Continue from here.
♥August 30th♥
We were supposed to check out on this day. However, the girls didn’t want the holidays to end so soon, and asked if we could stay for an extra night. There was still rooms available for the night, so we extended another night.

In the morning, the girls went swimming with Daddy after breakfast while I went to the market again.

Our plan was to skip lunch and then head on to Siam Road again for char kuey teow (the stall is opened from 3pm to 8:30pm) for tea. We arrived 3:15pm and there was already a large group waiting.

It was a hot and sunny day, and the wait (at the coffee shop oposite the stall) was loong.

When our plates of kuey teow finally arrived, it was a bit too spicy, and of course wasn’t as good as the night before.

As we still have the whole afternoon free, Daddy thought we should take a drive to Balik Pulau. There was no destination in mind, but we somehow ended up in Hai Boey Seafood Restaurant 海尾海鲜 (29 MK 9,
Pasir Belanda, Teluk Kumbar, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang).

It was 5pm+, only a few tables were occupied. What attracted us was not the restaurant but the beach the restaurant was facing. The restaurant has set up some lazy chairs at the beach, probably for customers to laze about while waiting for their food.

The girls have a fun time playing at the beach.

And I just enjoyed the breeze while watching over them.

We drove off before sunset, when throngs of customers started arriving, filling up all the tables. We thought we’ll see if we can find a better and similar restaurant.

We passed Good Friend Seafood, a few KM away (driving towards Bayan Lepas), it was smaller and so crowded, we thought we’d better go back to Hai Boey.

Alas, Hai Boey by then was in full swing. All tables were occupied, with many more customers standing waiting for a table. We thought we would have to have chai boey (菜尾, whatever scraps left) at Hai Boey. Luckily most of the customers came in big group, and we got a small table for 4 after about 10mins wait.

Food was quite good, and reasonably priced. No wonder the restaurant was so crowded.

There was some prayers being held opposite the restaurant, and we thought since the night was young, we would go check out what was going on at the prayer hall. What a gem we found.

A Chinese puppet opera show, (the locals told me it was called Char Kah Lay in Teow Chew), put up by the locals for the ‘God’ Tuah Pek Kong (大伯公). We didn’t know what the script was all about because it was all in Teow Chew, but we stayed to watch for ~20mins.

The locals were so friendly, they came up to talk to us, asked us to join in their little dinner party of catered food and roast pork. They told us it was the first time they have hired the puppet opera troop for Tua Pek Kong’s birthday, so we were lucky to catch it.

We stayed till almost 10pm before we left for the hotel.

Back in the hotel, Grammy Awards 2011 was showing, and girls and I watched till way passed midnight. It was the last day of their holidays, so I just let them stay up late.

♥August 31st♥
After lunch, it was more swimming for the girls, and then it was off home.

Staying in town where everything is easily accessible (compared to staying in Batu Feringgi) made the holiday more relaxing and enjoyable.

We’ll be there again next year.

We did our once a year trip to Penang during the Raya Holidays. Some may ask why go during peak season? Since Zara started schooling this year, we can only go away when she has holidays, so we are really not left with much choice.

♥Aug 27th♥
First time in our family history, we left the house before 11am to go on a road trip holiday! Yay to Daddy, who kept his promise of leaving the house by 7am to beat the jam.

We managed to have breakfast in Ipoh, and then have late lunch in Bukit Mertajam. Before lunch, we stopped by St Anne’s church to say our thanks for another wonderful year.

Girls were facinated by the candles.

Zara giving thanks.

Girls collecting holy water playing water

St Anne’s.

Since we’d never tried the Ferry before, we thought we would try out this time. Girls loved it.

It was so windy, the girls’ hair was in a mess.

We got to the Traders Hotel (our current favourite hotel in Penang), by 5pm. It was nice to be greeted by a nice cool room with comfy beds. To the girls, this was when the holidays begun (getting into the hotel room).

That night dinner, we have it at Nonya Breeze (50, Abu Siti Lane, 10400 Georgetown, Penang), Zara’s request. The team there has changed (as the original team had moved to Strait Quay to run the other newly opened Nonya Breeze), but the food was still equally good.

