zoo redux

Dah lama tak pergi zoo so when Nida mentioned that she's heading there ha ayuh lessgo! The last time we went there was 6 years ago, Rumi was still a tiny kid and he was uninterested at all haha. But I must say that the zoo negara looks better now. We chose not to see the pandas though - semangat patriotik la konon (THEY ARE NOT MALAYSIANS!) - then again they cost a bomb and one panda tengah berpantang for 2 months. ._.

We arrived early yesterday but lucky us not many people there (maybe ppl chose to stay home because of Bersih kot. I danna). So if you have time do check out the zoo. Don't forget to your myKad / myKid!

Gila bosan performance. Rumi was cranky half of the time. Gusi bengkak and this boy is not an outdoor type!

Chill je the flamingos. Best ye hidup uols.

Geng New Balance.

I feel a bit sorry for this sun bear. The bear keeps going in circles in the water. What's going on bear bear? :(

Lucky to be able to see the white tiger in close range. Also saw it poop.
._.

Food post

Yay a food post! Some stuff I ate this month:

Podgy and the Banker+ at Verve Suites is one of my favorite place for my alio oglio craving! And they serve better coffee compared to the one in Hartamas.

I was in Singapore for a day trip last week. This meal cost SGD10 but thank god it was good, so I'm gonna let it slip. Aren't we all feeling the pinch from the depreciating Ringgit? Sigh.

Food testing at Episode, in Publika. That chip over there is so soft and the chicken schnitzel is really nice. 

Oh I didn't eat this. It's just my sister's evil plan to kill me slowly with foodporn. I NEED to find time to balik kampung, stat.

Nasi padang for breakfast in Jakarta! Sedap do'oh. I was so worried that I might get food poisoning during my maiden trip here but I survived. Husband wasn't so lucky though.

One of husband's breakfast of choice at a maret mini (kedai kecil) in Jakarta. Ala ala soto / lodeh gitu. Nice.

Dessert ini sedap gila. A combination of a few bubur and it wasn't that sweet. I wonder if I can find it here in KL.

34/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: Poor baby cried so hard after sending his cousin back to Japan.

Rumi: Hipster in the making. Or probably already made.

who you?

Dreamt about my bestfriend last night. We were in NYC, hanging out a sidewalk cafe. Funny, considering I'm her least favorite person right now. :(

Guess I'm missing her so much. I want her back. 
I am physically and mentally exhausted right now.

?/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: He can be very clingy at one time, then completely ignore me the next.

Rumi: Woke up one morning with him looking this. "Kenapa Ibu tutup semua lampu?"

Just try

Waiting to board the plane back to KL. Jakarta was really fun, because of the Popcon Asia 2015. I have a crazy day tomorrow, then off to Singapore on Wednesday for meetings and will come back on the day itself! 

Just typing this is tiring me out but I try to think about others who work twice as hard as I do or maybe harder. Lack of sleep, deadlines, dealing with imbeciles at work not to mention the constant  pressure to deliver. The list goes on but HELLO NATE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU HABE TO DO THIS EVERY WEEK. hehe. 

Ok I board my plane now. 

Our weekend

It's been a while since the last time the boys got sick. This time around surprisingly Abang recovered very fast! Adik on the other hand, had to take neb 3 times. 

I am sick as a cow today (not sure why I like to use this expression). It's the hubs' birthday tomorrow and I have not prepared anything! It's been a crazy month. I am exhausted beyond anything. 

At the clinic today, the good doctor reminded me "a mother's work is never over". So true. 

31/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre & Rumi: My favorite jokers.

Big Bang is in town!

Can't wait for the concert tomorrow. Well I can, coz this is not my first Big Bang concert.

You know, every Friday evening I just take a long deep breath because this means that I survived another week at work. Most of the time it's not so bad, I mean, the workload will never go away and there are always that short bursts of period where I just want to storm out of the office and never come back. But everyday I am thankful that I still have a job and I do my work with utmost honesty. 

Life is too beautiful to be sweating over small things I suppose.

