Sibu Trip 22–23 April 2017

It is actually a last minutes trip that Daddy made up his mind that, we should travel to Sibu and let the family have a look on the Sibu town, which was Daddy’s birth place or home town.

And, we have packed all our clothing the night before. It was an early flight, the first flight with Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur to Sibu.

It was a 2 hours flight. We actually done our check-in through online, thus it is no need for us to arrive at the KLIA2 early.

Our flight was on time and departed at 5:50am. We reached at Sibu Airport around 7:50am. It is considered pretty fast that we check-out, went to the car hire counter and got our rental car for a day at Sibu.

It is quite a distance from Sibu Airport to the Sibu town itself. We checked in the Kingwood Hotel, which is one of the oldest hotel in Sibu, and now, is upgraded to more rooms.

The hotel is strategic located at the river front, and with rooftop swimming pool, and other facilities.

Just we do not have the chance to swim as we only have 1 and a half day at Sibu to visit all the places that Daddy so eagerly to bring us to see, his childhood place.

After we put down our luggage, we just walked out from he hotel and looked for our breakfast.

The first place Daddy bring us is the Sibu Central Market Complex, where he had already fixed the appointment that he will be meeting up with his secondary school best friend – 杨必善.

必善 is Daddy’s best friend during secondary school, they have not seen each other for a long time. They were meeting each other if 必善 came to Kuala Lumpur for work wise.

This time is the first time Daddy introduced us to him. He is a famous reporter in Sibu especialize in the food and travel blog, besides he is an author of 7 books publications and he was 3 newspapers editors.

We have our breakfast and drinks together at the food court which is located upstairs of the Sibu Central Market.

Daddy helped Annabelle to order “Bian Niik” which is in Hock Chew.

It is a meat fillings in super thin Wontan-like skins, actually in KL we would call it Wonton.

Daddy ordered his favourite - “Kampua Mee” (dry noodle), also a Hock Chew delicacy.

“Kampua Mee” is Sibu’s signature dish, thin noodles tossed in pork lard and served with slices of roasted pork or minced pork balls, served either with or without a thin broth and accompanied with chilli sauce and soya sauce.

Every time Daddy go back to Kuching, he would definitely order for this noodles.

I ordered “糟菜粉乾” which is a rice noodle in a soup base using the Hock Chew traditional delicacy 糟菜.

糟菜 can be used in so many ways in traditional Hock Chew daily cooking. They use it almost for every dish.

Issac having the Hock Chew style fried noodle in thick gravy and it is tasty!

必善 introducing the Sibu town to me, as I am a foreigner in this land beside the river.

He is just like a walking dictionary about Sibu. He introduce me about the history of Sibu, the Chinese pioneers and the latest development, as I am not from Sibu. He asked us to pay a visit to the Sibu Heritage Centre later.

After our breakfast, we walked around the food court and looked for another of their schoolmates which is selling the “Kong Pia” or 光饼.

“Kong Pia” is another Sibu delicacy and it is similar like to the bagel. Roasted tandoori style, these fresh bread rolls are served in a variety of ways. We ordered the one serve in a rich pork broth with slices of stewed pork, it is really nice!

Unfortunately I also forgot to take the photos of this delicious “Kong Pia”.

After finish our breakfast, then we left the Sibu Central Market and start our journey to walk around in the town centre, where 必善 also headed back to his office.

Then, only we realised the time flies so fast, it is already past noon. We were actually having our brunch instead of breakfast.

We walked through the old streets of Sibu town, both side are the traditional old shops selling the groceries, traditional Chinese style coffee shops, some Malay restaurants and Indian restaurants as well.

I love the environment and the surrounding atmosphere, even though are different races but they respect each other in earn a living in this small space.

We came to the famous Ding Bian Hu 鼎边糊 shop. It is located at a small alley near Butterfly Park or the old Sibu Bus Station. It is also Hock Chew delicacy too!

What is so special about this dish, and make everyone come to Sibu, would want to try and a must have?

Mix the rice flour with water, cook it around the rim of wok with the broth boiling in the wok.

When the rice flour is cooked, scrap it into the broth. Garnished with fish balls, cuttlefish, black fungus, deep fried shallots and pepper. It should be served with ceramic bowl and spoon.

The shop is small and had limited seats. Therefore, sometimes it is always full of patrons. The cook is an old uncle and had been cooking Ding Bian Hu for many decades according to 必善, since their school days.

