Krabi trip

Dearest Gabriel,
On 19Sept-23Sept-09, we had been to Krabi for a holiday. As usual, you were very happy of the hotel stay. On the first day, when we reached Krabi was already 11pm at night. When entering the room, you were performing the room inspection even though you were sleepy. You switched on and off all the lights, asked many questions on how to use this and that, inspected the toilet and asked why didn’t have your favourite bath tub. This time the hotel room had a special type of curtain – you had to open like raising a flag. You enjoyed playing that throughout the stays…open and close whenever you were free. Whenever mummy and papa wanted to change clothes, we need to remind you and got to make sure you did not open… (behind the curtain is a sliding door which opens to the swimming pool).

On the 2nd day morning, we went to have our breakfast. Our itinerary was actually a site seeing day. However, you insisted to take your beach toys and wanted to play at the beach. You couldn’t wait anymore. The beach was just next to the restaurant. Luckily we were very early on that day and finished the breakfast early. So we brought you to the beach and thought let you have a quick play because we need to go sight seeing in a group. We kept reminding you not to wet your shirt. You have requested us to remove the shoes. When mummy refused, you purposedly poured the sand on my foot. You were very naughty and has lots of ideas to change our decision. End up, papa was dirty too and have to bathe again after the play.

Due to the weather was good on the first day, we decided to go for Island hopping instead of sight seeing. The boat man brought us to 4 islands, the beaches were really beautiful compared to the hotel beach. Crystal clear water and fine white sand! You really enjoyed running around at the beach, you have lost control! When the boat man brought us to one place for snorkelling, you were quite reluctant to get down the water. However at last, you couldn’t resist our encouraging words, you had worn the “extra large” life jacket and went down the water with papa. You were very excited! Mummy purposedly throwed the bread around you so that the fishes would swim near you. This was your first experience swimming in the sea, you were not scared at all and touching the colourful fishes. When you got up the boat, you kept saying you wanted to change your swim suit because it was wet. Even mummy told you we still have to go other beaches, you still insisted…You are a super “clean” boy. End up, the only one suit that mummy brought also got wet, as a result you had to bare your body playing the sand on one of the beautiful island. You really enjoyed so much of the beach. Mummy felt very happy!

Another good experience that we had in Thailand was to walk on the low tide beach…We could walked out till very far away. When you were playing the beach toys and wanted to get water, we got to run far to get the water It was so nice feeling walking on the sand…The sun set very quickly and you refused to get back to the hotel. So mummy had to swim with you for a while in the swimming pool after the play at the beach to satisfy you.

Generally, throughout the whole trip you only enjoyed the beach and also the hotel stay. You kept saying “I want to go back to our hotel” when on the way back to Penang from Haadyai…till Kiu kiu also couldn’t stand and said ” Kiu Kiu hear also boring already, don’t know you tired or not” Hahaha!

With love,
Mummy

Visit to Taiping

Dear Gabriel,

We went to Taiping for a 2D1N trip. First stop was the zoo. We took the train ride as we won’t get too tired walking all the way. During this trip you saw a baby elephant taking a bath. It was as playful as you during your bath time, splashing water all over the place!

Jumbo Junior have fun at bath time

After the zoo visit, we went for lunch. Unfortunately the Piano Cafe was not open. We had lunch at the coffee shop on the opposite side instead. We told you that the uncle at Piano Cafe had to go to market to buy fruits to make juice for you. You were quite disappointed. Later we walked over to the Piano Cafe and found out that someone else has taken over the cafe. So, goodbye to good ol’ Piano Cafe. Will miss the nice food, drinks and ambiance.

Then we decided to find a hotel to rest for the afternoon. We inquired from 5 or 6 hotels until we almost gave up. Finally we found a room at Meridian Hotel. You liked the hotel room so much until you didn’t want to go out for dinner!

We went to Taiping Sentral for shopping and dinner. You enjoyed eating Kenny Rogers’ chicken, using the fork and knife by yourself. We met up with Poh-Poh, Gung-Gung, Suk-Poh, Suk-Gung and Yi-Yi.

We brought you to the Taiping Fire & Rescue Department to look at the fire engines and super bikes. You even tried to climb the ladder.

Firefigher Gabriel in heat of action!

Since it was still early, we thought we might be able to make a trip to Maxwell Hill by jeep. Again we were let down as the jeep was fully booked already.

So we went for a walk in Taiping Lake Gardens and to play the giant slide. We all had fun on the slide. You didn’t like Mummy and Papa to slide down with you and insisted to slide down by yourself.

Mummy, I want to slide down by myself!

Ahhhh! Here I come!

Hiding in the woods

The Dinosaur Hunter

Family portrait at Taiping Lake Gardens

We left Taiping after lunch with nice memories. On the way home you still said you wanted to go back to the hotel…

Chinese “Niu” Year 2008

Chinese “Niu” (Cow) Year 2008

As usual the Chinese New Year eve and first day of CNY, we celebrated in Menglembu. Long before CNY, you already had the festive mood as your school had taught you to sing CNY songs. We were surprised that you could sing the mandarin CNY songs so well as you didn’t know any Chinese word. First day of CNY, you wore the Chinese traditional costume bought by Yi-yi from Singapore  (Thanks ,Yi-yi!).  You enjoyed playing with di-di Julian for the time spent in M’lembu.