♥Aug 28th♥
After a sumptious breakfast at the hotel, we visited the market along Jalan Kuala Kangsar. Our ‘must-do’ in Penang.

Fresh oyster seller.

Jalan Kuala Kangsar.

Offerings to the Hungry Ghosts (孟兰节).

Popiah skin maker (last year, an elderly man was making them, this year, he’s seen relaxing in the shop while this lady took over).

Poridge seller preparing the last few bowls of poridge for customers.

My favourite dry grocer Fook Weng, a yearly must stop.

Ointment seller giving extra service to get the sale.

Big Sale going on for Angry Bird stuff.

Girls choosing Agry Bird items.

By the time we were done, it was lunch time.

We went to Soul Kitchen (102, Muntri Street, 10200 Penang, Malaysia), a restaurant highly recommended by Tripadviser. Their pizza was one of the best I’d tasted!

We had to shelter ourselves after lunch from a down pour in a temple on Muntri Street. For Zaria, it meant play time!

After that it was back to the hotel for a rest.

One of the advantages of staying in Traders is everything is so near and within walking distant. For dinner, we walked out to De Happy Seafood Restaurant (62 Macalister Road 10400 Penang). Food wise, it was so-so, so I don’t think we’ll be going back there next year.

♥Aug 29th♥
Daddy woke up early, and went exploring George Town by foot before daybreak. He took these photos.

After breakfast, we decided to go to Penang Hill, since we didn’t get to explore the place due to a downpour the last time we went there.

The old funicular train has been replaced with something more modern. It was going at faster speed as well.

View from the train.

It was a wet day, but we could still see George Town from the hill.

Because it’s cooler environment, flowers bloom beautifully.

Besides the cool air, the train ride, Penang Hill has not much to offer. We had tea at the Bellevue Hotel, and then took the train down.

We headed back to the hotel to rest. Daddy took a nap with the girls, while I went to have a massage in the hotel.

For dinner, we decided to go to the Siam Road Char Kuey Teow.

More than 1hr wait later, we were rewarded with a plate of super delicious Char Kuey Teow.

(continue from here)

When we stopped over in Ipoh for breakfast, we told the girls Ipoh is famous for beautiful girls.
Zaria asked, “Where can we see them? Can you bring us to see them?” (like they are some zoo animals)
We ate in this coffee shop, and it was mainly operated by elderly people.
I overheard Zara told Zaria, “Ipoh girls all old ladies only wut.”

When in Penang, there are 2 eateries that we’ll never miss. Nonya Breeze, and Jalan Siam Char Kuey Teow.
After an extremely satisfying dinner at the Jalan Siam Char Kuey Teow stall, seeing that the stall owners (father and son team) were less busy as it was the end of business day, both Daddy and myself went up to them and chatted a bit as well as praised them.
“Your char kuey teow is the best!” We told them.
When we went back the following day for another plate of char kuey teow, it wasn’t as satisfying, as I think the uncle put too much chilli in ours. And the girls too thought their plate of chilli-free kuey teow wasn’t as good as the night before.

We went to Nonya Breeze twice as well this round. Once for dinner, and once for lunch. It was good both times. We had this conversation in the car.
Daddy : We should have just eaten the char kuey teow once. Too much of a good thing is not good
Me : No not true, we ate Nonya Breeze twice and both were equally good.
Daddy : Hmm, yeah, why huh?
Zara : That’s because the char kuey teow man is a show off
Me : Huh?
Zara : Ya. You went and said his char kuey teow was good right the 1st time? So he became arrogant. That’s why 2nd time not so good already. Nonya Breeze you didn’t tell them their food was good, so they just continue to do what they do.
o.O”
(She believes that I shouldn’t praise her too, or she’ll be too proud. So everytime when I say played a piano piece well, or her drawing is nice, she’ll put her index finger on her lips and said, “sssssh..”)

