Assurance

God's assurance is something that is so precious to me.. Even in this season of uncertainties, with many decisions needing to be made, He never fails to assure me that He sees the bigger picture and only has the best in store for me.. He's written out all my future plans in His calendar and everything's laid out well, now only to wait for the right timing and 'pot'..

Such comfort..

Facials

I signed up for a facial package last Monday and I know by the end of next month I am going to be so broke when the credit card bill is due.

Been having nasty breakouts for the past few years and every time I go for a facial, which is only once is every 2 or 3 months, I get the same comments or rather advise from most the beauticians - that I need to come every 2 weeks for about 2 to 3 months to clear my face, then subsequently once it is clear I can go probably once a month. My colleagues and friends were also giving me the same advice. Such consistent info and I've seen the results with my colleagues, so figured I'd give it a try.

Bought this promo last month and it was a steal!

I decided to then sign up for a back treatment and being the first time, I got 50% of the rate. Pretty satisfied after both my treatments at the spa, I signed up for another promo that they set up especially for their Groupon customers.

So for the next 3 months, I'll be going every 2 weeks and hopefully my face will clear up. Of course I still got to watch my food intake.

Didn't sign up for the back treatment package cos that was just way more expensive than the facials and so will treat my back on my own for now, with mum's help.

Kuching - Aug 2011

A trip with my colleagues that has been in the planning for more than a year finally came to pass. N wanted to go somewhere for her birthday so in less than 3 weeks we made arrangements for our holiday. Why Kuching? Hmm cos I was on a budget and it was the cheapest ticket at that time. Going overseas would have cost way too much for me, although my colleagues wouldn't have minded that but they were sweet enough to stick to my budget.

Sadly, what started out to be a trip with 3 adults + 2 kids turned out to be only 2 adults as one of them fell terribly ill and decided to stay back and rest in KL.

The journey started with a really early flight from KLIA. Thank God the flight was delayed by 1 hour and we were informed earlier, had an extra hour to snooze.

Found me a Cafe Barbera in KLIA! My airport waits won't be so boring after this.. Nothing to start of your morning like an affogato..

We stayed at Damai Beach Resort which is about a 45 minute drive away from Kuching City. On the spur of the moment, we decided to be adventurous and rent a car. It served us well for the 3 days there and turned out to be an excellent idea because we save a lot on cab fees. It's much cheaper renting a car there than to take a cab which would be a minimum of RM70 per way from the hotel to town.

Our supersized room in DBR. Could have easily fit 4 people in the rooms. The beds were humoungous! Pillows were not too great though, gave me a neckache. 

We were looking for good seafood for our first night there.. and the lady at the front desk told us of this restaurant in Kg. Buntal to go to. It's about a 15 minute drive from our resort. This restaurant is a must-try when in Kuching. They were kind enough to cook smaller portions of variety for us, which most restaurants may not do. *Oh this reminds me to write in a compliment for that lovely lady*

Eagerly waiting for our food.. Thank God it's a picture and not a video or you would have heard our tummy's rumbling..

Kangkung Belacan.. Somehow tasted way better there.

Butter prawns

Sweet and sour fish

Chilli crabs.. These were the bomb-diggidee..

We experienced thunderest rain both nights we were there.. On the first night, it was so bad that I wanted to crawl into bed with N but I knew she would have killed me if I did so lol. Saw this fallen tree on one of the mornings on our way out.. 

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre.. What an experience! We hardly got lost getting there except from reading one of the signs wrong and ended up taking a longer route. It was great that we got slightly lost because we saw some amazing buildings in one of the tiny trunk roads. Sorry no pics cos we too focused on finding our way.

Feeding time is at 3pm but we reached around 130pm. Initially we thought of driving out and coming back at 3pm just in time for the feeding but around 150pm, the ranger said that there was one Orang Utan.. In about 20 minutes, there were 4 of them.. They came early for their supplements..

