Feisty Zaria

Happy New Year to everyone.

Ever since we gave Zaria the barista title, she makes coffee or tea for me daily.

Yesterday after breakfast, I asked her for my cup of coffee as usual. Zaria said later. And repeated her 'later' for the next 1hr and eventually did not bother to even reply when I asked about my coffee.

I lost my patience and went downstairs, to see her lying on the sofa reading.
Me : From 9 till 10:30 I asked for my coffee, and you kept saying later, and then didn't even answer me any more! Today is my 1st day of work, you are still on holidays, and you can't even make your mom a cup of coffee? Do you have anything to say?
Zara : Sorry ma, what do you want ma? Do you want me to make a cup of coffee or tea for you?
Zaria : ....
Me : Ok. For lunch, I'm not cooking for you, and Auntie (our helper) cannot cook for you too. You go and figure out what to eat. There's lots of cereals and milk.
So I made my own coffee, and thinking Zaria will come over to apologise; but instead, she went to our helper and asked, "Auntie, do we still have mee sedap?"
o.O"

At 12pm, she boiled a pot of water herself, cut opened a pack of mee sedap, and made herself lunch!!
o.O"

While I was eating roast chicken sandwich, and fried button mushroom with Zara at the same table with her, I asked "You can have some if you say something to me."
Slurping her noodle, she said, "Even if I say sorry, I don't really mean it, so what's the point of saying it."
o.O"

That's my 8 year old alright, feisty, independent, non-complying.

Taiping 2014 - The Sights

Continues from here.

After our Penang trip, we were off to Taiping for 2 nights (Sept 17th and 18th). 3 other families from KL were to meet us at the hotel, Sentosa Villa, so that we could enjoy the city together.

As usual, we find Taiping and its surrounding having so much to offer. Besides eating non-stop, we spent time at Taiping Town, Taiping Lake Gardens, Kuala Sepetang, and the girls love just being in Sentosa Villa as there were so much to do.

♥Sentosa Villa♥



There's a stream running through the compound of the hotel, with thick vegetation at the river banks, there were lots of tiny fishes and shrimps found in the stream. We bought colanders and used them as 'nets', the children spent loads of time 'netting' fishes and shrimps in the stream. Zaria was especially happy when she became an expert shrimp catcher.


The children had water fights at the shallow natural pools at the hotel too. Luckily the loud happy sounds they made were muffled by the sound of the running stream.


♥Taiping Town♥
As we went to town for breakfast, we usually spent sometime walking about town, looking at the pre-war shop houses/buildings.






Showing the girls some of the innovative ways shop owners keep their cash for the day, which is just a retractable pail.


♥Taiping Lake Gardens♥
A trip to Taiping is incomplete without taking a stroll in the Taiping Lake Gardens.






♥Kuala Sepetang♥
And for us, Kuala Sepetang is also a must go when we go to Taiping, as we want to stock up on our charcoal for the year.
Instead of going to the more famous Mr Chuah's Charcoal Factory, we went to Charcoal Collection instead.

The entrance to Charcoal Collection can be easily missed. It's on the right side before you come to Mr Chuah's big wide entrance. However, once you pass through the entrance, the inside is wide and spacious, with many kilns. One of the main reason people visit Charcoal Collection is to get big charcoal decoration pieces for the home (supposed to keep air fresh).

There were different kilns in different stages of baking the charcoal.

This one is in the process of baking.


This one is in the process of cooling.


And this kiln is in the midst of being set up.


Surrounding the factory, mangrove logs were skinned to await being baked into charcoal.


Besides the charcoal factory in Kuala Sepetang, the fishing village is also a lovely place to visit for seafood meal and also stocking up on dried seafood.




♥An Tong Coffee Factory♥
This trip, we visited An Tong Coffee Factory as well, the oldest coffee mill in Malaysia (located at : 8A, Jalan Syed Burhan Taiping Perak, 34000 Taiping)

A tour of the place is free, where they showed us how coffee is roasted using firewood, then skinned.

For our local type of coffee will have a few extra steps. The coffee beans are fried with sugar and other ingredients and then grindded into powder. Caramel is prepared before the roasted coffee beans are mixed in for frying.




Aaah, and here is another one nice one for the album. We saw this elderly man bringing his dog out in his bike, and he was so cooperative he asked his dog to pose for us.

Happy Easter And Peace Offering

I'm a born Catholic, and wanted the girls to be baptised when they were born, but the hubs, an atheist, was against it. His reason, "They should decide (what religion) for themselves when they are older."

This year, I just enrolled them into Sunday school, with Zara attending RCIC (Rights of Christian Initiation For Children), the children version of RCIA, so that both girls can get baptised and Zara can recieved her first Holy Communion this year like friends her age.

So I think the past few weeks at Sunday school, the girls have been taught about Easter, and Zaria, who likes to make cards and write notes to me, gave me this (see the word "Royce"? My favourite brand of chocolate).



And this.


And this.


First time I'm getting an Easter card!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Writing letters and notes are quite common with my girls; usually they will write to me, to tell me they are sorry for something they have done, or to say they love me; the girls have also started writing notes to each other.

Zaria has lots of pride, and never likes sharing anything she has with Zara; Zara gets extremely annoyed because of the latter, especially when she shares everything with Zaria. After a round of squabble, Zara gave this note to Zaria as peace offering.



And then see what Zaria replied???
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o.O"

Happy Easter every one!