On our way back from Penang, I told the girls, “So girls, we’d spent all our money in Penang. I guess we don’t have money for other holidays anymore.”
Zara replied, “You don’t lie to me. You only spend your Penang money. You still have Hong Kong money, Singapore money and other money you haven’t spent yet.”
I went, “Huh?”
Zara said, “Ya, you only spent your Penang dollar. Your Singapore dollar and Hong Kong dollar you didn’t use wutt. You don’t try to lie to me, ok.”
o.O”
Have to work on her money concept, this one.

I took off a couple of days last week, so that we can spend the girls’ school holidays together, and also go on our yearly trip to Penang.

Here are some conversations worthy to mention on our trip.

It was a wet day when we travelled to Penang. When we passed by the limestone hills in Ipoh, the girls saw the fluff of clouds floating around the hills. Zaria said, “Look, God’s spirit is everywhere.” o.O”

We talked about sleeping arrangement in the car. As Zaria has been really naughty the past few days, I told her, “I think I’ll sleep with jiejie, and Zaria can sleep with Daddy.”
She replied, “If I sleep with daddy, I’ll kungfu his kukujiao (Chinese : penis)” o.O”

We stayed in Traders Hotel in Penang. Every time when we turned on the TV, the Shangrila Hotel channel will come out first, showing the various Shangrila Hotels and Resorts world wide.
I commented one day, “These places are soooo nice, I wish I could go to these hotels to stay. Too bad your Daddy is not rich.”
Zara replied, “It’s not that he’s not rich. He’s cheap.” o.O”
Oh my, wonder what gave her that idea, but we had a good laugh hearing her reply.

Zaria told me later that when she’s older, she’ll bring me for holidays, and stay in those hotels. She said “I’ll bring you to Paris, and Italy.”
While swimming at the hotel pool, I asked Zaria to remove her float and tried to swim without (since she’s been attending swimming class for a month now).
She refused even after lots of persuation.
So I told her, “Next time when mummy is old, and you bring me for holidays, what if I fall into the sea, and you don’t know how to swim, then who’s going to save me?”
Zaria replied, “We are going to Paris. There’s no sea right?”
I told her in Paris there’s River Seine, a big river.
She then asked, “What about Italy? Is there river?”
I told her Italy is surrounded by the sea.
She thought for a while longer. “I think you go to Italy and Paris with jiejie (because Zara knows how to swim) then. I bring you to Ipoh.” o.O”

It seems I’m slacking in blogging. I find I barely have time with a full time job, all the chauffering (kids to school and to activities), home work and revision with a school going kid and lately another item has added to the to-do list, i.e. completing a course for career development by year end.

Anyway, this post is not about how busy I am, but the trip we made to Singapore during the school holidays.

Before the trip, I asked Daddy to get us a GPS, as I could foresee navigating with a map in Singapore, there’ll be lots of stress in the car. The El-Cheapo He went to Daiso and bought a compass instead; he thought a compass would at least tell us which direction we’re going without a GPS. o.O” Thank goodness I shared this joke with my neighbour, and she loaned us her GPS for the trip!

♥4th June, Saturday♥
To keep up with Daddy’s (dilly dallying) track record, we left the house after 11am (we’d never left the house earlier than 11am on any driving holiday trips we made), and got stuck on the North–South Expressway.

It seems everybody was heading towards Melaka for the weekend. It took us more than 4hrs to get passed Melaka. By the time we reached our hotel in Singapore, it was 6pm.

We stayed in V Hotel Lavender, a newly opened hotel located in Lavender housing area. We got very good rate for a room with 1 queen and 1 single beds. Although the room is a little small, it is comfortable, and best of all, its location is super. The Lavender MRT station is on the basement of the building, and around the hotel, there are lots of small eateries, and also a few small HDB food courts.

Not wasting any time, after checking in, we headed straight to Orchard Road to shop, as well as to have dinner (at the Ion Food Court). With the exchange rate of S$1 to RM2.50, every thing seemed extremely expensive even during the Great Singapore Sales.

