Today avoid going to the south side of Penang. Predicted to have a massive jam. Maybe it is the 1st of December, there are 3 big events.

1. Opening of the Penang Queensbay Mall.
2. PESTA Penang Opening for the year-end fun.
3. PC Fair

What is in the Penang Queensbay Mall? A few new outlets has landed in Penang, Jaya Jusco, TGIF, Borders, New Zealand Natural Ice Cream, Sa Sa and lots more. Click here and here.

Lastly not forgetting people rushing to go home from the factories, as it is a FRIDAY.

Happy jamming. I will be staying at home.

Let me introduce you to Sticker Books that I got from Times Bookstore in Changi Airport. It is great for children at the age of 2 and above. Basically it teaches children to find the right shape and paste the sticker there plus lots of information about a certain topic. It also have free pasting. The book comes with over 200 reusable stickers. What I like about this book is that the pages are glossy, stickers can be reused. You can pull out the sticker again and stick on a different page, while the glue lasts.

The one I got for Tim have more information on military technology. It has information on fire trucks, police operations, military air planes and rescue team info. Great for learning! The book costs SGD12.90

Another book that I got, this one is from MPH with discount of 30% for members, it is called paper doll books. The books come with 6 paper dolls and many type of paper clothing plus accessories. You can dress the dolls with each different style like wedding style, princess style, dancing clothes, ballerina etc etc.. It will be more fun for the gals.

I remembered when I was young, I used to draw the dolls and clothes for the dolls to play. Now it comes in a book. However with the book, it can never stop you from designing more clothes for the paper dolls. The book cost RM16.90.

P/S The photo shots are not very good because it is taken from a camera phone. Hubby is busy now a days and I accidentally broke his lens. Thank God, he got that fix for free. :doh:

I had to fast the night before, no food after 12 midnight. First test was to get morning stool, was a yeaky process. Anyway, I don’t do big business in the morning, so that was unsuccessful. Second test was to do the Xray. Next was the ultrasound to check my liver, kidney and womb. Later I had to proceed to the lab for lab for blood test, and urine test.

After which, I was served with breakfast at a nice room, with tea and water. I did the blood pressure check, colour-blind test, take weight, height and chest measurement. The doctor arrived, he proceed with some health questions on my health history and family history. He took out his tools, check my eye, ear and reflex. He also did the breast examination to ensure no lumps.

The nurse came in and wired me up for ECG and stress test. I have to walk on the treadmill. It was slow at first, later it become faster and faster. At each interval, the doc will check my blood pressure and the heartbeat rate is shown on the computer. I completed all levels and the doc said “well done”. I was happy to hear that. I didn’t do much exercise since becoming a mom. The only exercise I do is housework and taking care of the children. However, every morning I made it a point to climb 3 flights of stairs, rather than taking the lift. After the treadmill, I had to rest on the bed till my heartbeat returned back to normal. The nurse did a pressure check and I can proceed to the next test.

Next test was a hearing test. I was put in a sound proof room and different tone of sound were played. If I hear it, I press a button. I find that sometimes the sound still stay in the brain memory and not the actual hearing.

The last test was my most feared, pap smear. I have to see the gynae to do that. He also did an ultrasound to check my womb. He told me that the pap smear test was just uncomfortable but not painful. I was all tensed up and wasn’t cooperating very well. I tried but it was painful for me. That minute was the longest minute that I ever felt. I am glad that was over.

Results:

The good news, I passed everything with flying colours. My heart, liver, kidney, cervix, lungs, ear, and eye are all normal. My cholesterol was superb. :dance:

Cholesterol (Total) 3.7 mmol/L (Desirable < 5.2)
HDL-Cholesterol 1.96 mmol/L (Normal > 1.03)
HDL-Cholesterol (Calculated) 1.3 mmol/L (< 2.58 Optimal)
Cholesterol/HDL-Cholesterol 1.89

The chance of developing a coronary heart disease within 10 years < 1%. :dance:

The bad news I am underweight and anemia. As for the anemia part, I need to go for more tests to see whether I have iron deficiency.

The doc made a remark saying “Your cholesterol result is very good, that because you are not eating anything.” I told him, you should see the way I eat, it will frighten him. Once I was in US, my counterpart was amazed of how much food I took on my tray. I had soup, main course and dessert. I even ate more than the US guys. Anyway I am under by 3kg. You know any good buffet in town?

