Busy Mommy

What is Malacca if one never try the chicken rice balls, nyonya dishes and chendol?  It is like went to Paris but not seeing the Eiffel Tower!

We stopped by this restaurant at Jonker street to try the chicken rice balls for our early dinner.  It has lots of  celebraties’ photographs on the wall, stating how famous this restaurant is.

Apparently this place is not the best in the town for the chicken rice balls.  We were disappointed with the taste. The taste of the chicken is different from those we can find in Singapore. I still love the Singapore chicken rice..kind of felt that chicken rice balls are over-rated in Malacca..however, I may be wrong because we did not go to the right shop.

Malacca’s roast pork is also very different from Singapore style..the skin layer is much cripsy than in Singapore..

After the dinner, we passed by this stall.  I seem to remember that there were alot of good comments found in the Internet about the chendol they sell.

But look at the queue!! We made a grave mistake because we thought that since it’s only about 5+ and there’s a long queue, we will turn back and buy the chendol again.

WRONG! We did turn back and the queue was shorter…but their chendol was sold out! How disappointing

This is the entrance of the Jonker street..

We were there early and the streets were not closed for traffic yet. The hawkers were also busy setting up their stall…

Some random shots @ Jonker Street

Dear and my dad was carrying Dawn most of the time..because it was quite crowded..Poor them

I saw this tutu and asked my mom whether it is nice here.  She immediately turned around and said that the tutu in Malacca is different from those in Singapore.  The gula in the filling is just different.

This is it..bigger and very nice!!!

Next we saw this stall which has whole lot of steaming hot dim sum. Can’t resist!!!!

Look at the combination! Colourful and simply attracting the passerby to stop and buy some to try.  And it’s not a wrong choice! The meat is juicy and sweet and Dear biting the dim sum is like biting to those 小笼包！

Oh, we found Baskin-Robbins @ Makota!! The ice cream is nice, I still remembered I tried their ice cream in Japan Tokyo Tower with Dear. Eating ice cream in cold weather is really shiok!

For the 2nd day dinner, we went to Seri Nyonya @ Equatorial Hotel.

Some nyonya deco in the restaurant. Very nice right? It totally set you into a nyonya feeling..

Even the peanuts they served before meals are placed in the baskets!

And guess what is this cup for? They are our drinking cups!

The dishes we ordered are superb! No other words to describe.  My parents were starving and thus 2 Pie Tees’ were missing by the time I managed to take the photo!

I love this dish the best.  It’s brinjal with sambal chili. I am not really a brinjal person, but something inside me just wanted to order this dish. And it’s so good! Shiok!

And the ice kachang for my dad…Tall and filled with crashed peanuts on top!

And dear has this chendol..

Slurp!

We had our breakfasts in the hotel because its included in the package.  Look at Dawn, she loves her plate of bread!

Um!! She said it’s HAMBURGER! And she smart lo, in order to taste all the bread which her papa took for her, and she knows that she can’t finish all, she happily just took a few bites on each bread to taste them! Leaving the halves for papa to finish them.

These summarized most of  the food that we had in Malcca.  Oh ya, if the coach stops by Yong Peng, remember to try the fish ball soup there. Bouncy fish balls!

We had been bringing Dawn for short getaway holidays every year since she was born, how can we not do so this year? It’s not a means of pampering the kid, as she is unable to  differentiate a holiday and a weekend yet. It is rather a way to train her to accomodate to different countries,  to rest over at different places (instead of her own bed), to experience different things and of ‘cos to train myself to be courageous.

We had been to Batam twice since she was barely 1 year, Bangkok once when she just crossed her 1 year birthday and the trips had different mode of transport, ie the ferry and the plane. This year we decided on Malacca, partly because of the things we want to get over there, and also a different experience for little Dawn – a 5 hours coach ride and a super long queue at the customs -.-

So here’s the very excited Dawn and despite waking up at 6am, she still so happy and fresh when we boarded the bus at 8am.

Dawn seldom want to sit on her own, she finds comfort on daddy’s or mummy’s lap often. And of ‘cos the iphone became her past time…

And of ‘cos sweet dreams.. the journey to Malacca :

And the journey back to Singapore :

The rocking coach seems to be a good sleeping place for Dawn..

These are our bags, and they are not all…there’s another big samsonite luggage and Dawn’s pram at the luggage compartment of the coach.

And this was the coach that brought us to and fro Singapore and Malacca. Both times when we stopped by Yong Peng, Dawn was sleeping and hence she missed out the nice fish balls and the tibits store! And the lovely Daddy stayed inside the coach with her while I went for my toilet break.   Oh, and the driver locked up the bus when he went for his break..so I was left standing outside with both my babies inside the coach

M’sia has alot of advertisement signboards on the side of the highway and I always think is such an amazing way to advertise .  You will never get to see such advertisement in Singapore..no space leh!  Imagine it on PIE? :p

We stayed in Hotel Equatorial and I must say it is a good choice, espically for families with young kids. It is convenient as it is just beside the new shopping mall.

Random shot in the hotel because I find the shot with 2 long stairs looks nice

Our room consist of a king size bed and an additional bed for Dawn.  Dawn were so happy to see the single bed and jumped on it and shouted “Dawn Dawn’s bed!” Very thankful that she didn’t jump on the king size bed and insist that she wants to sleep there..

The little bar area which I make milk for Dawn …

Our room is pool view and thus this is the pool view from the top! Nice pool!

Some other random shots of the skyline of Malacca…nice yah?

