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.

I always wonder how much you give your children for school pocket money. For me, I gave them RM5 at the beginning of the year and they didn’t spend any. It is still in their school wallet. I asked them to use it for emergency. Usually they bring snacks from home for their recess time to eat. The canteen doesn’t serve good and healthy food any way.

Imagine, my boy hasn’t used any pocket money for past 3 years in school. As for Emily, I am starting to see her getting stuff from the book shop. One day I went to their school, I saw Emily carrying 2 new rulers and she turned around, she saw me.

Me: Are you spending money at the bookstore?

Emily: Yeah I got 2 angry birds rulers? One for me and one for kor kor (aka brother).

I was about to give her a lecture but the thought of her getting her brother a ruler is so sweet. Anyway I did give her a small lecture on wasting money at the book store. I hope she will never do it again unless it is buying exercise books.

A few months back my mom was not feeling well. Apparently her doctor gave her the wrong prescription and lowered her blood pressure very much. She didn’t know until after 3 months. We prayed for her to recover and Praise God that she did but still a little weak. I am glad my sister got her a blood pressure machine. Now she can measure and monitor her blood pressure. I tried measuring mine, guess what? My blood pressure is also very low.

Now with all these medical machine like blood pressure and ekg, it is so portable. You can use it to measure and monitor your health condition. You can find these portable medical devices at MedicalDeviceDepot.com.

Yesterday I took Emily to the Bon Odori Festival at Penang Esplanade. Boy! It was sure crowded. Everyone I saw was ready with their bazooka DSLR to capture the event. The street of food store were also crowded but the food was overpriced or tourist price. I got a small bowl of laksa for RM6, tom yam rice for RM5 and Emily had her fish and chip for RM10. I was craving for rojak or pasembor but didn’t find any. Imagine, they even have Sushi King with the conveyor belt on the street store.

Besides food, there were stalls for games. I tell you the games stall were jam pack. People were paying to fish up gold fish. I believed they were given paper net to do that. I cannot see anything because it was too crowded to even peep.

Emily was happy because she bought lots of stuff, like a big balloon, a bubble stick and a LED catapult with arrow. Everyone was launching those LED arrows up in the air. She was doing the same. She played that while waiting for the fireworks to come on at 10pm. The fireworks was spectacular!

After the fireworks, it was terrible because I was stuck in the car park for more that 15 minutes getting out. I was glad when I got to the exit, I used the back gate of a building to get out. Strangely, I didn’t know why so many cars just waited there for so long, the traffic was not moving and they didn’t turn out using the back gate. Some follow behind me and they got free from the horrifying jam.

Emily & I enjoyed it and we will go again next year!