bao bei

"bao bei" - means precious in mandarin


this week - enrolled my precious erika to bao bei "intensive mandarin" tuition classes...(first week free trial class)...i say intensive coz its a 5 days a week attendance...language mah...or not how to remember.

no choice lah...need to brush her up so she won't be so blur in her new chinese school in january. i hope this last minute intensive boot mandarin camp will do the trick...eventhough i am not kiasu (ok maybe a little lah)...but i scared worry erika will be so horrified with her chinese school experience, that if i dun equip her well now, that she will "give up" on school altogether.

i hope she will learn to swim with the tide & pressure, but just in case, **mommy always prepared one**...get her ready with a security and emergency "float" 1st lah, so she won't totally sink & drown.

hahaha (crazy thot) thinking of her sinking in kitchen sinks!!

so far attended 2 days, today 3rd day and she love it...i hope her love for the language will grow too...hmm...maybe once she knows enuff vocab...i will induce her with chinese cartoon books...u think they have any on fairies or princesses...

baby baby

the usual comment i get from loads of people is "hope its a boy"

aiyah...the thing is what's the big deal, it's totally out of our hands anyway. i can't play god and decide for the baby or worse decide to terminate for the sake of "terminating". and i was thinking the poor baby, not even out into this world, already pressured to conform to society's wants!

let baby be baby la...enjoy growing, being babied, enjoy being baby for as long as baby wants...ok...not too long...please grow up too darling...or not 30 years old still baby...(know a lot of people like tat too...even in their 50s....hint hint...like my boss la! or daddy especially when he is sick...hehehe)

anyway....all i hope for still is a healthy bouncy cutie "full head of hair" baby!!
**better still if look just like me!**

japan - tokyo & fuji

final post on japan

arrive tokyo, was mesmerized with the city, so vibrant, people everywhere, non-stop movement...




since october is a celebration month - birthday, anniversay, so what better excuse than to splurge on a great meal....so we went hunting for the best food we know...the famous kobe beef. went to ginza and instead of looking at the gorgeous shops and latest gadgets at the sony building...our mission...kobe beef (very focus!!!)


in the end we found a great teppanyaki restaurant in ginza. misomo ~ suppose to be the best beef teppanyaki restaurant opened since 1945. we ordered one kobe and one wagyu....wah when i first tasted the wagyu...so juicy and yummilicious, incredible....then i grab one kobe....man!!! melts in your mouth and the texture...woooooo i was hooked...the wagyu (ehhh...neglected la...give most of it to daddy) look at the marbling effect on the kobe...aiyooo see the difference...no fight la...like comparing thai and "mou san wong" durian!





the next day, took a tour to fuji, to see the very shy and illusive mountain....went up to basecamp 5 (the peak is basecamp 10) so were up about halfway, that day the mountain "acted up"...the winds were crazy and can almost blew a child away....daddy & i struggled with every step to get ourselves safely from the bus into the touristy restaurant & shops...its was soooooo cold...i dun even dare to come out once i was in. see daddy wanna be hero...i was standing inside the shop snapping these pics. the tour guide said it was very very unusual weather....yeah u can say that again!

wish we had on some volcom clothing to keep the wind out of our bones!




then went to another less threatening spot to take pics of fuji.







back to tokyo and what do we crave for....can u guess????





more kobe....this time we ordered 2 sets of kobe...no sharing! this time we went to the same restaurant but this one was in shinjuku area on the 81st floor ~ great view of the city. see how much thichker is the kobe this time...last meal before leaving japan...great yummy memory...very satisfying just like our japan trip.

happiii biirthday darrrrling

you are 6 today!!!

though we celebrated your birthday last sunday, po po is baking you another cake today...can't wait to go home early from work to sing the b'day song and see you blow off your six candles...of cos eat the home made cake too.

this week in your life...

~ your bottom tooth dropped out on its own after shaking and threatening to go, now you have a total of 3 missing teeth!

~ you had "exam" week in kindy...you were so stressed up and tensed especially for your chinese test, though mommy and daddy said it's ok to make mistakes as long as you try, (we are definitely way off laid back with her on her test)...but you still pretend that you were so tired in the morning and dun wanna get out of bed....made a huge fuss not to go to school. when you got home, you said that teacher helped you to do the test paper...hmmmm....happy to see that she got "help" and not "cheated" hahahha...must thank teacher for giving her some boosted assistance.

