time has changed

Last night, i showed hubby my leg, taking for granted he would know that i was trying to show him my slightly bruised leg. He was as blind as a bat and didn't even notice the discoloration of my skin. 5 years ago, he would have asked what had happened to my leg before I myself knew it was there.

how we spent our last weekend

It was an impromptu trip to IKEA.

Hubby woke me up at 5.30am after he bathed and while i was getting ready, he packed everything in the car. We gave khye his milk while carrying him into the car, not wanting to wake him up so early. After all, i needed some sleep before attending to the little rascal in the car. We start our journey at 6.10am. Unfortunately, khye woke up around 7.30am and my nightmare started. First, he demanded for milk which he didn't want to finish after that. He got bored playing toys that i purposely brought along. I read nursery rhymes to him using a book full of pics. He was only interested in Humpty Dumpty and navigating my fingers to point everywhere on the book. Then he got bored of the book and started to disturb his papa, pinching hubby's face, pulling his shirt & wanted to become co-driver by climbing into front passenger seat. Not only that, he tried to test hubby's car performance by attempting to pull the hand brake / gear stick. All happened within 2hours from the time he woke up. It was a MAJOR mistake not training him to sit in car seat when he was younger, everything is too late now. He refused to be tied using seat belt, dun want to be held by anybody. Nobody else to be blamed except ourselves.

Lucky thing, we reached KL at 10am before detoured to a nearby car repair shop for tyre checking. I remember our first trip to IKEA. It was a peaceful trip though i was 5mths preg and we spent about 6hours or more there. With khye this time, it was a hectic trip with him acting like "rusa masuk kampung". He didn't want to be seated in the shopping trolley. And i forgot that IKEA does not have a big trolley like Tesco (we only realised that IKEA does have such trolley at the ground floor after all the hassle). I forced him to stay in the trolley for a while by feeding him cereals & biscuits. But it only worked for like 15mins before he tried to escape from the trolley again. In the end, hubby had to carry him all the way. He tried to lure hubby to go closer to things on the shelves by shouting "HUA! HUA!" As if we would fall into his trap. After failing with a few attempts, he threw tantrum and wanting to walk on the floor by himself. So we put him down in one of the baby cots where he LOVES so much.

Even pretend to be sleeping on the mattress some more.

Dun worry, i've already covered his face and hands with dettol sanitizer. He had lots of fun playing in the baby cot, as if he had never seen one. When it was time to move to the next section, he refused to get out from the baby cot. This is something new. Usually he would beg us to take him out from his own baby cot. Isn't he a good actor? There was a bit of drama when we dragged him out of the baby cot and it stopped when we reached kids' corner. He went mad and dashed for the toys, playing like there's no tomorrow.

My sis lends khye an exact same toy which he didn't bother to touch at my mum's place but he went crazy when he saw it at IKEA. Another toy he was particularly attracted to was a toy with a roller and a handle for him to pull and push while walking, creating irritating noise. I protested when hubby wanted to get him that toy. Khye never like a toy for more than 5mins. After all, that toy was not cheap too. Hubby bought it in the end anyway.

So it was time to eat and another drama followed. Khye was playing happily with the push & pull toy and did not want to let hubby guide him. He just went wherever he likes. Since he is so minute, a lot of bigger size kids wanted to snatch that toy from him, without knowing hubby and i was around guarding khye like eagles. IKEA was crowded at that time. Not wanting to create any problem, i kept the toy while hubby carried him. Khye suddenly turned so aggressive, like got possessed like that. He turned, squirmed, screamed, cried, shouted and all the verbs you could think of, trying to get back on the floor. Hubby gave up and put him back on the floor. But his body went limp and he refused to get up from the floor. No choice, hubby had to grab him up again and the whole drama repeated. Mind you, it was lunch time and khye has high pitch voice. Hubby tried to distract him by moving into kid's corner with TV while i went to line up for food. From the queue, i could still hear khye screaming on top of his voice. The queue was very long and i had to wait for quite a while before returned to find them. There was no vacant table and khye was crying like mad and i was so frustrated!! When we finally settled down on a table, i had to carry khye away for his feeding while hubby cooled down at the table. He was about to lose his temper. Khye finally calmed down, and dozed off before finishing his milk. PEACE AT LAST!! He didn't wake up even when someone knocked into his car that tired. This little rascal has been naughty from 7.30am to 1pm.