On 2nd day, we went to poh-poh house. You played fireworks and had minor burns on your finger. Since then, you were abit scared to play fireworks. Actually everyone was saying that you were very brave as you dare to light up the fireworks.

Then on the 3rd day, we packed our luggage and went down to KL. We stayed in Kiu Kiu’s apartment. This trip we brought you to Sunway Lagoon and we went to the amusement park and wild life park. You enjoyed the kiddy horse ride, merry-go-round, spaceship and train. The train was quite thrilling as it was very fast and would go through a dark tunnel. Initially you were scared but after mummy asked you to scream, your scared feeling disappeared and you felt so fun! Then we went to the wild life park. You have taken photo with the pony and you had seen snake, rabbit, tortoise, parrot, otter and etc. We also watched the animal show. You really enjoyed yourself and refused to go home even though it was already in the late afternoon.

Besides Sunway Lagoon, you also went to see the Giant Lion which is a must-not-miss activity for KL. This was our 3rd trip to KL and you requested to see the giant lion everytime before we started our journey.

This CNY was a special one as we had never travel to other place during CNY all the while. I guess Gabriel, you enjoyed this special CNY.

Having fun with soft toys...

Love,
From mummy & papa

Journey to the gulf of Siam

Dearest Gabriel,

This year Christmas, mummy company had shutdown for 1 week plus, so we had planned for a trip to the gulf of Siam, Koh Samui after Christmas celebration. We traveled from Penang -> Haadyai-> Surat Thani-> Koh Samui -> Nakhon Si Thammarat->Penang. We spent one night at all towns each except Koh Samui, we were there for 2 nights.  We went with poh-poh, gung-gung, yi-yi, kiu-kiu, Suk gung, suk poh, fat kiu2 and meh-meh. We drove 2 cars and you were on and off took charged of the communicator using the walkie-talkie, ” Rolling-rolling!”

You experienced the 1st Tut-tut car ride in the town of Haadyai. You were very excited although the air in the town was pretty contaminated.  All 11 of us had to squeeze into the small little tut-tut! You were complaining you couldn’t sit at the end of the tut-tut car as that’s the most exciting but most dangerous seat.  You were playing ” monkey bar” in the tut-tut car – hanging your 2 hands on the top bar.

After the night spent in Haadyai, you had diarrhea and vomitting the next day : ( We ended up delaying our trip to Surat Thani in the morning and we brought you to see doctor by the tut-tut car. The driver has become our translator! Everyone was worried about you as you vomitted everything that you took you refused to take any food for one whole day! 

Fortunately, after you took the chinese medicine brought by poh-poh, you stopped vomitting before we reached Koh Samui. In the ferry, we were travelling with a lorry of pigs! This was your first time to see pigs…so ugly and smelly…their saliva was non-stop dripping…yak!!! But pork chop is nice! : )

Koh Samui is a beautiful island, especially the street that our hotel located! It gave us surprise after a long and tiring journey. We also enjoyed the sand and sea. Papa bought a beach toy set and a float for you. You enjoyed playing the “Life Guard and Shark” game. Yi-yi was the shark, kiu-kiu was chased by the shark, you and papa were the life guard pulling the float with a rope. And mummy was the movie director! We had a good laugh of the game. Then we proceeded to the 2nd swim in the pool.

Gabriel, we had an elephant ride up to the mountain! It was raining during the ride. At the beginning of the ride, we were just a bit scared…But when the elephant started to hike up the hill, we were really scared and you were screaming…” It is so dangerous!” Sob…Mummy regretted a bit as I had height fright. We saw a lot of elephant motion on the  way and the elephant was not so obedient and made our ride more challenging. It would stop ped and scratched the body on the stone, so we were swaying left and right…SCARED…Yiyi and kiu kiu elephant even stopped at the dead end and refuse to walk for sometime! After the elephant ride, all of us were wet and need to change the pants. After that we proceeded to the elephant and monkey show. You were enjoyed and wanted to feed the elephant with banana. We had used  50 baht for 1 basket of rotten and black bananas but the elephant was enjoying. You also went for crocodile and cobra show and we saw people feeding the crocodile and you had touched the snake during the show.

Although the trip was not smooth and you fell sick during the journey, but we were glad that you had at least enjoyed the end of the trip with some animal show and elephant ride.

With Love,

Mummy and bapa

First LRT ride and an unlucky incident

Dearest Gabriel,

During a car ride in KL, mummy had showed you the LRT (Light Rail Transit) and expecting you would be excited to see it. However, you responded with a disappointed and sad sound “I never sit before.” You kept repeating the same answer for few times. This made us decided to take you to experience the LRT on the next day.