How funny is that, this is the first time Daddy tasted 鼎边糊 too, together with us!

At first, we just ordered 1 bowl just to try out as we just had our brunch. Ended up, we got to order another bowl again because it is so tasty!

And, we forgot to take a photo with this yummylicious! And, the how it cook too, also every interesting process to see it!

After which, we came to the Sibu Heritage Centre and the sky was started to rain.

We were just in time to go in and avoid to get ourselves wet.

We were spending about 1 hour here, exploring about the uniqueness of the building and information on Sibu culture and history.

The entrance fee to Sibu Heritage Centre is free of charge.

We headed to the famous Tua Pek Kong Temple which is located beside the Rejang River.

We did not go in to the Temple and climb the Pagoda, because we were too tired to climb.

But it was so lucky of us that we had the chance to see the “Tong Kang”s that parked along the jetty and doing the loading of the various types of groceries and daily household items unto the “Tong Kang”s.

All these “Tong Kang”s will sail through a long the Rejang River, and go to the “Kampong”s along the Rejang River and sell the necessity to the villagers there. This is quite a new experience for us.

The sky was getting darker and we headed to the hotel.

We walked through the Rejang Esplanade which is actually just along the way on our way to Kingwood Hotel.

We saw a passengers express boat just parked at the jetty.

Until we walked near to the big statue of swan, then we know we already arrived. It was almost 3.00pm when we arrived our hotel.

We rested and take a nap as we were woke up early this morning to catch the flight.

Our family went out again after we took our bath around 6.30pm in the evening. We have the dinner together with 必善 and Daddy’s other friends: Lyn together with her 2 sons, and another friend Su Wen.

All the old school boys and girl were so many things to talk about during the dining time.

Daddy drove us back to hotel first to take a rest, then he went out again together with them for the 2nd round for a drink or chit-chatting or catching up after 26 years.

Issac, Annabelle and Mummy were so tired, after we reached the hotel we talked for a while, then both changed into their pyjamas and went to their beds. It is quite a rush trip but we were quite enjoyed in this trip.

As tomorrow we have a flight to catch back to Kuala Lumpur and we have to attend the Kuala Lumpur District Preparing for the Priesthood and Young Women as Issac is going to be turning 12 end of this year.

It is really a short and enjoyable trip for us!

Movie Date: Boss Baby

3 of us feel so bored in the house after almost a week of “quarantine” in our own home, because of the chickenpox.

Our daily routine are doing the usual vacuum cleaning and mopping the floor in the morning, having the breakfast at home which take away from the Kopitiam.

Then the children will do their homework and eduseeds workbooks, I will do the laundry, then take sometime to write my blog and tidy up our family photos and stored it on the cloud, etc.

After few days, both Issac and Annabelle were feeling boring at home. I was seeing their chickenpox blisters getting dry up and thinking of may be it is time for us to “sneak out” from our quarantine, watching a movie perhaps.

So here we are in the IOI Mall GSC Cinema to have a movie date of watching Boss Baby.

Well, there are really not a lot of people watching movie in the morning, especially during working days.

The Boss Baby is a hilariously universal story about how a new baby’s arrival impacts a family, told from the point of view of a delightfully unreliable narrator, a wildly imaginative 7 years old named Tim. With a sly, heart-filled message about the importance of family.

We enjoyed the movie very much! We know that family is important! We have a great laugh and went back home satisfying with this movie! What a movie date with both Issac and Annabelle !

Annabelle Get Pampered 14 Apr 2017

Today is Good Friday. Both Issac and Annabelle are no school and Daddy too taken a day off for this special day. But not for me, I am still have to work.

Daddy took Annabelle to hair salon for her hair cut and treatment. From the photos Daddy sent, can see that Annabelle is enjoying herself for the ‘treats’ that Daddy give.

Annabelle got her hair treatment done

Getting her hair wash

Getting her hair dry and style

Good Manners & Courtesy School ~ Phone Manners Classroom

Serving Others #6 ~ Learn about and practice good manners and courtesy

The 3rd class of our Good Manners & Courtesy School is Phone Manners Classroom. It is all about some basics in phone etiquette, and have them practice phone conversations.

Huge part of everyone’s life is telephone, answering machines, cell phones, text messaging and handled incorrectly can make others uncomfortable.

General rule of answering and making phone calls are be pleasant, speak clearly and most importantly Smile because you can Hear it through phone!

