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.

Aerynn’s Tai Por (great grandma) giving her an ang pow and she burst into tears after taking it. She’s afraid of “old-looking” people.

Aerynn helping herself to Pop Pop from the box.

Braedyn enjoying his seat on an old rattan chair. He’s upgraded from his racing car.

Aerynn deciding to join kor kor and insisting that she climb up the chair herself

Mission accomplished

We don’t condone purchasing illegal items but somebody dropped off a pack of sparklers in our mailbox so why waste! It’s the kids’ first time playing sparklers.

And what is depressingly becoming an annual tradition that gets worse with each passing year – we joined the terrible traffic jams on our way back to KL. We deliberately decided to leave late at night (11pm) but most parts of the NSE were still jam-packed with cars. Fortunately, daddykhong knows which sections of the trunk road are of “highway quality” so we took only 2 hours to get back home last night. Next year, we may have to take the Teluk Intan coastal road, or leave at 4am in the morning, or charter a private helicopter.

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!).

Sorry, we did not bother with being all formal and please don’t ask why daddykhong’s shoes has more trinkets than the rest.

Our Serambi Room which was a complimentary upgrade from our booked Bumbung Room.

Our last Terengganu trip was during the monsoon season and this one also falls in the monsoon season. It’s our way of enjoying decent resorts at discounted prices. After all, it never rains for 3 continuous days, right?

The weather upon arrival was excellent despite earlier reports of floods.

The kids were all ready to visit the swimming pool.

Since the weather was sunny, we all went for a swim. For all 3 days, the sea was red-flagged as it was very choppy. We swam for about an hour before the pool closed.

(Complaint #1 – The porter told us that the pools were opened 24 hours and later we found out that his information was not accurate.)

Bad feelings aside, we went back to our room, showered and walked to Nelayan for our dinner. We opted for the full board package so we were very determined to eat our money’s worth.

At Nelayan the restaurant manager, Krishnan, sat us down as it started to drizzle. He then informs us that it will be additional RM50 per head because our designated dinner restaurant was Di Atas Sungei which is located at the other end of the resort BUT because it was starting to rain and we had kids with us, he will waive the RM50 per head and we were free to order anything we wanted from the menu! Wow! Talk about fantastic customer service. We wouldn’t have minded walking to Di Atas Sungei but he insisted that we stay. Not only that, we only wanted 1 main course but he insisted that each of us (except Aerynn) take 3 courses each! Krishnan obviously knows that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

Boy did we stuff ourselves silly that night. That effectively set the food standards for the rest of our trip – we ended up stuffed after each and every meal.

Christmas decor at the Nelayan

Various parts of the resort

After dinner, we went straight to bed as it was raining heavily and the kids were getting tired.

The next day, it was still raining so we had to use the provided umbrellas to make our way to Di Atas Sungei for breakfast. Breakfast is a semi-buffet where you order the main from the menu and everything else is laid out buffet-style. For the first time in my life, I enjoyed freshly squeezed fruit juice from their juice station. Before this, it has always been juice from a dispenser.

The kids loved the rain!

We did not do much on Day 2 as it rained the entire day! So much for trying our luck during the monsoon season. It’s great weather for honeymooners but not when there are 3 kids around. So Day 2 was just food, reading & TV in the room, more food and sleep. We did spend a couple of hours in the Kids Zone where a 12 year old was teaching the 2 of us “seniors” how to operate the Wii and the Xbox.

We did manage to get ourselves into the right restaurant for Day 2′s dinner where we met Chef Ann who is the resort’s resident menu master (basically the walking talking menu). Di Atas Sungei during dinner does not offer a physical menu. What happens is that Chef Ann (or one of her assistants) will come round to see what you like to eat and recommended accordingly. We already knew what to order because Krish gave us his list the night before so we ordered the famous Butter Milk Prawns, Steamed Fish of the Day and the Chicken Roselle (which is like sweet & sour pork, only better!) Again, they do not give you funny looks when you order a lot of food. Instead they insist that you order far more than you can ever consume.

This elephant appeared during the evening turn-down. It’s made up of 2 face towels and some flowers for the eyes.

The Kids Zone where daddykhong and I learnt a lot from a 12-year old

The kids enjoying themselves in the Kids Zone

At Nelayan

Shayanne being cheeky during lunch at Nelayan

Aerynn enjoying herself during dinner at Di Atas Sungei

Our last night

Chef Ann is very camera-shy. We managed to capture a shot of her with her “Ferrari”

After dinner we went back to the room since it was still raining. It’s most frustrating that our only full day was raining.

Day 3 started off well – it stopped raining and the sun came out.

After breakfast and more fresh juice at Di Atas Sungei, we went for more swimming thinking that checkout was at 12 noon (we received conflicting information that it was at 11am or 12 noon). Then, when daddykhong tried to ask for late checkout, we were told that we had to check-out at 11am so swimming was out of the question.

