My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

I used to do ballet till Grade 6, I had to quit because I was using the wrong muscles (and never got corrected, alas), and as it got tougher, I just wasn’t able to do what I was supposed to do. I’d always love ballet, the poise, the gracefulness of it all. The girls, however, thought ballet is too girlish, and although I’d asked them many times, they didn’t want to take up ballet.

We were given this opportunity to view a rehearsal for Coppelia, which is a full length ballet performance that will be staged coming weekend, I thought it’ll be a great time to expose the girls to ballet.

A little about Coppelia, Per Wiki :
Coppélia concerns an inventor, Dr Coppelius, who has made a life-size dancing doll. It is so lifelike that Franz, a village swain, becomes infatuated with it and sets aside his true heart’s desire, Swanhilde. She shows him his folly by dressing as the doll, pretending to make it come to life and ultimately saving him from an untimely end at the hands of the inventor.

This comical and romantic ballet was first staged in 1870 in Paris.

Jointly organized by Danceworks Production, Malaysia and Ena Ballet Studio Company, Japan, this full length ballet performance will be staged on July 6th and 7th, at Istana Budaya, Kuala Lumpur.

Participants of the performance include 50 dancers from Japan, USA, Australia, Romania, Germany and Malaysia. Lead ballet dancers include: Connor Walsh, Principal Dancer, Houston Ballet, USA; Ena Hirose, Co-Artistic Director, Ena Ballet Studio Company, Japan; and Mark Brinkley, Former Senior Artist of The Australian Ballet. And it’s choreographed by Malaysian Jie Choong Wan-Chin, Artistic Director, Danceworks Production, Malaysia and Resident Choreographer, Ena Ballet Studio Company.

Mark Brinkley, who will be Dr Coppelius in the performance, gave us a brief introduction to the acts and casts.

An hour at the rehearsal, we watched a few dance scenes which were beautifully put together. The girls suddenly realised ballet isn’t just about pink tutu.

Jie Choong Wan-Chin, the Choreographer, briefing the casts

Connor Walsh as Franz and Ena Hirose as Swanhilder

Ena Hirose with her former students (most of them are professional dancers now) from Ena Ballet Studio Company

Now, both the girls and I, can’t wait to watch the actual performance!

Details on the timing and ticket prices are per below :
Tickets are priced at RM 50, 90, 120, 160 and 200 (with a RM 3 surcharge per ticket)
Tickets can be purchased from: ticket2u.biz (Tel: 03-414 78600)
Istana Budaya Office (03- 4026 5558)
Timings: July 6, 2013 (Sat) (8.30pm) & July 7 (Sunday) (3.00pm)
For more information, please visit: danceworks2013.org

The last couple of days, all we Malaysians (and Singaporeans) talked about was the haze! Facebook friends including myself were reporting on API, where to get masks, what was the visibility outside, how the haze was affecting us (itchy skin/eyes, smokey, choking feeling etc).

People were wearing masks, and my girls out of fun, put on theirs as well.

The girls didn’t go to school for 3 days, and were locked up together with me in the study, with ironiser and aircon turned on and doors and windows all shut. Pity them as they are the outdoor type who likes to cycle and runaround at the park.

I made them write about the haze when we were under house arrest, reluctantly they did (hence the sloppy writing) or they won’t get to use the iPad or start their playing session.

Now that the skies are clear and blue, and the fluffy clouds are back, we hope we’d seen the last of the haze.

I’d been having sleepless night, I’m not sure if it’s caused by the pressure of getting a professional certification, from work load, or just because I don’t have a good pillow to rest on.

When it’s time to sleep, I can’t sleep, when it’s time to wake up, I feel sleepy.

I probably should invest in a good neck pillow to at least relieve this problem a bit. You have any good one to recommend?

Besides guitar, another thing that Zaria said she would like to learn is the saxophone. Of all instrument a saxophone?

Maybe it’s the gold and shine of a bari sax that attracted her, or else I can’t see why she would prefer this instrument over a piano. Moreover, there aren’t so many female saxophonist out there.

Nope, at this point in time, I’m still sticking to piano for them.

