One night staycation near home

Sis-In-Law and her newlywed son invited us for a night staycation at Likas Square Serviced Apartment on Monday.  They have booked a 3 bedrooms Premier Suite just to chill and relax.  The check-in time is 3pm.  We went there after fetching our girl from school slightly after 5pm, she had her last SPM exam paper done that day, just right for her to unload the stress after about a month long SPM exams. We had potluck dinner with plenty of food.  I even tapau some home after the stay.

The spread of food

Me and my 2 girls occupied the master bedroom (with washroom attached).  3 of us shared a king size bed while my better half made himself comfortable sleeping on the long sofa in the living room.

This was the view from 5th floor overlooking Teluk Likas at around 6.30am.  Sabah Trade Centre is at the bottom left, the car park in front still pretty empty at this hour. Wisma Perindustrian and Bay 21 Condominium are on the left.  I am not sure what's the name of the tall building under construction.

  

These geometric paintings are hanging around the condo.  I couldn't figure out what these painting are about thus unable to appreciation them.  I took photos of them anyway. 

Overall it was a nice staycation spending time with family.  We were talking about  planning for another staycation soon. 

Reviews for the condo unit (my personal opinions) : It would be good if the cooking utensils can be replaced and there are water leakages in the kitchen (which made the floor slippery), showers need to be fixed for the bathrooms too.

Papa's 79th Birthday

When we asked him what he would like to have for his birthday dinner, Papa said KFC..he has read about its new menu in the local Chinese Newspaper.  I quickly checked through the pile of old newspaper to find what he's talking about..and I found this piece of KFC's news introducing the Crispy Tenders..we later found out that the boneless chicken is spicy which papa does not like it..but we brought him to KFC for dinner anyway for other menus and also tried out this Crispy Tenders with mayo sauce.

After the dinner, we went home for cake cutting ceremony..the mango cake was bought from Uncle Biscuit..

my little nephew is helping his kung kung to blow the candles.  They live together and become very close to each other.

After the birthday songs, Papa is ready to cut the cake..opps forgot to remove the plastic wrapper around the cake.

The cake is moist, fresh and finely done..How I wish I can make a cake like this.

The actual date for Papa's birthday is tomorrow, we celebrated early on last Sunday..

Wishing Papa for more blessed birthdays to come, stay happy, healthy and long life. 

Lunch for Papa on Sundays

Me and my youngest brother take turns sending lunch to our papa on every Sundays.  These 2 months is my turn..our papa is a very complacent person, hardly complain even when he is not pleased on how things happening around him.  He eats what we serve him, he will only give his comments when we ask whether the food is alright, most of the time he would just say "Okay".

We know his favourite dish is roasted pork but we can't be giving roasted pork rice every Sundays, so I try to vary the choices base on my preferences over his favourite. I would usually snap a photo of the lunch that I serve our papa and whatsapp to my siblings letting them know what he is having for lunch.  I would squeeze half a lemon for him to clear the oily meal if I find lemon in the fridge (thanks SIL for buying the lemon :D)..he would complain sour because I only put a small pinch of salt (try to avoid sugar) into the lemon juice.  He would drink it even it's very sour.

toasted pork, char siew rice with a bit of salted egg and salted fish.

fried rice with tauhu pork and chun ken (meat rolled with egg). 

roasted pork and chicken rice 

last week I prepared home cooked food for him, Chinese sausage omelette, sauteed broccoli and carrot with pork...my papa is  turning 79 years old this week.

Weekend tea treats

For a person whom did not succeed in making steam bao no matter how many times I tried, I will have to buy baos  from the shop and keep frozen ones in the fridge as snacks especially on weekends.

I like those little 小龙包。I just need to steam them over high heat for 5 minutes and it is done..

For tea break last Sunday, we had these little paos and homemade "wajid" from SIL we packed home from the previous Easter Sunday.

Fined on a fine Sunday

We went to 1Borneo last Sunday.  We have got a nice parking a few steps away from the entrance.  Settled ourselves in an eatery on ground floor.  Our food came but left my better half's nasi lemak which has no sign of coming, upon checking, the kitchen said they had run out of chicken.  My hungry better half has turned angry, he was very unhappy for such a service, he paid for our food and went to other shop to find his comfort food..

my little girl's breakfast set

I chose fish meehoon soup, the taste is nice

normal fried mee, taste nice too

we also tried the cheapest beef noodle soup at one of the Vietnamese restaurant, RM2.10 (inc. GST)..the serving is very small, this bowl is just about a spoonful of a Chinese soup spoon..I will need to have 10 bowls of it to satisfy my eating capacity.

my girls spotted something different in the mall, the Korean ice cream.  The ice cream is filled at both ends of the cone.  RM10.00 per piece which is overpriced. 

By the time we leave the mall, we found our car has been locked, there's a summon on the car wind screen saying that a male driver has parked on a ladies parking bay, thus have to pay RM50.00 fine.

It has been captured on the CCTV, what is there to argue, it is the ignorant on our part to ignore the notice posted on the parking bays.  We also noticed several cars have been locked under this circumstance...I considered it as buang sial lah to pay the RM50.00 fine.

Movie night - Inside Out

It was movie night out for us last night.  Our girls have been waiting for months to watch the animated movie "Inside Out".  It is the first day on show here, we catched the 6.30pm slot so that there is not much interruptions on a school day routine.  