~ mommy got you new clothes but ellisa wants to wear them too...the usual sistery rivalry! elli and erika's waist are about the same size...short skirt for erika is a long skirt for elli....now i gotta go buy another "exact same" one for elli...for peace sake. elli weighs about 15.9kg (more than 4 year old sean!!) so her waist is like a 6 years old!

~ still love your piano and is practising hard on christmas carols

~ get to sleep on mommy's bed for the whole week

happiiiii biiiiirthday darliiiing!

japan - nara & kyoto

aiyooo the amount of tags i collected...can pengsan (thanks for thinking of me!!). anyway continuation of japan 1st then i do tags.....

side trip to the ancient city of nara ~ about 1 hr train ride from osaka, but it was worth it! the ancient temples were amazing. the sheer size and architecture of the todaaiji temple is magnificent. even though i am not a believer but its awesome! there are more temples and shrines to come coz the majority of japanese are "shinto" or "buddhist" worshippers. christians only about 1% of a population of over 120 million people...was hoping to look for a church...but that was a real tough assignment.


the nara park is really huge, walk until i pengsan coz all the temples and shrines are usually located on a hill at the highest point of the city. which means lots of climbing...panting...but worth it la, after all the hard work...lots of beautiful japanese scenery. also work up a really good appetite too.


the fun part is there are many species of deer in this park, which leads to loads & load of feces (yong meh si) everywhere! be careful where you land your feet. the smell also there la! goes hand in hand.




another ancient city ~ kyoto. followed a tour this time so less walking as we have the bus waiting for us after every tourist spot...much better! see la...so pampered!

this is nijo castle with the nightingale wooden floors. the floors literally sings to you. its a clever mechanism built by the shogun so they can hear intruders...maybe we can built that into our decking too. this castle has very intricate details on the ceiling and walls. the garden here is one of the best we have seen so far.



next stop - golden pavilion temple which shorn so brightly in the full sun and sitting elegantly on a lake with lots of fishes...koi la, obviously.


japanese bento lunch, after lunch studying the map with a fren on how to make our way to tokyo. then left for a shinto heian shrine, was happy to witness a wedding there, actually there were 2 couples getting married, but the costume all white (for bride) and black (for groom) look really so somber....*eh like funeral* i thot the bride would wear a more colourful kimono. summore they dun smile one when they take photo...really serious...maybe they know what they are really getting into!! hahahaha


final stop for kyoto is the kiyomizu temple....located right on top of a hill...again climb like crazy! there were tons of tourist shops here, so i didn't bother to climb all the way to the top, just view it from the base of the temple (enuff for me la)...let the more "gung-ho" tourist do that la, i browse the shops and got myself a yummilicious black sesame seed ice-cream which cost about RM10 for a scoop! (that was really enjoyable...food more important) i guess same price as baskin here but that one no brand one wor....




after kyoto...left for tokyo on the "wings" of a bullet train. see the long box i am holding...guess what daddy bought in osaka and had it lugged to tokyo...his precious driver! he said only sold in japan wor! the funny part was he was testing the clubs and drivers, whacking and whacking...until he broke the golf ball into half...the sales person knowing full well he doesn't understand a word...started blabbering in a barrage of japanese words…daddy just look at him blankly. guess he has never seen a foreigner break a golf ball before.

daddy says the golf collection here is incredible even have Ogio!

japan - observations

some of my observations on this trip...






i love the food, but after a week of sushi, sashimi, yakitori, bento sets....and since my nose so sensitive, really "jelat" with the smell of jap food....i really crave for nasi lemak, char kuey teow, assam laksa...anything malaysian la! but i love the jap rice...ate loads of it everyday. i dunno if it's just me (greedy & hungry all the time!), but i find the portions too small, no wonder there are no fat people around. i guess they make the food look so pretty that you forget that it's so little meat!!



they love their pets and show off by pushing them around in a special doggie stroller...quite similar to ellisa's stroller!! i guess pets are easier than kids!! i just wonder where do they put them in their tiny apartments.





