♥Oct 30th (Tues)♥
After all the late night ‘fights’ and ‘quarrels’ Daddy had with Krissflyer, finally we got our flights confirmed.
This time, only Daddy and I were flying, our very first trip away without the kids after Zara was born.

♥Oct 30th (Tues) ~ Nov 1st (Thurs)♥
With China colleagues’ as well as some other friend’s help, managed to find and book suitable accomodations for our trip.
Prepping Zara for our trip, telling her China is cold, not suitable for kids, I’m going for work together with Daddy so can’t take care of her etc etc. She got quite upset, but I guess what can she do to stop us from going?

♥Nov 2nd (Fri)♥
Daddy picked up MIL from her place. She’s been enlisted to help keep an eye on the maids while we’re away.

♥Nov 3rd (Sat)♥
Said good bye to the girls early morning and left for the airport. Zara’s eyes was a bit wet when I hugged her.

A long 5hrs transit in Changi, luckily, there is so much to do there.

Reached Shanghai at 10pm. By the time we got our luggage and checked into our hotel motel, it was already close to mid night.

Since kids are not with us, we chose cheap but clean accomodation, we stayed in Motel 168 Jingling Road (莫泰168金陵路). Everything is within walking distant, even the famous Nanjing shopping street (南京路步行街). For RMB358, we got a room with a computer. Ha! Room is clean and small, but it stank of cigerrette smoke (from other rooms)!
When I called the Motel and to reserve a non-smoking room before the trip, I was told, “All our rooms are non-smoking.” Non-smoking my a***! But for this amount we paid for, I can’t expect Datai’s service, can I?

♥Nov 4th (Sun)♥
Arranged to change to a room without a computer which cost RMB40 less.
After breakfast in the motel, with a map and my guidebook on hand, we started our journey.

The first few sights I took in after stepping out of the Motel

Our destination was Yu Yuan (豫园­). Gosh, there were so many people there!! It’s packed! It’s a shopping area for tourists and out-of-town folks, and the prices were of course tourists’ price.

Around Yu Yuan Shopping Street (豫园):
♥Big red lanterns everywhere♥♥Multilevel Jeweler (do they have really so many different jewelry to sell?)♥
♥Famous Xiaolongbao Shop Nanxiang (南翔) : a 200m queue has formed for take away while we were there♥ ♥genuine juicy pao (so juicy you are given a straw to suck the juice)♥ ♥a man having his juicy pao♥
♥NingPo Rice Ball Shop, wasn’t able to squeeze pass people to enter the shop, don’t know what they were selling♥ ♥Having a black glutinous corn (which was rather coarse and tasteless)♥ ♥Good and Cheap Lunch at Xishi Beancurd Shop (西施豆腐)♥

Note : We are non-pork eaters, so we didn’t try the Nanxiang Xiaoloongbao or the street side juicy pao. 🙁

We visited the Yu Yuan Garden which is a 400yrs old clasical garden. I love the willow trees and the tranquility (just outside the wall, the crowds in the shopping street can be heard).

Yu Yuan Garden (豫园) :

After that it was back to the Motel for a nap, and at 5:30pm (which got dark totally), we went to The Bund (外滩) for a walk. It was nice, and although extremely crowded, the breeze we got and the view made up for it.

Dinner was the famous ShaoXin Chicken (绍兴白切鸡). It’s just basic steam chicken but the sauce was just so delicious. Daddy didn’t like it, so I was the one who finished the plate of chicken with a bowl of porridge.

We almost stopped a cab to get us back to the Motel, but spotted our Motel just a few steps away!! Haha.

Daddy was so knackered he almost wanted to go on strike and stay in the Motel the following day.

I want my kids to grow up like this boy here. So when he tagged me, I have to oblidge.

1) What is your favourite movie?
I think it must be Pride and Prejudice. I had watched it twice, at home, on a DVD (not Astro). It must be my favourite if I’d watched it twice.

2) Who is your favourite singer?
I’m sure you know the answer already if you’d seen the previous post.
Jackie Cheung of course.
And David Tao too..

3) Which song gets you grooving in the morning?
Actually, I sing the phrase ‘Qi-lai, Qi-lai, Qi-lai, QI-LAI!!’ (Chinese : Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, Wake up) to the girls on mornings when they sleep in late and I needed them to get up. I don’t know if it’s a real song or what, but I’d heard it before.

Can I say it gets us all grooving?