Inside Out is another well received Pixar Animated Studio production released by Wall Disney Pictures.   The story reflects our human emotions in our daily life.  The complexity of human emotions are the combinations of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust and everything in between.  We experience the change of emotions every minute and to every situation.  The children would be attracted to the great visual, it is best for the children to read about the story before going to watch the movie, they will appreciate more of what this movie is trying to bring about.  I enjoyed watching it.

while waiting to go inside the theatre

Another forthcoming animated movie : Hotel Transylvania 2.

Overnight Trip to Mesilau Kundasang - Day 1

We went for an overnight trip at Mesilau Kundasang last weekend, stayed at Kinabalu View Chalet.  Mesilau is the highest accessible point by road at the foot of Majestic Mount Kinabalu.

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Our double cab was loaded with the necessities for us to have a comfortable stay at the cool climate.

As usual we had a brief stopover at Tamparuli town to have its famous Tamparuli mee before continuing our journey.  After 2 hours + road journey from Kota Kinabalu, we arrived at the chalet.  Mount Kinabalu was fully covered by thick cloud throughout our journey there, we were unable to have a glimpse of it. 

Our family members occupied the whole 3 chalets, which is good that we can make the noises without disturbing others.  Each chalet has its own kitchen equipped with basic utensils, the set up of the room are very basic with the feel of staying in the kampung.

Not long after arriving, Clet has started to set up the BBQ while waiting for the rest to arrive.  

The only set back of this place is the flies, there are up to thousands of them sticking and flying around.  Even the smoke, flies repellent spray could not chase them away.  We have to cover our food while eating that has totally spoiled my appetite. Those flies disappear when sun set and come back in the morning, yuck!! The same situation happened when we stayed at one of the chalet around that place many years ago.  I was told that this is because of the fertilizer used at the surrounding farms and also the cattle farm nearby.  I believe there must be a way to keep these flies away.

Forgot about the flies.  We walked around taking photos of the flowers in front of the chalet.  

Clet set up the tent for the kids to play but  it is too small for them to stay inside, our kids has grown up my dear.

The highlight of the night was the double celebration of SIL's 50th birthday and Mother's Day.  Both the homemade mango cake and cheese cake are so delicious, I had slices of both cake and hot coffee for dinner.  

Dad's 77th birthday

Got some ideas of what to cook for dad's birthday from the many cook books as references, my potluck dish is 3 colours capsicum, straw mushrooms with chicken slices, stir fried in Chinese cooking as dad prefers Chinese food over others.

I bought an all time favourite black forest fresh cream cake, the cake is moist and well received by all of us.  

the younger grand children

Sunset beach party at Tg.Aru

Though my office is nearby Tanjung Aru Beach, it never comes to my mind to go to the beach to view the sunset.  

My sister in laws initiated a school holiday beach picnic supposedly during the weekend but to coincide with our nephew back for a visit from Singapore, the party is held at 3pm.  Most of my SIL are home makers, they made an afford to bring in cooking stove, gas cylinder, BBQ stove to cook kuih iudang, satays, fried ikan basung and chicken drumsticks by the beach besides bringing many of the ready homemade food.  I was on my 2nd day of detoxification,  so only grabbed few bananas as my meal.

The sunset is beautiful

Sister on law cooking their favourite kuih udang

One of the set back is there is no lamp poles at the beach. Hence we have to take our meal with only candles which was later bought from the nearby town.  Basically dinner in the dark.

Kids playing with the sand just before sunset

Anniversary dinner 2014

This month marked the 13th year of our wedding anniversary.  A lot of ups and downs needless to say much.  We have grown from 2 of us into a family of 4.  We ask God for His blessings and continue to guide us and keeping us safe and healthy everyday.

For this occasion, I chose to have a simple dinner at a Chinese Restaurant just next to my office.  It was raining heavily and traffic jam every way that evening.  It is the best place to be to avoid all the hassles.  

Shark's fin soup with only a little trace of shark's fin 

minced pork with salted fish

half portion of steamed chicken

Genting & KL Trip..continues

Another update of our Genting and KL trip just for record.

The 2nd day at Genting, we spent the whole day time in the Indoor Theme Park, nieces and nephew who reside in KL join in the fun though they have been there a couple of times.

We bought the Indoor Theme Park tickets in the hotel booking package allow us to have unlimited rides,  

They ride on the Merry-Go-Round many times with different horses each time

at the hotel lobby after we have checked out.  We took a cable car down to the station, our nephew was waiting for us there.  We just want to let our girls experienced a ride in the cable car.  Glad that it did not take too long to arrive, I started to have butterflies in my stomach during the way down.

We noticed a crack on the roof of the cable car

We bought some durian tarts at Restoran Sri Karak before heading back to KL

On the 3rd day, we went on an educational tour in KL city for our girls and a little time for shopping.  Our first stop was at KLCC for our girls to view the Petronas Twin Tower which they only got to see in TV and books.  But they are more interested to go to the PetroSains to explore what's new as compare to the one in KK.  Unfortunately Petrosains is closed on Monday, my girls were very disappointed.

Our next destination was to the Aquaria KLCC. After which our kids were too tired to walk but we still managed to get some reasonable priced clothing and shoes in one of the shopping mall in a rush.

We were back home on the 4th day.  Our kids were very happy to be home and start playing with their Lego Friends which we bought one each for them as promised.  Lego toys are slightly cheaper in KL as compared to KK like most other things.  

The Hamburger on flight of AirAsia is super yummy, I like it.  Will definitely order the same again on my next flight on Air Asia.

Thanks to our nephew, Bryan and family to let us stay at their home during our visit in KL.