Debut tag

I have been guilty of ignoring tags in the past; blame it on lack of time but mostly blame it on laziness. The guilt bugged me until I found out that kruy had tagged me. You're lucky that I have a lull in my schedule (I'm the type who cannot stand an idle moment), so here it is, my debut tag...

Name one person who made you laugh last night?
Husband. As always.

What were you doing at 0800?
Pulling myself up from bed and staggering to attend to Sophie's whinning "Mamma, Mamma" while cursing under my breath about my two numb arms from my Typhoid, Tetanus, and Hepatitis A vaccinations the night before.

What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
Bidding 3 houseguests goodbye and wishing them luck with the windy chilly night out there. I'm so glad I'm not out there tonight...

What happened to you in 2006?
Trying out life as a SAHM (for the uninitiated - stay at home mom) and spending more time in the kitchen than my last 30 years combined. Needless to say, I've abdicated and returned the kitchen to YL.

What was the last thing you said out loud?
Sophie, stand still!

How many beverages did you have today?
Not enough.

What color is your hairbrush?
Blue (isn't there a better question to ask??).

What was the last thing you paid for?
Lunch at Costa Cafe.

Where were you last night?
At home. Who wants to be out in this kind of weather?!

What color is your front door?
White. Like every other door on my street.

Where do you keep your change?
In a small navy pullstring pouch that used to hold my farewell gift from my ex-colleagues.

What's the weather like today?
D**m b***dy windy & cold!

What's the best ice-cream flavour?
Vanilla, just like me - plain but always reliable.

What excites you?
Planning our travels. Planning is as much fun as seeing and doing.

Do you want to cut your hair?
Yup. It seriously looked like a broom before I finally had it cut a week ago.

Are you over the age of 25?
Why, what's wrong with being over 25???

Do you talk a lot?
Only with my family, YL and close friends. And in my journal. And on this blog. If writing counts as talking.

Do you watch the O.C.?
No. Oh please.

Do you know anyone named Steven?
Yup. 3 of them. All good people.

Do you make up your own words?
Yup. YL and I have our own vocab; not all of them fit for sharing.

Are you a jealous person?
More so in my younger days. I'm trying to keep to the Buddhist precept of transcendence.

Name a friend whose name starts with the letter 'A'.
Aileen.

Name a friend whose name starts with the letter 'K'.
Kathy.

Who's the first person on your received call list?
Aileen.

What does the last text message you received say?
YL telling me that he's "so not fit" after his first day at the gym.

Do you chew on your straw?
Nope, never had the habit. I like things to be in their proper form.

Do you have curly hair?
Exactly the same response as kruy:- Slightly wavey at the back especially when the hair reaches shoulder length.

Where's the next place you’re going to?
Peru!!! Wish me luck for the 4-day trek up to Machu Picchu at almost 4,000m!

Who's the rudest person in your life?
Myself??

What was the last thing you ate?
YL's lotus root with peanuts soup, teowcheow-style steamed fish and sambal long beans. Yes yes, I'm lucky...

Will you get married in the future?
I hope not. This current one is enough hard work.

What's the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks?
I can tell you the worst that I've seen in the last 2 weeks - Spiderman 3. It is the most pointless and vapid of any movies I've seen. This is even though I enjoyed the first 2 movies tremendously.

Is there anyone you like right now?
YL???

When was the last time you did the dishes?
Just now, after the yummy dinner YL cooked for us & our houseguests.

Are you currently depressed?
Nope. Been there, done that.

Did you cry today?
Almost - when I had to clean Sophie's sticky, super-pungent, warm cr*p (literally) from her potty this morning.

Why did you answer and post this?
See introduction above.

Now, the best part - passing on the chain...hehehe

1. How Bizzare!
2. Kokonut4U
3. A Simple Life
4. A Day in the Life...
5. Our Sweetie Joshua

Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists

Hurray!! YL was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists today, so he can finally call himself a "real" clinical oncologist.

Oh by the way, he also passed the Irish equivalent Radiotherapy & Oncology examinations this week, so he will also be admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

And yes, he is getting cocky...

Travelling with babies & toddlers

We did a lot of long distance traveling during the one week in Italy, e.g. the 3-hour train rides from Milan to Venice, from Venice to Florence, 3-hour flights, shuttle busses, etc. Sophie was generally OK for the most part, and if you know her, that’s saying a lot. I brought 2 new activity/story books to entertain her, which worked for about one hour in total (which is quite good!) I think we have done enough traveling with her to dispense a few bits of tips:

• The best time to travel with young children is when they are between 6-12 months old. At that age, their diet is straightforward (milk), they nap more, they are lighter to carry (if, like me, you have to strap them on your back while on the move), and they do not issue their own demands (“I want that!”, “Sophie do it!”, “No, don’t touch!”)
  