When the hubs does his DIY stuff at home, the girls like to crowd around his tool box to check out the different tools and items he has there, e.g. different screw drivers, pliers, threaded standoffs, screws of different shapes and sizes, allen keys etc.

I’m glad the girls get exposed to these things too and not just the girlie stuff I can share with them.

The post and summary of the trip can be found here.

This was what we covered on this post. (Credit : Map taken from google map)

♥29th March 2013♥

The last day of our trip, we just wanted to spend time in Apa Villa and enjoy the place. According to the staff there, the property was built 100 years ago, and owned by a Sri Lankan. It’s now bought over by a European who then converted it to a small boutique hotel (only 6 rooms). It’s a beautiful place with a main house, a vast garden with mature vegetation, and another little house next to a pond. Our room was in the main house, opening up to a courtyard. There’s a big living room with huge furniture, and lots of art work.

One of the table at the dining area.

Server carrying breakfast to the guests.

Even the room key has character

Right outside our room

The courtyard

I absolutely love the old tiles used in the house.

And the garden, beautiful, with lots of flowers blooming. In the mornings, we saw some (wild) peacocks in the garden, and lots of birds visited the place. To maintain the garden, there were quite a few gardeners tending to the garden, making it very beautiful and tidy.

Fallen leaves strung up to decorate another tree, what a great idea

The pond house is away from the main house, where it housed 2 other rooms. I love the swing and the tranquility.

These are the people that added charm to the place. Our friendly server for 2 days.

The gardener who tended the garden.

Apa Villa has two properties near Galle, one is the one we stayed in, i.e. Apa Villa Illuketia, which is in land. Another Apa Villa Thalpe, which is by the sea. Guests are welcome to visit the other property while staying in one. So we thought we’ll spend some time at Apa Vila Thalpe, 15mins tuk-tuk ride away, so the girls can enjoy the beach.

It is another beautiful place.

It was a scorching hot day, so we just enjoyed the pool, and didn’t head to the beach.

After spending the morning there, we headed back to Apa Villa Illuketia for lunch, and then checked out.

The other 2 dishes (pesto fusilli, fish cutlets) weren’t that great, but boy, their Tuna Burger was heavenly…..

The girls were so tired, so we waited for them to nap in the living room before we left.

After their rest, it was the journey up North towards Colombo. I wanted to try ayurvedic massage, and this was my last chance. Asanka made a stop at Hikkadua, not knowing which Ayurvedic Centre was good, I just picked the first that we came across. Hmm…. it was just ok.

As our flight was very late in the night, Asanka had invited us over to his house for dinner and a rest. His MIL made us string hoppers.
Oh man, so much work.

These would then go into the steamer.

After a sumptious dinner, Asanka drove us to the airport.

The thing with flights to and from Sri Lanka is they are all arriving late in the night, and departing late in the night. Our flight out was 1am+, and the girls just propped themselves up on the seats at the waiting lounge and slept.

Overall, Sri Lanka is a beautiful place and still relatively affordable (except for the flight) to go to. We hope to go back soon before they become too developed and crowded with tourists.

We were in the car, and we heard the Hai-O parents’ day advertisement on radio. The ending was a man telling his parents, “I will never let go of your hand.”

Zaria heard that and started saying,
“Aaah, it’s silly.
Well, Don’t tell me, when he goes to school, he’ll have his parents go to school with him as well?
Don’t tell me, when he grows up and becomes a businessman, he’s going to drag his parents here and there and everywhere.
Don’t tell me, when his parents are dead, he’s going to dig out their bodies, and drag their skeletons everywhere.”
o.O”

And on another day before I was about to make a call to my manager.
Me : I’m going to call my boss, so please be absolutely queit.
Zara : Can we burp?
Me : No loud burping
Zaria : Can we fart? Because I’m just about to fart?
Me : NO!
Zara : Can we breath then?
Me : AS LONG AS IT’S NOT HEAVY BREATHING!

Yeah I know, I have very entertaining kids.

The post and summary of the trip can be found here.

This was what we covered on this post. (Credit : Map taken from google map)

♥28th March 2013♥

After the meager breakfast at Saraii Village, the breakfast at Apa Villa was a feast!

