Malaysia has summer all year round.  Hmmm… do I have to tell you that? lol.  Well, I do get question by my 8y/o as why Malaysia has no snow… why we live in Earth and not Planet Mars…. why the sea water is salty… why it rains…  That one I know!  “God up in Heaven is crying when he sees how naughty you are.”  You know, sometime we need to take God as alibi especially when you can tell your 8y/o is lying.  I used to say this, “You better tell the truth cos God up in heaven will know” or “You better not steal cos God up in heaven can see even though Mummy can’t see.”  I’m so sorry God.

Gee…. why am I saying all this. *slap self*  Anyway, I did a little of digital scrapbooking here.  Photographs was taken during one of our weekend outing to the park.  Kids are making themselves comfortable on my yoga mat and at the same time, playing games on my iPhone. Hmm… I’m itch for some picnic again.  Who want to join me?  Wesak Day?  Weekend?  TTDI?  Morib?  Anything la!

The strawberries that I’ve bought from Cameron Highlands are really sour. So sour that one will shiver from the neck down to the spine! A sour strawberry is best eaten with whipped creme or blend them into smoothies. Well, this is MY way of making a healthy cup of strawberry milkshake.

Frozen some strawberry flavoured milk in an ice tray. Frozen a cup of low fat yoghurt too. Once set, place them in a blender with 6 pieces of fresh strawberries. Add sugar syrup according to your liking (optional). Blend ingredients till smooth.

There you go. Garnish and serve immediately.

Bento Mania #6

I have here rolled chicken ham, cheese and white bread. For dessert, strawberries and two pieces of jelly. Princess is thrilled when she saw the rolled up sandwich but refused to bring the jellies to school. Her reason was, “My Teacher say jelly is not nutritious. I cannot bring non nutritious food to school.” Grr….

This is what we called an octopus sausage. The next item that I am going to invest is a food colouring pen. It’s edible and not poisonous. How come those rare thing can only be found overseas except Malaysia? *sigh… Far back is a heart shape white bread with cheese. I guess this is just nice for the Mother’s Day theme. That’s the mummy octopus and Princess octopus. Prince octopus is hiding in another bento box. As usual la. Shy ma. *sticking out tongue*

Just in case if I don’t update tomorrow, Hijackqueen would like to wish all mothers A Happy Mother’s Day and please say hi to your Mom for me 😉 .

p/s: For Daddies out there, you know what to do la.

… story continue from Part 1 here

We was kinda disappointed to found out that the Strawberry season has just over. Our hope of letting the kids hand pick the Strawberries was dashed, not to mentioned the hand pick of cherry tomatoes and also the carrot. I think November/December is the best month to go. We proceed to the hydroponic vegetable plantation.

My Mom never encourage us to eat hydroponic veges. You should try to understand how a hydroponic works. All the chemical in the water and such. I rather consume veges that grows on natural mineral from the ground minus the pesticide la, of course.

The farm is really a beautiful sight with all the greens.

Each time I asked Prince to take a snapshot, he keeps on stretching out his arm. Either he is mimicking me or the scarecrow. I will have to ask him to stop or else all the photographs here will have him looking like a scarecrow.

I love this family shot, minus me *sigh…

Don’t ask me how it happens. Out of the blue, no. 1 lifted no. 3 tight and then no. 2 follow suit by lifting up no. 3 foot. The slipper sure spoil the picture but look at them, they are so crazy, so happy, so silly, so full of me 🙂 .

Want to know something? If not because Prince wanted to get a bite, we would have miss this vegetable farm cos it is situated somewhere up on the hill. Even though it is not that high up, we (the adults!) was pretty tired chasing after kids in the strawberries farm. Yea, laziness is such a disgrace sometimes. Shame on me.

Passing thru the vegetable farm, we are at their cafe. Lots of food stuff made from strawberry or rather have strawberries in them. For example the strawberry shake, waffle, fried strawberry ice-cream, salad bar, icicles, you just name it they have everything there.

Deep fried strawberry flavoured ice-cream

It sure looks very appetizing to see her drool like this. Priceless!

pssst…. off season strawberries are sour. Very sour indeed!