4) What is your favourite fruit?
Must be mango; but I don’t just take any, it has to be fragrant and sweet (I so miss the ones we used to get from the tree in my dad’s house).

5) Who is your best friend (excluding your family)?
Gee.. tough one.
I guess it must be Ping Ping. A friend I met during my A-levels, who helped me with my maths since she was a straight As student and I was like the D student.
After A-levels, we try to meet at least once a year. She studied and then lives overseas you see, so the only time we get to meet is when she comes back to visit her family.
We keep in touch with letters, postcards (before technology was available); now with emails and face book.
I tell her my darkest secrets, and she’s been a very supportive friend.

6) Name one activity you would like to indulge in, in your free time.
Spa…….
(you don’t need just free time, you need $$$$ too)

7) When was the last time you laughed so hard till your sides hurt?
Can’t remember really.
But I laugh a lot when I see Zaria dancing, and Zara passing witty remarks.

8 ) Do you recall your last dream?
……… *blank* ………

9) What is your all-time favourite hobby?
Reading!

10) When was your last holiday without the children?
Keep a look out here.. it’ll be soon. Haha.

And I would like to tag :
Jasmine
WMD
Chanel (since the 2 of you already did the last one)

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J-ON wanted to know my most embarassing moment.

I think it must be the time we were naked under the sheets in the Hyatt Hotel (I’ll spare you the details of what we were doing), and this house keeping guy just barged in!!
Even when we shouted “Go out! Later! We’re in the room!”

o.O”

Now, I’m so embarassed, I won’t tag anyone.

I don’t do much Tag, especially these days, the tags are becomming a bit too complex for simple minded people like me. I owe so many people so many tags though, here are some simpler one which I think I can do :

Jazzmint tagged me the wall paper tag, wanting to know what is on my desktop. I don’t own a home pc, so this is my wall paper on my company notebook.

I try to put only shortcuts of application that I use frequently, as I really like to see the faces of my girls when I go to my desktop. This motivates me to keep the desktop tidy.

I would like to tag these ladies to see what is on their wall papers?:
1) Mom2Ashley
2) Chanel
3) Nadia

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Next it’s the 5 things tag. May and Amah tagged me, although I’d done this quite a while back, this is the updated version.

Instructions:
Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

1. Ehon?s Rojak?d Life
2. Rinnah
3. Everydayhealy
4. little miss may
5. Laundry Amah

Choose 5 people to tag:
1. WMD
2. Chinnee
3. Zaza
4. Whoisbaby (do you still like tags?)
5. Angie

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Preparing for my wedding. Oh boy.. does it mean we’re celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in a few days time? :O
(see, we don’t celebrate our anniversary at all, really, I only remember this now when I type out this tag.. such ‘romantic’ couple we are)

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Very pregnant with Zaria (fuyoh, you should see my stomach size).

Five snacks you enjoy
1. Prawn or Fish cracker
2. Ice cream potong
3. Twisties – cheese
4. Dark chocolate
5. Nuts

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to
…….
Seriously, besides nursery rhymes, I can’t remember lyrics to any other songs.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
(Actually, how many millions are we talking about? Because $ is so small these days)
1. Set up a trust fund for Zara and Zaria, so I’ll never have to worry about their education expenses ever again.
2. Get more involve in charity work.
3. Buy a house in a gated community – cash!
4. Travel the world, see the places I wanted to see but haven?t
5. Take years off from work, go back only when I want to not when I have to.

Five bad habits
1. Untidy and messy (I really like tidy desks and rooms, but it’s really difficult to ‘maintain’ them).
2. Quick to lash out, quick temper (Daddy got it a lot from me, and now, sometimes Zara get it too).
3. Deep fried food or any thing high in cholesterol is my favourite type of food.
4. Idling – dreaming, staring at nothingness
5. Shopping for the sake of shopping, not buying things that I need, but buying things that’s on sales (shopoholic syndrome)

Five favourite toys
1. My notebook, will feel so lost without it
2. My ADSL modem, how will I survive without broadband?
3. Our Olympus E500 DSLR camera (why of all camera Daddy bought OLYMPUS? grrrr) and Pentax (for video capturing)
4. My Nokia N73 mobile – present from Maxis to Daddy for his loyalty, Daddy gave this to me to show me his loyalty (he’s using a lousier phone).. 😛
5. My ActivCard to access to company network – without this, I can’t work from home.
(I’m really not so much a gadget person)

Five things you like doing
1. Spending time with my girls
2. Reading – non-fiction, blogs, interesting websites
3. Travelling
4. Baking
5. Messenging

Five things you would never wear again (this is exactly the same as the last time I did this tag)
1. Nursing bra (once I?m done with nursing)
2. Breast pads (once I?m done with nursing)
(I’m going to do lingerie shopping once I’m done nursing!)
3. Eye shadow (I looked like I?d been punched in the eye every time I apply this)
4. Red lipstick (makes me look whorish)
5. Tight fitting clothes (What to do? Even my daugther thinks I’m fat).

