Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!
As usual, we went back to my hometown to give the kids the annual dose of the “kampung experience”. This time, they all loved it. From taking cold showers (the water in Tapah is supplied from the Camerons!), playing with the chickens, to visiting relatives to collect ang pows.
My 3 angels
Shots of the kids taken in my family home.
With the year-end long holidays, it is always good to go on a long-distance road trip to keep all the kids busy. This trick of ours keeps us parents sane and this round, we drove all the way to Dungun, Terengganu for 2 nights at Tanjung Jara Resort. While most people will think it is insane to drive so far, daddykhong loves his long-distance drives (daddykhong: I just need a much better car and BTW, Kota Bharu via Cameron Highlands and Gua Musang is next).
Interestingly, daddykhong has visited Tanjung Jara Resort in the days before YTL bought it so he’s the best person to make comparisons.
We left around lunch time and took the NKVE from Subang to Duta, then DUKE from Duta to Batu Caves, then Karak Highway from KL to Karak, and lastly, the East Coast Expressway from Karak to Jabor before switching over to trunk roads to get to our final destination just before Dungun. Don’t attempt this if you cannot get your kids to calm down and they are not trained to sit in car seats 
KL to Tanjung Jara is a distance of 385km and slightly under 4 hours of non-stop driving (at fairly legal speeds).
We arrived at 5pm and were greeted by the concierge who prepared a Roselle welcome drink for us and surprise, surprise, we were upgraded from the cheapest Bumbung Room to a Serambi Room. Now before you think that it is odd for YTL to throw away money like that, we suspect that the upgrade is due to the fact that the Bumbung Room is on Level 1 and the Serambi Room on ground level makes it easier for the kids (daddykhong: I think they weren’t bothered to hoist the baby cot up the stairs!).
Braedyn is now 1/2 a decade old. The first couple of years were slow but now time flies past in a blink of an eye.
This time, we had his birthday dinner at Bianco, Damansara Perdana and I made him a dinosaur cake.
Oh well…it’s a dinosaur with a head of a hippopotamus
Day 4 – the real reason why we were in Singapore……Universal Studios Singapore
We’ve always wanted to visit a proper theme park with the kids and since we did not visit Disneyland when we were in Hong Kong, we had to visit Universal Studios once we had the opportunity.
We visited on a weekday when the ticket prices are lower than the weekends.
My 4 babies eagerly waiting to enter the theme park
Day 3 started off with a trip to the Singapore Zoo. I was secretly hoping that daddykhong would take us to one of the new shopping malls along Orchard Road (preferably Ion ) but I know why I married him – he really puts the family first
It’s always nice to visit the Singapore Zoo. We’ve been there in the past and we still go whenever we are in Singapore. It’s good exposure for Aerynn as it’s her first time.
Family man with his 2 kids
The family spent the Merdeka 2010 weekend in Singapore. I suspect daddykhong got sick of pretending to be patriotic
Just as our previous Singapore visit was spent in a new part of Singapore – Chinatown, we camped for 4 nights at Ibis on Bencoolen in Bugis. It’s a great location to stay in, with cheap and delicious food nearby, shopping everywhere, and a cheap room rate!
We flew in on Air Asia on one of their zero-fare flights (booked more than 6 months earlier) which is much more convenient than taking the coach.
2 monkeys posing next to some street art near Ibis
Looks much better without any distractions 
Holiday time again! This time it’s to celebrate my MILs xx birthday (can’t reveal her age otherwise WW3 will start )
We visited Cameron Highlands for 1 night and we booked ourselves a lovely family suite in Hotel De La Ferns which is one of the newer hotels in the Camerons. It’s always nice to stay in a new hotel where everything is a little bit cleaner.
Our idea was to visit Boh Sungei Palas, have a very slow and relaxing holiday, and to enjoy the weather. Fortunately for us, the weather was extremely cold and misty just like Cameron Highlands in the old days.
The 3 kids posing for the camera (which is probably the only time when they are not after each other’s throats)
We celebrated Aerynn’s 1st birthday on 20th June 2010 (2 days before the actual date) at Waterlily, Mutiara Tropicana (wanted a change from the usual Japanese food we had for both Braedyn and Shayanne’s first birthdays). It was just a small gathering with the immediate family.
Aerynn’s birthday cake with our recycled birthday candle that we used for both kor-kor and jie-jie
The birthday girl looking all grouchy. Yes, it’s not much fun losing the baby status
