I Didn't Throw it Away

I used to draw a lot when I was young, before the world was cyberised. 

Growing up in a big city, we didn't spend our childhood outdoor freely. Most of the time, besides playing with my siblings at home, I spent most of my free time seating down on my desk and holding the pencil to draw, to sketch, and brushes to paint. There must the innocent soul of mine in believing myself of having some sort of magical power to visualise and decode 3D into 2D. I was not afraid of wrong doing onto the drawing pad.

Transforming Grape Stem Into a Tree

One day, after disconnected a bunch of grapes from the stem and passed the fruits to the girls to eat...

I saw a naked tree in my palm.
So, a wild attempt to let the girls have some fun began-

Paint a Tree
First | bend some parts of the stem a little outwards, just to make it like a tree branches.
Second | washi tape to stick the stem on the drawing paper, randomly.
Third | get ready with brushes, colouring palette, water, some water colours,
           mainly green, blue and yellow, just to get different shapes of green
Fourth | Fun dipping begins!
            Various of green- light green, dark green, lime, teal, mint, etc dip onto paper.
       

Lastly | Complete the background as you like.

Visually, it gives an impact to the little minds on the transformation possibility of an object. Technically, it allows the little hands to experience the dipping technique and how blue and yellow can form variety of green. Again, the infinite possibility of forming own's green.

Of course, you can try other shapes of colour.

A Bit (More) from the Daily Fix

While writing and receiving loves on my earlier post of the Daily Fix, I got the opportunity to chat a little with Julian, the Founder. More on, feedback on his food and coffee we had. I approached him further if he would like to share about his story on the café business, those vintage collections, his effort, his vision and what not. I mean, how clever is he to hunt and keep those antiques and oldies? Making them as part of his life beautifully is another great success. He must have some secret!

Here’s his reply:

Malacca: The Daily Fix, Jonker Street

We travel back to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore to visit my family, at least thrice a year. Hence, SC and I would bring the girls pop by Malacca whenever we could, just to be a day or two of wondering wanderers. Malacca maybe now a very tourist hotspot, it is still a new adventure place to the girls, many to see, many to think about and learn. We also think that it is a living book for us to read and get to walk our history physically. 

[Ok, the true is adult us love the food there, cheap and authentic].

Usually, we would pick off-peak season to visit the centre of Malacca city. It is always jam-packed during weekends and public holidays, on the road especially. Traffic congestion gets worst after listed as UNESCO heritage site. Good and bad I guess. I don't like crowd, and frankly we can't afford to spend more on the accommodation. Y'know, they charge more during peak seasons. (And they charge almost half the price when it is off-peak.)

..............................................

So, after we had enough of wandering (and books), we went to The Daily Fix.

Malacca: Jonker Street and its Very Own Library

As I was saying, I have fond memories of Malacca. My dad brought little us to visit Malacca to makan angin (to travel for leisure), mostly during school holiday. Vaguely, I saw the red shophouses a lot, and the Christ Church, and the Fort A Famosa. And Trishaw! We didn't have it in the big city of KL nor small hometown of my dad's, you see. Malacca provided us a glimpse of the past and slower pace of living (few days though) from the Kuala Lumpur city. Over the years, I learnt a lot more about its history of Sultanate, Laksamana and Temenggung, as well as the unique Baba and Nyonya culture from our textbooks. It was one of the proud eras prior to Colonialism of Malaya. 

Profoundly, Malacca set the modern nation of Malaysia. If I may conclude so. 

Like many other cities in Malaysia, Malacca grows and develops rapidly too, vertically and horizontally while I was reading it from the textbooks. Some parts of the city stay physically intact as much as it could, some parts try to integrate the past and redevelop. Conservation and Preservation are not easy when socia-economic consideration is the primary aspect for a city. In 2008, together with George Town of Penang, Malacca became one of UNESCO World Heritage Site. More effort of redevelopment ever since, but I think that listing gives some of us some sort of relief that many of the past get to stay permanently.

Speaking of which, we love visiting Jonker Street, being the core of the Malacca UNESCO World Heritage Site. During our last visit to Malacca, we had great fun. 

Sept 2014: Malacca

In many ways, Malacca is a very charming place to be. Its food and its mixed arts and cultural are the main attractions, along with those well restored historical architectures. Jonker Street, aka Jalan Hang Jebat, being the core of the Malacca UNESCO World Heritage Site, is where we don’t mind coming back again whenever we are visiting Malacca. Jonker Street is where I would find surprises whenever we are the wondering wanderers.