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Thoughts aside..

A blood blister is a kind of blister that causes formation of subdermal tissues and blood vessels are damaged without piercing the skin and blemish effects appear on skin. continues pressure on a part of body or skin causes callus and it could be dangerous to make that specific skin dead and rubbish.

Zara is very clingy to me, especially when she knows it’s a weekend, or it’s after working hours (I normally declare by shouting “DING DONG“ to the girls to indicate I’d finished work), and I’m supposed to be the one who ‘jaga’ (Malay : Take care of) her.

I tried training her to sleep on her own by giving her milk, wait for her to finish, and then conning telling her I need to take my shower first, before I join her in bed.

If she’s willing, she’ll agree, and will tell me, “Mummy, you take bath, but don’t close the door ok?”
Most of the time when I’m done showering, she would have fallen asleep.

There are times when she’s not willing to sleep first, and she’ll say “pat pat me first” or “You sleep with me first, then only take bath.” At times like this, when I insisted that I needed a bath, she would say she’ll join me in the bath.

What she’ll do is, she’ll pull a stool and place it outside of the shower cubicle, and then watch me shower; after that, she’ll pull the stool and place it near the sink and watch me brush my teeth.

Yesterday, I wanted to use the toilet and she told me she wanted to come with me.
So I told her, “Mummy want to poo poo la.”
She insisted, “But I want to come!”
“Very smelly la. You don’t follow me.”
Her response, “Never mind. I stay in the toilet and do like this..” And she pinched her nose.

o.O”

I always wonder, what do people eat for their breakfast, or lunch, or even dinner. Do they eat unhealthily like me? Do they eat the same thing everyday like Daddy (bread/cereal for breakfast; rice & fish for lunch and dinner)? Do they eat differently in Italy,?in the US? Do busy mothers have time to eat?

I need variety in my meals, and I prefer savoury stuff when I’m hungry. However, from this month onwards, I’d been trying to eat healthier (bye bye lomaikais, nasi lemak, roti canai.. for now), and today (or most of the days), this is my breakfast.

1) 2 scoops of organic soy powder + 1 tsp of organic wheat grass + 1 tsp of organic barley grass?mixed in a glass of water?- I get my energy health drink. It actually makes me feel less lethargic in the day (see, I’m still blogging at 12am!)

Tastes nicer than it looks.

2) 7 spirulina pills – my morning supplement

Hate the smell! Blech

3) a cup of English tea – no photos, but you can imagine how it looks like.

4) 2 half boiled free range chicken eggs

My all time favourite

Healthy hor?

What about the 2?girls?

Zaria had her organic multi-grain (brown rice, buckwheat, millet, quinoa) porridge with organic carrots and organic potatoes, sprinkled with organic sea weed (it’s organic all the way for her whenever I can).

She loves it!

Zara seems to have the least healthy breakfast. Jacob and cheese, with a cup of milo. She is like Daddy, she can have this every day!

Zara’s breakfast served in her tray

I’m turning this?to a?tag, lets see what people eat for breakfast.? For a start, I’m interested to see what these people eat for breakfast on a normal day :
Nadia – I know it’s Ramadhan, but I’m curious what do people eat before Fajr (is this what the first prayer is called?)?
Chanel – Half boiled eggs like me?
Simple America, May – Starbucks?
LB – Lohmaikai.. not?
eHon – Do you have time for breakfast?
Michelle – Eat with hubby?
Misha’s mum – Restaurant everyday?
Winn – What do pretty people eat?

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Thoughts aside..

The acne cure tips and medications to skin infections are related to your environment and lifestyle. Matching skin care acne free massages and lotions help to eradicate them and remove blemish effects due to weather and climate changes.