♥5th June, Sunday♥
The original plan was to go to Singapore Zoo, but it was pouring in the morning, and we have to change our plans, it was to Singapore Science Centre instead. Tickets were : $9 for adult, $6 for children (3~16yrs)

I prefer Petrosains, as there are more things for kids to ‘try’ out there. Still, we spent a 4hrs there, *yawn* watched 2 shows, The Tesla Coil Show and World of Insect Show.

In the evening, after a rest/nap in the room, we took a taxi to Marina Sands Bay, to watch iD by Cirque Eloize at the Grand Theatre. It’s a colourful Hip-Hop Circus act from Montreal, with lots of music and dancing. Girls of course loved it.

What more, we met our neighbour and her girls, who are the girls’ age and their best friends, visiting Singapore and watching the same circus!

They played together during intermission, and also after the show, went to explore Marina Sands Bay and had supper together.

♥6th June, Monday♥
Girls said they had already been to the Singapore Zoo on our last trip, so they wanted to go somewhere else instead. Sentosa Island was the somewhere else we chose.

We took the MRT to Harbour Front, and took the cable car ride (Tickets were : $26 for adult, $15 for children round trip), there was a promo going on where Malaysian tourists only need to pay half price, but because we didn’t bring along our passports, we had to pay the hefty full price. 🙁

We took the cable car to Mount Faber first, spent some time there.

Then took the cable car to Sentosa Island.

If you are going to Sentosa Island, plan your trip well so you can save some money buying combi tickets or play passes. We only went on 3 activites, and spent quite a fair bit because we didn’t know about this.

We watched the 4D Magix (girls screamed and shouted, and they said they didn’t like it at all because the ‘visual effect’ was too real) and went on the Extreme Log Ride (a ‘roller coaster’ rides with high-definition wide-screen projection, which the girls loved but I didn’t like it at all). (Combi Tickets were : $29.90 for adult, $17.90 for children)

We had dinner at Sentosa so that we could catch the Song of the Sea show (Tickets were $10 per person), a show which uses fountains, lasers, projection to tell a story. Now seriously, I don’t think Song of the Sea is worth the money, as you can get a similar show in Marina Bay Sands for free (read on).

After the show, we walked back to the cable car station, as there were long queues for the free monorial and bus ride.

We didn’t go to Universal Studio this round as there are lots of rides Zaria cannot go on due to her height. We’ll do that the next visit.

♥7th June, Tuesday♥
Girls pleaded with Daddy to stay in the hotel with them, as they wanted to spend time in the pool. So, the first half of the day, Daddy spent time with the girls at the hotel pool, and I went shopping on my own.

In the evening, we went to Marina Bay Sands (MBS). We took the MRT to Promenade Station, and then took a 10min walk via the Double Helix Bridge to MBS. It is a very scenic and pleasant walk, there were some local joggers jogging, but mainly foreigners enjoying the view as well as to take photos.

Daddy spent so much time there snapping photos, the girls got pretty impatient and in the end, I had to bring them into MBS first while he continued shooting away.

We have dinner there at the food court (we had almost all our dinners in the food court this trip, so sad), did some shopping, and then headed to watch the show at the Promenade. It’s a similar fountain and laser show like the Song of The Sea, except this is free, and we find more entertaining (no cheesy dialogues).

We then walked back to the Promenade MRT station the same way. The night view from the double helix bridge (and from the Promenade at Marina Bay Sands) was spectacular.

♥8th June, Wednesday♥
The last day of our trip, we only did shopping around Orchard area, and then it was home.

Zaria asked if she could stay in Singapore forever on our way back. And when we asked the girls which event/activity they liked best, they both claimed the morning they spent in the pool was the best. o.O”

Their holiday, we probably should just book a hotel nearby with a pool for them.

More than a month ago, Daddy has given me the most romantic present ever, a trip to Hong Kong, without him, without the kids, just me, alone. He took a couple of days off to be home with the children (since it was school holidays), while I have this personal time, that is, a ♥romantic♥ gesture to me.

I spent 5D/4N in Hong Kong, staying with my best friend. We managed to spend time together, and besides this, I got to catch up with a couple of my ex colleagues as well. It was a relaxing trip of shopping, eating, spending time with friends.