After the quick bite, we headed downhill again. On the way down, we took more photographs.

I can’t recalled the name of this farm. It is quite big though. Most of the picture you saw here is shot mainly here.

I did some shopping here after observing their prices. The strawberry jam – cheapest price I saw RM6. Cherry tomatoes 5pkt for RM10. Pearl sweet corn 5 pcs for RM10. Even in Klang pasar malam, they are selling at 3 pcs for RM10. I think it is a very good buy. Not much choices for fresh strawberry since I hardly saw any. I just simply grab one big box at RM10 for the sake of buying. You know, going to CH isn’t complete without buying the strawberries. So yea, even though the sizes is quite petite I just bought one box. My initial plan is to buy about 6 boxes for my fondue party. Looks like the fondue party will have to wait.

Driving back to Tanah Rata, part of the sky turn orangy.

My first attempt shot of the sky in a moving vehicle. Not bad yea?

Our steamboat dinner:

See that? Charcoal! We ordered food for 3 person at the price of RM45. They have prawns, octopus, jelly fish, tofu, beancurd sheets, meat balls, fish balls, chicken, pork, noodles, vermicelli and lots of greens! That’s all about it. A bit over priced but at least we enjoy the meal in the cool climate.

Well, something surprised me tho. While I was half way saying grace, Prince intercepted and he said something very touching. I tried to recalled what was that but sorry yea, my memory failed me again. Teheehee…

Something like… “thank you Daddy for bring us to Cameron Highland. We are very happy….”

We headed back to the hotel at 8.00pm. The kids have a roll in the bath tub, busy spitting custard apple’s seed (we bought that from home not from CH), munching Twisties and watched three quarter of Terminator before all of us peacefully drifted to dreamland at 10.30pm.

The next morning we check out from the hotel before catching our breakfast. We tried to look for the carrot farm where you can hand pick them. Lo and behold…. I think I’ll have to drag along my eldest sister in December. At the meantime, no carrot pic though.

We stopped by Smokehouse to take some photographs. Err… they all turned out quite crappy.

Something or someone is always not right. For example Baby Princess. She kept on running away from the camera. Or either that, she refused to smile.

… sometimes showing us the ‘half-dead’ face.

… sometimes the dSLR makes me look so fat.

But with Eldest Princess, everything is just a breeze.

Crappy pic again. The shadow is not supposed to appear on her face. Ah, well…

Last stop would be the tea plantation before we headed home. We stopped by Bharat again. The kids is sure happy to run around the tea tree. Lets leave the pic to do the justice.

No. 1 & No. 2 was seen running down hill. I’m waiting with capture no. 3.

Did you see anything wrong in this picture? Where is her slipper???!!! I think she can’t catch up with the 2 eldest and decided to abandoned her slipper. Don’t ask me why she is on slipper. She just loves slipper!

And then, they was singing some big aeroplane and small aeroplane song in Mandarin and was seen going round and round.

errr… crappy right? This is just a tea plantation not some playground or anything! I can’t imagine why they enjoy themselves so much here.

“Ok, time to go home!”

And she slip her foot into the slipper and pick up another side of her slipper. She decided to walk all the way to the car in that manner! Gosh, she always did something crazy to make me faint!

All in, we had a great time in CH even though it is just a short trip. And we ask Prince if he wanted to visit CH again. His answer is………………. NO! Why? Because this little boy has carsickness on the way up and down CH. Coming down was bad for him cos he threw up twice. Daddy say we should go back CH in December. I ask, “How about next year December?”

We made a short trip up to Cameron Highlands on a weekends just to chilled a bit. It was raining by the time we reached the Boh tea plantation in Bharat. Instead of stopping for tea and scones, we continue driving up to Tanah Rata where our hotel is. Well, it is stated on my reservation paper that check-in time will be at 3pm. But you know, some hotel never really bother about the time. Once the guest is there, they will allocate a room for them. But Heritage Hotel is different. 3pm means 3pm. Not negotiable at all. Well, since we have 2 hours to kill and our tummy is grumbling, we have to brave through rain and storm for some chicken rice. The chicken was left in the cold weather and has turned dried but when someone is hungry, everything seems so delicious.