Huge portion of fruits for us to share.

Girls get eggs and toast.

While we adults got served Sri Lankan breakfast of appa (hoppers) and string hoppers. They were served with a light coconut curry and a sambal.

We usually have our apom and putu mayam (Malaysian version of appa and string hoppers) sweet. So, to have the appa with egg, tasted a bit odd for me, but I don’t mind the plain ones.

Initially, the plan for the day was to go whale watching, one of the to-do things in Sri Lanka. As I terrible motion sickness on our journey to Happutale, we thought we should skip it. I probably won’t be able to take the journey out to the sea. Hence we decided to take things easy that day.

We started our tour for the day late morning. Asanka brought us to a Turtle Hatchery at Habaraduwa. We had to pay a fee to enter the small establishment. There were a couple of cement tanks for newly hatched baby turtles and rehabilitating turtles rescued from the beach/ocean.

Newly hatched green turtles

Newly hatched green turtles swimming with an albino turtles

This turtle was caught in a fishing net, and have one of its flippers severed and amputated. It no longer can sink (according to the guide in the hatchery) and will never get release to the ocean.

A small area was allocated for turtle eggs incubation, with markings indicating when the turtle eggs were buried.

We were asked if we wanted to release baby turtles (the ones in the tank) for a steep price (~USD30?), we didn’t as we don’t really know if the hatchery is a non-profit organisation, or doing all these for profit. And of course, there’s a donation box to welcome any contribution.

After a while, the girls were more interested with the beach where the hatchery was located than the turtles. Don’t blame them, it’s a lovely beach.

We broke for lunch at a local cafe. Such cafes are aplenty in the town area throughout Sri Lanka, and it’s good for tea breaks or simple lunches. Usually they are very clean, and the price for a meal is very cheap.

Not far from where we were, 2 cheeky boys were spotted.

Asanka then dropped us of the market at Galle, as I wanted to get some spices. He was to meet us later inside the Galle Fort.

The fish market was getting less busy but the fish still looked fresh non-the-less.

A fish monger offered his shark teeth for sale, but no, I wasn’t going to bring this home.

Curd were sold in terracotta pots, again I refrain myself from getting one just for the pot.

Just behind the fish market, it’s the spice market. There are only a couple of shops selling spices.

We just picked one to enter. Told the shop owner what we wanted, he quoted us a price, and we started bargaining. I forgot the exact amount, but I think I paid around RM50 for 500g of Sri Lankan cinnamon.

After some shopping, we headed to the Galle Fort.

A little about Galle taken from Lonely Planet:
Built by the Dutch beginning in 1663, the 36-hectare Fort occupies most of the promontory that forms the older part of Galle. The Fort is an amazing collection of structures and culture dating back through the centuries. Just wandering the streets at random yields one architectural surprise after another. And be sure to take in the dramatic views of town and ocean from the encircling walls. Unesco has recognised Fort as a World Heritage Site. A key part of the Fort’s allure, however, is that it isn’t just a pretty place. Rather, it remains a working community: there are administrative offices, courts, export companies and lots of regular folks populating the streets.

Road signs leading to the Main Gate.

Nearby there’s a big bus station, so lots of buses were seen outside the Galle Fort.

And again, school children are often eager to have their photos taken.

It as a day where the temperature was close to 40C, it was so hot, the heat we endured walking from the market to the fort made us so sweaty and tired. Good thing Asanka was waiting for us at the old gate, so he brought us to the lovely Pedler’s Inn Cafe to avoid the afternoon heat.

It’s an old colonial house converted to a cafe. There were long wooden benches with cushions. After a nice cool drink each, the two girls and I took a nap, the hubs went walking around, and Asanka watched a cricket game.

Late afternoon, when the heat is more bearable, we started exploring the fort. There were lots of nice old buildings, little jewelry shops, boutiques, souvenir shops, cafes and restaurants.

I chose to get my afternoon snacks from a mobile vendor.

Unlike Malaysia where most street food is packed in plastic bags, when you buy street food from Sri Lanka, it’s likely that it’ll be packed in someone’s homework page. Mine was a page of English homework. Talk about recycling!