It was a great experience and happy to know that I am 99% healthy. :dance:

I have to go for another examination but this time I do not have to study for it. Guess what? :sc:

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It is that time of the year that I have to go for Health Screening, sponsored by my company. 2 years ago, I booked for it and was about to go. However I got pregnant before the appointment date, I had to cancel it.

The health screening is a comprehensive medical examination for early detection of common disorders such as Hypertension, Diabetes Mellitus and Coronary Heart Diseases. Through these tests we can detect abnormalities in the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and urinary tract. It takes half a day for all the test and procedures to complete. The medical report will be completed and interpreted by the doctor.

Chest X-Ray
Electro Cardiogram (ECG)
Stress Test (Treadmill) – must build up my stamina!! :wall:
ESP (blood & urine test)
Lung Function Test
Audiogram
Ultrasound of Full Abdomen
Full Vision Test by Eye Specialist

I will blog further once I have the whole thing done. It is good to have your health check every other year when you reach my age.:pray: Pray that I pass this with flying colors!

Malaysia moms to be may have 84 days of maternity leave. Currently it is 60 days. Let’s hope this goes through. Mothers should have more maternity leave to breastfeed their baby.

Oh well, I will not be enjoying this as I have already made up my mind, just to have 2 children.

Source here

We embarked the ship in Singapore and head to check in to our hotel in Chinatown.

Hotel

We got a dirt cheap hotel in Duxton Rd, near Chinatown called Berjaya Hotel. My hubby’s friend is a Berjaya Vacation Club Member. He sold 3N to us for RM80 per night. I asked the front desk how much it cost for an extra bed, he told me with 15% additional charges it cost SGD50, more expensive that the room. :sc: However the room size is just nice but a queen size bed. Daddy long legs have difficulty fitting in.

The hotel is a near to MRT stations and Chinatown. I took a stroll in Chinatown to get some cheap souvenirs while my children were having a nap with daddy. I bought 2 nice Chinese blouse.

Clarke Quay

We took MRT to Clarke Quay for a stroll. Beautiful night view. We dine by the river. I ordered Peking duck, something I miss for a long time. The food in Singapore has improved tremendously. I believed they imported quite a lot of overseas chef. There were a lot of varieties of food to choose from.

Duck Tour

We went to Suntex City for a duck tour. From the picture you can tell why it is called a duck tour. Basically it is a boat that can travel on land and river, like a duck. It took us around the Singapore River, we can see the Merlion, the Theatre on the Bay (MIL called it The Durian), Singapore City Skyline, City Hall and Supreme Court. There is a guide to tell us all about Singapore. At the end of it, he will give out a duck whistle (sound more like a fart rather than a quack) if anyone could answer his question.

By the way, I knew what his first question was, so I won a duck whistle for Tim. The question was, Where is papa merlion? The answer is the title of my next title.

We also got to taste the Singapore “new water”, recycle water from the sewage. My children love it because the bottle has a picture of a duck and they think it is duck water. It has some kind of taste, maybe it was psychological.

Sentosa Island

We are tourist right, so next spot will be Sentosa Island. Tim was very excited about the cable car. I thought he will be afraid but he was fascinated when he was on it. I was a little phobia on the height. He saw the cable car souvenirs sticker and next thing, he asked us to buy from him. It cost SGD7.90 and we didn’t get any. :giggles:

I got some discounted tickets from Matta Fair that cover return cable car rides, sky tower, butterfly farm, 4D Magix, Images of Singapore, Cinemania, Merlion, and Images of Singapore.

The images of Singapore improved with meaningful story line about how Singapore was formed. It has a magical show in the beginning. It was very well done.

The underwater world was just ok. I was so disappointed with the Musical Fountain as I was looking forward to it. It turned out to be a laser show instead of musical fountain. When I was young, I remembered how the fountain dances with the music. It was splendid. However it has all changed. Just too much laser and techno stuff. 😡

They changed the monorail system to bus system which was very chaotic. In the bus, Tim made some teenagers laugh. A bunch of young student teenagers came up the bus. They were very noisy and discussing where to go next. Tim took out his duck whistle and blow a few times. All of them laugh, one gal commented, hey X (one of the boy’s name), please don’t fart. 😆

Cab Stories

As we were riding on the cab, the cab men told us stories of their life. Many dislike the government and half the time complaining about it. However a cab man told us that he left his 15 years of vegetables wholesales job to become a cab man. Reason is the previous job took away all his quality time with his son and family. He quit for the family. He said that no point to earn so much and no time for the family. He is so right. :clap: He is also an expert in knowing how to see the freshness of the vegetables. It is such a waste and his knowledge can really make him a guru.