Just photos (taken by point & shoot, which explains the quality) and a brief trip summary.

♥16th March♥
Arrived Hong Kong in the afternoon. My friend Ping lives in an extremely nice appartment on Old Peak Road. After unpacking and playing with Maya, Ping’s 2.5yrs old daughter, a bit, Ping and I left for Causeway Bay.

We had wanton noodle at Mak’s Noodle (麥奀雲吞麵世家) for tea, something Daddy and I won’t miss when we are in Hong Kong; bought my Fancl stuff; and then packed some roast goose and char siew home from Keung Kee Meat Shop (強記飯店), another place I try not to miss.

After dinner of roast meat and rice at home, we went to the spa (a very nice one) at Ping’s appartment.

♥17th March♥
This was the only day that were packed with activities!

In the morning, we went to Central and had a typical Hong Kong breakfast.

And then took a stroll around the Central market. (I just love markets!)

Narrow lanes but so many things to offer!

By late morning, I took the MTR to get to Tung Chung station to meet with my ex colleagues. They brought me to Tai-O (大澳), a fishing town in Lantau Island, about 45mins bus ride from Tung Chung. The bus was zooming through narrow and winding road up hill and down hill, so I was feeling rather sick when we arrived. Luckily the air in Tai-O is fresh, which made recovery quick.

Tai-O being a fishing village has lots of shops selling dried seafood.

The locals drying their own seafood.

Some leaves (紫贝天葵) being sold. My colleague told me it can be boiled and turned into a herbal drink.

Most houses were built on stilts.

Houses are small and low, and streets are narrow.

The whole town is mainly occupied by older people. The younger ones probably all have gone to work in the city.

As we were there on a weekday, the place was really quiet, most shops such as this one, was closed.

We had late lunch at one of the seafood restaurants. Mixed seafood, kailan with salted fish, and their famous octopus cake.

We then took the bus back to Tung Chung and then headed home. It was a good trip, and it was nice catching up with my colleagues.

In the night, Ping brought me to a super fancy restaurant Zuma.

We ordered 2 sampler sets, and there was so much food! The food was delicious, but oh my, it was so expensive. Thanks Ping, for the treat!

♥18th March♥
A relaxing day. Had early lunch with Ping, and then I went out looking for books on my own. In the night, we went to Espirt outlet in Mongkok.

♥19th March♥
We went to Stanley to shop (lots of small shops selling out of season branded stuff at a fraction of the price). It was raining, so besides shopping, there was not much we could do.

We had lunch there, and then headed home.

I met with another ex colleague in the night. We went out for dinner together at a quiet Yunan restaurant in Tin Hao.
Another good catch up with old friends over a good meal.

♥20th March♥
We went out for dimsum breakfast. I checked in my baggage at Hong Kong station and then Ping and I went to a supermarket to do some last minute shopping as well as to grab some pastries (嫁女饼) from Kee Wah Bakery (奇华).

See, the whole trip is really to spend time with my best friend and also to meet up with my ex colleagues whom I used to work with closely.

Thanks Daddy! Second half of the year another trip yeah?

“Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) hosted the 12th Raptor Watch event at PNB Ilham Resort, 10th Mile Tanjung Tuan, Port Dickson on the 12th and 13th March 2011.”
It is a festival to celebrate the return of the migratory birds of prey or better known as raptors on their journey back to their breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere.

Thanks to Daddy (who likes this sort of outing), we are glad we joined in the fun, on 13th March, the Sunday the school holidays began.

The grounds in Ilham Resort has been set up with tents, with different companies either selling goods, or promoting their club. Monoculars and binoculars were at various booths where we can use to watch the raptors when they flew passed.

They were for all to use, and free!

We were actually a bit afraid the girls may break the thousands of dollars binoculars, but nobody seemed to be as worried as us.

It’s not a guarentee that you may get to watch the raptors, but we were lucky, they were circlying above when we arrived, and appeared again later in the evening.

(That’s what our camera could take. Well, Daddy thinks he should get a zoom lens for these kind of shot.)

When the raptors appear, the real bird watchers whipped out their own equipment.