At least we got about 30mins of lunch with khye sleeping next to my chair. Anyway, he woke up when we lifted him up from the chair. But this time, his mood was back to normal, not more kena possessed. He didn't make a fuss when we threw him into the big trolley and moved on with our shopping. On and off, we had to obey to his instruction by throwing unbreakable things he wanted from the shelves (e.g spoons, bowls). It was a win-win situation, he got to play masak-masak in the trolley while we could look at the things we wanted.

We left ikea around 3pm and proceeded to the Curve before heading home.

Khye didn't sleep at all until we reached Ipoh for Chicken & Bean sprouts for dinner. He only went to sleep when we entered the highway to get back to Bworth. Well, one good thing was, he didn't wake up thru out that night until the next morning. Neither did both of us.

17-mth-old khye

We taught khye a few simple words and he is progressing well, i think. When he calls "ah ma" or "papa", i swear i can see two puddle of human fluid on the floor. Both of them melted almost instantly. If you ask him to sayang you, he will go "mmmmm....mak" (actually he was trying to say "mmmm...muaks"). Some of Khye's vocabulary:

Mama, please
Khye: mama, pee.........s

Papa
Khye: papa yoooo-oh (his way of manja-ing with his papa)

Socks
Khye: cock

Shoes
Khye: choo...s

Koko krunch
Khye: kokoko kanh

Bus
Khye: baaa

Taxi
Khye: Tasee

Lorry
Khye: orr-eee

Up, Down
Khye: Up, don

Hello
Khye: Hedooo

Bye-bye
Khye: Baa bye

Some more
Khye: more

Apple
Khye: pleeeee


Cute leh, wait till you hear it from him shout "aiyo" & "aiyo wei".

pop quiz

Question :
What happened to Khye eyes?

A) Lack of sleep.
B) Child abuse case, his mum punched him near the eyes.
C) Going for audition - Rambo wannabe or maybe Zorro.

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.

.

.

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Answer:
We didn't abuse him!!! He fell down twice and knocked himself twice on the same spot.
1st fall: He was asked to keep his toys as we were going out for dinner. Manatau, his stepped on cloth clippers, tumbled and knocked his head on the floor. Almost immediately, you could see a bump on his head.
2nd fall: Two days after the 1st fall, while he was happily playing with his playmate, his playmate accidentally pushed him. Off he went and kissed the floor. This time, the swell was almost the size of 1/2 a ping pong ball. We took him to the nearest clinic and received good scolding from the doc.

We received staring from strangers in Tesco. And even at Tumble Tots, the parents whom had never talked to us asked us what happened to Khye :P

Australia - Day 8

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

Day-8

I woke up before hubby and we agreed to get the final view of Opera House :P I took along the leftover grapes all the way to Opera House.

Hot Chocolate drink from Guylian

To cut the story short again, we flew back to Gold Coast and checked into Islander Resort for AUD30 per person. The room was like a hotel room but with 2 double decker beds. Our roommate were a Japanese couple. We went to roam Surfer's Paradise for one final time, bought a can of beer and went to watch tv while munching on Smith's. Went to sleep quite early as we needed to wake up at 4.30am the next morning. The next day, we were driven to the airport by a van pre-booked online at AUD40 per person.

That's the end of our trip, enjoyable but quite tiring as we needed to rush all over the place. What to do, if you go on tour with me, you will need to keep up with my walking pace :P Overall, it was fun though, at least hubby thinks so :D

Australia - Day 7

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

Day-7

At 6.30am, we took train from Town Hall Station to Central station then took Blue Mountain train all the way to Blue Mountain. It took us about 2hours just to reach the mountain. Didn't get enough sleep on the train though. We were sitting near a bunch of active kids where they kept throwing questions to their mothers who were so patience to entertain them all. I think we reached around 10am. Initially, we wanted to take the Trolley Tours about AUD20 per person where the bus will take us to almost all the famous destinations in Blue Mountain. But all we wanted to see was some rocks called 3-Sisters & Echo Point. So after asking for some information, we were told there was another cheaper alternative - Trolley Express Tour where the bus will take you to each destination for AUD 1.90 per trip. What a good deal! So we only went to Echo Point in the end. Another super duper cold place with only 9 degrees. Strong wind & it was worse than Opera House the night before. My made in china gloves didn't help much. It was difficult to even press the shutter by wearing gloves. Hubby was not even shivering.

