Do you like my replica of the bicycle? Yes, some of you said that it was expensive buying the balloons for my children. Actually the other reason I wanted to get the balloon is so that I can learn from it to make one myself. Now I can make bicycle balloon. My children pretend to ride on it and go around the house making noise. It is worth the money.

After the last aquarium broke, my hubby and I wanted to get another one. We went aquarium shopping down town. It is a 2 storey high building where the top floor has the nice decorated aquarium. Basically you can pick and take it home without having to do work yourself. You get the tank, filter, light, plants and the fish. Some come with cabinet.

There was a really helpful malay staff who teach us how to take care of the tank. Hey it is not easy. At first we wanted a 2 feet tank but it was way over our budget plus the amount of work we need to maintain it. We decided to go with a smaller tank. Tim and Emily wanted to put a bridge in the tank but since we are getting a smaller tank, it cannot fit the bridge there.

By the way, if you start from a fresh tank, you need to lay layer of sand, rocks and all. Before you can put fish or plants in, you have to wait for the sand and rock to settle. It may take a day or two. If you want plants in there, the water must contain CO2 for it to survive. Lastly you cannot feed the fish too much else the water will get dirty fast. He thought us to take 30% of the water out either every day or every other day. He also provided the set of chemical to balance the ecology of the tank. Lots of work but it is worth it. Every time I look at the fish and the tank, it gives me a soothing sensation.

Now the tank is on top of the Mammut drawer chest.

Here ya go:

It took me and my hubby about 45 minutes to build it all. I must say that the DIY manual is really good. Not a single word of description needed. Everything is in the picture. The screws were a bit high tech as it locked really well. However there were different kind of screws and nails. Yeap my hubby need to hammer the back.

I kind of like the color of the drawers, so does my children. As usual Tim wanted blue and Emily wanted red. Mummy wanted blue…hehehehe.

While I was at Curve, there was a balloon store which has many great balloon designs. I was telling my hubby when I retired, I will open a balloon store like this. It will be great making creative balloons that will children happy. It certainly made my children happy when I got them a bicycle and a heart balloons. They were happy bringing it around the mall. It sure made lots of eyes look at us.

It was the first time for my family to experience the KL Monorail. Every time we went to the city, my children will be fascinated by the passing of the monorail. They get excited. Oh well, I thought I will bring them to experience it.

Basically the monorail goes from Titiwangsa to KL Sentral. The fare isn’t too expensive it was RM2.50 from end to end. My children are free. I parked at Berjaya Times Square and went on from there. Parking in Berjaya Times Square burn a hole in my pocket, I should have park somewhere cheaper.

We went from Imbi station to Titiwangsa and back. It took us about 30 minutes in total. Verdict from my children, they want to ride it again. They think it is the same monorail from Genting.

We tried the Vietnamese Beef Noodles, Pho at Curve. Actually it is not bad and has a lot of beef stuff in it. You never can imagine so many parts of the cow can be eaten until you have this. The noodle was a bit thin and they didn’t give enough bean sprout and basil leaves. Common, those are not very expensive, they should give us each one place rather than a plate for 2.

Of course, the one in the Bay Area US is still the best. If you are going to US, you must try it. Anyway back to the one at Curve, it is RM11 for regular and RM13 for a super duper bowl. Trust me it is really huge. For me, the regular is enough to stuff me. So far, it is the best Pho I ever eaten in Malaysia. If you know another, please ping me.

For me, I must make a stop to this shopping place whenever I go down to KL. I will squeeze some time from the busy schedule of family and friends gatherings. It is none other than Ikea. I am not sure why but I love looking at household stuff. By the way, I grabbed 5 catalogs while I was there. If any Penang folks want a copy, let me know.

There was one item in my list for me to get in Ikea. My children love to go there because the get to maneuver the trolleys around and play with the children furniture there. It is a great setup for children to have some fun there.

What did I get? I got some decoration stuff, some children plates, cups & pens, some small bowls and a big item. After a long one and a half hour there, Timothy decided to take a rest on top of box. I will let you know in details what the big item is, in the next post.

We spend our Raya Holidays in KL and it was great. I got to meet up with my 4 good friends from my old school, BBGS. By the way, I notice that BBGS turn into a luxury mall. One of my best friends came back for holiday from Australia and we arranged for a dinner to meet up. We had fun catching up with one another, none of them change much. I also discovered that Star Hill change so much since I visited like 10 years ago.

I drove back today and we escape from the massive jam which was reported over the radio. I drove to Tapah and my hubby took over. It was smooth going to Tapah but after that, we felt some hiccups. It was raining very heavily and he had to slow down. Along the way, there was a silly car that plunged into the side drain/swamp. Not sure what happen there but it sure did cause a crawl as people are busy bodies. Thank goodness, it was only 30 minutes for us. Those who came later may feel worse.

The next one was at the Penang bridge, as usual after paying the toll the bottle neck happen. It was 12 lanes to 5 lanes and down to 2 lanes. I was glad that it took us 5+ hours to get back, just in time for dinner.

I will blog of what we did in KL in the next post….to be cont.

Zara’s mama wants to know what I had for breakfast. Here ya go:

If I have an early morning meeting which I often do, I can only have a cuppa of milo or tea from my favorite vending machine. Yes, I agree that I have to eat more than this.
If I don’t have early morning meetings or late night meetings, I will have a delicious breakfast with hubby and Tim. We take Tim to school early morning and we will eat near there. We take all the unhealthy food like pau, roti canai, nasi lemak, loh mai kei (glutinous rice with chicken) or prawn mee. Tim loves the loh mai kei. He even asked daddy to pre-order for him when the seller runs out.

What about Emily? She usually wakes up late, so she will have breakfast at babysitter place. During weekend, sometimes we have dim sum together as a family. I just love dim sum and the hot “tan tart” (egg tart). Yummy, will go for that tomorrow.

Emily & Tim were learning to do some counting beyond 20. Mummy is guiding them along. Look at the numbers they created on the way..

Em & Tim: one, two, three…twenty
Mummy: What is after twenty?
Em & Tim: I donno..
Mummy: Twenty one
Em & Tim: Twenty one, Twenty two, Twenty three,….twenty nine, twenty ten.
Mummy: No, Thirty.
Em & Tim: Thirty one, Thirty two…Thirty nine, Thirty ten.

By the way, they just created, twenty ten, thirty ten, forty ten, fifty ten…and ninety ten.

Emily still have problem remembering the next number. She will a silent count start from one to the number she was looking for before yelling the answer.