Every morning my FIL will come to my place and he has started a new small vegetable garden outside my house. He is good and he can plant anything with just a small piece of soil. Look what he did just less than a month. We are going to have lady fingers and long beans.

Yesterday while I went back home during my lunch break, I was fuming mad. I saw MPPP came and was maintaining the trees along our streets. They were chopping down branches. That tree outside my house is giving me problems, no doubt it gives me a little shade from the hot sun. I need to sweep the fallen leaves and there are lots of pest up that tree. The leaves are filled with holes. Not a very nice tree too. I don’t mind if they planted a mango tree there.

Anyway, I was fuming mad because when they cut the branches, they never bothered about my vegetable garden underneath. I saw a huge branch on top of my plants. There goes my long bean plant!!

I wonder if I park my car outside and the branches fall on my car, will they pay for damages. The way MPPP does things, it is really sad. They don’t bother about other people’s property! You tell me mad or not?

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.

Yes, Malaysia is celebrating 50th Birthday and my family went to have fun in the “kampung” area in Balik Pulau Penang. My hubby and I decided to let our children enjoy the kampung lifestyle. We took them back to nature, the smell of river and forest. We took them to see small water falls and play by the river stream.

They had lots of fun in the water and playing the wet sand. My hubby successfully caught 2 small prawns, which we let go. There were tadpoles and fishes in the stream. It sure brought back a lot of memories of my childhood as every school holidays, I will stay at my uncle’s place in FRIM, we will go to the river stream to play and swim.

However the stream is not kept in a proper manner as we can see lots of rubbish in the surrounding area. I hope the villagers will put some effort to keep the place clean.

After a few hours of fun, I had to drag my children out of the water to have lunch. Balik Pulau is famous for its asam laksa and siam laksa. The famous pasembor (Indian Rojak) store only open at 1:30pm and I didn’t get to taste it …bumma. By the way, Balik Pulau has a lot of different kinds of durians too.

It was sure a fun day and my children request us to bring them back again.

Delicious Food: