I started blogging about some useful household tips at my parkbay blog. I discovered these tips through reading or learning from others. If you have some good tips, let me know.

Household Tips:

Smelly Shoes
Lemon & Microwave
Folding Bed Sheets
Removing Gum From Hair
Folding Underpants

I received a huge parcel today from SWISS. I thought someone send me chocolates from there. By the way, the postman just threw this package over my gate. Fortunately it was nothing fragile inside.

What’s in it? It is my Adventures of Tin Tin Collection set. My kids love these comic. They used to hang around Borders reading it. I ordered it from bookdepository.com with free shipping. It is a good online bookstore, everything is free shipping. I wished they have other products than books.

This month alone, I have invested a lot on books. I am glad my kids are bookworms and they love to read.

Books from Logos Hope Biggest Floating Book Fair

Books from KL Big Book Fest

Last minute, I decided to go back to hometown with my children during the Raya festive month. I was looking for a safe and affordable transport to go back. My hubby could not join us because he had a project to do.

I heard of the Aeroline bus and went online to make a booking for my kids and I. You can also select your seats. The only bug in the system is that, I cannot book 1 adult and 2 children but 2 adult and 1 child. Don’t ask me why. The system kept throwing out error messages.

It is a double deck bus and it has a lounge at the bottom. I felt that the seats are very comfortable but because of the height, the bus is rather bumpy. The bottom deck is better.

My kids love it very much especially they can watch cartoons on my notebook while traveling. The bus also provided power points for you to plug your notebook in. However you need to get your own Internet. I am glad I had an USB internet.

On top of that, they served lunch and hot beverages like coffee, tea or milo. Cool?

By the way pick up in Penang is at Queensbay Mall or the Sg Nibong Bus station. In KL, it is Hotel Corus in Ampang.

I bought a Groupon to have Korean BBQ and Steamboat at 1 Utama. I was having a dilemma whether to get it or not. It cannot be used on public holiday or weekends. The only day where I can have it was on a Friday. At last, I clicked to get it. I made the reservation as soon as I got my voucher. Fortunately I could get a reservation at 11:30am.

On that day, while I was driving to 1 Utama, my steering wheel was lopsided. Feeling something amidst, I decided to stop at the gas station. I saw one of the tires punctured. Sigh, I need to find the nearest tires shop and fortunately I found one. It was already 11:30 am when I got to the tire shop. I told my children that we need to drive very slowly to reach the tire shop. I asked them to pray.

Thank God, I managed to reach there, safely. I borrowed the car from my aunt and I don’t know how to change a Kembara tire. While the mechanic was fixing my car, the Korean BBQ place called, asking me whether I want to cancel my table. Apparently it was full house. I told him I had car trouble and I will make it later. He told me that he needs to give my reserved table away. I had no choice but to say yes. He told me when I arrive, he will make arrangement for me if there is a table available.

I am glad when I arrived there, he did gave me a table. The service was good, however I expected a bigger buffet table with more variety. I do like the BBQ meat marinated in different flavor. It ended well after all.

I did witness some drama before getting my table. Apparently a lady who thought she booked a table for her family but on the reservation list, there is no record of it. She was scolding the poor staff. She told him that it was not her issue because she said she did make a booking. Her words against theirs. I found that the place do not have a good booking system, they should at least provide a booking number to everyone who makes a reservation. Anyway, after all her fuss, her family did get a table.

My children wanted to sit the train in Kuala Lumpur and I took them there, to do so. I parked my car at Mid Valley mall and since I wanted to go to visit the Big Book Fest in KLCC, we told the KTM and LRT there. Boy! It was the biggest mistake ever.

First train came, no one could get into it because it was packed like sardine. It was packed till even the door cannot close. I saw passengers inside the train were having difficulty coming out. There were a lot of foreigners. Oh well, we waited for the next train. It was only slightly better.

Tim, Emily and I were standing very close to the door. My boy was complaining of the smell and the stuffiness inside the train. Anyway, I told him it was only 1 stop, bear with it for a little while.

We were shocked when we were at KLCC, it was overcrowded. I took my children straight to the book fest instead.

Going back was another headache, at the KLCC LRT station, there was another crowd. We had to squeeze through the crowd. The line to purchase the ticket was jammed up with people. The ticket dispenser machines were spoiled. It was so crowded that there were 2 police mending the queue to the ticket counter. I saw a few Indonesians jumping queue to get tickets. It was indeed a horrible experience. Somehow our country is moving backwards when it comes to providing service.

I am shocked to see so many Indonesians, Bangladesh and India people at that station. It is scary that our country imported so many laborers here.

I managed to get tickets and help another girl to get hers. I just wanted to get out of there immediately. Next KTM decided to cancel the route from KL Sentral to Mid Valley. There were no announcements or sign to indicate that. I was only told when I was at the ticket counter. Wasted my time queuing for ticket and we had to get a cab to Mid Valley. Mid Valley was definitely better!

It will be the last time I take a train from Mid Valley to KLCC. Just Horrible!!

How many of you have played this before? I have played this during my school days. I don’t have a name for this game. Maybe it is called “What number do you want?” I taught my children to play this and they like it.

In order to play this game, you need a square piece of paper and fold it. Number each tab and write something on the tab below it. You can write funny things.

Walk Backwards
Greet people
Clap Your Hands
Bonus to play iPad for 5 mins
Sing a song
…etc…etc

Emily wrote “Shake Your Butt”

Then you go to anyone, and sing “What number do you want?” The person will need to choose the number and do the action.

You can also write questions for the other person to answer.

It is a cool game that I played in school when the teacher is absent. I remembered another game called “Country game” Maybe the next post I will talk about it.

TinTin Adventures Comic is one of my favorite comic. I used to hang out in my old primary school library to read these comics. The library do not allowed us to borrow it home because afraid that children will spoil it. Now my kids are into it. They certainly learn new vocabulary from these comics. Words like destiny, esquire and other which I cannot remember.

They will hog those magazines when they go to Borders. Now it comes with 3 in 1 volume. I am thinking of getting the entire collection with cost US$95. Should I?

Yes, I got addicted to cross stitch lately when I found a nice pattern book by Margaret Sherry. All her patterns are cute and adorable. They are small projects and I can complete it fast. I cannot do big projects because it will become a white elephant.

By the way, lately I have quite a lot of night conferences and I stitch while I worked. Here are 2 that I did. And I want to do more….

Bag for Emily

Often I hear friends having car breakdown and do not know what to do. They are not preparing for it because they always think, it will not happen to them. I am always on the safe side as I prepare myself at all times. I used to sign up for roadside assistance plan. It is not a very expensive to have breakdown service insurance, just a small amount that you pay yearly.

However, now my car insurance comes with extra breakdown services plan. It provides free towing and breakdown assistance without additional service cost. For someone who travels periodically on the highway, I have a peace of mind with this service.

My boy is so very happy this week because he told me he did well in his exam papers. I couldn’t believed that he score A for one of his BM paper called Pemahaman. Yes, he was getting not so good results because of his careless mistakes. I remembered one time, he didn’t read the passage to answer the questions. He thought it was some Science questions.

At one point, I was really afraid that he cannot catch up with this language called BM (Bahasa Malaysia). I made a decision to send him for tuition just on BM, since I am not very good to help him with this subject. At first, he was reluctant to go. However after seeing his few school friends there, he was happy to go once every week.

I am glad because I can see improvement. He is also watching TV9 cartoons in BM language. Ever heard Sponge bob or Patrick speaking BM, turn to TV9 5pm every day.

I am so proud of him as he really improved tremendously in his studies. All As and 1B I believed, that’s what he claim but I still need to see his report card.