it's a good miss after all, as it meant more expenditure if we were to go although we only had to pay air ticket to Hawaii only as hippy mommy managed to get marriot service apartment from accumulating all her points.

Taipei 8-12 Sept 09

another getaway, yay! i certainly am appreciative of this chance to travel and to get away after a mad term. the entire horrid term and my worst fear as i anticipated in the beginning of the term is now over and this trip marked the end of the worst and the beginning of the best is yet to come! heh.

the trip generally can be summarised as SHOP and EAT. a few highlights:

1) endless night markets to visit

we visited 5 night markets, one each evening, starting with shilin, and then raohe, shida, shifan and finally huaxi. each has its own speciality to offer, with food and clothes as highlight. for a mere NT50 (approx. S$2.50) you can get most of the food sold. personally, my favourite is shida as things sold there, i.e. clothes are nicer. besides it has nice local ru wei to offer. shilin has the most selection in terms of variety of stalls. raohe has mainly food to offer which is a pity because we went there after our dinner.

2) wufen pu wholesale market

evident in the photo above, the bulk of damage was incurred in wufen pu. i managed to get dresses for less than S$20 each and the quality ain't compromised in any way. in fact, they were imported from korea.

3) cute puppies for sale
maybe it's just me, or probably the soft spot of many. i'm particuarly drawn to puppies and i've never seen so many puppies in one area before. besides, they seemed to be sold at 10% of the price here in s'pore.
these are 2 of my favourites-




4) hotspring in beitou




5)interesting theme cafe





i kinda lost appetite halfway through the meal even though the theme was really entertaining and unconventional. lol.

The guru says:A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single click.

(a pity that my clicking lacks patience) =/

it was great to know that dear's school trip to china is called off this sept. at least this would mean that we would have a tiny weeny bit of time for us to spend our first year wedding anniversary together. dear has already booked 2 nights stay in intercon before the intended trip. so now with the trip being called off, we are stranded with the hotel stay. thanks fickle minded management.

the temptation of travelling was certainly great with the sept hols now in hand! however, the time for some solitude rest and the impending trip in dec were deterring factors. dearie had been so generous and sweet enough to sponsor this sept trip and he gave me the go ahead sign to start booking online last night. however, to our horror, we found out today that the fickle minded management has yet to reveal its tremendous unpredictability and has decided to throw in a compulsory course. due to that, we've to fork out charges for ammending the bookings. thanks once again very fickle minded management.

***

cook log:

the past week's cooking experiments have been fruitful-

• watercrest soup simmered for less than 2 hrs and oven baked char siew;
• experimented with a one-dish meal in the rice cooker - simple stir frying ingredients and rice for a while before throwing them all into the cooker. the result? veg is astonishing well cooked and soft, meat is tender and rice smells good. guess it's almost the parallel of claypot rice, given that it's cooked in a different vessel.
• dessert- water chestnut and ginko nuts
• garlic lemon butter prawns, sambal sotong

Bali 13-19 Jun

We had the wonderful company of Tina and VK whom definately kept us yakking throughout those long car journeys as we travelled from one point to another during the trip. We are generally all quite easy going, so the trip was fun! :)

This trip was unusually interesting. One of the most interesting part is that we had to get up at unearthly hours for a few occasions. To begin with we had to be in the airport on Sat morning before 5am to check in. Having to pick up Tina and VK from clementi, it meant that we had to wake up at 4am! Good grief. Other than the annual marathon, I don't remember waking up at such hours ever!

We made it in time to T1, checked in our lugguage before settling down for an extremely early breakfast at killiney. Then it was off to Bali (Denpasar) on lionair.

After flying for 2hrs 45min, we finally reached our destination. We passed by the stretch of endless money changer before we came to the exit of the airport. We tried looking for the blue bird taxi mentioned in forum and only to find ourselves at the taxi booking counter to get a cab to Candidasa, which happened to be the most expensive on the list which is also correlated to the distance away from the airport. Although we anticipated that the resort is quite far from the airport, it shocked us when the driver told us it'll take 2hrs to reach where we wanted to go. I think I forgot to mention that the second interesting part of this trip was that our resort is on some ulu corner of the Bali map.

Finally, after a long journey of flight and cab, we reached the resort!

While Tina and VK were dealing with the reception, both of us lingered around snapping away. And yes, the four of us shared a suite.

Our lunch at the hotel after many many hours. The view from the resturaunt.

dear's balinese sauce chicken



my portion of nasi goreng which turned out to be the best nasi goreng throughout the whole trip. real savoury! apparently, rice and noodles are staples for the balinese and variations ain't much among different eateries. so, yea, i was really bored of rice after the trip.

We rested a while, planned our day trips for the next few days and decided to walk around the 'town' of Candidasa. The 'town' certainly didn't live up to our expectations. It was merely a clutter of few seafood resturaunts and a provision shop where VK and Tina got their medication, and we grabbed a few packs of junk food.

We headed for an hour massage at Andrea Salon and Massage which cost us RPD140,000 each, which is approximately SGD$20- a real steal.

Then it was back to resort, dinner and we retired early in anticipation for the tour next day. Just when we thought we could recuperate from the lack of sleep, the programme next day required us to wake up at 2.30am. Read on.

Day 2 (Sunday)
This day we woke up at 2.30am because dearest Tina wanted to watch dolphines. Of course, we lovingly agreed to that. And so, another unearthly hour for the 4 of us. We booked the day tour from Mr PT who was our service provider the next few days. He offered us quite a good rate. The day's dolphine package with sightseeing and breakfast cost us each RPD300,000, ~SGD$45.

We set off at 3am and headed for Lovina Beach, the northern part of Bali. Throughout the trip, we were all sleeping except for the times when I bumped my head against the window so hard that woke dear up.

I couldn't believe that our trip 1km offshore would be on such a dingy little boat, called jugong. A small boat that locals use to fish.


A little treat on the way to meet dolphines- sunrise

look how clear the water is!

We caught glimpse of dolphines but they ain't like those in NZ which jumps out of water so spotting them required some effort. Tina was satisfied and happy, so at least that was worth us waking up so early.

Next up was Gigit Waterfall before ending the tour at the Three Lakes and Floating Temple. The latter didn't interest us and were merely "mandantory stops".

Day 3 (Monday)
This day we ensured we caught at least 10hrs of sleep, and proudly, we all accomplished that. And while Tina and VK were still sleeping, dear and I got out of the room to enjoy the sea breeze and my daily cuppa.

We had the entertainment of surfers who were really skilled.

This day, we chartered the car for 12hrs at USD45. It was meant to be a shopping day at Kuta and spa spa spa!

On the way to check out the various spa, the tyre punctured which resulted in a bump.

Fortunately, the meachanic was nearby and we had the problem fixed. After we toured the spas at sanur, kuta and nusa dua, it was lunch at this little nasi padang shop.

We were charged with an exorbitant price of RPD480,000 for this meal, which means we definately have been cheated. That works out to be ~SGD75.

Next was walking around at Discovery Mall in Kuta. A shopping mall, facing a beach directly.

Finally, the highlight. Spa session at Sanur.

A good 2 hours of massage, body scrub and flower bath. Dinner was also part of the package. The whole session cost us RPD225,000 each, which works out to be SGD34.

As dinner was unfulfiling for the 3 of them, we had the driver to bring us to buy macdonald's, MacD, was what the locals call them. Then Mr & Mrs Kan decided to get some dvds to watch, and they swiftly bought 2 discs. In the comfort of our hotel room, we watched "Don't mess with Zohan".

Day 4 (Tuesday)
This day was a long day. Tina and VK were due to go back S'pore, while dear and I transferred to another hotel for our extended stay.

We planned it such that the tour will eventually reach Tanah Lot where our hotel is and it'll only be a 30min drive to the airport. This cut down our expenses on additional transport.

To beigin the day, it was the Barong Kris dance, a local folk tale about good triumphs over evil.