Slowly, I realised that, Malacca is also one of the places that I injected best memories to my children, my family. Pretty much similar to what my dad did to us. We used to visit Malacca for family trips. Those days, Malacca was much more leisure, much more simple; not as happening as now, was not so scorchy hot, was much lesser cars, little chaotic developments, no reclamation (or was it started in process?)... 

Malacca was a good place for us to escape from the metropolitan KL.

Credits: Amanda Yi Designs; Sahlin Studio; Kim Christensen's Design; Akizo, etc.

The text in the digital scrapbook is in Malay, for Melaka = Malacca; Bandaraya Bersejarah = Historical City. I am slowly losing the power of writing in Malay and speaking in it.


I share more of our surprises in Jonker Street here and there.

Review: Creative Horizons

My girl's English isn't fantastic. She is confused with grammar, weak with word decoding; speaks Singlish (Colloquial Singaporean English) wonderfully and brings them into her comprehension, composition and oral too.

I don't have solution for her, except being very patient in correcting her. You see, I was brought up in an environment that English is being third or four language to acquaint with, I didn't learn the language formally until i was in third year of primary school. I learnt English bit by bit slowly over the years and I am still learning the language to-date. So in a way, I don't push very hard in her study. I let the big English-speaking environment do the hard work; the school, her friends, the media are the greatest teachers, aren't they? Eventually, she should be mastering the language, right? I am just a supporting role when she's back home.

But. My home environment is kind of rojak (mixed): Mandarin, English and most of the time mixing them up in a sentence to convey a message. Even though I don't speak perfect English, I was taught the right way to speak simple English and so cautiously, I speak to my children in grammatically correct manner... by right. In such a big environment of Singlish, I am slowly localised, been quite confused with the language sometime, while exhaustively reminding her what's right and what's not. Slowly, I get into more serious business, past years' paper for her to practice, holiday programme to revise, hoping to improve her proficiency level. I hate to admit, I am doing little help to her, in her English. To some extend, I speak more Chinese to her instead. Let's go back to our mother tongue, she should be mastering the language eventually, right?

I think I was giving up in helping her.

Fun for Free Singapore: Venus Loop, MacRitchie

This post is part of the FUN FOR FREE SG series of blog train, brought to you by a group of mum bloggers. We’re sharing on one fun and free venue a day in the month of August. For the complete list of places, please scroll right to the bottom of this blog post.

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Today, I'll be sharing with you another fun and free place to be with your little ones: Venus Loop, a small part of MacRitchie nature trails.

MacRitchie situated in the core area of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR), it is believed that it boasts a rich biodiversity with over 500 animal species. Together with MacRitchie, the CCNR now consists of a mixture of young and mature secondary forests with virgin primary forest surrounding the reservoirs.

As you may already know, MacRitchie Trails is a 20-km network of forest trails and broadwalks winding through the forest, to allow public to experience and appreciate nature. TreeTop Walk is another key attraction of CCNR. Whilst, Venus Loop is less mentioned.

"The MacRitchie Forest Trail at Venus Drive meanders along the banks of a forest stream that is full of freshwater life. Here live dragons and damsels, freshwater crabs and prawns, the Puff-faced Watersnake, Pygmy Halfbeak and Saddle Barb." from Toddycats.

Aug 2014: Bomber's First Excursion

Little Bomber's first field trip to Singapore Zoo, without daddy or mummy. She probably missed us, but the teacher said, kids had a wonderful time. She mentioned many new animal names after the trip; built a giraffe with lego (at home) the next day. She is a step closer away from clingy. I think, I should celebrate the milestone, here, in digi-scrapbook way.

And then, I recalled of Jijie's first excursion, I did a layout for her too. It was 6 years ago!!! I walked through a wonderful memory lane while clicking through those scrapbooks I did over the years. One child, then two. It is a lot harder to parent these days. I reckon, this is a way of me trying to replay the moments with my children, and be reminded of how blessed I am to have them. Quote and unquote Louise Erdrich, time with children is like water runs through fingers, we tried to hold, to capture, to fix moments in a lens... 

My firstborn is grown up, my littlest baby no more; I am memorialise now.

Duxton Hill, Duxton Road

We came here unintentionally. We wanted to visit Oriole, to sip one of the best specialty coffee in town, but it was closed to our surprise (apparently there was a moving out party in mid July). We roamed around the area and found Duxton Road, as well as Duxton Hill - one of the elegant conservation neighbourhood in the city.