Good thing the rain has stopped by the time we finished our lunch and we headed down to Bharat again to the tea plantation which was about 10 minutes drive only.

Blessed our Lord. Without him bringing the rain, I won’t have a nicer picture without the mist. While waiting for our tea and scones to be served, we camwhore a bit. And I mean not only a bit. A lot tho! Ahem, so Ladies and Gentleman…. you know my style la. This post is again being spammed by me with lots of photographs.

My son turned out to be my back-up photographer this time. Hey, he has got potential you know. I think I will teach him the SLR skills instead of pointing blankly with the PNS. And I wonder how he does this. The image is very clear but the background is totally over exposed.

Seeing that shots, Daddy is quite jeles and trying to out beat the Prince.

Scones are over priced at RM12 for this 2 miserable scones.

Well…the taste? I didn’t want to say that it is very very nice. Well, it is nice but anything that you eat while it is still hot is always delicious. I’m saying this cos the scones is already overrated by patronage so I’m trying to keep it a balance here. Tehehee…

After the camwhoring and tea break session in the Tea Plantation, we check-in to our hotel and started our touring. My main purpose going up to CH is to let the kids explore the nature and did a little education as how veges, fruits and flowers are grown.

Basically, we stop at every plantation we saw hoping to find something different each time. Unlike Genting Highlands, kids was let loose and run wild at the Theme Park. In CH, the kids did what the other tourist does.

Eldest Princess is now the new owner of my old Sony T-10.

I have no choice as Prince wanted to be part of us. He is seen here using his Daddy’s Sony Ericcsson camera phone and occasionally took over my dSLR when Daddy is hiding somewhere no where to be seen.

Blame it on Global Warming, the weather is quite warm actually. CH used to be cooler than GH but now, it is the other way round. I still remember the last time we was in GH, we was freezing!

CH has turned too commercialized.

Home made icicles like this was sold everywhere at RM1. You know what? My city kids doesn’t know how to eat icicles! They keep on munching the ice from the top opening instead of pushing the ice from the bottom. Aiyah, where has their common sense go to? Baby Princess is even worst. She took the whole icicle out from the plastic! I almost fainted.

You should see Prince pretending eating the tomatoes. His mouth is so small, so sissy, I decided not to show you guys the pic. hehe…

Some of you might not be aware that Strawberry has season too. Best time to go CH is during Nov/Dec. This is what you get in May.

Unripe strawberries! But hey, this is my favourite shots of all!

Not only you see unripe strawberries, there is hardly any strawberry sold at the plantation. My chances of buying dried strawberries is dashed too.

Camwhoring time!!!

Son played photographer again and I told him to mimic my action.

See! Told you! His mouth is so small. Hehe… maybe he is not that vain like the Mummy. I think girls make a better camwhore than boys.

Baby Princess (read: Koala bear) wants to stick with Mummy again. *sigh…

This is not shot by me. I think must be Prince. So yea, this is his masterpiece again. I love the composition.

The dirty mug has turned out to be something beautiful.

… to be continue in Part 2 where we visited the hydroponic vegetable farm.

This is a three layered tuna sandwich & cheese. Something that is easy and quick to prepare on a rush Monday morning. What you don’t see in the picture is another 2 skewed sandwiches which was forcefully squeeze in that compartment later on so that Daughter will have enough for herself and also her classmate. (*sigh…).  To compliment the bread, there is the Doremon strawberry yogurt drink

If you are someone who like Transformers or marvel hero type of movie, go watch Iron Man. By the time I walked out the cinema, I wish I can fly vertically up the sky with lots of smoke coming out from my palm and feet. And, and suddenly I am my Son’s target (Read: Kungfu fighting) pretending we are fighting with smoke and fire coming out from our palm and bullets coming out from our shoulder. As usual he is always the good ones and I have to play the bad guy role. You should see the way he throw himself on the floor when I return his shot. That is so real. Ah, it was a good movie tho. Don’t miss it.