(Complaint #2 – The porter gave us wrong information again. He told us check out was at 12 noon. He needs to be sacked!)

However, we still had 1 lunch to claim since we arrived after lunchtime on Day 1 so we quickly packed our bags, checked out and adjourned to Nelayan to be stuffed silly by Krishnan again.

After lunch at 2pm, we decided not to waste the wonderful weather, took out our swimwear from the car and went for a 2 hours session in the pool. Talk about getting more value for your money

We’re not spa people but it looked very inviting

We are, however, pool people. Everyone except for mummy

It’s good to see dividends from Braedyn and Shayanne’s swimming classes. At least they are not afraid of water. Shayanne is especially very receptive to trying out new things in the pool. Braedyn, on the other hand, still needs to be coaxed into the pool. I guess he has never forgotten his experience at A’villion Admiral Cove.

Our champion female swimmer……

…..who’s always with her funny faces

Our reluctant swimmer……

….as the above photos prove What usually happens is SWIM-incident occurs (CRY)-protests (COUGH COUGH AT POOL SIDE)

Aerynn in her element. It’s still too early to tell if she will end up like jie-jie or kor-kor

Daddykhong with Aerynn. I’m glad he was paying full attention to the girl in pink and not the girl with the black bottom!

We left Tanjung Jara Resort at around 5pm and drove to Kemaman for a stuffed crab dinner at 6:30pm before taking a night drive back to KL. A wonderful trip to end a great 2010.

Overall Tanjung Jara is good but not worth their asking price. No doubt the service is top-notch (apart from the porter), every staff member knows your name (don’t know how they do that) and the food is to die for but the room itself was rather tired-looking. The mattress is exceptionally lousy for a “luxury resort” (we still find the Westin Langkawi’s Heavenly Bed to be our favourite) and the coffee bar did not even offer a variety of tea and artificial sweetener. Aryani in Marang offers pretty much the same thing but at a much lower price. It feels more rustic than Tanjung Jara too.

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

What I did not expect was for Braedyn’s great-grandma to bake one of her famous Orange Sponge Cakes so we had to feast on 2 cakes after dinner. It’s very nice of her to make the effort to bake Braedyn a cake as she hardly bakes these days.

Our cakes and how apt that the dinosaur’s orange colour matched the Orange Sponge Cake.

As always, with 4 kids at the dinner table (our 3 terrors and their cousin), things get rather chaotic so I’ll just show everyone the “normal” shots.

Birthday boy Braedyn with his roommate Shayanne.

Our family with cousin Jaylen. How nice it will be to have a family of 2 boys and 2 girls

With grandma, great-grandma, uncle YN and his family. Just look at the size of the sponge cake. Daddykhong was trying very hard to wolf them all down, pleasing everyone.

Excuse the Haagen Daz in the picture. We are not fans of Haagen Daz.

Jaylen with his parents

The gifts. Everyone knows Braedyn loves his Lego.

More photos with the gifts.

The kids with Uncle YN.

Would like to wish Braedyn a Happy 5th Birthday and we hope that he will have many more to come.

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

Daddykhong sped off into the distance with Aerynn leaving the elder 2 behind

A common sight whenever the whole family is on a ride – Our kid buggy for the day

Braedyn and Shayanne loved Universal Studios to bits

Aerynn loved it too

Princess Fiona’s castle. Inside was the Shrek 4D Adventure ride

The Mummy Ride. Daddykhong went for 3 rounds when he realised that there were no queues

Braedyn in the Dino land

Taking a rest underneath Battlestar Galactica

Yes, I was dead tired

Photos in New York

Daddykhong introducing cars to Aerynn at the earlier possible opportunity

“We like to move it, move it!”

I’ll tell you who had the most fun – the biggest baby of them all….daddykhong! He was running from ride to ride, at times, sprinting right into the Express Queue (thanks to our PJ neighbour who advised us to purchase Express passes). I think if he did not bring the kids along, he would have gone for more rides

Shayanne was tall enough for all the kiddie rides but not tall enough for some of the more exiting rides (e.g. Jurassic Rapid Adventure) which Braedyn could qualify for. Unfortunately, Braedyn was not brave enough to sit on any other rides after he had the fright of his life on the Jurassic Rapid Adventure which had fast-flowing currents and T-Rexes hiding in dark corners of the tunnel.

Shayanne, on the other hand, loved all the roller coaster rides which I felt are not quite suitable for kids despite the signages saying so. She’ll be the one accompanying daddykhong on the scary rides when she grows up

On our way out, we bought some souvenirs which surprisingly were not as exorbitantly priced as they would have been. There’s a Hershey Chocolate World and a Garrett Popcorn outlet outside the theme park entrance. For those who have yet to sample Garrett, it is highly recommended. We bought both traditional and cheese popcorn and we couldn’t stop eating.