• It is easier to travel when they are not yet walking. You do not have to run after them or keep issuing orders to “Be careful!”, “Don’t go there!”, “Sit properly!” etc
  


• Bring lots of baby wipes to clean grubby fingers that will impress archaeologists for finding undiscovered secret nooks and crannies of crumbling century-old buildings.
  


• Take the train instead of the bus whenever possible on long journeys because the kids can at least walk about and explore when they get restless (which they will)
  


• Bring new toys to distract them from the monotony and lethargy and keep them occupied for 17 minutes.
  


• If your child is a fussy eater, bring ALL the food from home that had previously attracted her interest, even if only for a minute. We filled one medium-sized camping backpack with all of Sophie’s biscuits, Kit Kat, fruits, and snacks. I’m glad we did, even with the extra weight and work. She wasn’t interested in all of them but having them with me makes me less stressed about finding food for her…. OK, I lied. I was still stressed about finding decent food for her.
  


• Sleep for as long as you can afford; if you cannot afford more than 8 hours, cancel that morning excursion! The only reason I survived one week on the go with Sophie is because we slept at least 9 hours every night, much more than we ever get at home. It is quite uncharacteristic of us to sleep that much while we are on a trip, but it really helped to maintain the energy I need to run after, carry, discipline, and play with her AND enjoy the place.
  
  
  

  No, this is not one of those artsy, posed photos. It is just Sophie throwing a tantrum, refusing to follow me closely at the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. She stood firm, and clung on to the warning post for a good 5 minutes while I threatened to walk away.
  

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Italians really, really, really love children. Everywhere we went, all sorts of people (gruff burly men, old hobbling withered women) will stop to admire them and pay you compliments (I assume they are compliments since I do not understand Italian but they are smiling so it must be good).

When we were in a restaurant in Venice, a 40-ish gentlemen stopped by our table to coo at Sophie. Later when she got tired and grumpy and exercised her super powerful lungs, the same gentlemen popped out of the restaurant and bought her a small toy to cheer her up. !!!! We were so paisay (Chinese dialect for embarrassed) and to borrow an English term, gobsmacked. At the coffee merchant’s in Lucca, the proprietor gave Sophie sweets from amongst her goods for sale, beaming with adoration. On the Venice-Florence train, the drop-dead gorgeous Italian high school girl sitting across the aisle from us offered to give Sophie her writing materials to play (or maybe it was to shut her up so that she can study in peace?). The middle-aged waitress at the posh wine bar in Lucca happily put out a cushion for Sophie to prop her up on the chair, and offered her little treats. In London, we would not even think of going to a restaurant unless they have put up a 5-foot sign saying that they are baby-friendly.

Despite this love for children, the birth rate for Italy is apparently at an all-time low. Is that why they love children? Or maybe they don’t see many Chinese babies who can bawl as loud as Sophie?

Venice & Tuscany

Our first real family trip this year came at an opportune time since YL's exams baggage have been lifted. It was an ambitious itinerary especially since we are travelling with Miss Tantrum. In one week, we "covered" Milan, Venice, Florence, Lucca and Pisa, in the loosest sense of the word.

Sophie insisted on helping us with our backpacks

Milan is supposed to be Italy’s most stylish city, but if you know us, you will know that we do not appreciate fashion. Actually I do appreciate fashion, I just cannot tolerate the etiquette and decorum that it demands. YL does not appreciate fashion. End of story.

We only made the stop in Milan because Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece – made ever more famous because of a certain Mr Brown – is inside the refectory of Milan’s Santa Maria della Grazie church. They only allow 20 people at one time inside the room in order to control the humidity, and the ‘tour’ is only 15 minutes long. (Note: if you intend to go, book at least 2 months in advance) Actually it isn’t much of a tour, because there are only 2 paintings in what used to be the dining room during da Vinci’s time, and nobody ever looks at the other one. After all the hassle, we were ushered into a room, and suddenly there it was, in my face. It is actually a rather pleasant painting because of its pastel shades – a result of a recent restoration – and it felt like I was meeting an old friend because I had seen it so many times in the media and books over the last couple of years. If you walk to the other end of the room and look back at the painting, you do sense the 3 dimensional effect that da Vinci was going for.