On the other hand, Eldest Princess has now earned herself a green belt.

The following is just some silly photograph we took last weekend.

errr… errr… I better not say anything here.

Please ignore the two silly ladies on the right.  Look at my son.  So full of concentration and so serious. I like!

And now, please ignore the serious looking boy and look at the two silly ladies in the background.  Eldest princess can performed a very nice split eh?

Ok, ok. For once, we all need to be serious in self defence. HAI YAK, KA CHOWWWWW! poWWWW!

My son told us that he wants to watch Iron Man again.  Who wants to bring him along?

The rain has just stop but did not completely stop. Gazing out my front door, I saw a humming bird bathing under the gushing water from the gutter. I quickly ran and get my camera. That was a quick under 10 seconds sprint but the bird is no where to be seen. Too bad, the bird didn’t want to be seen bathing nakid and probably ended up in the blogsphere. Boohoo!

Since I have my camera in my hand, I just shot the water droplet from the fence.

Timing has to be right even thought the cam was set at multiple shots. Out of 20, this is the closest to what I’ve wanted.

And out of 50, I could only managed to capture 2 shots with the water splashing. Obviously the water drops from the roof/gutter.

Aitelyu, I spent a good 20 minutes squatting in the water puddle snapping this. By the time I’m done, you can see me walking like a duck. My bad back la!

Tulips and cherry blossom are two type of my favourite flowers. Since it is now Spring in most of the 4 season country, I can’t help but to ogle over their p.r.e.t.t.y flowers. Wuching is someone who loves gardening thus his enthusiasm helps him to start a new gardening blog. And each time I am there, I will go so envy looking at his props that my face is starting to turn green like his plants too.

Since Wuching lub me so much and he is afraid that one day I might turn into a Shreak, he decided to sent over a bouquet of flowers to me all the way from Melbourne (Read: PROVIDED THE FLOWERS BLOOM!) so that I won’t die with a green face.

Well, the package is here now. Woohoo!

Infact, this is supposed to be a post-dated post. The package arrived last week. He is quite skeptical that the tulip will grow in our climate but I just have to try. Who know! And he insisted that I try daffodil too cos they are easier to grow than tulip.

Upon opening the package, beside the 2 packet of bulbs, Terese (his darling) included 2 packets of dried pineapple. Awww… isn’t she sweet? If I would have known, I will ask him to stuff in a packet of Tim Tam. Aussie Tim Tam is such a die for! If you must check out the price, a packet of Tim Tam in Jaya Jusco cost you about RM10.90!

This is how a bulbs looks like.

The one on the left is daffodils and on the right is tulips. Before we put the tulips in the soil, we must play a trick on the bulbs first. It says here on the direction to put the bulbs in a paper bag and place them in the crisper compartment in your fridge for 30 days. This is to trick the bulbs that winter is over and it is now time to sprout. Smart eh?

Instead of putting them in a paper bag (which I assume newspaper), I have a special container from Tupperware to keep my greens crisp and fresh.

There it goes, the tulip bulbs.  I’ll see you in a months time.

By the time I’m writing out this post, the daffodil bulbs is already in the soil.  I water them with icy cold water and sometimes i place some ice cubes in the pot.  My daughter thinks that I’m crazy. Well, I would be really crazy if I lug the flower pot in the aircon room with me! (which I think I’m going to do if I don’t see any sprouting sign on the bulbs)

Wish me luck!

What is your reaction when your dotter came home and told you that she has been sharing her lunch with her classmate? Well, I did not want her to be selfish and at the same time, I want her to be aware of some classmate who likes to take advantage on people (like getting a feel meal!). And of course I asked if her classmate bring a lunch box too. The answer is yes but not as luxurious as mine! . Well, she also claimed that they have been sharing meals and her friend’s bread with honey is yummy. I almost puke. So from there onwards, I make sure I have something extra for her friend so that dotter will have a more fulling meal.

For this bento, I have some mini cupcake which I baked the night before, carrot sticks and dip.