We went to Makota for our shopping and I can say that things found in Makota are much cheaper than things found in Makota Parade.  Makota is currently under renovation but business are as usual.

Parkson is inside Makota and cheap buy can be found inside there which will leave you feeling satisfied with the good buy

Opposite of Makota is the Makota Parade.  Padini is also a nice place to shop inside there.

This is the “wheel” that will give a bird’s eye view of the town.

Dawn were happy with the many Christmas Decorations in the shopping malls and hotel. And she took a few photos with them..

This is my favorite photo..I was shooting their back views and both of them turn back to look at me at the same time, and gave me the same kind of smile at the same time.  Candid right!

Priceless!

I will write another post on Malacca, and that will be the food we had there!

Dawn had wanted us to buy her a pair of chopsticks after seeing us using chopsticks for our meals.  We can’t find a proper one for her and the training chopsticks (with cute thomas train and cartoon characters) that we see on carts and bulk purchase forum are not the ideal pair. Dear thinks that those with training loops are not ideal because the grip looks and feels incorrect.  After much consideration, we finally decided to chose the training chopsticks from Combi.

And so we passed the chopsticks to Dawn and we taught her how to pick up her small toys using the chopsticks. Dawn didn’t have much oppotunities to use the chopsticks because she ate rice or porridge most of the time and a spoon served her well.

So finally she has this opportunity when she was “taxing” my lunch of bee hoon..and I was amazed by her improvement!

Amazing issn’t? It is to me, because I myself didn’t know how to use a chopsticks till pretty late…kids nowadays are just amazing..

And here she is posing with her chopsticks. :p

Oh ya, a closer look on the chopsticks in case mummies reading here wants to buy one too.  This cost about $11+ in Kiddy Palace.  It has something to hold the 2 chopsticks together, and the orange guide is to help the kid to position the hand. It had 2 points which allows one to chose for right or left hand usage.

It’s time to throw away Dawn’s potty…because she knows how to do this :

Who else but Dawn?

One very common sight in Japan is the availability of Vending Machines. Almost every corner or a few minutes walk, you will definately see at least one vending machine.

It is very common for Ramen restaurant / eating house to have a vending machine outside to take the customer order. All the customer has to do is to chose the Ramen, put in the money and the machine will produce a ticket for the order.  After which, the ticket is given to the chef or owner, and the Ramen will be served shortly.

Order Tickets ↓

There are also lots of vending machines for drinks, cigarettes etc along the streets, parks, etc.  We saw a whole stretch of these machines in one of the steets in Ginza.  Amazing!

And if you select a hot can of tea, it really produce a HOT can of tea.  I had never seen a vending machine here in Singapore which provide hot drinks in a can, usually they will dispense a cup of hot drink instead.

A close up on the cigarette vending machine ↓

We had been to Fish & Co. many times, be it as a couple or with the little one.  It’s one of the easier choice when we have Dawn with us, because Dawn loves to eat fish!

Here’s dawn posing with the “fish”.

And counting how many fish she has…

I love the fried calamari…and dear love the grilled ones…but he will always let me have the fried ones

We order the kids’ meal size of the fried calamari but it is good enough for us. Looks delicious right?

Dear order the grilled fish with spanish rice for himself and Dawn.  And Dawn kept saying “好吃!”

I had their prawn salad…Nice salad sauce but a pity that the prawns were not too fresh.  Kind of spoil the taste…

Ewwww! The house is filled with Hello Kitties!

Dawn’s new collection!

Cute wor! Both Dawn and the float…haha!

…because we made it happen.

Fast as it can be, we had been together for 2 years.  Though cannot compare to my sister’s 12 years of marriage (which I envy leh! They are both still a sweet couple!), but we have both came a long way.

It wasn’t easy for any of us – me having to struggle with emotional baggages & burdens, plus all the worried thoughts that was resulted from the awful past experience; he having to do alot of explaining and convincing in the initial days, learning how to carry a baby and play like a kid, and rushed to send me home after a quick and short dinner because I have to be a Nine-derella.

I am not sure what’s in for us 50 years down the road, why him and why me, but I know there must be a reason for bringing us together.  Though we can have different perspective of things (and of 2 different extreme ends), I can’t help but notice that we can think of the same thing when we are physically at different places. Many a times, our smses met in the frequency realm because we both thought of each other and typed the SMS at the same time.

And so the relationship still smell so fresh everyday like breathing the morning dew, and the sweetness linger with the booster I need daily just like my coffee.

We are not able to meet on the actual day because he had class after work, and so we met 2 days later for a dinner.  The least expected, and the sweetest moment was, he walked towards me from his office building, with my favourite flower in his hands. Can’t stop smiling after that.

Big Sunflower ↓

We had a good dinner @ Thai Express Holland Village. The food is nice, service is good, and I still cannot forget the big meatball and the stuffed chicken. I had the fried Kway Tiao and he had his favourite Olive rice (with lots of chilli!).  I enjoyed the time of catching up and I think I talked alot that night…haha!

I still have many conversations that I want to hold.  I still want to travel around.  I want to share all the bits of my life.  All with him.  And of cos with Dawn.

It’s tha time of the year again, happy because there’s more holidays in that month and half days for the eves.  Yeah! ;p

Dawn watched Barney’s VCDs and she was taught about Christmas. She was so excited to point out the Christmas trees at the shopping malls!

She can’t wait to take photo with the Christmas Tree @ Jurong Point even thought it is still work-in-progress.