30/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: No Raya drama this year i.e. he is okay with wearing Baju Melayu because he got to pick the color this time around. Hence the shocking pink. -_-
Rumi: His first selfie attempt with the resident cat. :)

Change.

This is as cryptic as I can be at the moment. :)

Marinara pasta

Guess I don't hate salmon anymore~

Current favorite- salmon marinara from soul'ed out!

26/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: So rajin!

Rumi: He's been calling me "lady" lately. :P

While I wait

Today's iftar dish. 

Alexis

Buka puasa with MM at Alexis today. She's only transferred to a new department yesterday but there were so many things to catch up! 

Feeka

With the crazy heat wave hitting our country the past few weeks, I woke up last night thinking omg we're all gonna die in our sleep in this kind of heat. .__.

Checked on my boys a couple of times who seem unfazed by the heat so that's good. It's kaftan all the way for me the past few night. Tee shirts are just too warm. Even in my dreams I am sweating a river.

On our anniversary night last Saturday, we buka puasa at Bijan (90 bucks per pax btw- good food) and adjourned to Feeka for dessert. Changkat Bukit Bintang brings back so many fleeting memories, man. 

Had latte and crepe cake. So divine!

Want to write more but I am easily distracted with other things. Shaun the Sheep, for one.

2 things that appalled me this Ramadhan: Men who smoke in cars (seriously dude, is it that hard to not smoke for 12 hours) and parents who hurt/abandon their children. I just don't get it.

7

We hit year 7 last Saturday, you guys. What an amazing ride so far. 

The sweetest goodbye

We always joked that we'll rot in this officer together but hey, you can plan a picnic but you can't predict the weather they say. Said goodbye to my favorite colleague for the past 8 years. She's family now and I pray our path will cross again - sooner or later. This is not a goodbye, definitely.

if-Thor

Everything I cooked last night turned out to be disastrous. So much for listing down the ingredients! \o/​

 

Had buka puasa with my siblings over the weekend. Good fun. Of course the kids ignored me the minute they hang out with their cousins and made my brother buy the super delicious murtabak from the Taman Ehsan's pasar Ramadan. Yay! We also cut cake to celebrate my eldest's sister and nephew's birthdays.

 

Then as usual we shared photos and a video over the group whatsapp chat. I couldn't even open the video because I started bawling. From the screengrab it was a visual of my eldest sister and nephew. And for a second I thought I saw my mother smiling. My sister's smile looked exactly like Mama's.

 

Sigh. I miss her so much. She is with us every single day.

24/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: Instant hug dispenser.

Rumi: Been giving me attitude the past couple of days but that's okay.

Menu of the day

Royale Chulan Damansara // a staycation

The boys simply love staying at hotels. When they were small, I tell them we're staying at 'rumah ibu besar' so everytime we stay at a hotel somewhere, we are actually staying at my big house hehe.

Things at work, as you know, have been really challenging lately and if there's one thing I learned the hard way is that - the Company won't crumble without you. Sure, your colleagues will panic a bit, but please, for the sake of my sanity, I try not to care so much about work. OK maybe a little. Just a teeny weeny bit. ;p

We stayed at Royale Chulan Damansara yesterday! What's sweeter was that we were upgraded to their Duplex Suite, which means two floors of goodness! A small room is good enough for us but hey, we couldn't really say no this. Bila lagi ne~...

Le master bedroom.

The kid's room.

The living room oy!

Ibu, just chillin'.

3 TVs for duplex suite.

In the master bathroom.

Kids' pool. There is also an infinity pool for adults overlooking, er, constructions.

We are now back to our humble abode where the laundry and the organized mess keep growing but nothing beats staying at home. <3

circus

Made the right decision to take the little fam to see the Swiss Dream Circus at Mutiara Damansara on Friday night. It was the kids' first time (including the Ayah hehe) and the last time I saw a circus was when I was five. But this one is more like a acrobatic circus, thus no animals.