How to Answer A Telephone Call - Make up a true or false quiz about telephone manners such as: “Hey! Who is this?” is always a pleasant way to begin telephone conversations.

• Answering: ‘Yes, this is she/he’
• ‘Just a moment, please.’

How to Take Message - Or “May I take a message” – then deliver it.

• If someone wants to leave an important message, just try to remember what they said as best you can.
• Or, You don’t have to give any information at all to strangers on the telephone ~ not even your name, how old you are, where your parents are, your address, or anything else.

How to Make A Telephone Call -

• Call Waiting: ask to take the call – then be brief.
• Avoid anything that will make the first person you were talking to feel less important.
• Answering machines: speak slowly, give full name and phone clearly.

Telephone Basics -

• Talk about phone manners like not screaming for your parents when it’s for them, etc.
• How to properly answer the phone. This would be an easy thing to get ready and be fun too. They could use this for their hospitality focus.

Make Sure It Is Appropriate to Take or Make a Call -

• Not in restaurants, bus, theatre, stores (especially checking out),school
• Not when it leaves others in your presence hanging
• No texting or talking when driving

For an activity, take in a couple telephones and have the children role-play telephone conversations. Give them situations to act out. Example: Your sister’s friend is calling for her and she’s in the bathroom, etc.

Hopefully after this activity, both Issac and Annabelle will be more alert during answering telephone calls!

Issac & Annabelle Infected with Chickenpox

It was Tuesday night that Annabelle started to say that she was not feeling well and feel very hot. The night had been very warm in our house. I did not notice at all and I assumed it may have been a bit of heat rash.

On Wednesday I noticed there were little blisters under her belly button. I didn’t recall seeing it before. At this point something started to ding in my brain – it was either a bad case of heat rash or the it must’ve been chicken pox.

So I wanted to go to Dr. Liew’s Clinic to get his consultation, unfortunately his clinic was not opened on Wednesdays.

Thus, we have to wait till the next day. From then on the spots just kept coming, I felt like I could literally see them appearing by the hour. In fact, Issac was infected then.

The blisters were generally pretty small except for a few larger ones around his groin area and hips. They just looked like little blisters and some of them looked like they had tiny black dots in them.

By the time bedtime came and they were snoozing I could see that they now had them in their ears too.

Both Issac and Annabelle woke on the Thursday with a few more than he’d gone to bed with but even by then I could see that these little liquid filled blisters had started to dry up. And, yes Bingo!

Dr. Liew was pretty sure it was the chicken pox and advised us to get some antihistamines and antibiotics to help with the itching whenever it started to happen.

We were applying calamine lotion and some anti viral lotion, Dr. Liew giving them antihistamines but he was starting to get a little bit more irritated by them, although I am not sure if that was down to me praising him for coping so well so he played on it a little or if they genuinely were a bit itchy.

I am so relived to be able to say that they was not really affected at all – had they not had the visible spots I’d never have known any different.

And they were quite bored to get to spend few days at home with me, as I have to take leave to take care of them.

Family Home Evening @ Sister Saffron’s Place

Sister Saffron invited our family to her home for a family home evening dinner. We rested for a while after we came back from Church, had our lunch and did my household chores. We left to Sister Saffron’s house at 5.00pm from our home.

There were already a lot of brothers and sisters at her home, including new investigators of coarse. Sister Saffron always help our branch missionaries in doing missionary works.

All the sisters and girls were gathering at the kitchen to make the dumplings. Some sisters were making the dough, some sisters were rolling the dumplings skin, some sisters were wrapping the dumplings. All of us were enjoying each other companions and kids too were having fun doing their own dumplings.

We sung the opening hymn and prayers before the Elders shared with us their messages, before we have our dinner. It seems like we have the biggest ever group that hold the family home evening at Sister Saffron’s house tonight.

Keifer Birthday Celebration

After both Issac and Annabelle routine art classes and violin class, we straight away go to Brother Lynard and Sister Sheryl house at The Wharf, which is near our home.

         

They are inviting our family to celebrate Keifer’s birthday. We arrived there just in time, as the food just served. All are home cooked by Sister Sheryl.

         

Sister Annie, Sister Glenda, Sister Zelie together with their children were there. Besides us church members, Brother Lynard’s colleagues were coming too.

    

All the food were so delicious. The birthday cake was nice too, as Sister Sheryl really good in baking. We were having good food, companied by friends, and chit-chatting.

We stayed there about an hour and a half, after which we left and came back home.