We caught the 11am train back to town and went back to Opera House for afternoon photo shoot. Kinda of crazy but what to do, hubby fell in love with opera house. This time we walked all the way to Mrs Maquire's Chair to take pics from different angle. It was a 15mins walk from the Opera House thru Botanical Garden. I really wanted to hop into the tram but it'd costs AUD10 per person, not really that worth it. After that, we rushed like mad back to Paddy's. Only at that time, we found out that there are free-of-charge buses that go along George Street!!!! We hopped on one of these buses and got to Paddy's at 4.30pm, about an hour before the closing time. Bought a bag for khye, a min boomerang and some other made in china things. I dunno how we managed to end up in Paddy’s wet market and we were really amazed. Since the market was closing, the sellers were throwing out veggies & fruits to lelong. AUD 1 for almost everything. They dun weigh the fruits, they just scoop using a basket and you pay AUD 1 for the amount of fruits in the basket. Greedy us, we bought 2 plastic bag full of grapes (easily 2kg per bag), 6 apples & one huge rock melon, all for just AUD4.



I think we must have been too happy with the result and we walked all the way back to our room without feeling tired at all. We couldn't finish the grapes, so we took them to Darling Harbour to eat while enjoying the night view there. Although we were not unable to finish the cheap fruits but we did not want to throw them away yet.

Hubby who was still so much in love with the Opera House, asking me to go there for one last time before we leave Sydney, at 7am?!?!?!?! I didn't promise him though. But.......

Australia : Day-6

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

Day-6

Took Airtrain from Central Station to Brisbane Domestic Airport then flew to Sydney. The air

stewardess was fatter than me :P Reached Sydney and checked into Base Sydney. Our accommodation seemed to get better and better. The beds were so comfy & bathrooms were very clean. Our roommates were a Korean couple who were not very friendly. Not only they shared a single bed, they even took the bed-sheets of other beds to tie to the poles of the double decker bed, so that they can camp in it. Too bad it's not sound proof, we could hear the guy snoring whole night. I'm lazy to type so much already. It was already about 3pm, so we rushed all the way to Sydney Fish Market to grab some super fresh seafood (but not cheap) and managed to get to Paddy's before it closed at 5pm.

It was a mistake to go to Paddy's. We ended up spending hundreds of dollars at Esprits. 25% of reduced price mah, how to resist :P

After dinner, i decided to cover Hyde Park on the way to Sydney Opera House. It was another mistake. We tried to take picture of the majestic Archibald Fountain - failed. Pic of St Mary's Cathedral - failed. Sydney Opera house & Harbour Bridge - passed.



It was an icy cold that night and strong wind spoilt my mood. Hubby was so mesmerized by Opera House that he didn't want to leave before taking enough pics of that odd building. And also cos we took 45mins to reach that place. The color of my face gradually turned from pale to black >:(



To add to my misery, we were standing outside of the Opera House fine-dining restaurant where diners were wearing sexy evening gowns, laughing while drinking champagne. In the end, to keep myself warm, I hid myself against the wall of the building under a lamp post until hubby finished his assignment. Walking back was another ordeal. I think I fainted on the bed when we reached our room. Here are some pics:

Australia : Day-5

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

Day-5

We woke up later than expected and by the time we reached to bus stop, the bus left already. So we had to wait for the second bus at 7.20am. When we finally reached the train station, another bad news - train to Bris delayed for 20mins. It took about 2hours to get to Bris town and another 2hours to get to the zoo from Bris town. This means we'll only reach the zoo by 12pm and I didn't dare to tell the additional 2hours journey to zoo. We reached Brisbane Central Station and quickly checked-in at Base Brisbane Central. The staff was kind enough to upgrade our 8-bed room to 2-bed room, we didn't have to share with anybody but it was at level 3 with no lift!! Anyway, to cut the story short, we reached zoo at 11am+ & didn't miss any show =) For the first time, we had to wear jackets in a zoo instead of usual shirt & shorts & sunblock :P

To cut the story short, we managed to get to Mount Coo-tha just in time to catch the last bus to town from there. If you miss the last bus, you'll need to hire a taxi and it's not very cheap, i guess.