Waiting for our turn to feast on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper

Venice is one big theme park and one large shopping complex, according to YL. I concur. You can find a glass shop, a mask shop, a souvenier shop or most likely, a number of variations of all three, on every street. The place is also positively crawling with holidaymakers; there were more tourists than locals. Then there is this whole concept of traveling around on boats that evokes the experience of spending a day at a big-scale watery Genting Highlands or Disneyland. Venice have been reproduced in so many places that now the real thing feels like a parody of itself.

Part of the Grand Canal near the Rialto bridge

Chairs put out on the Piazza San Marco

Piazza San Marco lit up at night

Trying to feed the birds in front of the Basilica San Marco in Piazza San Marco. You must applaude me for putting up such an embarrassing photo...actually there are much worse ones... Not at all romantic and elegant like it should be:

Shopping with Mamma in Venice

Waiting for the public transport, i.e. boats or vaporetti, in one of those little floating platforms is a novelty. It’s like taking the Tube, but on water. The boats are surprisingly spacious especially the front deck, so we could push the stroller comfortably onto it, although we’ve been squashed quite a bit on them during the peak hours as well. Speaking of traveling with the stroller, it was much easier than I had anticipated, despite the numerous claustrophobic lanes, tiny arched step bridges, and the general watery access. It is a inspiring sight to watch to the local mommies pushing/lifting the strollers – many of them much bulkier than ours – up and down the steps without help. Do not be fooled, though, Venice is not easy to navigate with a stroller, but it is certainly not prohibitively so.

Venice was flooded on 2 days out the 3 we were there. You can see the waters rising in the background.

Across the Grand Canal from Piazza San Marco (where the tall clock tower is in the background). The Piazza was the traditional entry point to Venice during her heyday as a merchant city and trading port.

Food in Venice was generally overpriced and poor. Or maybe we just sucked at choosing the restaurants. The best meal YL had was on Burano island (Venice is made up of 116 islands) which came up to a reasonable EUR40 for 3 large dishes. I think the best meal I had in Venice was the fried rice that YL had cooked and brought from London and cup noodles back in the comfort of our hotel room on our first night in town. Burano island, simultaneously famed for its lace and colourful houses

Speaking of Burano, we recommend a visit if you are in Venice. You can feel the change in the atmosphere almost as soon as you set down on the island after a good 45 minutes' journey. A relaxed peace permeated the island, and lured you to slow down and hanker for the gold old simpler days of your childhood, of lush green grass and lazy dogs napping in the afternoon. It was as pretty as I had imagined, with all the cheerful colourful houses (the story goes that the houses are painted different colours so that fishermen returning home can spot their house from afar) seated along the canals and boats parked all the way down the canals.

Our most memorable experience in Venice had to be the gondola ride at night. It is cliché and it is pricey, but if you are in Venice, you must be stupid if you do not go on one of these. Each boat only takes six, and only two seats are attached. We got the prime seats because we were carrying a baby, who had the courtesy to fall asleep just before her parents got onto the boat so they had a good 45 minutes of peace to enjoy the chilly autumn night air and dark starry skies of Venice, and lulled into romantic daydreams. The soft singing and music of the gondolier in the boat behind us floated in the air, and accompanied us as we glided along along the Grand Canal and the smaller back canals.

Gondolas with the Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore in the background

Gondola moored along a small back canal

Florence is a mecca for art lovers. But we are not art lovers. We tried, attempting to appreciate the National Gallery in London, but who are we kidding? So we spent a grand total 2 hours in the city wandering around and checking out the replica of Michelangelo’s David located in the Piazza della Signoria that is free and accessible to all and sundry. The real thing is nestled happily behind ticket barriers at the Academia. We skipped the Uffizi (shock! horror!) – only the most influential and important (Rennaissance) art museum in the world.

Don't look! Uncle David is shame shame...

Hmm...so how do we get to the Ponte Vecchio, Sophie? Outside Florence's Duomo

A statue in the Piazza Michelangelo. Yes, I forgot the name of the statue...you would too, since there are a thousand and one statues in Florence...