Then was to the silver smith at Celuk.

To the art gallery so that Tina could get a painting of cat.

Next stop was at the coffee plantations at Sribatu Village. Here was where the major shopping was accomplished. VK and Tina bought loads of coffee powder as gifts for parents and relatives while we bought relatively less. I also got 2 bottles of aromatherapy oil which were geninue stuff, not like those diluted versions sold in the sovenior shops around. Besides aromatherapy oil and coffee, we also got this really unique coffee powder.

Here's the beginning to the unique coffee powder- the mongoose and coffee beans.

The mongoose eats the coffee seeds and due to the inability to digest these seeds, they are then passed out. Apparently, this partially digested stuff upon roasting and processed into powder before turning it into coffee drink gives the coffee a syrupy and creamy taste.

We bargained hard for a free cup to try or else a little cup like this cost USD10!

And because we got the drink free, we were obliged to buy the powder from them. We eventually got a 300g bottle which cost USD30. Think mom will laugh off her head if she ever knows about this. Check out that grin of Tina's.

After the coffee place, which I tremedously enjoy, we had buffet lunch at a resturaunt where we could see Kitamani Volcano.

After the volcano, as part of the itinary, we popped by a rice terrace and then to Ubud for some shopping at the local market for handicrafts.

Finally, we reached Tanah Lot, only to miss the sunset.We had quite a decent seafood dinner by the sea included in our package. So this day's tour cost us RPD300,000 which is about SGD$45.

After dinner, dear and I checked into Le Meridian. Surely, it wasn't 5 star hotel for nothing. I was impressed with their service tremendously. They even have chartered bus service to Kuta, Seminyak and Ubud. If we had stayed here earlier, we could have do away with some of the transport cost. As for Tina and VK, they headed for the airport to fly home that night.

Day 5 (Wednesday)

This was our last full day in Bali, and we decided to go water rafting. Before that, it was a sumptuous breakfast at the hotel resturaunt. Breakfast was included in our room booking, on top of all the good services that they provide. That was why I felt that paying SGD$200 a night for 2 persons was reasonable.

Mr PT fetched us to Ayung River for watch rafting. Inclusive of lunch, this day's programme cost us RPD300,000 (SGD$45). The whole course was 10km long which took us approximately 1.5hrs.

We had to climb endless flight of steps before reaching the start point downhill.

The water rafting was quite an experience. Throughout the course, we had 2 drops, where the raft fell through a vertical height of 2m and 1m. It was quite different from that we experienced in Phuket. The river course here is less rocky and was quite fast moving. Because the river is in the middle of a rain forest, it was cooling and shady due to the canopy. Along the way, we also saw intrincal stone sculpting like these.

We shared a raft with the Kim family (dad, mom and daughter) from Korea. Our guide was probably one of the most fun-loving and entertaining one around.

About 80% through with our journey, we stopped by a waterfall.

The only complaint I have is that we had to climb the endless flight of steps back again. The path was narrow and may I stress, extremely steep. I didn't count the number of steps but it won't surprise me if it came up to 500. We were both panting by the time we reached uphill.

Lunch was served and this time I had some evidence of organic food. See the worm in my veg?

In the evening, we strolled along the beach near the Tanah Lot temple area to catch the sunset which we missed the day before.

After which, we checked the lagoon pool in our hotel. It was huge!

We called the room service for dinner that evening. The nasi goreng (again) was a monsterous big portion enough for two.

Day 6 (Thursday)

Our last day in Bali. We spent the morning in the gym and slacking by the pool side before checking out at 2pm.

We then went to Ubud to get do some last minute shopping and headed for discovery mall in kuta. We intended to go for another session of spa but there was barely enough time so we cancelled it at the last minute.

We whacked our dinner the moment we stepped in the mall. Starving, obviously! Not in the picture was the fried chicken, which was still being cooked in the kitchen while we chomped down all of these.

Hang around black canyon coffee till 10pm, time to head for the airport. And yes, another unearthly hour for flight.