B.I.A

*pic taken in january 08.

i have been neglecting my blog. i been religiously reading other people's blog though.

here's what i've been up to:

-i rushed to apply N's passport. over here, we had to get somebody to witness the photo of the applicant, and also for the witness to certify that they know applicant etc..

-we went to sydney (hence the above). packing was a challenge..an infant sure needs lots of things. many stretch and grows, rompers, what have you...his stuffs alone took 1 trolley bag.

-because i am breastfeeding (via pumping)i had to also pack my breast pump with me and due to the enormity of the pump, it had to be checked in.

-flying with infant is a new experience for us. I brought limited breast milk with me onboard (i thought we have liquid restriction but actually not for baby food) so N was crying a bit on descent. Funny how I put down N's occupation in the arrival & departure card as INFANT.

-met up with pinkcocoa in sydney. she loves playing with N and vice versa.

-me and jake went to Hillsong Live Recording. Awesome awesome concert.

-on the way home, our flight was delayed and then cancelled causing additional night spent in sydney. we stayed at four points darling harbour courtesy of Air NZ. Pinkcocoa & shinchan came to see us again.

-after we rested a few days, we went for overnight trip to Hamilton (which is one hr drive from auckland). I shall leave this for another post.

photos to follow...

oh btw, how do you guys celebrate valentines day?
ours was really simple. no gifting..just a lunch at nandos with extra hot chicken , chips etc..
jake's reasoning - to spice up our love life...

vaccine

N's due for his 2nd batch of vaccination. Poor kid is getting 3 jabs on his leg. 7 vaccines in 3 shots. 2 on one leg and 1 the other. he cried when the needle went into his leg. fortunately jake took a day off ..he usually comes along on major clinic visits. when N had his 1st vaccine during his 6 weeks, he became super grumpy in the afternoon. his cries were unconsolable...so this time i was prepared for that.

after the vaccination, we went to the mall. part of the agenda of the day was to open savings account for N. Now he has 3 money boxes under his name ..hehehe and me and jake as his trustee/adminstrator. (i know, we kiasu, open so many accounts so we get those money boxes aka piggy bank,... didn't we all do that when we were young).

and we were approached by the potraits place for a free shoot. now i am stressed at what to wear!!! any ideas? i think i figured out what I would wear for N.

breakfast

haven't eaten a decent breakfast for ages. i am always rushing for the next feed, next pump and so on. anyhow, jake offered to cook me these on a saturday...scrambled eggs with ham and baked beans and tomatoes from the garden. YUMMO...

of coz after i finished eating it was back to the chaos ~ next feed, next pump and so on...

Pretty in Pink

Introducing my new succulent. Echeveria "Easter Bonnet".
this has crinkly foliage tinged pink, apricot and turquoise.

London Bridge

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.


I am sure we all know this familiar nursery rhyme. we have played the games countless time too when we were kids. What I DID NOT know was this rhyme came in so many verses.
I found out when I sang it to Noel referring to "The Nursery Collection Sing a Song of Sixpense"

here's the rest of the rhyme. hope you were as entertained as me:

Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, wood and clay,
Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady.

Wood and clay will wash away,
Wash away, wash away,
Wood and clay will wash away,
My fair lady.

Build it up with bricks and mortar,
Bricks and mortar,bricks and mortar,
Build it up with bricks and mortar,
My fair lady.

Bricks and mortar will not stay,
Will not stay, will not stay,
Bricks and mortar will not stay,
My fair lady.

Build it up with iron and steel,
Iron and steel, iron and steel,
Build it up with iron and steel,
My fair lady.

Iron and steel will bend and bow,
Bend and bow,bend and bow,
Iron and steel will bend and bow,
My fair lady.

Build it up with silver and gold,
Silver and gold, silver and gold,
Build it up with silver and gold,
My fair lady.

Silver and gold will be stolen away,
Stolen away, stolen away,
Silver and gold will be stolen away,
My fair lady.