May 2014: Holi Colour Fight!

Here, a layout for this crazy fun moment we had at the very first day of the school holiday. Evelyn invited us over for a colour fest- Holi, an ancient Hindu religious festival, celebrating the triumph of 'good' over 'bad'.

Our first to Holi, Bomber was totally astonished to the mess on everyone and clung to me when we arrived. For a while, I thought we would not be able to enjoy the fun. I tried to soothe her, tried to rub some goop on her gently, coloured myself too! Somehow, the baby powder did the magic, she was unleashed very quickly after holding the bottle of baby powder, exclusively. In total, it took less than half an hour for the girls to warm up themselves and joined in the attack and run. 

Credits: Sahlin Studio, FeiFei's Stuff, Pixels and Company, www.veralim.com.

Sekeping Serendah, Malaysia

I remember vaguely about my maternal grandma's old house in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. It was a dwelling built with woods and metals and some concrete sat in a forest. Well, there was a huge estate of rubber trees behind the house, managed by my grandparents, according to my mum. And many fruit trees, a small vegetation and a little farm with some chickens and ducks for 12 children, together with my grandparents. I think my mum mentioned pigs were there once, when she was young. There was a swing too. I loved that swing! The house was a distant away from a main road. There was no near neighbours to be seen or to be heard. Every household was sprawling away from each other. When it was dusk, it would be totally dark and quiet out there, it was better stay in that house and don't step out, little me concluded.  

Those were the days of Malaysian's kampung (rural) living, very scatter from one house to another, admist in the wild and man-made vegetation. I was only baby, then a toddler, tasted and learnt about rural living.

This mid year school holiday, we brought my mum and the girls back to experience an idyllic living. We rented a Glass Shed in Sekeping Serendah.

Paddington Market, Sydney

Something colourful to share, taken from our visit to Paddington Markets. Even though, it was one year ago, I remember it was a relaxing afternoon to admire variety, creativity, originality, practicality, quaintness and deliciousness. I love wandering in Aussie outdoor markets.

This one in particular, has a playground area for me to dump the girls and wander all by my self (The hub and the relatives willing to look after them at the playground area).

Bangkok: Yaowarat

Right after our visit to The Grand Palace, we headed to Yaowarat, a. k. a. Chinatown. We considered various transportation options. Unexpectedly, bus was the one we took. Just because the taxi driver we checked with refused to go by meter and we were afraid that Tuk tuk could not take the capacity of five of us. Furthermore, the price of taking a Tuk Tuk was not much cheaper than a non-metering taxi. Then, we thought of walking over as the map shown a pretty convincing distance via foot. In the end, one of us sought help from a group of school girls passed by for a rough direction. Apparently they understood some simple English, advised us to take bus. When they pointed towards a bus stop, mentioned a bus number, all of our eyes followed her hand direction, the exact bus was stopping there to pick up passengers. Immediately we ran and hopped on... 

Mar 2014: Shining Four

As she was marching toward Fourth birthday, I showed her what is four, playfully with her fingers, one, two, three, four. She grinned marvelously. Four seems to be a big number compare to Three, she was very looking forward to. I reckoned she has learnt a lot more about her growth and development from past year. As I looked at her happy face to the new discovery, I thought and added on, "When you are four, you have four things to do...". Indicatively, each finger tied with a challenge for her to take up. It would be some form of change to her life moving forward. Knowing her, she doesn't really like changes, but I believe she could do it and would get the great sense of accomplishment to meet her milestone significantly. I promised her that I would help. 

It was also a task for myself to learn her growth, that she is baby no more. 

Credits: Akizo, Sahlin studio, etc.

Bangkok: The Grand Palace

As my friends had not been to (or fade memory of) the dazzling, magnificent Grand Palace, I put a half-day palace tour in my proposed itinerary. I wanted to learn about the exotic palace! Gasp, it must be a mum thing for unable to run away from planning an "educational tour".

But I'm lucky again, no one objected.

It is really a beautiful palace!

Bangkok: Street Food

When we were in Bangkok, we stayed in Glow Pratunam Hotel, a very new hotel as I understand from Trip Advisor. Google map which has not caption the latest completed structure/building, would not be able to tell you the actual location unless you type in 919 Petchburi Road, or Shibuya 19. Yes, Glow Pratunam and Shibuya are co-located, vertically.