We had so much fun that we’ll be visiting Hong Kong Disneyland next.

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

A walking tree!

I think this orang utan still misses Ah Meng.

Animals everywhere

We managed to catch the last polar bear show before they closed the exhibit for major renovations

Me and Aerynn. People say she looks like me but, looking at this picture, I can’t see the resemblance

Kor-kor is still responsible for the transport arrangements. A “before” and “after” shot of the 2 girls.

Kor-kor Braedyn looking over his 2 mei-meis

Which includes a “heavy” responsibility to oversee their transport arrangements

Passenger Aerynn appears to be contented with the in-flight drinks selection

Shayanne in a pensive mood

Birds everywhere

Feeding the birds with some sort of glucose solution

Haven’t figured out what type of bird this is!

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

Not contented with just 1 shot, the 2 monkeys decided to pose at the bus stop in front of Ibis. I honestly don’t know where they learn these poses from and check out Shayanne’s expression.

The Iluma Shopping Centre just behind our hotel

The backlane of our hotel

We did not waste time after checking in and decided to take the MRT to check out the Merlion (never seen the Merlion before) and Marina Sands.

More poses at Raffles Place

Merlion with the Marina Sands in the background.

I don’t know how PNB is going to beat this with their 100-storey phallus!

In Singapore, we always end up walking more than we would have liked to and it’s probably due to the fact that the pedestrian walkways are well-laid out and there’s always something interesting to see. We walked to all the interesting locations around the Merlion before heading back to Ibis.

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)

Our lovely hotel

Aerynn giving her smile of approval for the room’s flooring

Daddykhong looking a bit miffed that he couldn’t overtake the oh-so-very-slow convoy of cars on our way up

Photo of “The Big Boss”. Depending on who you speak to, it could be any one of the kids, daddykhong, or the MIL!

Since it was just an overnighter, we quickly checked in and made our way to Boh Sungei Palas. It’s our first visit as we usually visit their older tea centre.

Boh Sungei Palas Estate

Staff quarters

The Tea Centre

The cantilever design for the Tea Centre. We Malaysians do not need to visit the Marina Bay Sands.

The elder 2 monkeys having a great time running up and down the corridors

Baby Aerynn getting ready to join them

“Where are my shoes?”

Braedyn is always very protective of Aerynn. She, in turn, thinks the world of him.

The Big Bosses sit down for a group shot

But little do they know that I am the real Big Boss

After Boh, we moved on to a nearby strawberry farm where they allowed you to pluck your own strawberries. We’ve been to the usual strawberry farms and we always bypass this one because its signage is not prominent and it doesn’t look very much like a large-scale farm but we’re glad we stopped by this time. They are small but they have the largest strawberries in the Camerons. Usually at the other farms (Raju’s being one of them) we get to buy lousy small sour strawberries and tonnes of strawberry-based items (most of them rubbish anyway). This farm lets you pluck big strawberries (those you find at Jaya Grocers). If you don’t fancy plucking them, you can also buy pre-plucked ones of the same size. They also sell strawberry jam (normal, and no-sugar-added). Again, it’s the first time we’ve come across sugar-free strawberry jam in the Camerons and it is just delicious.

Oh yes, they don’t give you a pair of scissors to pluck strawberries, they expect you to do it with your bare hands (which adds to the fun). Before you are sent in to the farm, the staff will teach you how to select sweet strawberries and how to pluck them the correct way.

I know we are not meant to eat strawberries before weighing but the staff inside the farm took a liking to Shayanne and insisted that she eat one.

After strawberries, we visited the market at Brinchang where we bought ourselves tonnes of corn before having a steamboat dinner nearby. Don’t know what the fuss is over steamboat dinner. It only tastes different because of the fresh ingredients used.

The next day, we were looking for scones to eat and a friend told us to check out the best scones in Cameron Highlands at T-Cafe (which we never knew) but sadly they were sold out 2 hours before closing time so we had to settle to scones at Bala’s Holiday Chalet. Their food is generally overpriced and service is lacking but made up by the ambience and the pictures we snapped.

Aerynn at Bala’s

I am sure everyone had this swing in their garden from their childhood days. Honestly, I don’t know how I managed to snap this shot as Braedyn and Shayanne have been fighting over everything lately.

After Bala’s, we visited the Kea market at Brinchang before heading back home.

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

Still very puzzled over all the attention

The 2 elder monkeys obviously having more fun than Aerynn

Braedyn posing with Uncle YN

In similar fashion to her other siblings, the minute we lit the candle, Aerynn started crying.

Braedyn & Shayanne were enjoying Mummy’s homemade cake

Aerynn with the family

Happy 1st Birthday Baby. You will always be the official “Baby”!