One trip ahead.
Two trips to plan for.
1 birthday bash in November.
1 birthday get-together in December.
5 photobooks and 8 posters to design.
Many more technical documents to review.
And it’s already September… 3 more months and it’s 2008.

…Scarry…..

My two girls will be back when I’m done with the heavy workload.

I thought Zara looked nice in this PJ 2yrs back, so I bought another similar one in a bigger size. I never knew I would have two girls today who would be able to wear them together

On a day when she had flu and she knows she can’t have anything cold :
“Kakak you warm up the ice cream for me la.”

On Daddy’s drinking in the restaurant :
“Daddy, you don’t drink beer la, after you mabuk (Malay : drunk) laaa.”

On her not able to handle her umbrella (kid’s size) in a windy, drizzling day :
“Mummy, I cannot handle any more. *Passed me the umbrella* You help me la.”

On me choosing her a DVD to watch (as she kept asking for the same one to be played in the evening for the past week) :
“Mummy, why you so stubborn one? I said I want to watch this show la, not that show.”

On Daddy blocking her in the toilet (Daddy brushing teeth and she needed to use the toilet bowl) :
“Excuse me Daddy, your big back side blocking me la.”

On me not wanting to bring her to the mini market :
“Mummy, you don’t be so selfish, you bring me to the mini market also”

Thanks to Leap Frog, we saw her using phonics the other day (nobody prompted her, she just picked up a book and did it):
*Referring to a picture of cat* Ke-ke-ke-ke Cat
*Referring to a picture of fish* Fe-Fe-Fe Fish
*Referring to a picture of a yo-yo* Ye-ye-ye-ye Yoyo
*Referring to a picture of a diamond* Die-Die-Die Diamond
The last bit made me laugh!! But, anyway, she got the concept right.

Notes : I’m the culprit who speaks with all the ‘la’s at home. Daddy has been ‘advicing’ me not to use so much la in my conversation with her, as she’s picking up all these from me. But I’m Malaysian la!

Simple American has given me this meaningful tag. 

A blogger with the tag, Idham has pledged to contribute RM127 to the Darul Izzah Orphanage for every completed meme, how can I not do this? This meme MUST be completed by August 26 2007.

What do I have to do? I only have to complete 17 (yes, only SEVENTEEN) sentences from the list below, and then I drop Idham a comment to say that I have completed the meme . So I just fill in the blank info for the list below and Idham shall contribute RM127 to the Darul Izzah Orphanage! Easy Peasy. Here it is:

1. A person is only as good as  ….
2. Friendship is always at its best, when the friends stick around even when you are in difficulty.
3. To love is to give, and never expect anything in return (I’m talking about motherly love, girl/boy kind of love is different).
4. Money makes me …
5. I miss …
6. My way of saying I care is by spending time with a person.
7. I try to spread love and happiness by loving my children, and hope they will be happy, and affect people around them.
8. Pick the flowers …..
9. To love someone is to accept the person as it is (something which is very hard for me to achieve).
10. Beauty is …..
11. When I was thirteen, what I remember the most was trying to adjust to an all girls’ secondary school. (Where are the boys?)
12. When I was twenty one, I remember having a horrible boy friend and gosh, am I glad those days were over.
13. I am most happy when I hear my girls’ laughter.
14. Nothing makes me happier than … (see 13)
15. If I can change one thing, I will change my age of having my first kid. So I can have more energy to play with them, and I could enjoy their company earlier.
16. If smiles were equal to blessing then I’m very blessed as I get lots of smiles from my girls.
17. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could afford holidays all the time and not worry about work or money?
18. If you want to be … then you have to ….
19. Money is not everything but …..
20. The most touching moments I have experienced is experiencing the birth of my girls; nothing can describe the emotion I feel when they were placed on my tummy/arms after they were delivered.
21. I smile when I know my kids love me and need me.
22. When I am happy …. (see 13, 14)
23. If only I don’t have to ….. 
24. The best thing I did yesterday was to bring the girls to the park, and then let them have some fun.
25. If I ever write a book, I will give it this title, “My Two Girls” (what else?).
26. One thing I must do before I die is to visit the Grand Canyon
27. Doing this meme, I feel like I’m doing something good.

And now I pass this on the following people. You too want to help the kids at the orphanage right?  And of course you the other people, you can volunteer to take this meme on if you so please. I tag:

Michelle
Milkmaid
Yvonne

Hope you can do it since it’ll help some orphans.