Stay focused!

I am trying my best to stay focused with my most important task a the moment. That is to compile all necessary receipts, cash bills and documentations for 2010 Inland Revenue submission for hubby's business. There seem a lot of details to confirm and documents to dig out. Although there are still 2 months left but I plan to complete early and submit to the company dealing with taxes so that they will have enough time to review. There are 2 weeks holidays in June so I am sure I won't be able to get much done during that time. I keep telling myself not to surf net so much, watch movies or tidy up the house (I always like to tidy up or clean my house when I have more important stuff to attend to. Denial, maybe?).

Crafting Week

Sometimes I feel guilty being a work-at-home mum but seldom accompany my girls as much as I want to except during weekends when my parents-in-law are not with us and I have take care of them on my own. Even so, I will leave them to play on their own while surfing net or doing my admin work. However, since last two weekends I decided to accompany them on Saturdays without touching my laptop except when they are both sleeping. I actually feel better because I am able to concentrate with one task at a time and my girls are happy that I can play with them, read to them and do some crafts with them. One evening last week, I told my 4 yo I wanted to make a mask for her and she chose to be Belle, the character from Beauty and the Beast. My 2 yo would want anything that her sister had so I made her a simple mask. I was getting lazy so I just simply cut out a piece of paper with two holes on it. She was satisfied. A few days later, my 4 yo pestered me to let her draw pictures with water colour. Normally, I would only let her use water colour when the younger sister was napping. After she promised she would share with her sister and would not fight with her sister, I let them play at the garage. Reason due to I HATE CLEANING UP just in case they spilt the water and colours. To my surprise, they played peacefully for more than half an hour. Last Saturday, I cut out some shapes from a paper plate and let the girls pasted the legs, head and tail to make a stegosaurus (I got the idea from one of my ex-school mate's blog). Again, they spent about one hour doing all the pasting plus some colouring. My 4 yo even helped her sister draw the eyes and colour the body of her dinosaur.

Finished work of two stegosaurus

'Me' Time at JB!

Last Sunday, I had a 'ME' time at JB from 10:00am until 4:30pm while hubby babysat my 2 girls at home. It was a relaxing and refreshing day for me.

First, I went to a investment talk for Public Bank customer regarding market outlook, introduction to a new unit trust fund and financial planning. I got to know some friendly bank staffs and had a very nice banquet lunch at the hotel. It was nice having time for myself and I could have undisturbed lunch without having to feed my kids at the same time.

An informative talk at the hotel

After lunch, I called up my hubby and he said the girls were sleeping and I could stay longer at JB if I wanted. Yippee! So I went to a nearby shopping centre and spent my time at a popular bookstore and bought some better quality English materials to teach Tian.

The 'High Frequency Words' book came with flashcards that we were supposed to teach kids 4 new words at a time and the worksheets contained exercises for reading and spelling skills for the 4 words. It was for 5-7 year old but I thought it was simple enough if I teach her with patience (breath in, breath out) and focused just on the reading part. True enough, Tian could read 4 new words at once and read the sentences containing the new words after some initial difficulty (I had to admit, I was not really patient and I did scold her *guilty*). I planned to let her progress slowly and not to rush her on this so that she could have fun learning.

I did not show her the rhymes book because she would be very rigid and wanted to read both books at once which I thought would be too distracting for her.

I bought a Dinosaur comic book because she was very fascinated with dinosaurs and she could differentiate between different types of dinosaurs and pronounce their names. She was not very interested in the Mandarin book so I had not started introducing the book to her yet.

Sharing needs to be taught

I have only learnt today that I have to teach my kids to share.

Before this, whenever my 4 yo and 2 yo were fighting over certain toys or books, we (adults) would just reprimand my 4 yo and insisted she should share with her sister. It always ended up with the little sister getting what she wanted and the 4 yo crying and being punished.

This morning and afternoon, I was alone at home taking care of my kids and I decided to really accompany them. No TV on the background and no surfing net for me. I took some toys and played cooking with them. When the 2 yo wanted something from the 4 yo, I would tell her it belonged to the sister but I tried to ask the 4 yo to lend her. She agreed and let her sister played for a while. I monitored them playing and guided them when they were snatching toys. They played for more than one hour peacefully. I was glad!

The 2 girls played together peacefully for the longest time

Normally when we were watching TV or chatting and the girls began to fight, we did not have the patience to know what exactly happened and we would just scold/ punish the elder girl if she hit or pushed the 2 yo in attempt to claim what belonged to her. She must be deeply hurt when we sometimes even caned her for that.

Lesson learned: We have to demonstrate and guide our children the proper way on how we would want them to behave instead of just being verbal. Actions do speak louder than words.

Green Hill at Kuching

There is one not-so-touristy place that my parents will bring guests to visit during their first visit to Kuching. The direct translation from Hokkien is 'Green Hill' but not the Green Hill with an asylum.

There were many steps up the temple

It was actually a Chinese temple built by Hokkien people when they first reached Kuching from China. It was built to protect a small harbour below, according to their belief.