You were excited about the ride but there was a sad incident happened. ‘Gung Gung’ was a victim of a pick-pocket. His wallet was being stolen when he tried to protect you from falling as we got down the LRT…After that, you were keen to catch the thief! You ran together with us to search for gung gung and the thief …You really sounded confident you were the policeman and you were able to catch the thief…we brought you together to the police station to lodge a report. You were smiling when you saw lots of police cars! Mummy saw your fingers were showing a gun pose while you entered the police station. Mummy was smilling : ) While gung gung made the police report, one policewoman asked you your name. Surprisingly after you told her your name, you continued with the story of how the thief stole gung gung’s wallet!! Then when the policewoman requested you to stay back and help to catch the thief, you nodded your head..What an ambitious and cute Gabriel!! : ))

First aeroplane ride

Dearest Gabriel,

On 1st of Oct 2008, you had experienced your first aeroplane ride to Kuala Lumpur. The night, you had requested to go to sleep right after dinner as you really eagerly waiting to sit in the plane after you woke up : ) When mummy told you that you would fly like a bird and as high as the cloud, you laughed loud and said “Like Super Grover! ” Hahaha!

Early next morning, we took a taxi to the airport. You told the taxi driver, you wanted to go to KL. The taxi driver was shocked : ) When we got up the plane, you were busy playing all the buttons on the chair and the safety belt. We were lucky that Firefly had implemented the refreshment on 1st Oct 08. We were served with muffin and orange juice. You really enjoyed the food and drink : ) Surprisingly, throughout the journey, you were interested to read the safety instruction card. Papa had taken a copy for you even though it was not supposed to be removed. Papa also bought you a model aeroplane for remembrance. The air stewardess fixed the plane for you. You also took a picture with the pilot.

Posing with the Fokker-50 at Subang Airport

Kuala Lumpur Trip

Dear Gabriel,

Last weekend we went to Kiu Kiu’s new apartment in Kuala Lumpur. You were looking forward for a train ride before the trip. Mummy had bought you a Topsy and Tim book about train ride, so that you were prepared of what will happen in KL. When we arrived Kiu Kiu’s new condo, you were excited and ran around the house. In the afternoon, we brought you to experience the komuter just opposite Kiu Kiu’s house. You insisted to put in the ticket into the auto gate at the train station by yourself. Yi Yi was following you  and after you put in the ticket and entered in, yi yi couldn’t enter!!! This made her panic…End up Kiu kiu and yiyi squeezed in together : ) You are basically like to do everything that you are not supposed to…Highly initiative and proactive !! Hope when you grow up, you will keep this good behaviour. Then on the same night we went to have seafood in one beautiful restaurant brought by fat kiu kiu. We were walking around while waiting for the food. Suddenly you saw a group of children, all girls, running around, playing. You also quickily ran to try to join in..However that group of girls just ignored you. When they laughed, you laughed too. Mummy really feel pity for you….as you are lonely. In the evening, you swam with yiyi and kiu kiu in the swimming pool. You were excited when kiu kiu acted as the big shark to chase you. You were also excited to jump into the water and splashed!

On the next day, we went to IKEA in the morning and Sunway Pyramid at nite. You were really amazed to see the giant lion, and the diamond pyramid. After came back to Penang, you still always mention about the GIANt lion : )

Gabriel blowing bubbles broobroobroob!

Grandma and Grandpa’s Visit 28-Jul-08

Dear Gabriel,

In the morning we travelled to Bukit Mertajam to attend mass at St. Anne’s Church. On the way there, you were not very happy and you said that you didn’t want to go to church. Then we reminded you that Grandma and Grandpa was going too and that they want to see you. That changed your mind. Along the way, you saw a goods train. Then you said that you would like to take a train ride. We parked the car by the roadside and had to walk for about 5 minutes to get to the church as the police had blocked the road in front of the church. On the way, there were many stalls, like pasar malam. When we reached the church you were amazed by the sight of the big church. There was a fountain in the middle of the church compound. However, there was lots of rubbish on the ground – not a very nice sight. Papa explained to you that St. Anne is Mother Mary’s mummy, so St. Anne is Jesus’ grandma. But you said ‘No, not grandma!’. You thought that papa said St. Anne is your grandma. Papa will try to explain again when you understand family trees. After mass, mummy brought you to see some statues. You saw one of Jesus being nailed to the cross. Mummy was very worried when you touched the sweet corn seller’s hot pot. You cried very loud. Luckily there was a kind uncle who let you put your hands into the ice water. You enjoyed playing water at the fountain. Papa gave you a few coins to throw into the water.

In the evening, mummy suggested that we go down to the lake to play your bubble gun. You were not happy and wanted to go to Botanical Gardens. Then papa said ‘OK, we shall go to a new place to play bubble gun. There is a water fountain, slides, tunnels and swings at the park. The park is called Metropolitan.’ Then you became excited and can’t wait to go. Papa packed your bubble gun and bubble water in a bag for you to carry. When you played your bubble gun, many children came to see and catch the bubbles. You also climbed a ladder like a fireman and then went down the tunnel. You had great fun!

Love,
Papa