Nothing to shout about at Mount Coo-tha except we met a couple who were so loving during photo-taking, they are guys ;) Roamed around at Queen Street Mall & walked all the way to take some pics of Story Bridge. End of day 5

Australia : Day-4

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

Day-4

We went to the same bus stop to take the bus to MovieWorld (From SP, take TX bus to theme parks). Same suggestion, try to reach there before 9am. The crowd at Movieworld was worse than Dreamworld. We were given the timetable for shows and parade in Movieworld, so before the theme park was opened, we planned on what to do first in order to cover the whole place. To our disappointment, Movieworld is a small theme parks & maybe cos we went on weekdays, there was no movie stars around for us to take pic. There were also 6 thrill rides and again i completed 4 & 2 for hubby. There was a ride which was very scary - Scooby-Doo coaster. It was a forward and backward ride, not exactly that fun and i had good time screaming non-stop. Good way to release stress though.

We stayed until it was almost closing time and board the bus back to SP. Went back and packed all our bags as we needed to catch the 6.50am bus to train station to get to Brisbane. Our new roommate - a Korean who stayed in US.

Australia : Day 3

Day-1, Day-2, Day-3, Day-4, Day-5, Day-6, Day-7, Day-8

Day-3
Woke up 7am and i prepared breakfast with the bread & choc spread bought last night. The kitchen was extremely dirty. People just leave the pots and pans in the sink. Kitchen table was full of bread crumbs & instant mee seasoning. Stains everywhere. I put all my things a plastic bag. We brought along some plastic utensils and cups, luckily. I thought ang-moh kitchen is very clean, from tv-show. After breakfast, we went to bus stop to catch the bus to Dreamworld.
(From SP, take TX bus to themeparks, AUD7.60 per person, 1-way). My suggestion is to go there before 10am to avoid the long queue at the ticket counter. We reached there at almost 9am and get to take a lot of pics before the crowd at 10am.

I didn't like Dreamworld that much. Apart from the 6 thrill rides, Tiger Island and Wildlife, there was nothing interesting there. I tried 4 out of 6 thrilling rides, while hubby only took 2 rides. Giant drop was my first ride, i took so much courage to take the ride. The moment the seats rose from ground, i started regretting. It halted at the top with magnificient view but i didn't enjoy it. Then, i heard the signal beep indicating that we're going to drop. My heart stopped a second and off we went. It was really like committing suicide by jumping off tall building. I could feel the anti-gravity experience, strong wind blowing against my face and my eyes were open all the way down. When it finally stopped, i think my heart stopped again too :P Great ride but i will not try it again. 2nd ride was Motocoaster. I didn't know that it was one of the 6 thrill rides. It was like riding motorbike at super high speed and i felt that i could die during the ride. Honestly, Giant Drop was much better than this. At least, during Giant Drop, i dun have to go "head first". 3rd was Tower of Terror. This ride will go the same height as Giant Drop at 30degrees and back. Equally scary. Cyclone was nothing to shout about.

We didn't dare to try The Claw & WipeOut.

Lunch was hotdog bun before we ended our day in Dreamworld. The hotdog seller was kind enough to recommend us to another shopping centre which sells cheaper things than Harbour Town. After asking from direction bus drivers, off we went to Hyperdome in Logan Holmes. The journey there was about 30mins and costed us additional AUD10 for 2 persons. The town was not really near, it was after Beenleigh and we had to take bus-train-bus before we finally reached HyperDome.

HyperDome is really big single-level shopping complex with a lot of shops and food outlets. We reached there about 4pm and the closing time was 5.30pm. I really do not understand why the shopping complexes close so early. How do working mums do their shopping? Or they only shop once a week? Hubby found some crocs sandals on sale - blue & orange. And it was only AUD29.90 per pair. He was deciding whether to buy or not but the problem was to choose between blue & orange. He asked for my opinion and gave him an honest answer which he didn't like it. We went out from the shop empty-handed and a black-face hubby :P Nevertheless, we still managed to grab some Smith's at AUD1.99 per packet, the cheapest we could find. Shopped a bit at Reject Shop. I have no idea why it's called reject shop as all the items we got were in good condition and very cheap. AUD2-5 per item. After Hyperdome, we went home straight and took a good rest before trip to Movieworld. Our new roomate - a Canadian guy who was so much neater than the German girl.