This picture reminds me of J

Meet Delima and her youngest of 2 years old. She has 3 kids so far, and we met 2 of them in total. She made our experience there totally worthwile. After having their snacks, she decided to take a walk to where we were, slowly making her way from the feeding area, to the bench where we were sitting and finally to the carpark area.. The rangers were very cautious and kept asking us to move back but you can see from the picture below, she came pretty close up to us.. Eventually the rangers led her further up and into the jungle.. The rehabilitation centre houses 26 Orang Utans and we had the privilege of meeting 10 of them..

Mount Santubong.. This was the sight that we saw everyday as we drove back and forth from the hotel.. There's a hike that you can choose to do up the mountain, either a 2 or 6 hour hike but we decided not to because the weather was really bad.. Probably on our next trip.. there are some really beautiful waterfalls up there.. 

The first evening we were there, the sunset was exceptionally beautiful! It was breathtaking but unfortunately, N and I were in the waters with no camera in our hands.. The second evening we tried to capture the sunset but it was not as pretty as the day before.. I love sunsets though, so I thought this was just beautiful as well.

Jojo came to visit us at our resort.. She looks so gorgeous in this picture..

The resort had it's own Cat Feeding Area.. Numerous cats running around in the resort.. Well it is 'Kuching' afterall.. lol

 I did up some research on places to visit and eat at while we're there.. But missed out on this one. Kuching Festival Fair 2011 - Jojo told us about it and took us there on our last night. This was definitely a treat!

With literally hundreds of stalls like this lined up row after row, we were lost and didn't know which we should try first..

Fried Durian! This was apparently a must-try but we didn't get to try it. 

Because the line was just too long. We didn't feel like lining up for over an hour for it..

 We opted instead for the local favourites.. Sarawak Laksa.

Kolo Mee

Got me some durian pancakes. They were costly! RM10 for 4 pancakes but the pancakes were too thick and not too tasty. At least the durian made up for it.

This is like my only picture of N and me... She's a great travelling buddy.. We had rough plans of what we wanted to do, but it changed everyday.

We also went to the Cultural Village in Damai. It's my 2nd time there. The first time was during the Rainforest Music Festival in 2006. The village is very different when not during a music fest but I think it's overpriced. RM65 per entry. We managed to catch the cultural show of 45 minutes - showcasing performances by the different tribes in Sarawak. Then we walked through the village a bit to see the different homes by the tribes live in. We didn't get to explore the whole village because we were rushing for time as we needed to check out and catch our flight. 

I love Kuching and I definitely want to return. There were so many places I wanted to visit but due to constraint of time and the fact that we were staying too far from town and most of those places are nearer to town, we didn't to see as much as we wanted to.

Next trip will definitely include a 1 night stay at Bako Forest Reserve.

This weekend getaway was surely a fun, adventurous and memorable one.

First parents meet-up

Ok well not so 'first' since both sides know of each other and were even once seated on the same table at L&J's wedding. But last weekend my parents went over to J's house to visit the family, and it's the first time both sides have met since we got together, with the exception of course that our dads have met up a couple of times for business meetings.

I was not at all nervous about last Sunday.. I'm not sure how J felt about it. My parents have been wanting to go over for sometime and last week we finally made a date and stuck to it.

Dads went into politics and mums were having a get-to-know-you session and had exchanges of their Ipoh experiences. Both our mums are from Ipoh or Perak rather. It's always a joke that KL men find women from Ipoh more appealing, and I've got me some Ipoh blood yo!

All in all I thought last Sunday went by rather well..

The first of many more.. and looking forward to it..

It's back!

Ahhh so the drama last week was short lived. My account on Facebook is back ON, turns out it was going through some maintenance testing or something of that sort.

It's amazing what Facebook has done! I felt lost, that I couldn't be up-to-date with what's going on..

Somewhat unhealthy..

Gone, all gone!