ample choices of cheap and fast food on the streets...ok la, not very cheap but reasonable!! they use lots of they jap soya sauce and mayo. we love their ajinomoto!!! yummiii...hehhehee just gotta drink lots of water.







attended a dinner with geisha girls...they are so expensive that they only performed one dance for us!! these geisha are from kyoto, i think most of them are from there only. took some pictures with some "maiko"~apprentice geisha girls, they were really young around 16-17 years old and they dun go to school anymore, just attend geisha school. and the most facinating part is the maiko's hair is real not wigs! i just can't imagine how they sleep and not mess up their hair!

eh...maybe they sleep on some special memory foam mattress! what do you think?



see these jap gardens, not a single flower in them...a true jap garden dun have flowers, coz the superstitious shoguns think that flowers will diminish his powers with such feminine elements. the garden will have only trees (symbolising man's spirit), water (blood) and rock (body), which must work in harmony for a beautiful garden and person also la.




no i am not showing off the jap girl's bum, i notice that the girls love wearing heels...everywhere. either they wanna look good, fashionable or they are short!! nothing wrong with heels but aiyoo i see them suffer so much, they walk until all "senget" especially in all those touristy spots (walk uphill, downhill)... still hanging on to their dear heels!

japan - osaka

arrive at kansai airport...the airport that floats (saw it on national geographic - telly teaches us a lot of stuff too, so should i encourage my girls to watch more telly....nah!!) airport very, very far from our hotel!! i guess real estate here is super expensive, as expected. it is the same for narita airport...guess i can't complain about klia now.




went to dotombori - most happening street to have dinner, then the rest of the pictures are taken by daddy when i was working. daddy love the japanese gardens, of cos the bonsai, bottom picture is the famous osaka castle. he said lots of homeless people in makeshift tents there...so he didn't bring me there la...all i see is this picture only.

after work, i usually have dinner programs so the only time we get out of osaka is for supper at the cute yakitori places. the great part is japanese timing...dinner starts sharp at 6 and ends sharp at 8, which leaves us plenty of time to explore more FOOD at nite (greedy la). they really kick you out of the restaurant sharp, so all small talk, big talk ends sharp at 8, they even dimmer the lights to hint that its TIME TO GO! or they politely inform you that the bus will leave you behind, so everyone is off their seats sharp!

the most enjoyable part of osaka was universal studios, if you are there, dun miss this. we spent the whole day there. daddy was clever to buy the fast pass tickets so that we dun need to line up for the rides, it was only about RM60 (cheap la - considering that it save us about 4 hours of queuing time) for 4 of the most happening rides.

for me the most fun ride was the 3-d animation spiderman's ride and terminator shows. well the rides were more fun compared to kiddy disneyland rides. which brought us back to thinking about our girls and how we wish they were there with us...so daddy decided that he will bring the girls to disneyland next year...compensation for missing them sooooo much that it brought tears to his eyes when he saw the other girls with their daddies.

me stopping for food and snack break all the time...need to refill since feeding for 2...excuses...

e.t. go home adventure, back to the future, jaws and waterworld brought back lots of memories for daddy since he last went to the states studios some 20 years ago....i was thinking after 20 years, still the same rides ah!! no change??

then we attended the farewell dinner event that was held at studios, stage 33. daddy fell in love with all the cute japanese girls, he wish he was 18 again and single!

i did a spiderman hand painting on my right hand. since it was halloween party...the girls asked me..."tic-kor-trijk-tor" i was perplex as to what they were trying to say...then i realised it's "treat or tricks". then they performed for us and had all the ol' men (mostly accountants) oggling!

after osaka we left for kyoto...

gynea visit - 12 oct

my 12th week visit, quite panicky after hearing the news that daddy's cousin's pregnancy test result may be "down". thank god it's a false alarm.

was happy to see the progress of our baby from a lil kidney bean from the last visit, the baby is now about 6cm long, guess the size of an orange.

quickly ask the doc if she can see my baby's progress especially the space between the brain and the skull, but she said it's too early to see...aiyooo...must wait for the next visit. but she saw the nose bridge and the neck spinal spacing...which indicates that all is normal...phew!!

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