Bottom Time

Manage to get some bottom time today for some refresher for the upcoming island trip on the second week of August. Also manage to get some of the basic gear during the sales the other day and now testing it out before heading for the deep blue. Need to be reminded about some of the required steps on setting up the gear. Luckily not all of it went away, some you would recall when you are doing the it. Memory now more volatile than before. It has been almost two months since my OWD dive and now need to pick up some before the season closes for Ramadhan & the monsoon.

The next trip would be on the hardcore side, since will be travelling in the wee hours of the morning on the Saturday as the mrs has a function the night before hence no one to look after the kids, planning to get 2 dives on the day, rest for the night, if possible getting another 1 or 2 dive sunday before heading back home. Time to see whether 3x guys would tahan, to make the journey, the dives and the journey back. Hopefully.

Week update

For the past two weeks, I have been seeking approval to join & witness a testing procedure to be done by one of our vendor at their invitation in Australia. The memo kept bouncing back and forth as the content and format deemed not fit. Once the whole process of getting the memo written up was done, there are only a few days left before the supposedly flight date. The approval came last Friday but I haven't been able to get int ouch with the organiser about the travel arrangement for me. SMS's and phone calls to the person in charge went unanswered. Even calls to the office is not helping. Hopefully the effoert would not go in vain.

The return of the purple and green

Ever since the new chapter in our life started, we have been managing the upkeep of the house to the very best that we can. Granted that the house haven't gone Topsy turvy yet, but IMHO it's better to do minimum effort all the time rather than maximum effort in one go.

Now what concerns us is how to keep Lil miss-chief entertained while we are going about our routine. Sometimes she can be a Little bit clingy or mischievous especially when her brother is doing his homework. A distraction is needed to get her attention. Who better than the one in purple & green....

Initially she was a bit confused as we had not been exposing her to TV all this while and she rather do stuff than sitting still for a minute. But after a while, some of the song routines manages to catch her attention and now every time we pass by the TV she would be demanding to put it on.

There goes the news and prime time TV. I think after this it anytime would be the purple and green dinosaur time...all the time....

~if you're happy and you know it clap your hands~i love you, you love me~i love to fly my kite~

After a while it does get to you and will be getting it until she turns 4..I hope.

A new chapter

Yesterday, we closed a chapter in our life and start a new one. Hopefully better than before. I know that the coming weeks or months would be tough on us but that is something that we have to go through irregardless. We managed it before but that was when there were only the three of us. Now with the little miss-chief, its gonna be hard.

The new chapter comes with new routines, the boy and little miss-chief would be separated for the day, meaning that me & the mrs would go our separate ways in the morning and me having the task to fetch the boy home from nursery after school, taking care of the kids while the mrs gets dinner ready & also picking up household chores. Not that I haven't been exposed to it but things do get rusty. Also I have to reschedule my activities day to Tuesdays instead of Thursdays, and any other have to be after 930pm ...

The only thing that got me worried is that if I have to be away from home during weekdays, meaning that the mrs would have her hands full at attending 2 full of energy & mischief children along in keeping the household in order. Or worse, it could be me who has to do it in case the mrs has to go away.

But as I have always believe, things would turn for the better. As in whether we could revert back to the old arrangement, only time will tell.

2/2 of bad experience = twice bitten... plus another condition, the bad apple has to be removed or else history would repeat itself...

It's finally here - My OWD Card

It's finally here..now I can plan my dives with my official PADI OWD card .. hehe .. next stop Tioman..

Kuching Trip - June 2009

It surely took me a long time to update my blog about this Kuching trip... hehehe..

