Get To The Point Already!!!

Don't you just hate those looooong ass blog entries that you had to read for days to get to the good parts? Well I like to get to desserts before my mains so I'm gonna tell you the best parts of the KK Manila trip before the long detailed blow by blow account of the last week.

Snacks we bought in Manila - mangoes and more mangoes... and a few bags of American crackers (filled with gooey cheese) snacks.

Mum bought this tee shirt for Andrew because she said he reminds her of an Orang Utan.

Logan's loot - a monkey tshirt and pants set, some Ben 10 toys (am I the best auntie or what?) and a glow in the dark bouncy toy in his favourite colour (am I the best auntie or am I the best auntie????? I *think* yellow is his fave colour)

Buying stuff for girls is so much easier and you actually want to buy because everything is so pink and adorable. Who gets excited about buying stupid blue plain pants for boys?? No one that's who. Anyway I chose the tee shirt (so adorable, I rock!) and Mum bought her the dress (I chose the colour). She also gets a pink bouncy toy to avoid World War 3 with Logan.

Monica's loot because she is high maintenance and it's all ME ME ME with her. Check out the fridge magnet I got her of KK (didn't see any for Manila, Ah Here). She collects magnets, never mind that she had never been to those places.

MY LOOT - dvds and fake pearl chunky silver bracelet and a long real black pearl necklace. Pearls are cheap in Manila. Should have bought a white one... darn it.

MAC launched the Hello Kitty collection and like I have said previously, I cannot resist Hello Kitty. The sales assistant complimented me on my hair even though it looked like cr@p! But hey, a compliment's a compliment. Mum bought a lippie and I saw lots of Hello Kitty balloons behind the counter so I put my dignity aside and asked him for one. I had been chatting to him quite a bit and laying on the charm so I knew he wouldn't refuse. He said sure even though they are for Hello Kitty customers. Anyway i had another look at the collection and bought a powder. Most things were already sold out. Darn women!! I said bye and turned around to go and then he said waaaaait! He then gave me a Hello Kitty shoppers' bag... he looked a bit shifty so I think he wasn't supposed to give it to Cheapskate Customers Who Only Bought One Item. I'm marrying him.... except he wears a lot more makeup than me.

Makeup loot - funky coloured nail polishes, facial masks and my Hello Kitty bag. Yes, my balloon is missing because the evil evil evil airport dude won't let me bring it on the plane. I hate him. Anyway I had to give it to some undeserving child at the airport. Drats.

Closeup of the Hello Kitty powder:

All together now: awwwww so cute.

Childhood Games

Growing up with 5 other sisters each aged 2 years apart meant that going out when we were young was always a logistic nightmare. I get a mental breakdown just thinking about it now. Poor mother. As such, we didn't venture out much. I think we went out now and then for food but someone invariably would spill a drink within the first 5 minutes (ok, usually me o butter fingers!). Good thing about 5 sisters is that we are each other's best buds and each other's best partners in crime.

The world's our playground (well, within the fenced gate of our house anyway) with a little bit of imagination in a time when computers hadn't been invented and barbie dolls hadn't reached our kampung (village heheh):
- we would space a few chairs out and then drape a big blanket over it and then huddle inside our "tent" for hours;
- we would cut up bits of paper and use the "money" to buy stuff from the "shopkeeper";
- we would drape towels on our heads and pretend to be "princesses" - towels equal long hair, you see.

Other games we played involved this:


When our house was being built, Mum had the outline of a badminton court tiled on the grounds so we could play badminton. Mostly we used it for our creations such as our own version of Human Pacman. One person would be the ghost and chase after all the others but you can only walk on the tiles and the four corners of the court are safe havens. Or there's the game called Eagle Catch Little Chicken - one person is the eagle and the others line up in a row hands holding onto each other. The last person in the row is the little chicken and it is the aim of the eagle to catch the little chicken.

We also used to bike round and round the court. I learnt how to ride a bike here actually. The badminton net post would be up and I would get on the bike by holding onto the post and then peddle really quickly after letting go. I would then go one loop round and then come back to the post. I stopped by catching hold of the post. No wonder my braking skills are still nonexistent.

The other game we played was a bit R18 now that I think about it. Mum designed this bar area and it bears Dad's initials if you look closely enough.

H C S

The wall display always had quite a few bottles of alcohol on it and among them were these miniature bottles of alcohol. We used to sit at the bar stools and pretend to be customers. Someone would pretend to be the bartender and "sell" us these bottles of alcohol. Budding alkies!

My favourite ones!

The other favourite game of ours involved this cookbook. We would flip through the pages and each person would bag a dish, i.e. I'm eating that bbq ribs. Heheh no wonder I like me food and cocktails. Poor cookbook lost its covers a long time ago:

Our least favourite page back then - greens. Bleh:

Pranws! MINE:

Even back then, my favourite pages were the desserts pages in the back. All mine!

