Hong Kong here we come....!!!!!

Yes, dearest Sis, I read your blog frequently and I miss you very very much!!!
(I know you will be reading this too, don't wipe that smile off your face, I can see!)

Long planned and delayed trip to Hong Kong, trust me, it's really really tough to be going on holidays nowadays. Let me list you the reasons why...

1. Economy downturn nowwwwww..... in case you haven't notice
2. I have 3 kids, a house, a maid, a car and many more expenses to watch out for
3. Travelling with 3 kids isn't funny, it's like lagging along 3 huge uncontrollable bombs
4. Travelling as a big family is costly, air tickets, accommodations, tickets to attractions,
transports, food and beverages...

After much pestering and brain washing from Patrick hubby that we deserve a holiday break, bring the kids to take their first aeroplane ride, I gave in. Alright, I admit I would love to go to Hong Kong for a trip too. I can shop and bargain, I enjoy the lovely cold temperature there and everything. So, I agreed with Patrick hubby that we should just go and worry about the future later. By the way, we managed to brain washed my mum into going with us for the trip. She hasn't been to Hong Kong before and I felt strongly she would love the place.

The trip would be taking place next month in March, it's partly thanks to the great promotion deal by Singapore Airlines too. We managed to grap the 2 to go deal which means each adult costs a nett price of S$398.00 for the round trip while the kid fare is nett S$295.00. Now, we are racking our heads off over the accommodation, wondering over which hotel to book. We need a hotel that is clean, good to accommodate 3 in a room as we are going to book 2 rooms since the kids will need someone to look after.

If you are reading this and you have good recommendation or good hotel rates, please please do share with me.

We will be going for 6 days, covering the Disneyland for the kids, the ladies night market for me, and many many other places for Patrick hubby and mum. So we will be taking it at a relaxing pace since we don't really want to be dragging the kids and my mum around too hard. But Shenzhen would definitely be one place we will be going too.

More updates soon...

Back from long absence...

Arrggghhh... I'm finally back after a long absence, been occupied with my part time studies of rushing through report writing for the project with a blank mind. It's one week of rest before the next module begins.

In the meantime, my home tank is bursting with activities by the blue crayfish Patrick hubby and I have caught, not forgetting my mum. There's about 100 plus of the cuties we have caught, ranging from the baby sizes to the bigger sizes... Mum's home tank is holding about 30 of them while our home tank is holding 50. We have given a few away during our "prawning" trips, mainly to cute little kids whom haven't manage to catch any... Patrick Hubby has bought 2 reds from the shop and they are growing great with the blues.

Alright, all of a sudden, we are bitten by the prawning bugs which got us all crazy and obsessed. Sometimes we actually visualised the whiskers of the crayfish when we are sleeping!! Oh my god!

Haha, the smallest range from 3cm to the biggest at 16cm. We are feeding them lobster food pellets and bloodworms. Our tank has a block of wood and stacking rocks to let them hide in happily eventhough sometimes they fight. Now we have taken precaution to cover up the tanks with a net as the biggest one actually managed to make it's way out of the tank one night. Now, our tank is place in the living room which is quite a distance from our kids' room. The guy actually found it's way passed the kitchen, our study room and to the kids' room to pull on our maid's hair! She had a bad scare!! But it was initially when we started rearing them, now my maid's even capable to grab hold of them from the back as they wave their claws around.

There's been a few cases of molting, we actually found an empty shell one morning... what a pity we have never been able to capture the whole process. I told hubby they must be shy and only molt when the light's out at night.

新的一年，新的出发！

Alright, let me try to get a post down in mandarin (eventhough my mandarin sucks!).



新的一年，可有的忙。。。

三个小可爱，老大 Christopher 要上一年级，老二 Nicholas 要上幼儿园K2，老三 Bryan 还在家里称王（因为他才快要三岁）。 经过一番辛苦，紧张的为 Christopher 报名和为学校做了56小时的义工（minimum is 40 hours, but i did more because I'm kiansu!). 我们很辛运，他被入取了！！ （谢天谢地）

经过了紧密的圣诞，新年，就是我们的华人过年！好像有点太快了的感觉，使得有点喘不过气了。

今年又有我自己的 Part-time studies, 一个星期两堂课，又兼 Project... 希望我可以做的很好。

最近，我突然爱上了到 reservoir 的 fishing ground 捕捉小龙虾 (so called lobster or crayfish)。 在最初的时候，老公Patrick 和我可是一只都捉不到。 现在，我们可是捉到一共有30只大大小小的。而我们也有了一位好友 Rick 和我老妈的长参于。 收获也抱括一条 soonhock鱼，一条 catfish鱼。 有趣的是，我们昨天还发现了一种可爱的鱼，BumbleBee (超像 nemo).

Guess what, we have got a new tank kindly sponsor by a buddy friend Rick, he has lobang for fish tanks and managed to get us one that is 2ft. We shifted our lobsters of various sizes to it and added in a block of woods plus stones for them to climb around on. We caught one pregnant lobster over the weekend and it's bursting with eggs underneath... Hubby and I did not notice anything at first and when it was put into the tank, we saw all the tiny red eggs it's carrying! Lucky we managed to saw that and have since shifted the mama to a seperate small container to let it stay by itself.

Two of the red lobsters we had actually mated last evening, hubby was all excited upon discovering them in action after we had our dinner. One of them forced the other to turn onto its back and it grabbed hold of the claws and hold on to it dearly with the rest of the 4 pairs of small legs... (interesting discovery).

I think there's ten over of them in the tank now... We were back at the fishing place on Sunday at 6 plus in the evening. I found only fishes and caught a few of the baby lobsters, just as it was turning dark, I discovered a really huge lobster with big fat claws but my net was too small to catch it in and with the sky turning dark... I have to give up and head for home. (wat a waste)

Let me take some photos when I have the time and post them here.... : )

Contest Junkie - Mr. Dallas

New Year 2009, my first gift of the year is very lovely, well thought out and unique. It's a really sweet surprise, I received it on a Monday morning (5th January 2009). Don't be surprise, it's because I was actually on leave today since I still need to be around to guide my maid around on how to bring the oldest boy to and from his new primary school.

The postman came and left me a registered parcel, surprise surprise, I found Contest Junkie Mr. Dallas' name on it! I opened up the package and found this lovely golden flower embossed box, on the box, it wrote " 富贵满堂", meaning good fortune and prosperity to the family. Find out more about Contest Junkie's second trip to China in Year 2008, he's having loads of fun in the winter land of China! http://cornflict.blogspot.com/2008/12/cornflict-giveaway-beijing-trip.html

Opening up the box, beatifully laid out in the yellow silk cloth, are a pair of dragon engraved chopsticks. There are two lovely painted mandarin ducks too, they are the chopsticks resters!


Noticed the chinese wordings on the cover? It wrote that food is the basic for human beings, and many other really lovely well meant verses.

A close up on the mandarin ducks and the dragon engraved chopsticks... really lovely...

I didn't know Dallas is going to be getting me something for the trip, plus, he's already sent me a lovely Christmas card for year 2008. Something you might not have noticed if you haven't been to his site frequently, he's a really young chap whom's still studying and already managing a blog that is huge on loads of traffic and contest links that are updated almost daily. Truthfully, I wonder how he gets all the contests' details daily. Oh ya, he's even been featured on the newspaper if you have noticed. A lot of achievements for a young lad like him...

I love gifts and surprises, but for one that is well thought, unique and with a lovely meaning behind it, that is not what you would always get. My first surprise gift for Year 2009 and I got this, it's really sweetttttt.....