I've been barred from Facebook.. by Facebook.

No reason given, no email sent to notify me just the same error message that keeps popping up everything I try to login, be it from my pc or phone.. used different browsers but it still won't let me in.

The silliest thing is that I'm not able to logged a report, because I keep getting that same error!

R logged a report for me and they replied him within minutes with a standard email, asking me to log my own report and click on a particular link to check for solution to similar problems. But guess what, the moment I click on it, I get the same error!

It's really sad because I have so many photos stored there that I cannot retrieve again, if they decide not to reactivate my account.My pc got corrupted and I lost all my pictures and FB was my only backup.

The idea of losing all my contacts saddens me too, as I communicate with most of them who are overseas via Facebook, as I don't have their email address or telephone numbers. Gone, all gone!

It's quite amazing how this silly thing of losing my account has affected me, but it does. It's been showing me that same error message since after lunch and I just assumed everyone received the same error till I found out it was only my case. 

O Lord, please get them to reactivate my account. 

I can't let him beat me to it

Even Obama wants to climb Mount Kinabalu. Read more here

Owner found

Remember my post of me being RM430 richer? Turns out that my best friend had transferred money into my account for my mum for her wedding cake order in September. But she only informed me after she saw my post on FB of me bragging that I landed extra cash.

Oh well, the cash still stays in the family. Maybe I'll get a pinch of it? Hahaha..

Mt. Kinabalu on hold

Image taken from here

I was supposed to climb this magnificent mountain in early October. But after returning from my presentation to my big boss on the progress update, we now have to defer this last Expedition to next year. There are 4 batches of climbers scheduled for this year, of which 2 have already completed. The 3rd one is to go in Sept and I was put in the 4th batch.

I've been training for many months now, quite inconsistent at times but still try to put it a once a week hike, swim or run. 

Thank God I've not bought my shoes yet, cos that was going to cost me somewhere between RM300-500 for a solid pair. 

Oh well, there's always next time I guess with friends. The advantage of this excursion by the company was that all the cost was taken care of. If I were to go on my own, it would cost me somewhere between RM1200 - 1800 depending on flight prices.

New season

Image taken from here

My new pot.. Where art thou? When will this new season take place? Awaiting patiently..

I’m RM430 richer!

Checked my account this morning and was pleasantly surprise to see extra cash in one of my accounts. So I called up the bank and they informed me that their site is going through some maintenance however only the credit card portion is affected. The lady on the phone confirmed that the amount was credited into my account this morning at 6.42am. I then messaged my parents and J to see if they had banked in any money for me, they didn’t. I still thought that it may have been due to the upgrading of their system, so I went to the ATM and checked my account. The extra RM430 is there!

So where did this money come from?

The code was CDM, which mean Cash Deposit Machine and I’m not able to track the person who transferred the cash to me unless I go to the bank and go through their cctv footages. The person however will be able to locate me if he/she still kept the receipt of the transaction. Won’t touch the money for a couple of weeks in case the rightful owner of this money does contact me.

But still, it was an awesome start of the day!

Not to mention.. it’s also FRIDAY!

Bittersweet Goodbyes

It's been an emotional 1.5 weeks. I've never been good at goodbyes, and that's just exactly what I've been needing to do. Just last week, 3 batches of graduates returned to their homeland, Botswana. I was not able to send any of them of last week. They've been here for 4 years now and by the grace of God, have all completed their Bachelors degree and returning to bless their home country.

I've known most of them for more than 3 years now and it's been a great time with them. Sad that I was not able to send any of them off last week but I'm not going to miss the next batch that's leaving tomorrow.

Onneil came over to the house last Friday night to say goodbye to my mum. She invited him over for lunch on Saturday as well, and he had generous helpings of her awesome Indian food.

Last trek @ Gasing with Moriti. We'll see him again on our 'big day'.

Another painful goodbye is going to come in September.. This one I'm not looking forward to at all..