Ok, I am not talking about the hotel here. Yes, it is a very nice hotel, bed is comfortably clean and soft, staff are friendly, etc etc. But I am actually wanting to lead you to food. Right behind the hotel, there's this yummy alley called Soi Petchburi 19. This is the highlight here- the street food!

As my hotel booking did not include breakfast, Soi Petchburi 19 was the place we went to for first meal of the day. Every morning of our stay.

Feb 2014: Risky Affair

I forgotten how my secondary school classmates' chat group sparked a brilliant idea to travel together. It maybe because we ran out of topic to chat(?). There are nine of us, and by now I know the routine of each one of them and pretty much to sum up that our living as mother is boring and those singles are... boring too. Of course, we share more than just routine. Like old days, we argue sometime and piss off one or another, but we get to usual selves fast too. Certain days, we talk non-sense, we laugh crazily in front of our own phone; we give virtual hugs, we understand one's long silent without much asking. 

Sorry I digress. As majority of us supported the idea of  a weekend trip together, the destination has few criteria to meet: fun, safe and easy for us ladies to explore. I suggested Bangkok: cheap, exotic and not too far of distance, from both KL and Singapore. Truth to be told, I had not been to Bangkok! They all did, many years back. Lucky me, the travelling time and budget match most everyone, the food and shopping in Bangkok are already well known and attractive, they agreed unanimously to the Land of Smiles, again! Yay!!!

It's exciting, undoubtedly. No man, no kids, just us, ladies having lots of fun over a weekend. Just like old days. Since my friends were so accommodating, I volunteered to hunt for hotel and crafted the brief itinerary. I love doing it, I love learning about the city prior to the trip. It was overwhelming, too much resources, too big a city. 

Along the way, the news about the riot came in. We got worried. I doubled the reading about the city, about the situation. The news about the explosion near Central World shopping mall and at Lumphini Park protest rally site were just happened few days before our departure. 

To go or not to go?! We asked each other.

Feb 2014: Warm Up Stretch

We are working out seriously. Have been going to the stadium nearby for jogging every weekend... at least once.

Credits: Template from Kitty Designs, papers and other elements from design by Anita

Love the girls in full gear and spirit!

Pig Maw Soup

Growing up, pig maw soup is one of my comfort food. Strangely, I can't remember how did I acquire the taste of pepper or texture of pig maw from young. Why do I enjoy it so much?

Perhaps it is the consequence of consuming a bowl of the soup: the peppery of the soup dispenses into my tummy and stays warm for a long while. Perhaps, it serves as a reminder of my mum to take good care of my weak stomach these days. To her, this peppery soup helps to strengthen weak digestive system.

And over these years, I managed to convince my daughters to eat pig maw too. If I have the time and strength to do the cleaning of the pig maw (usually you would need 20-30 minutes standing by the sink for getting a satisfy result of a pig maw) during weekend, it would appear on our dinning table in one of the weekday after. Conveniently, it has become a one-pot meal for my family. I could easily gather all the needed ingredients and prepare the soup in the morning and boil in the pot of the vacuum thermal cooker for at least 30 minutes long before I head out to work.

So this is my version of pig maw soup-

A Brand New Year

Hello there!

How is your 2014 thus far? I am not any less fun than before. Work is still hectic and I am still huffing and puffing everyday, after-work to race with time to pick up my daughters from the babysitter as shorter time as I could. I think, I am doing much better this year: For the past 18 days of working, I have not exceeded 6.30pm to first see Bomber's cheerful smile.  *Give my self a pat of the back.

Porridge as dinner, just because they love it.

Cooking is part of the routine now. Big part of the routine. Simple food though, at least three out of five. Being away from home, cooking probably is a way for me to recuperate from homesick, to recur my childhood memories. I guess, I am building and storing the girls' too.

As my first born is P3 now, we battle more. Yes, the battle hymn of another tiger mother and the daughter. I always at the exhausted state when dealing with her study after dinner, so is she. We often end up with crash and crash and bang! It is unbearable to see my angel turn into a scary monster. So much as I come to a realisation that I am my parents but she is not me. Old generation harsh parenting may worked on me, it doesn't mean works on her. Whatever happens to her now is partly my mistake of parenting. I have been pondering and trying to change. It is harder than I thought. Fortunately, at this stage the daddy could take over, I step back and manage the house chores, or one-to-one with Bomber.

Those are our weekday. Our hectic weekdays. Less impact on little Bomber though. She is attending PCF Nursery Class, has her meal and rest fixed at the babysitter's place, joyfully plays with her sister when they reunion in the afternoon.