10th Dec - A day running errands

The girls had their braces fixed today and since their appointment is in the morning, I decided to make the day running all my errands. I wouldn't have to do this if we didn't make that last minute trip to Bangkok, though I'm not complaining. It's a rare chance that we're able to leave for a short holiday this time since both girls had finished their major examinations and I've stopped their tuitions.  

Orthodontist finished with his masterpiece with the 2 girls at around 11+, we made way for lunch at Ichiban Boshi at Shaw Centre (at first) but we walked out after that still debating where to go for lunch. 

In the end, I decided that Parkway would have all the places I needed to go. Bank, shops and food - they will definitely find something to eat, well perhaps I should say something that they miss eating there since ... we literally lived there for 10 years!! 

1) Needed to get 2 new sweaters for lil' one since she kindda outgrew hers (finally!). At the same time che-che picked a coat for herself. She wanted mine but I love mine so got her a new one. I told her it'll be her last coat, she's spent the most amount of money every year as she keeps growing sideways. If she can't fit the next year then she'll have to 自己搞定. 

2) Daiso to get some empty bottles, a pair of scissors to cut their food for the next few days.

3) School shoes for lil' one. She kept pestering me to get her shoes with shoelaces. Somebody feels ashamed wearing velcro shoes in secondary school. Haha! 

4) A quick check on my TO-DO list on phone and I suddenly realised what was inkling in my mind before I left Orchard, I knew I had to drop by somewhere but simply cannot recall where. Was suppose to go down LUSH but .... oh well, I dropped by at Kiehl's instead. Shall blog about the Kiehl products in another entry. 

5) Secondary school - to check if they have booklist and their opening hours on 31st Dec. Will need to register lil' one another day. 

6) School pinafore and adjusted belt hook and ironed name label back home. We're left with the blouse and PE attire which I can settle on 31st or just let her buy it from the bookshop herself when school reopens.  

Finally home!       

Holiday getting closer and closer

Anything to do with going on a holiday makes me happy even if I've been to the country before. 

This Europe trip is beginning to materialise soon. Yay! And it is shown especially when itineries are all done and I start printing them out. Hmm...... I don't think I should be doing this next year right? 

But we have made plans for US in 2019. (Yay! More national parks) so might need some planning and booking to be done.    

I'm still dreaming about going on a holiday on my own. Switzerland, England, Scotland.... oh.... how I miss these countries. Sigh...........will I get the chance? 

2nd Dec - 6th Dec : A last minute trip to BKK

Hubby had a business trip to make to BKK, and at last minute he asked if we wanted to join him. And since his company has already made his flight bookings, he made one for us on Scoot which happens to have a departure timing close to his.  

Food! The girls came across this fries cart in the mall

What happened during the day is that my dear friend, Richard, saw my FB posting and asked where we will be staying and he would book a flight down from Chiang Mai to join us 

3rd Dec

Who's that monster?

The only way to keep her quiet (cucumber over her lips. Haha!)

Only che-che knows how to enjoy.

The girls are up for facial to look pweety, the man handsome enough so just need a foot massage. Ha!

My fav thai dessert - kanom buang 
Erawan Shrine as seen from the bridge.
Che-che found her fav snack, she rmbrs the previous provision shop at mom's place sells this. She would always buy this, imagine the excitement on her face when she exclaimed "my fav snack! I'll always buy this when I was at mama's place." Suddenly she's like a young girl
Mom's old-fashioned face cream which is so hard to find

They arrived in BKK Went back to hotel and then met them up at the hotel lobby. They booked at the same hotel as us. Reunion with old time friends at Coca Restaurant. Thanks for accomodating to us for choosing the venue.

oops! It's that wrong pic Richard - where we can only see our faces but not yours.

#thatmistylook#

4th Dec

Floating Market where we are the goods on sale. You can see that I hardly do a selfie with my awkward pose

Wat Pho

Lovely dinner treat from Richard and Irene. 

5th Dec 

We had Japanese lunch with Richard and Irene before they fly back. The short time spent was indeed memorable. Richard chuckled at the thought that hubby was able to join us for many meals and asked him if he was actually holidaying or working. Haha! 

A respite from the heat - a pure joy just standing beneath the narrow aircon vent

Our dinner. My fav - basil chicken 

Their last stop for fries - Potato Corner

Woah! You hardly see this. They're holding hands (lol)

Last min buy before we leave for home the next morning.
Must pack this back to hotel coz tummy couldn't take in anymore, Late night snack.

6th Dec

七早八早. Early morning flight for us while the man stayed behind.
Lil' one drooled on me (yeeks!)
"Cabin crew please open the airvents." - oh my! I haven't seen this ancient aircraft for a while

Flying over dunno where but when you see those big tankers ship you know you're near home

Home!
Time to get busy unpacking and packing up for next trip in a week's time. I don't mind this jet setting lifestyle though. #ifonlyicould#

Another award to sum up her secondary school year

Opened our filled to the brim mailbox, was sifting out all the junk mails. In the end, only left with a few worthy mails. And somehow I recognised the font in the transparent see-through portion (the envelope is a plain envelope) on one envelope.

Surprise! Surprise! Che-che got another award. Well....must be her results all lousy to begin with lor.. Well, I don't mind if this applies to her final O's results coz that's what really matters. 

Che-che's response was really funny. "Huh? Not again? Can I don't go for the ceremony?"           

Well, her last award to sum up her secondary school. She had another award from the school this year. That makes a total of 4 or 5 awards from both school and Edusave from secondary alone.

Kiasu-ism to the max

Some time back I commented on my Facebook page that lil’ one classmates are sent for tuition barely a month after their PSLE. Well, that evoked only a few response. The rests kept quiet so I suspect they must be secretly doing that too?! 

So will changing the DSA criteria help in anyway? Will eliminating exams help? End of the day, is it the system or the parents that is driving the education up? 

Makes me think, maybe what I thought I was being kiasu and drilling in work is probably not enough as what other parents do. Maybe some secretly are working like in the dungeons? Hmm.....poor children !! 

14th - 18th Oct (Sun - Thu) : 去香港走走

Brought lil' one and mom to HKG on PSLE marking days. It's been 4 years since I last went on a holiday with mom too! 

Chose HKG as I wanted somewhere near since it's only 4 days and another reason is that it's a place where you can go without any itinery, just eat and wat; walk and walk. I can't chiong with lil' grandma coz' she's not a good sightseeing kaki. 

Mood is always happy when leaving the country. Mom came and stay over the night before (Saturday) so that we can make our way to the airport together. And since it's Sunday, the man and che-che sent us off at the airport. Before that, a meal at Paradise Dynasty made both girls super happy.

On board

Asked lil' one who she wanted to sit with and she chose grandma. I had to tell mom not to overly care about lil' one's eating since she's big enough that we don't have to fuss over her.   

吃了就睡， 像一只小猪猪

Actually I  can sleep on the short flight too!

Arrangements and bookings for transportation to hotel were done a month before, so all we needed to do was to wait but after I had collected our MTR cards. Bookings have been made easier with travel booking platform like Klook. To be safe, I had them all printed out in hard copies as well.   

                                       

Booked a hotel at TTS, a place so fondly remembered. Our hotel is near Kowloon Hotel, that one with the cutey triangular room. 

To the supermarket to stock up drystores and makan at 10+pm

15th Oct (Mon)

Since we all settled into the hotel rather late the night before, we woke up later than usual. Anyway with a place like HKG no one will starve. A slow start to the day. Tim sum in the morning at the nearby crew place. However since it was years ago, I couldn't remember the name of the restaurant. It isn't there anymore but in the first floor was Symphony By Jade. 

Since we didn't have any itinery except to make a trip down to Wong Tai Sin Temple to pray that the teachers will be blind when it comes to marking her script (mark all her wrong answers as correct; mark all her correct answers as correct) so we made sure we chewed our food slowly.  Took a slow walk around the promenade before train-ing down to the temple.  

@ Times Square

Dinner or late lunch at 4+pm. Since we had a late brunch and had bubble tea and snacks in between. Our meals were all jumbled up. Hee!  

16th Oct (Tue) 

Breakfast before Disneyland

Saliva chicken anyone?

Off to Disneyland in a cab. Saw that mom was getting tired easily and limping the day before, decided that we should not stinge on the money and go there in comfort. We also saved time on travelling. 

Lil' one was very excited going to the happiest place on earth.

See the look on her face. First thing she did was to walk into this shop. And then we were hanging around, like the Halloween decorations there in Main Street for the next 4hrs, leaving only for a short while. Ha! All because we spent time on queuing for Meet & Greet her fav Duffy friends characters. 

Mom and lil' one

Mom by the big friendly pumpkin

The Band plays...........

To the future >>

Mom didn 't take the ride so she sat at a place waiting for us. I feel so bad...

She told me after the ride. "It's too fast already."

Mom gotta sit by the pavement, waiting for the parade. Meanwhile, a snack before the proper meal as it'll be some time later before we can have a proper meal

Mom the super happy one, waving and clapping. It sure brought out the child in mom.

Meanwhile, lil' one trying to act mature.

Finally! Lunch then went back to Main Street for can't remember who Meet & Greet.

Mom had to follow us walk here and there despite the pain in her legs. 

Normally I don't drink Cola but I really needed caffeine to boost myself up. Continuous queuing also tiring leh!

Don't say we never take any rides in Disneyland.

In actual fact, with this lil' grandma who's afraid of rides, Disneyland or any theme parks is not worth the money, she only dared to go on the kiddy ones. #seemyeyesrolling# Mom went in for this kiddy ride too! 

So many Tsum tsums. Lucky she never asks to buy

#1 Must take spot. Her butt can't fit the bucket now. Haha!

@ night - Mickey Projection Show

Bye Disneyland! Happy face on mummy. She had a sad face

Die die also don't let me carry any bags for her. She bought alot of things as if there is no tomorrow

Dinner at a nice Viet eatery near hotel.

After back in hotel, the girls were Facetiming and she showed off what she bought, to the envy of che-che. She exclaimed she should also get one more stuff toy coz they look cute. And che-che also wanted the same handphone case, so I suggested we could try it at the airport since we have another place to go the next day.

But I have mixed feelings deep down in my heart. I know she wants to go back Disneyland again and I didn't want to disappoint her too. You know that feeling of a mummy wanting to pamper her child? 

We didn't know we can ask them to sign autograph (I mean usually we just take picture n go) until we saw the people before us doing that. So in an emergency, with her favourite character Gelatoni I couldn't let any chance go and asked her if she wanted Gelatoni to sign on her bag and she was fine with it

While waiting in between, we popped by into the shop again and then I told her I'd get her a book.   

Then we started filling up the pages. That's the reason why we spent like 4hrs in that area alone. We queued up like 4 times? Twice for Gelatoni. And she hugged Gelatoni and was really happy. 

17th Oct (Wed)

Breakfast at a Macau eatery. Very comforting food. Yet, the 3 of us can't finish these! 

Took a cab to Ngong Ping Cable Car Terminal and took a cable car up to Ngong Ping.

Nottie lil' one never pack her cardigan in SIN!! I reminded her time and time again in SIN and even last night to pack, she kept quiet all the time. I was feeling cold coz I had to give her mine! But still tolerable since I have so much blubs

Mom got Buddha in her palm

This is what I mean when I say bringing this girl out for holiday is really troublesome. We barely finished our breakfast an hour ago and she's hungry again! If it’s not snack stop; it’s pee stop, rest legs stop. 🚦 and 🚥. Aiyoh my lil’ grandma.....

Which mom also looked forward too coz she was getting tired

I couldn't even cover the spots!! I was thinking if I should climb up to the top but not that fit myself so might take a longer time. As both of them were tired and sat somewhere waiting for me, I couldn't keep them waiting for long right?

#notmykaki#

We finished this place within 2hrs and since it was early I secretly made a booking to Disneyland again on Klook. 

Lil' one excited coz she got her wish of going to Disneyland again. And perhaps a chance to see Shellie May? 

Happy Aricia, sad mummy coz it means spending more money

We didn't have luck with Shellie May. She only had 2 sessions on this day, and I couldn't check the day before on the timing. We missed the first one as we stepped into the park at that same time.

The second session, we were hanging around Main Street. But when we went to check on the queue, those people said they were queuing for Duffy. We left and barely 5mins later, I told her to go back again. The guy had to stop the line just at her! Argh! It was that fast!!

So the only chance is to wait near the changing room

She was really happy when I showed her this picture

Mummy 不甘愿 see daughter sad so asked staff if could pass the book to sign. Staff initially refused said I have to come back tomorrow. I explained we had a flight the next day and infact this is our second day here. Then he took pity on this sully looking woman.

I took a video of her signing. Lil' one was so happy when she saw Shellie May kissing her book. Haha!

As SM got out, lil' one got the chance to Hi5 to her.

She's a little satisfied.

Really crazy of me to do this with her, but when you're in Disneyland you need to have patience and energy to chase after characters/ kids running to characters. Maybe she'll stop this in 1-2years. By then I'll be old to run after her also!

As long as she's happy, I'd be willing to do some sacrifice for her.   

Her all- time favourite ride. Must always go on this. Oh! And I found another pic of her (2007). The #2 spot

Scaredy cat dare not take the rides here.

Wanted to take pic with Jessie but she's scared of Buzz, which is really strange as she's all grown up now.  

Villians Night Out

Hugging one of her bag

Back to the Viet eatery again. Friendly staffs.

Lil' one couldn't wait and facetimed sister to show her off what her gifts were.

If you think that this is all that she bought, you are wrong. We came back with our bags filled to the brim with Disney stuffs. 

18th Oct (Thu)

Early in the morning, checking out from hotel and finally arriving at the airport. Last tim sum before going in transit area. Went to the Disney shop one last time for last minute buy. 

Settled in for the flight home

She wanted to use her new Shellie May bag immediately, so I told her not to put it on the floor. Used the blanket wrapper to cover her precious bag. 

Well as long as my lil' one is happy, I'm happy