Set a man to watch all night,
Watch all night, watch all night,
Set a man to watch all night,
My fair lady.

when I got to the above verse, i kept wondering if there's anymore. I turned to the next page and it was another rhyme.

things i can't live without at the moment

one of the midwives got me this to increase my supply of milk.
yes it's an electric breastpump. suffice to say, this thing is heaps better than the manual ones.

searched high and low for a glider/rocking chair. strangely, the furniture shop stopped selling these ones and most of them have the laz-boy which shouts BULKY AND UGLY to me.
lucky for me, i found this at trademe, which is equivalent of Ebay in NZ.
got my mom to sew a new set of cover for the cushion and voila~
thanks mom!

another item would be the Changing Table/station. that thing saves my back! no pic though..

fasta pasta

spirals cooked in pumpkin soup garnished with sausage and tomatoes.

sunbasking

Noel sunbasking in the morning sun with Twinkle.
N at 1.5weeks

He's here

We welcome Noel Jacob Wee Rong En into our lives on 16 nov 07.
Here's one of his first pics

babyshower

my lifegroup friends have been really thoughtful and they organised a baby shower for me on 20/10/2007. Below are some pics of the day's event. they have secretly decorated the venue up and needless to say i was speechless when I arrived.

I was 36 weeks +2 days and I have definitely swollen up.

here, i am in the church kitchen doing last minute prep for the food.

the familiar tart -i made 3 flavours this time, brocoli, cauliflower and asparagus.




2 games were played , musical chair. there was a dressed up preggermom but he's ousted out in no times. the people were so competitive. the next game was passing the pacifier with a pen..again, the women won 3-0.

after the games, it was sharing time. usually, the baby shower is a women's only affair over here. this time, the men also get to give their input.

then it was opening the pressie's time. i receiveda good variety of gifts ranging from baby clothings and blankies and parenting book, bopster pillow etc.




special thanks to these ladies here, from left Jennifer (pastor's wife) who led the sharing, Wynne, who gave me many good advice since he just had Ryan about 17 months ago and i will be goign to the same hospital and maternity unit as W. Then it's Elly who decorated the place tastefully, and Candace and Cora who helped with organising the events and games and lastly Jacqui (Cora's DIL) not in pic who also helped with decorating and providing baby music.

me at 34 weeks +1 day

here goes, another bump pic of me. I was 34 weeks and 1 day pregnant when pic was taken.

praise the lord, my rashes has improved heaps.

We went to visit the hospital on Saturday. Found out where to park and where the delivery suites are. A hospital midwife kindly showed us one of the empty suite.

chinatown in bangkok

this is the last 2 episode of my travelogue to bangkok (I Promise)

they said chinese are the jews of the east. they usually migrate to foreign land as trader..their presence can be seen in the chinatown.

we took a cab to go to chinatown in bangkok. it was known as yaowarat street there.
basically as our cab past through the road, we see lots of goldsmith.lots of restaurant too..
taxi driver dropped us at sampaeng lane. it's this narrow alley with heaps of small shops.mostly wholesalers. how do I know this? i saw many shoe shops and I went in trying and wanting to buy and the sales assistant said I have to buy at least 6 pairs of the same shoes. as I walked past more shops, some of them display signs "WHOLE SALE ONLY".

anyways i soon got tired of the street. it's just too crowded and selling all sorts of knick knacks.
we must have asked at least 20stores if they sell 'bell'. (I shall save the bell story for next time)

we stopped by this coconut and sugar cane stall on sampaeng lane. me and jake must have drank at least 4 big cups of sugar cane and 2 coconuts each. it was the most cooling thing on the hottest day.



for lunch, we had dim sum at sheraton (not related to the hotel chain) all these are their version of 'har kao' crafted into different shapes. first is the fish, then the swan, can't remember what the 3rd one is..then the rabbit.


some other type of dim sum. i think it's another type of prawn dumpling. the gravy one is some 'crab leg' ones.


then we went to another restaurant to try bird nest soup. yaowarat road is a long road. it's a one way street with 4 lanes. we went walk about and went to try shark fin's soup.
saw lots of bric-a-brac and chinese drug store type shop and we bought dried mushrooms etc ..
as it is a one way street, no taxi was willing to pick us up on yaowarat back to our hotel without charging us some ridiculous fare (not wanting to use meter) so we had to walk against the traffic and slowly walk to the hualamphong which is the train station. Before we reached hualamphong, we past this 'chinatown' gate thingie. so a pic had to be taken.