Sri Lanka is famous for their gems, we went to one recommended by Lonely Planet, PS Weerasekara Fashion Jewellery. Their items set in local and imported gemstones are more contemporary and hip compared to other shops. We each got ourselves something as a souvenir.

Outside another jewelry shop, a gem stone cutter was demonstrating how gems stones are cut the traditional way.

There were many old buildings seen, and some of them are still in used.

And makes a nice backdrop for a wedding photo.

A lot of people were heading to fort wall close to the sea to catch the sunset, so we headed there as well. Many locals were exercising there, or just relaxing.

After the sunset, we headed back inland where the shops are, because the girls wanted to get some souvenirs. Before that, ice cream first.

We headed to the parking lot where Asanka was waiting for us.

This ends our sightseeing tour in Sri Lanka. That night, we brought Asanka out for dinner at the famous Kingfisher Restaurant at Unawatuna. It’s a small little restaurant with tables set at the beach. It was dark when we arrived so we couldn’t take any photos, but gosh, the food was good! Best of all, it’s very reasonably priced. All of us, including Asanka, enjoyed it. (The girls enjoyed it not because of the food, but because they could play sand while they waited for their food).

The hubs was clearing the extra room in the house planning for his father to come and live with us. We had this conversation in the household, which I captured as best I could.

Me : Daddy is clearing the room so that yehyeh can live with us.
After a moment of silence.
Zara :　Why must he stay with us? If he stayed with us, then we have to share our money with him, we’ll be poorer.
(We always tell the children that we’re not rich so that we cannot fulfill all their wants for toys/knick-knacks, stay in the best hotels when we go on holidays, or even send them to private or international school. The latter 2 are real though. But I don’t know why this came to her mind the first thing.)
Me : Ah Kong (Chinese: Maternal grandfather) too stays with Karen yiyi right?
Zara ：Karen yiyi is not as poor as us. Why must yeh yeh stay with us and not his other children?
Me ：We have to take care of him since no one is taking care of him. Now I’m worried, next time when I’m old, what will you do to me?
Zara : You are my mom, it’s different.
Me : Yehyeh is daddy’s daddy too.
(Both girls thought a bit.)
Zara : When we go shopping and all, do we need to bring him?
Me : Yeah.
Zara : He’ll slow us all down. (FIL doesn’t walk so well)…
Me : I can go with you girls first to see what you want to see. (should have told them they slowed us down too when they were younger but we still brought them shopping etc)
Zara : He’s daddy’s responsibility so daddy will handle him.
…..
Zara (suddenly) : Who’s going to pay for his funeral?
Me : o.O” …….
Hubs : Daddy will ask everybody (his siblings) to pay.
Me : I wonder what will happen when it’s my turn. Wonder who’s going to pay for my coffin?
Zaria : You said you wanted to do that thing… burn your body right after you are dead?
Zara : Yeah. You said you wanted cremation. Why do you need to get a coffin when you will burn in later anyway?
Zaria : Yeah. Why do you need to cut trees to make the coffin?
Me : Then? I don’t even have a coffin to lay on? I’m just supposed to lie on my bed?
Zara : Yeah, then we’ll carry your body and put in you in the fire to burn.
Zaria : And I’ll pick 2 big bones later from the ashes to turn them into drum sticks.
o.O”

The post and summary of the trip can be found here.

This was what we covered on this post. (Credit : Map taken from google map)

♥27th March 2013♥
Of all the hotels that we’d stayed in during our Sri Lanka trip (actually in all the hotels we’d stayed in), Saraii Village was the stingiest with their breakfast. Breakfast was just an egg each (yes, only ONE), and some toast. Another big family who occupied the 2 mud houses and the tree house had to cook instant noodle to feed their group.
(They even charged us for the water!)

This was the resident dog in Saraii Village which ‘guarded’ our tree house, and followed us almost everywhere we went within the compound.

We checked out after breakfast and then started our journey along the southern coast.