There were face/body painting as well, all contribution will go to MNS. Of course, we all, except Daddy, went for it.
Isn’t the owl cute?

The event being held next to the sea, the girls were so eager to move on and play at the beach. It was 3pm, HOT! But nothing is going to deter them.

It was low tide, very suitable for the girls to splash about (we were not really prepared for the trip, it was kind of impromptu, that’s why the girls didn’t get changed into swimming costumes).

Zaria seemed to like getting dirty wet.

There were crabs to be found as well.

Besides the beach, we explored a near by hill, with a 20min climb, got us to the lighthouse in Tanjung Tuan.

View from the hill.

Although it was a hot day, we all had fun! This might just become our yearly event.

While the children are settling down to the school routine, I thought I’d better start posting this back dated post or it’ll be stale news soon.

Zaria, who celebrated her birthday at the end of the year, wanted a birthday celebration at Jungle Gym too, but she only wanted to invite Tasha (my niece). Being a work day for my sis, we had to postponed the Jungle Gym play date to the weekend, so on her actual day, Daddy arranged these for her.

A visit to The National Science Centre. It’s free, don’t expect it to be as nice as Petrosains, but it has lots of things for children to play with.

There’s some dinosaur exibition going on (admission is RM25 for whole family) which we brought the girls as well.

(Obivously, they don’t know how to read signage yet)

For lunch, I suggested Japanese. Zaria asked, “Is it your birthday or my birthday? It’s mine right? So I get to choose where to have lunch.” And she chose Wendy’s.

After lunch, I was feeling tired and wanted to nap, but Daddy and the girls were all eager for more activities. What came after next? KL Bird Park.

(I looked after the girls, and Daddy had a jolly good time taking all these shots.)

This girl obviously is not afraid of going near animals.

Their favourite…… Petting Chicks at the hatchling.

It’s rare to see her smiling so happily for the camera. She had a great time picking up one chick after another and didn’t want to leave.

She really enjoyed herself that day.

For her cake, I did a boo boo. I used a new recipe, and the recipe specified a cake pan too small. The cake overspilled midway, and cannot be used as a birthday cake.

Luckily, Aunty C, sent a set of 4 cupcakes over after she saw my FB status.

And for the last day of the week day, we brought them to Bukit Cherakah, just to wrap up the school holidays. It’s a really nice place, but not well managed and maintained. We like the Four Season House the best, where the season is constantly set at Winter.

The thing is we were not properly dressed since we didn’t know there’s such a place in there.

We could only stay inside for a while, but the girls love it, and claimed they have now seen snow.

During the school holidays, the girls spend most of their time watching TV, playing iPad, doing drawing, etc etc.

Daddy has been deligently coaching Zara with her BM to prepare her for Standard 1. Zara dreads each class. Today, she even went hiding (and took us 15mins to to find her) when Daddy called her to start her BM revision. o.O”

Weekends when we are not working, we bring them out to check out Christmas decorations.

Bring them out for ice cream,

Meet up with their cousins.

One of the fun thing they did was to join the Christmas Carols organised by our BEC. We had 2 rounds of practice and then went around singing in people’s house on the weekend.

To Zaria, the nicest thing about carolings is going to people’s house to ‘collect’ packet drinks, sweets and chocolates.

The girls of course sometimes play together, and do all sort of funny stunts.

We made a weekend trip to Melaka as well, but didn’t spend much time outside, as I wasn’t well, and the girls preferred to stay in the hotel and watch cartoon and enjoy the aircon.

And then, look here, see who came to have a play date with the girls?

Dinah, myself and another mutual friend, C, has been organising this play date, and it finally materialised yesterday. They started with drawing…

And the highlight is actually doing cupcake decorations.

Our youngest member, Kaine (C’s son), at work. He’s kind of torn between eating the sprinkles and putting them on his cake.

After a while, Zaria preferred to play with water serve her friends water.

Slightly more than a week to go, and then it’s back to school.

Continue from here.

♥1st September♥

Each day, we probably spend more than an hour at breakfast. Girls have their daily egg (ommelete or just egg white sunny side up) and heaps of bacon.