A kiss on the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's oldest bridge that survived the World War bombings

My favourite bit of the entire trip was the daytrip that we made from Florence to Fiesole, a hilltop Tuscan town just about an hour outside of Florence. We joined a group that hiked up the hills (300m, about 2 hours up), stopping along the way to smell the fresh herbs, taste the wild fruits, and check out the place where Leonardo da Vinci tested his flying machine. The typical Tuscan landscape that I was expecting unfolded in front of us – yellow sun-washed, rolling vineyards and olive groves set amongst old Italian farmhouses. We ended up at a Renaissance villa to have a Tuscan lunch accompanied by wine and entertaining food anecdotes dished out by our guide. I carried Sophie up and down the hill on our trusty Ergo baby carrier (it’s been a while!) and surprisingly both of us did quite well – she was cooperative, playing with her tree sticks and singing her little ditties; I was not tired, even though she is now 11-12kg. All in all, the perfect Tuscan day!

Rewarding ourselves with a hearty Tuscan meal and some Chianti wines after the 2-3 hour hike uphill in Fiesole, just outside of Florence

To continue our Tuscan experience, we left Florence to stay in an old farmhouse-converted apartment up in the hills in the village of Tramonte in northern Tuscany, 15 minutes away from the town of Lucca. It was set amongst olive groves and had a spectacular vista just 30 minutes walk uphill from the apartment. Although the apartment was not as cosy as we’d like, it did give us the opportunity to have a Tuscan cooking class in the comfort of our own place for me. You are permitted to be shocked. Yes, I am not a cook. I am still not a cook. But the cook in the family refused to do one-on-one cooking classes so I had to, otherwise we will not have anything to eat up there in the rather isolated hills. The two local ladies who came up to our apartment imparted their tips and recipes for the zuppa de cozze (mussel soup – we ate 2kg of mussels between us; it was that good!), tagliatelle al funghi (pasta with mushroom sauce – I handmade the pasta myself), lemon chicken (Lucca-style, not Chinese-style of course), funghi in umido (cooked peppers – so-so only), and chocolate cakes for dessert.

We had to cook our own meals on our first night in Lucca. Getting provisions on a Sunday in Lucca was a challenge that we did not anticipate. Most shops were closed, but luckily we found this deli. For vegetables, YL resorted to cajoling the Italian girl at a sandwich shop to let him buy her 3 tomatoes for 1 Euro

Making pasta from scratch on our second night in our Lucca house. It takes a bit of work, but not as difficult as I thought it would be. At least YL gave me a thumbs up for my effort...

Lucca is a decent-sized town with a historical center that is hemmed in by 4m thick walls. The best thing about the place is the cycling! It is the town’s preferred method of transport, and so we joined the locals by renting bicycles and breezed around town effortlessly. After all the walking and relying on public transportation in London and whenever we travel, it is such a refreshing and liberating feeling to be able to get around so easily. Sophie of course enjoyed her first time on the bicycle. Chauffeured on a bicycle, I should say.

You can't really see it, but we are actually cycling on top of the 4m-thick city walls encircling the historical part of Lucca

Popo & Nai Nai, please don't scold us....

Pisa – Leaning Tower of Pisa. Full stop.

Family picture in the Campo di Miracoli (Field of Miracles) where the Leaning Tower is located. I've got one of those super-touristy shots of me propping up the tower but I'm not putting it up - YL will mock me...

Even with our crazy jam-packed schedule and having visited Italy twice, there is still so much to see in the country that if asked to choose one European country that I want to visit, it will be (still) be la bella Italy.

Educational toys for your tots

Attention all you mummies and daddies in Malaysia!

If you have been tearing out your hair and your partner's hair trying to find solid, educational toys and games to stimulate your little one's interest in learning, look no further than this: http://www.mytoysandbooks.com/. It is recently set up by a very knowledgeable and Montessori-qualified friend who has decided to give up a career in accounting to be able to spend more time with her daughter. She has also taught in a Montessori school in London for several years.

When I was a stay-at-home mom, the stress of keeping Sophie occupied with toys and games that capture her interest for more than 10 seconds while teaching her a thing or two matched the stress from my 12-hour workdays in the office. There are a few classics such as the shape sorter or physical running about Mummy-is-going-to-catch-you! games that will get her excited for a while, but there are only four basic shapes and the unfit Mummy is only going to be able to run for 10 minutes in a day.

Anyways, I digressed.

The website is simple but user-friendly with personal comments and some good tips. Give her a call if you want some personal advice (phone number is given in the website) and she will be more than happy to share her experience with you! Do check it out and help out a fellow parent!!

Happy Halloween

We're back from Italy in time for Halloween, so Sophie appeared in her true form tonight to go trick-or-treating (actually, it's just to pay a visit to Aunty Aileen after a week of absence).

Happy Halloween, everyone! Pace yourselves on the sweets and chocolates...