btw, thais are really into their PEPSI. notice the 'measly' coca cola billboard on the building. You can hardly see it amongst all the Pepsi, Seven-up, mirinda billboard.

i was red as a lobster when we got back to the hotel and was 2 shades darker the next day ..

rash

after a walk around the reserve one evening, i started to itch ..then i seem to develop small bumps on my arms, legs etc ..went to see my GP and all she said was, "this is pregnancy hormones related'. GREAT. she gave me the mildest steriod cream which i used less than 6 times (given the side effects), pinetar solutions to bath with (this is good but smells like hospital) and anti-histamines (which I did not touch)

my condition has since improved although the rash is still there..apparently it will not go away until after baby's born.

iron rich

one night, jake made me this scrumptious meal to satisfy my craving. It was sirloin steak with mushroom and pine nut with kumara chips (hence the dark colour) with beans. beans was a let down because it's from those packet Watties frozen beans. nevertheless, his effort paid off..i was very satisfied after that.

incident

had a little incident today at work. we had a meeting to go through the preliminary result. after meeting finishes, i went back to my office.

my pants feel a bit wet. ODD! *ALARMed..

i went to the loo and check...GEEZ, what's wrong..did my water break!?~?~?~?

i went back to meeting area to check the chair. there was a wet belt on the chair and I had sat on it during the meeting..~PHEW

cravings

my number 1 craving for the last 28 weeks has been 'NOODLE'.
it can take the form of laksa, mee mamak, pho,hongkong cafe noodles ...
so long as it has to be some type of noodle.

on a day when I was taking study leave to study at home, this is what I whip up with whatever I can find in my kitchen pantry and fridge..

my own version of Bee Hoon Soup accompanied with small bowl of curry chicken.



Ingredients:
Mushroom
Fishballs
Cabbage
Egg
Bee Hoon

cocoa butter!

time has been moving real fast. apologise for the temporary hiatus.

i can't come up with a suitable title for this post. cc suggested a few ideas, i have settled with what you are seeing.

in the past month, i have turned one year older and wiser I hope.
had a small shared dinner with my lifegroup. cakes etc..
but this birthday will be different from the rest of my birthdays.
me and jake will become parents in 13 more weeks. below's a peep of me and my bump.

pic taken at week 23


shared dinner - we had cakes, indonesian gado-gado, filipino rice and stir fry veggies, beef rendang and what's a birthday dinner without long life noodle. we cooked a pot of 'bek ting yueh' to go with the long life noodle.

Bukit bintang/Jln Alor food galore

you can't be far away from food in the Bukit Bintang area and Jalan Alor.
late at night we took a stroll from our hotel to the hawker stall strip @ jalan alor. it's full of life.
tried the satay and it was nice. btw, the prices are not standardized..




went to the above stall for the penang char kuay tiaw. it was YUMMMM..we walked around looking for frog claypot dish too..finally found it at the store below..(it's located somewhere in the midle part of jln alor)




we also tried out the herbal tea from Gong Ho. It was a big no-no to try the dimsum at the HKstyle cafe. Felt cheated.

Petronas Twin Tower

i had been to this place a few times. first time, karen brought me there, we were in KLCC mostly, sitting by the bench watching shoppers buy things, particularly the rich shoppers from Middle East.

the year before, jake and I went there but the twin tower is not open to public. (the 42nd floor)

this year, jake again wanted to go. We had watched a documentary in Bangkok about the construction of the towers and i guess that sort of make me slightly more interested.


i had to take a pic of a notice in the KL Philarmonic Hall as it says LANG LANG will not be performing the symphony orchestra. *wink. Only knew Lang can sing and didn't know she's involved in the orchestra.

the others are just pics of 'things' around/in the towers. the 42nd floor skywalk is pic no 3 (2nd row) only the lower level skywalk is open to the public. we took some aerial shots of the 'golden triangle'.