We bought the cheapest tickets but that's okay because the circus' venue is pretty small and even if you're at the far back seats you can still see clearly. And boy we were mesmerized! I don't even know what they're called because I only know jugglers and the clown hehe. 

Ok lemme quote from TimeOutKL:

"Marvel at awe-inspiring acrobatic feats, aerial trapeze hoop acts, foot juggling and a fearless display of rope acts."

There you go. We all enjoyed it so much! Rumi gave a standing ovation a couple of times and Emre laughed his heart out whenever the clown came out. I was so happy to see them that happy I nearly cried! Ibu is such a sap. Heheh. 

23/53

A portrait of my sons, once a week, every week in 2015.

Emre: So amusing to see him tickle a friend's baby like he does to a kitten! :D

Rumi: Lover of live performance, like me, this one. His reactions at the circus recently were priceless.

eventually

erase // rewind

we will wait til YOU get caught. in the meantime, keep erasing.

Vibes

I'm a big fan of loud music / live performance. Those who know me enough would understand that I love going for concerts. I may not enjoy the queueing up bit - queued for 4+ hours for Big Bang concert few years back - but once I'm inside the venue nothing else matters. It's just me and my music. 

Can't remember the last concert I went to so feeling that I needed to immerse myself in good music again I literally begged my friend to give me a ticket to Pentatonix. ;p Not that I know much about them but when you have a group that makes a living by singing acapella, it's got to be aca-mazing!

Aca-mazing indeed. Enjoyed their flawless harmonization and Suzie & I also enjoyed watching a bunch of mat sallehs with terrible dance moves in front of us.

And! Life would not be aca-perfect (oh god stop it Nate) without kpop! I've loved Park Jimin, eh I mean BTS since they debuted in 2013 and it would be not right if I gave this a miss. No, make that I WOULD BE VERY DEVASTATED.

Attended a wedding in Melaka in the morning (mind you I have never driven that far!), reached KL around 3, got ready, reached concert venue at 4 only to realised I GOT THE WRONG VENUE!!! Thank God the real venue was just 15 minutes away! Managed to get there on time and god, the concert was perfect. BTS is proof that you really don't need big budget concerts *cough Big Bang cough* to be the best, because BTS was flawless.

Absolutely flawless.

I'm a happy noona. :)
I think one of these days I'm gonna drag the husband to once of the kpop concerts, ya know, just to experience how awesome it can be. yeah. 
(if only they don't cost so much!)

Franco @ The Curve

Girls. We sometime crave for dessert like we're constantly pregnant. Settled for this when pretty much most things that we want at Franco was "out of stock". It wasn't that great - save for the chocolate love letter and nutella at the bottom.

p/s: No 53 project this week. Didn't take photos of my boys this time around! ._.

Ayam Kampung Publika

Food post! Oh just putting it out there why I never lose weight. Arwah Baba was a big fan of ayam kampung - which i dread the most - but now I don't hate it so much.

Colleagues and acquaintances have been talking about this place in Damansara Perdana (opposite 99 Speedmart) because they say it's cheap and hey the air sirap is free! But they were not wrong either when they say the food is good. Oh yeah, good wholesome Kelantanese dishes - although not much variety - but oh yummmmmmm! Havent had a good gulai telur itik for quite a while.

Ayam kampung not pictured here because we had to wait about 5 minutes or so for the chicken to be ready. Worth the wait.

Find them on instagram: @ayamkampungpublika

Reflect

Podgy & The Banker +

In good faith, I believe that whatever seemingly good opportunities I have surreptitiously passed up or missed either by accident, by choice, lack of confidence or procrastination are just minor hurdles for me to achieve greater things in the future. You know, that silver linings behind some clouds sorta thing.

Quite sad that my colleagues are leaving me sooner than I thought.

The choice that I made is not mine alone, because I had to take into consideration feelings, expectations and calculated risks. Of course that question "what if i took it up" & "what if it was approved" will linger in my head for a few weeks but I'm just gonna look forward and not dwell on the past for now.

Focus on the good for now, although they are scarce.