Birds eye view of the harbour below

A part of the temple from outside. I did not take any photos inside. I seldom go inside temples as I was not sure of the 'etiquette' inside a Buddhist temple

'Foot Print of Lord Buddha' as what I read from the description. It was one of the sacred items in Buddhism commonly found in Burmese Temples

We were Christians, not Buddhists but we brought guest there just to show them the history as we were Hokkien and the serene surrounding was good for strolling.

We went to a seafood restaurant at the foot of the hill and the food was delicious and cheap. Again, there were about 10 adults and 2 kids and the bills was only around RM150 including drinks (mostly coconuts). Of course, there were few other dishes that I did not managed to take photo.

Teo-chew style fried oyster which was sticky unlike that other crispy type that I had in my previous post

Curry Bamboo Clam - The clams were huge and juicy

Bamboo Clams with spring onions and ginger. What we had in Johor was cooked with the shell (to make up the bulk) and the clams were so tiny

Prawns in Vietnamese sauce. It was not spicy at all with a tinge of sourish sweetish taste. We dipped fried 'man-tau' to eat the sauce. Really delicious!

Steamboat on Chap Goh Meh and other foods in Kuching

To celebrate Chap Goh Meh (the fifteenth day of Chinese New Year), we had steamboat for dinner. There were thirteen adults and two kids so I suggested to my mum to have steamboat as it would be too much of a hassle to cook different dishes for all of us.

We had beef slices (used for Japanese Shabu-Shabu), pomfret fish, prawns, pig liver, fish/ prawn balls, sea cucumber, eggs and different types of mushrooms.

After dinner, my dad lit fire crackers and most of the people around the neighbourhood did the same. My cousins lit lots of fireworks and the kids had a great time admiring them. My parents-in-law were amazed and said that it had been very long since they saw people light fireworks/ fire crackers so freely unlike in West Malaysia.


We had very nice Kolo Mee at this shop called Sin Lian Shin at Green Road. It was a very old shop and even on weekdays, we had to wait for more than half an hour for this simple but delicious noodles. There were no photos of the noodles because the kids were getting restless due to hot weather and long waiting time. When the noodles and 'pien sip' (meat wrapped in skin made from flour) were served, we wolfed down the food and I had totally forgotten to take any photos. We proceeded to the muzium to enjoy the air-cond and it was my in-laws first visit in Kuching.

On another day,we had a dinner at Lok Garden. I was not sure where it was but I heard my dad mentioned at Batu Lintang. Luckily we reached there early and did not have to wait for too long as the place was getting more and more packed.

Lok Garden Restaurant



Mango Fish

Fried Oyster (Oh-Chien). When I remembered to take a photo, there were almost none left

There were some other delicious foods that I did not manage to take photos like fish maw soup, two dishes of midin (local/ native vegetables) cooked with red yeast wine and sambal. Both tasted superb. We had some pork dishes, garlic salted prawn etc. The bill was considered cheap as there were ten adult and two kids having the meal and it was only around RM200 including drinks. Oh, how I loved having meals in Sarawak!

Arrival and First Day in Kuching

We arrived in Kuching at 10:00pm so we headed back to my brother's house straightaway because it was time for the kids to sleep. However, my aunt (dad's sis) and her daughter and son were at my brother's house because they wanted to see the kids. So the girls had a good time eating tit bits, receiving angpows (it was 14th day of Chinese New Year) and displaying their 'cuteness' to our relatives before settling down to sleep.

Kuching Airport at night

On the next morning, we started our feasting journey. We went to Chong Choon Cafe for the famous laksa. My parents-in-law had been looking forward to taste this laksa because hubby had been praising how nice it was and there was several Taiwanese programmes introducing delicious foods featuring this laksa at this shop. I was glad they liked the laksa. The kids had Kolo Mee, Cheese Toast and Peanut Butter toast.

Chong Choon Cafe

My MIL mentioned the Teh-C also tasted superb. In West Malaysia, we would normally order Teh (with condensed milk) because most cafes were not able to make a really nice and smooth Teh-C. We had Teh-C all the time in Kuching.

Sarawak Laksa

We all liked this laksa as it was different from laksa over here. The laksa that we have in Johor is actually Curry Mee/ Bee Hoon in Sarawak.

Kolo Mee - tossed noodles with lard and garnished with char siew pork and chopped spring onions

Kolo Mee was also nice but it was overshadowed by the laksa. We went to another shop that sells only Kolo Mee on the next day. More specialized.

Cheese Toast

Peanut Butter Toast


We headed back home after breakfast and had Sugar Bun meals for lunch. Why such a simple lunch? We were saving tummy space for another delicacy that only started selling at 2:00pm.

The stall was situated perpendicular to the main road where the post office was, opposite a temple below. The stall itself was below a stage that I thought would only be used for special occasions.

The pork satay cost RM0.50 per stick and hubby could easily polish off 20 sticks. Even my 4 yo could finish eating 5 sticks. The peanut gravy is just nice, not to spicy for me and the kids.

Hubby who disliked vermicelli could also finish a whole bowl of this fish ball, bean curd vermicelli. The soup was flavourful without the dehydrated feeling on the tongue due to MSG overload.