Zaria who doesn’t quite like using cutleries, having fun with her bacon here.

She told us, she’s turned into bacon vampire.

After breakfast, it was straight to the pool again.

I went out with my sis to have a massage done in town, and got Daddy and Annie to watch over the kids.

We have to pay 200Baht 1 way to go to town, but it was worth it, Massage was good and cheap, 400Baht for 2hrs. The Heavenly Spa in the hotel was charging 4 times that price!

T and I are not fussy people when it comes to food, so we just had some street food for lunch, and packed something back from the supermarket before we headed back to the hotel.

Girls were in the room and napping with Daddy keeping watch on them.

In the evening, T, Tasha and Annie were going to watch Fantasea. We didn’t follow because we thought the ticket was way too expensive. Instead, we spent the event strolling to the Gypsy Village via the beach.

Zaria who likes the beach, kept stopping and playing with sand. She was trying to dig a hole just like how a dog would have done, using her 2 bear hands.

We have to stop a couple of times to hurry her to come along.

I think the Westin stretch of beach is constantly being cleaned and combed, making it look sooo spotless. However, I think the water is probably very poluted. On our 1km walk to the gyspy village, we saw 2 Fugu-like fished washed ashore, probably poisoned by the sea water, struggling to get back to the sea. Beyond Westin, the beach was extremely dirty, with lots of rubbish, and among the human created dump, we found bodies of fishes, crabs and squids.

At the Gypsy Village, there were lots of fishing boats. You can see from this pix, the hotel is not that far from the village.

The people there depends on the sea for a living. We saw women digging up cockels at the shore, and men mending or making cages for fishing.

Children have simple toys. We saw girls having competetion on shell pickings, and the boys, have a make shift snooker match.

And to get back to the hotel, we took a bike taxi back. The whole family squeezed into the small area, and got taken back to the hotel for 50Baht.

That night, we just have a simple dinner at the hotel.

♥2nd September♥

After eating in the hotel for breakfast for more than 3 days, the food is getting a bit boring. The dishes remained the same, except 2 or 3 variation.

Girls although still eating, were getting a bit bored at times for the long wait to get to the pool (they finshed early, but have to wait for us to finish ours, since we took our time).

Zaria found games to keep herself occupied.

(and Zara obviously bored)

My sis went to town again for another round of pampering. We got Annie to help us watch over our girls at the pool, and we rented a bike to explore the island.

We wanted to go all the way south, but struggled a bit just to get out of Phuket town. Then there was also a sudden downpour, so we had to stop at Wat Chalong to wait for the rain to subside. I saw a big sign “Factory Outlet” just outside the temple, and thought I can shop while waiting. Guess what Factory Outlet was that? A latex mattress factory outlet! And even if I wanted to buy any mattresses, I cannot afford the price, the cheapest, a thin single mattress, was going for 18000baht!

We got to Cape Promtheap eventually, the southern tip of Phuket, with beautiful view, and super strong wind.

On our way back, we even have a little adventure. The tyre got punctured and we were lucky we were near a bike repair shop. Got it fixed (for 180baht) in 20mins and moved on.

It took us less time to get back to the hotel, but still we arrived at 3pm with our packed lunch. Girls and Annie were femished, they gobbled up the food very quickly and went back to swim.

I stayed with them while Daddy explored Siray Island.

In the evening, with Zaria constant begging, we took the girls out to the beach.

Zaria really had fun.

Zara kept asking us when we could go back to the pool.

Tasha didn’t mind either.

For dinner, it was back to Look Mai again, for some cheap(er) home cooked meal.

♥3rd September♥

Check out after breakfast. As it was raining, the girls spent time at the Kids’ Club.

When the rain stopped, the kids went back to the pool.

The hotel gave us a room to shower and change before we departed to the airport for our 6:30pm flight.

The girls knocked off in no time on our way to the airport.

Zara and Zaria really enjoyed the holidays. Zara said, “This is like the queen of all holidays.” I think having Tasha around made them enjoy themselves even more.