The School Holidays Begin

And so, the school holidays have started. The girls will be home with me, and boy, it'll be tough keeping them occupied so that they don't disrupt me working.

I'd kind of laid down the rules, before they get to watch TV or use the iPad, the girls have to pick 2 of my activities every day from : 1) writing on their journal; 2) learn and write 4, 5 new Chinese idioms (for Zara), and words (for Zaria); 3) do 4, 5 pages of work sheets. They have also smartly laid down their rules, on days I don't work (i.e. Saturdays and Sundays) they don't have to do their work. They said,"It's a holiday for you, so it's also a holiday for us!".

Here is Zaria's writing last Wednesday, looking forward to her holidays.


(See what she calls me! At least she knows who's the boss.)

Day Trip to Carey Island And Tanjung Sepat

(With so many activities plus a busy work schedule, it's been an extremely low-key October for me here.)

During the Hari Raya Haji holidays, an ex colleague came over to stay at our place. It was a funny encounter. The hubs called her Louisa, a name that was never hers (but somehow he's been calling her the same name for years I'd known her). She called the hubs Loke when he's a Low. She called my girls 小瓜 (which means little melons) until Zara started asking me, “Why is Auntie calling us melons and not our names?" The only person retaining the right name was me!

Anyway, to help Louisa forget her troubles at home (the reason she came to stay), we went on a day trip out of town. And like all day trips we take, we usually have a destination in mind, but the detours are unknown.

Tanjung Sepat was our destination for the day, and while we were heading there with Google Map, the hubs decided to detour to Carey Island for a stop over and lunch. He wanted to bring the girls to the Orang Asli Museum, but it was closed. And while checking out what other places of interest there were on Google Map, we saw that the long Jalan Pulau Carey ends at the sea. Since we had time, we drove on the small Jalan Pulau Carey, towards the end of the road, passing palm oil estates after palm oil estates. There at the end of the road, at the fringe of a palm oil estate (what else?), lies a quiet stretch of beach.

No picnic goers, no kite flying, no facilities, just a narrow strip of beach.


We took a stroll and found some hermit crabs at the beach.


Zaria was intrigued that the crabs could actually leave their shells.


That day we learnt the below :

From wiki.
Most species have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab, into which its whole body can retract. Most frequently hermit crabs use the shells of sea snails.

Here is a pix of a hermit crab which has left its shell, showing its its soft curved abdomen.


There was only 1 stall beside the beach selling freshly caught fish. What interest the girls was the tree besides it, they took turns climbing and chilling on it.


For lunch, we just took the first restaurant that we come across, i.e. Kang Guan Seafood Restaurant, the food is nothing to shout about.

After lunch, we all took a nap while the hubs carried on the drive to Tanjung Sepat.

Here is a map of Tanjung Sepat, click on the map to get a bigger copy.


We stopped at a restaurant with an extended walkway out to the sea which faces the famous Lover Bridge, seen on that day from a far, broken.


This walkway is drawing a lot of people, and probably going to be made the new Lover Bridge. It's a good place to cam-whore.




A short walk from the restaurant took us to Ganofarm, a mushroom farm cum homestay.





There's a shop that sells some mushroom produce, we bought some fresh oyster mushrooms and then left to look for a place to have dinner.

What we didn't know was while we drove towards the restaurant of our choice, Restaurant Asam Batu Laut, we came across the highlight of the trip, a piece of mangrove forest exuding an eerie charm in the evening twilight.










It's a photographers' heaven!

We end the day with having dinner at Restaurant Asam Batu Laut, ordering their famous Asam Fish, which is fried fish with a spicy asam sauce.