We took the 1920 flight to Kuching and reached by about 2100. Straight headed to the hotel to check in and rest for the night. The next day have been planned with full activities :

1. Sarawak Cultural Village all the way in Santubong

2. A quick stop to get some some Sarawak layer cakes ( kek lapis)

3. Look around for some Sarawak mat (tikar Sarawak)

4. Semenggoh Wildlife Centre to see orang utan

5. get some ikan terubuk masin

1. Sarawak Cultural Village

The trip to Santubong was about 45 minutes from Kuching. The cultural village is placed at the foor of Gunung Santubong, near the coast. The drive up there with Abg Jai was pleasent, in fact he commented that he rarely goes above 80kmh in Kuching, unlike over at the Peninsular where 80 kmh is considered snails pace.

We stopped by a resort before the SCV as we have been told that it would be easier rather than buying the tickets at the park itself, as its a Saturday and its bound to have a lot of visiotr. The plan was to have ample time to view all the houses there, 7 to be exact. From memory, those houses are, Rumah Cina, Melayu, Melanau, Orang Ulu, Iban, Bidayuh & Pernan Hut.

The idea is that you could explore all of Sarawk in half a day. We started the journey anti closkwise, meaning that we started with the Chinese farmhouse, Melayu, Melanau, Orang hulu, Penan, Bidayuh & Iban. We barely manged to finish all of it before heading to the hall where the cultural show is hels. The cultural show took about 45 mins, and it showcased the different culture within Sarawak. One of the higlights of the show was when the Penan warrior asked a Minah Sallaeh to go ont he stage with him as his 'prey' and asked her to use a blowpipe on a bllon aboot 30 feet away.

At the entrance to the cultural village

Peppercorn plant - no white or black variety - that depends on the processing later on

Aiman trying out the traditional mill

2. Kek Lapis Dayang Salhah

Next on the list is the kek lapis sarawak. Our guide for the day suggested Kek Lapis Dayang Salhah, which is siutated in Kg Gerisik, Petrajaya. The shop is actually opposite where we stayed across the river and we could actually take a sampan across for rm0.50/person..cool or what.. Sample of the cakes were available so that prospective customers couls have a taste & choose what they like....for me all of them are nice..one thing good about them is that the cakes would be paked nicely in a box so that it is easy for you to take on the filght.

Another thing that you shouldnot miss is the longan juice seller outside the kedai, so nice & sweet for a hot sunny day..we all regreted that we only bought one bottle..

Entance to the kedai/factory

After the kek lapis shop, we headed out for lunch at Pasar Satok before heading out for some terubuk masin. Here they also will packe your order for your convenience to take onto the filght. The compelted package looks like a box of laptop..hehe. At the airport, you could suss out which of them had gome to the kek lapis & which had gone to ikan terubuk..

3. Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre

This is the orang utan rehabilitation centre, where the orang utan could be viewd int heir natural habitat. The feeding rpogram is held at in the jungle, about 250m trek. As the guide said, orang utan ni tak tunggu kita, bila dia nak makan dia makan, lepas dia makan dia masuk hutan balik. There are about 26 orang utans in the centre, and even though they are in close proximity with human, we are not allowed to be near them as they are stilll wild.

After the wildlife centre, we headed back to Kuching for some shoppinh which include searching for tikar sarawk & souvenirs. Then we headed back to the hotelfor a dip in the pool and some time to relax before taking the boat for dinner. Dinner was at the opposite of the river. Food wise, Sarawak is a lot better then Sabah but the transportation cost is quite high.

The next day were spent free & easy...stroll along the Pasar Satok for some pucuk midin & kapur kering, both of which were not found. My 18-55 lens start to act up, hence could only do manual focus hence missing out on a lot ot photo opportunity. I found that this trip is really ok and wouldn't mind visiting Kuching again, except that the transportation cost are quite high. A taxi to Pasar Satok from Hilton costs Rm12/way, whilst from Hilton to Grand Margherita is RM8 (5 mins drive). The cost for us to rent a taxi (15 seater van to be exact) & guide for the day is RM230.

It has been an enjoybale trip apart from the loss of personal belongings - adi lost her catarina at LCCT even before we got on the plane, abang lost his P-qaq and moi left my cleanser there. Hmm, thats the fact of life I guess, u gained memories but left some of you behind...