Singapore Custom

As we were exiting from Singapore, we need to get our passport stamped by the Singapore custom. The young lady officer looked at us sternly. She gave me a weird look that is very annoying. Anyway, I kept quiet. It took her so long to clear all the passports. Lastly she asked me how come my girl has IC number. I told her, now all birth certs will have IC number determined. She didn’t understand. What’s her problem? I am getting out of your country, what harm can I do to Singapore? :wall:

However when we came to the Malaysia custom, they just allow us to pass without any problem. It is so weird!

Dead Rat

I opened my back porch door, pungent smell came on. I walked to my washing machine and asked my hubby. Maybe there is a dead rat in the drain or something. Little did I know the dead rat was just behind me! Fortunately I didn’t step on it. I am not a person who would scream at dead animals. Anyway, I ask my hubby to take a pair of chopsticks, dump into a double plastic bag and throw it away. After that, I cleaned the floor with dettol. My hubby found another one at the corner. It must be the stupid cat who always climb in to my back porch and chased after them.

We went on a 3N Singapore-Phuket-Langkawi cruise (won from a contest) and spent 3N in Singapore. It was a great experience and bumpy vacation too. I am back, now I need a week’s MC to recover.

Logistic

My family flew down to JB on dirt-cheap AA flights on Sat night. The schedule was changed a week before departure to 1 hour earlier. Thank goodness for that, otherwise we will have to check into JB hotel nearing midnight.

We arrived JB about 9pm, checked in to Pan Putri, a nice spacious hotel. Next morning we took a cab directly across Singapore. There are certain licensed cabs that can enter Singapore. It cost us RM50 per cab. With family, it is better to take a cab, as we do not need to exit for custom clearance. Everything is done in the cab. The cab can only go direct to Queen St in Singapore and from there you can take the Singapore cab to anywhere. We went to Harbour Front to embark our ship Super Virgo.

A limousine cab is very costly from airport to Singapore. There are also bus rides from Senai Airport to Singapore. However with bus ride, you need to queue for custom clearance. If you want to save some money, it is better to take the airport taxi to any nearby hotel and from there, ask the hoteliers to call a cab to go to Singapore.

Similarly on our way back, we took a cab to Singapore Queen St -> Senai Airport (SGD55).

By the way, in this trip we went on cab, ship, MRT train, Sentosa cable car and buses.

Timothy

Tim started bad. He was fine when we arrived in JB. Next morning he had motion sickness as we were travelling to Singapore. He felt like vomiting and lost his appetite on the ship. He refused to take lunch. If he continue to refuse food, with tummy acid filling up, he will become worst. Mummy had an idea to coax him into eating.

Guess what make him alive? We went to the ice-cream bar and got him some banana split. How can anyone refuse a banana split? 😀 After that, he was back to normal. :clap:

By the way, Tim got 3 free Sentosa souvenir buses from special mystery draws. One for himself, one for Emily and one for his cousin brother.

Emily

Emily was worst. She has flu a week before we travelled and I thought she would be fine. Hey she finished a course of flu antibiotic, should be strong right? Nope, she had a bad urine infection. Totally lost her appetite, no breakfast, lunch and dinner. Occasionally after much persuasion she will take her milk. I have to feed her when she wants to eat. Worst is that, we cannot take any restaurant food into our cabin. We did sneak some muffins in. 😆

At Phuket, I did get her a bunch of banana, which she took. When we reached Langkawi, we took her to a nearby clinic. There wasn’t any paediatrician around in Langkawi and the ship doctor is hopeless, as he didn’t have any children medication. After visiting the Langkawi doctor, she seems a bit fine. She was sticky to me and always wants me to carry her, not the daddy. 🙁

When we reached Singapore, we took her in to the famous KK Children hospital, as she was not getting any better. After the examination, she told me that it was not serious and changed her antibiotic. It cost me SGD 65 for medication and consultation. The pharmacies that gave us the medication got confused with the doctor prescriptions. I was frustrated as it was late and the children haven’t had any dinner yet. After the doctor verified, we left without checking further. Later in the night as I was about to give Emily her medication, her new antibiotic was double (8.2ml) her normal dosage (4ml). 😯 If you were me, what will you do?

I didn’t give Emily her new antibiotic as her appetite came back after we saw the doctor. It was like magical. I continued her old antibiotic and she recovered. Thank God for that.

Super Virgo Cruise

The cruise was a great experience on a very beautiful ship. However most of the fun activities were around adult centric like gambling, disco, pubs and topless shows. First day, we had to get familiar with the places. It has from 4th – 13th floor. It is HUGE.