Tissa is famous for curds, a staple in Sri Lanka, so many curd stalls line the road at Tissa. I was tempted to get myself a pot just for the pot…

I remember seeing salt pans around Tissa area on google map when I was doing the Sri Lanka research. So when we left Tissa, we kept a look out and then spotted them, i.e. big squarish lakes, at Hambantota. These are the salt flats (flat expanse of salt left by the total evaporation of a body of water), which Hambatota is famous for.

We walked around the area, and then an extremely friendly salt miner came over to talk to us. Upon knowing we were from Malaysia, he asked we could send him post cards from Malaysia, so I passed him my phone.

Thuwan, the salt miner, then showed us around. He told us that in March, the salt crystals were still not fully formed yet, there was just a thin layer of salt in the salt pans. In April, when the salt crystals were ready for harvest, they could be as thick as 3 feet. Salt miners will then have to shovel and break the crystals to harvest them. He went into the salt pan, and then tried to shovel out some crystals for us.

Shovel of salt, not much, because the it wasn’t time for harvest yet.

Salt crystallization happened at the banks too.

The girls, wanted to try to mine some salt.

Thuwan brought us to the salt factory, where he worked, for a visit as well, however no photos were allowed. Apparently, Hambantota produces 30% of the salt in the whole country, and is the major industrial activity in the District and also one of the oldest in the land. The girls now have first hand knowledge of how salt were mined (crystals), then processed into the table salt that we see.

Bidding farewell to Thuwan (and giving him a small tip for his time), we moved on. We saw lots of greyish white balls being sold, and asked Asanka what they were. He stopped at one of the stalls to show us, and let us have a taste.

The fruit, wood apple in English, or Divul in Singalese, is mushy and sour, with a strange custurdy-saw-dusty texture, and a quint smell.

Divul tasting turned to a fruit feast.

We had more king coconut. The girls have some fist size watermelon (but very juicy and sweet).

The stall owner was kept busy cutting this fruit and that for us.

We spent so much time at the stall, 2 school boys came by and tried to befriend the girls (but the girls seeing these were boys, didn’t want to entertain them).

Driving along the coast, we soon came to Dondra Head Lighthouse at Dondra Point or Dondra Head, the southern tip of Sri Lanka, near Matara.

Paying a fee, we got to climb all the way up to the light house. The view from the top was quite nice.

After a climb up the stuffy lighthouse, the girls didn’t mind the glaring sun and heat at all, and wanted to explore the beach at Dondra Head, I just hid under the shade.

Lunch that day was a local cafe near Matara. Besides pastries and buns (which were quite delicious), they made very good Chinese fried rice too. It seems Sri Lankans love Chinese fried rice. So it was a satisfying (and cheap) lunch.

Going to the beach was one of the things we promised the girls. None of the hotels we stayed were next to the beach, hence taking the opportunity of being at the Southern coast, we asked Asanka to stop at a beach for the girls to spend some time at. Asanka brought us to Mirissa beach.

Along the coast near Weligama, we saw fishermen selling their catch. As fish is one of our daily staple, we just have to take a look what is available.

Love how these fishes were displayed.. on a leave with sand sprinkled on it.

And this is the guy who was managing that stall.

Everything looked so fresh. If we were staying at a place with cooking facilities, I would have definitely bought some to try.

The fishermen’s boats were just docked nearby.

And across the street, there were some interesting sights too.

At a big junction (Habaraduwa) just before Galle, we turned in land to get to our hotel, Apa Vila Illuketia.

Oh My!! Of all the hotels we’d stayed in Sri Lanka, this was the best and most luxurious. We took the smallest room due to budget, and requested for extra bed. This is our bed.

And the extra bed we got was queen size, so the girls were very happy to share that.

The girls, after ooo-ying and ahhhh-ying, seeing the beautiful layout, and inspecting the room, wanted a dip in the pool.

Just to show you the courtyard where our room is.

We decided to eat in that night. Siting at the patio, listening to insect chirping and frog croaking, it was quite lovely.

The main house where our room was located (4 rooms in this house, and another 2 further away in another house), and where the dining area is at the patio.

The girls have hot dog and burger, and we had Sri Lankan set dinner. It was great stuff!