That caterpillar cake had always fascinated me back then:

Drinkies!

Last but not least, we used to play with these things called Blowing Balloon. They were dirt cheap, maybe 5 cents a piece:

You squeeze the insides out and it has the consistency of super glue:

Wrap the gooey goodness around the straw supplied:

Put the straw to your mouth and BLOW:

Once ready, just take the straw out and seal the hole gently with your hands. Ta daaaaa a diy balloon for your enjoyment:

My balloon in actual:

Once it starts deflating a bit, we used to just put our mouth to the balloon and poke a hole. Blow some more air in and seal it by just closing our lips and then the balloon would be sealed up again. Check out the little scar on the balloon now:

Poor balloon is deflating:

My balloon is doing an awesome impression of a rolled up gladwrap. Bravo!

I'm pretty sure it's quite toxic because it's pretty much melted plastic. Oh well, I'm still alive and kicking albeit missing a few brain cells. Heheh

What games did you use to play when you were young and innocent?

Childhood Snacks

Growing up, we were given a dollar a day to buy snacks at school everyday. A dollar doesn't sound much by today's standard but it was more than enough 5 years ago (ok more like 20..darn it). Lollies were 5 cents a piece (still are!!) and most things were 20 cents tops. Sometimes if I overspend, then I would borrow money from friends and pay them back the next day - usually 10 cents or so. Heheh.

Anyway I went to the little stalls that sold kiddie snacks to revisit my childhood. I felt 10 years old again standing in front of the array of snacks being sold and trying to make up my mind what to spend the precious dollar on.

Typical snacks included (clockwise from top):
- jelly pots
- Kiss Me lollies
- wannabe M&Ms in foil packaging
- Mamee instant noodles type snack.

Mum used to drive us around for a whole lot of lessons. My typical timetable on top of school read like this:
1. Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons for 2 hours - English lessons;
2. Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights - General school tuition;
3. Thursday afternoons - piano lessons;
4. Saturday mornings - art lessons;
5. Ballet lessons;
6. Swimming lessons.

We were busy little buggers. I remember one time when I had so much extra crap to lug around with me that I forgot my school bag. Hehehh... so Mum had to turn around and go home to get it. Duh.

We looked forward to the swimming lessons the most. I remembered that Mum bought us a cotton dressing gown each to wear after the swim and we would put on our swimsuits and dressing gowns right after lunch on the days we could go swimming and waited eagerly for Mum to take us. Usually with the other lessons, ie piano and art, we had to be dragged kicking and screaming. So Mum would take us for swimming but Jenn had asthma so she would only be allowed a very short time in the water and then Mum would bribe her with snacks to get her out. One of the after-swimming snacks we had:

Another typical snack was these chocolate wafer biscuits. I had fond memories of these tasty snacks but in reality they are tasteless and stale!

Afternoon Tea

Just woke up from a 3 hour nap and Mum decided to go buy some kuih muih (cakes and snacks). So we did and I went overboard as usual. In my defense:
a) I didn't have lunch.
b) I only had 25% of the food... ok maybe 40%.
c) Everything costed only RM$6.40!!!

Clockwise from the top row:
- Taufu Far (sweet tofu soup)
- Glutinous green sticky cake with peanut filling
- Rice balls with some sort of savoury topping
- Glutinous layer cake
- Curry puffs
- Deep fried sweet potato

Yum

Travelling With Style 101

Do You Want Bacon With That?

Don't watch this if you are easily grossed out.


I warned you!!

Some Memories Never Fade!

When we were growing up, Mum and Dad used to buy us chicken rice from this stall, Wee Kee Chicken Rice. It is located on one of Sibu's busiest roads and it used to be a logistics nightmare buying chicken rice with 6 monkeys in the car. Mum and Dad would park right next to the stall (yes, on the road) and one of them would run in to buy.

It is still in the same exact spot and looked the same. I guess good things do withstand the test of time. The business is as old as Fiona, i.e. very old. Heheh

The chicken rice used to come wrapped in oily waterproof paper and an outer layer of newspaper. I have recollections of us girls just eating straight out of the paper in front of the tv. I half expected the food to still come wrapped in newspapers but alas, times have changed. But the little bag of chilli sauce and the mildly sweet and sour cucumber slices remained the same. The original chicken rice man had passed away and his son had taken over the family business. I vaguely remember his dad's face and I also vaguely remember him as a young one.

Oooooh the anticipation was killing me the whole way home.

I'm convinced he gave us more chicken because Mum told him that we used to buy from his dad many many moons ago and that I've been going on and on about having it again.

I'm happy to say it was probably the best chicken rice I've had in a while. Maybe it was the memories that made every bite tasted that much more flavoursome. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed my RM3.50 chicken rice.

All gone.... well, all gone by my standards anyway.