There were 3 restaurants where we can dine for free, Mediterranean International Buffet, Pavilion Room (Chinese) and Bella Vista (Western). The rest, we have to pay. There are Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Indian and Asian Bistro restaurant. There is plenty of food but most of the food is not appetizing to children. We went to the restaurants at odd hours to avoid the rush.

The ship was packed with people from all races, a huge percentage were Indians. There were many older folks and I bet they are on board because of gambling. I overheard some conversation on how their betting went in the casino. There were also BINGO running on certain hours and the jackpot was SGD24,000. I forgot to tell you that I don’t gamble, although I like to sit through a bingo game and watch people win.

There are tours which you can take when the ship embark in Phuket and Langkawi. Most of the tours are costly and in SGD. In Phuket, there is a shopping tour that cost 18SGD per pax. You can also book your own cab with a bargain to those places but make sure you are back before the ship leave.

There were free movies on board in the Picture House such as Chronicles of Narnia, Memoirs of Geisha, King Kong, Four Brothers and Fun With Dick & Jane. At the Lido, there were special gymnasts & dancers show called the Kingdom of Kung Fu and Tropicalia. They mixed dancing (samba, mambo & tango) with kung fu gymnast. Excellent. My children enjoyed it. Tim made a funny remark on their dressing, he said “Papa, power rangers”.

I brought the children to play at the children pool called the Neptune Wet & Wild. Funny the pool was with warm water. There is also a spa pool for adult. If I am not having my PMS (sigh), I probably will jump right in.

Fine Dine

Everyone is invited to a Gala Dinner on Tuesday night with a choice of 2-4 restaurants. We chose to do a fine dine in Bella Vista Western Restaurant with 3 course meal. Everyone Some will be dressed with formal attire. You probably think I am crazy to bring 2 children to do a fine dine. It turned out to be a great experience, except they didn’t use the right spoons or fork.

They were so well behave that the couple that sat behind us came over and complimented them. :clap: At least we didn’t disrupt their evening. They were from Australia.

More about our trip (Sentosa Island, Clarke Quay & DuckTour) in the next post….stay tune & enjoy. :dance:

Map of the Cruise Super Virgo Ship:

More cruise picture here.

The children

Amazing, both Emily and Tim enjoyed it. Emily had her own seat, because a couple of my colleague last minute couldn’t make it. The tickets came with free popcorn, coke and nuggets. Tim and Emily had 1 box of popcorn each. Tim enjoyed it very much, he did made the remark that Maria commented “Wah mummy see, big big TV”. As for Emily, towards the middle, she got out of her chair and tried climbing back up, a few times. She did not make any noise or cry. She even took off her diaper without taking off her shoes and pants. :sc: I had to take out her shoes and pants, to put it back on. Don’t ask me how I did that, it was tough. Towards the end, both were very focus on the movie because that was when all the action came on. The cinema was spacious as it was a premier class hall.

We continue with lunch and a bit of shopping. Later Tim had a bit of tummy upset because he finished the whole box of popcorn. Emily was tired as she refused to walk and sat on the floor of the shopping mall. 😯 That was the signal to go home. Both slept in the car.

The movie

It was filled with action and great for the children. It has as much action as Toy’s Story. It is about a raccoon RJ that got into trouble for stealing all the food that belongs to a big huge bear. He was caught and all the food was destroyed. The big bear gave him until full moon to get all those food back for him. On the other hand, there is this family of animals headed by a tortoise named Vern, who lives in the woods but part of it was fully developed into a housing estate. The woods were separated by a Hedge. The family woke up from hibernating and found out there is no food left. These hungry animals were curious what is over the Hedge. RJ befriended them and took them over the Hedge to look for food that they never tasted before. Of coz there is the danger of humans and the Verminator. Find out for yourselves what happen next. I give it 4/5. :good: It was humorous too! My favourite cartoon among all is hammy, the squirrel, he is very funny. He made a remark and say “Hey I can burp the alphabets, A B C…”.

Official site: http://www.overthehedgemovie.com/

I decided to challenge myself on a mission. It sounds like I am going for a battle. I booked Penang -> KL free AA flights in Dec for Wesak long weekends. Due to unforeseen circumstances, my hubby could not make it. I wanted to celebrate Mother’s day in KL with my mum and bring my children to visit grandma & grandpa.

For those who do not know what LCCT is? It is Low Cost Carrier Terminal, low cost airport for AA flights. I heard it used to be a warehouse.

Pros: