Road Trip - Ipoh 2010

Here's the plan. 2 mothers and 6 kids on the road for 5 days to experience the sights and sounds of the people that we meet and the places that we would be visiting.

Shannon has planned out the itinerary. She would be doing all of the driving as not only is my driving rather rusty, I can't imagine driving with 6 active kids in the car. Shannon has nerves of steel and super concentration.

Mon – travel and relax.

Tue – tambun Cave RM5 entrance fees. 9am to 4pm. 3km from ipoh near tambun. Ochre drawing on cave wall. Limestone cliff depict life of prehistoric man. Degong fish drawing. Then, Tambun Hotspring

Wed -Geological Musuem@ Lorong Hariman. (opening hours mon to fri 8am to 415pm)
Briefly, exhibition of tin ore, collection of fossils and precious stones, over 600 samples of mineral.

Thur – Perak Darul Ridzuan Musuem (opening hours sat to thur 9am to 5pm )

Friday –Undecided. Leave for KL at night. If something pops up, we leave on Sat am.. so we can have family weekend in KL.
On Mon/ Wed/Thur – If we feel bored and have time, we include Sam Po Tong and Perak Tong Temples.

A Creative Week for Jianyi

On Tuesday, JY baked a beautiful butter cake, iced it with buttercream and decorated it with cute little flowers and her signature ladybug for Swathy's surprise UPSR Party. The kids had fun showering her with confetti.


Shannon bought her a yellow(Swathy's favourite colour) t-shirt and made a banner.

Thanks Shannon for the party idea.


It is important to celebrate life's little victories.

Shannon dropped us off at Ikano after the party and JY headed straight for her clay project after a meal at Ikea. She planned to complete her orchids in time for her grandparents' wedding anniversary.


And she did it!


Simply gorgeous!!





JY's pohpoh and kongkong proudly posing with their anniversary gift.





Thank you for coming all the way from Karak and preparing our all-time favourite Bak Kut Teh.




On Friday, JY wanted to bake a "I-am-Back" cake.


She took a 1 year leave from aikido and surprised me one day by saying that she has decided to continue with aikido.


Thanks to Facebook she has been in contact with Patrick sinsei and Colleen and they have asked her to visit them one friday during class as they miss her terribly. And that made her reconsider joining aikido all over again.



Here is a close up of the aikido bear. Her fingers are so nimble, it took her less than 10 minutes to complete it.


It has a blue belt just like its creator.







Now JY has got her Mama into helping her with her second clay project.
A behemoth of a project! 28 Joachim orchids!
She has taught her grandmother to roll on the clay onto a floral wire and prick it with the clay apparatus. Mama seems to enjoy it. I am glad.


Miss Joachim

Chapati by the beach

The kids were delighted that we would be having dinner by the beach.
The tide usually comes in early in the evenings but during the Hari Raya Haji weekend it was low tide at 6pm.







Swathy joined us for the weekend. Waggy the neighbourhood dog tagged along too.







Khushpal prepares the atta flour while Gobind arranges the firewood.
The rest of us wait around anxiously, trying to be helpful.
Gobind says that back home in India his wife only uses wood fire to cook her chapati as she finds the smell from the gas stove offensive.










mouth-watering chapati Hot! Hot!
It was a beatiful night.
Clear skies.
Bright twinkling stars. Which reminds me - I need to get a book on astronomy.
The sea was calm and Kent and the kids went in a few times to check on the nets. Not much fish though.

Port Dickson

The sandy beaches of PD used to be carpeted with these little crabs at low tide.

These were crawling at the beach fronting Corus Hotel at night.
We were there hunting for flower crabs. We spotted a few but they outsmarted us and escaped into the murky waters.

The kids love hunting for small little creatures at low tide. I say small because I don't want to encounter the crocodile that was spotted in this area. This crab was hidden under a rock.

Ean's first attempt at rock-climbing. He didn't want to leave this rock pool.

Jianyi and her collection of snails

Organically grown vegetables from our garden. Fertilised by ashes from our nightly campfire. This is the backyard. The veggie patch is at the far end. Gobin and Kushpa have been successfully growing brinjals, ladies' fingers, chilli padi and pumpkin. I am now waiting for the first harvest of four-angle beans and cabbage.

This is the front view of our PD house. The window panes have yet to come in. Once it is done, the floor tiles can be laid. I can't wait to see the results. In the mean time, the boys have been having lots of fun playing 'Sand Man' with the pile of construction sand.