The world of JULIANA

Time flies past so fast these days. As usual, I’m back at my blog, updating it with recent happenings ! Perhaps starting from last Saturday might be a wise idea as it helps me recall almost every single event regardless of how minor or major an impact it may have been! Spent all morning of Saturday in Masjid India area hunting high and low for ‘accesories’ to go along with the gift-package for Mothers’ Day. Our church has this tradition of presenting all mothers in church with a tiny token of appreciation on Mothers’ Day annually. This year, the Young Adults’ group and the Sunday School group have merged to purchase a present together. Itz been greattt having two teams working on a project. We thought we’d go along with a SYMBOLIC theme this year. Since Mothers’ Day ain’t till Sunday, I shall reserve all stories related to Mothers’ Day till AFTER the event!

(at least I don’t have to dig my head for ideas on what to write on my blog for next week!).

Anywayz, finally I managed to find some pretty awesome accesories for our gift for Mothers’ Day on Saturday. I even managed to buy a personal gift for my Mom during that shopping stint. I must comment on the lunch I had as it was sooooooooooooo delicious. I had bought thai fried mee hun and sago gula melaka frm Semua Hse. Since Robz was at home, I bought it ‘take-away’ so that I could eat it with him at home. The sago was heavenly! Yummmmmmmmmmmmmy. I’m a huge-fan of sago gula melaka. Another greattt place to enjoy a bowl of Sago would be at Madam Kwan’s. I’m sure my buddy Natasha would agree with this ‘coz once, I remember taking her and a couple of other friends to Mdm Kwan’s just specifically for their sago! Suffice to say, my friends loved it,too.

My piano class at church went on as usual on Saturday evening. This time, I had 2 phone-calls on my h/p that interrupted the class.  Arghh…in future, I shall have to ’silence’ my h/p. It looks odd when ‘piano teacher’ is distracted with phone-calls, doesn’t it? In all fairness, one call was from my Aunt in Ipoh who had no clue that I give piano lessons on Saturday evenings and the other call was frm my beloved Daddy!

Saturday evening, Robz and I went over to my in-law’s place. My bro-in-law is in the midst of setting up a hypermart in this new housing area nearby Sentul and hence, we went over to go have a look at the final finishing touches of it. It looks very attractive and all ready for business to take-off anytime!

Then, I had this craving for hawker food. Sometimes, I have these cravings and I just HAVE to eat it, by hook or by crook! Thankfully, my father-in-law had been eyeing this particular food-court with hawker food on Jln Ipoh over the last couple of days and had been waiting for a fine evening take the family out. This evening was simply perfect. So, off we went to this Hawker food-court. We had a FEAST! We had 40 chicken satays, 6 huge popiah’s, 3 lobak’s , and each one ordered an indiviual meal. The drinks came in glasses the size of a thermos flask! We ate and ate like there was no tomorrow. Being a seafood-entusiast, I couldn’t decide on whether to eat lala sambal or prawn sambal (itz that grilled seafood corner where they serve you rice with your desired seafood!). Finally, I had both. hehe…very greedy, but guess what? We finished almost every morsel of food on the table! Thankfully there were no cats around the vicinity of that hawker stall. Or not, my entire dinner would’ve been terribly unpleasant and terrifying!

Sunday morning was spent in church, as usual. It was officially announced in church that we now have a personalized website with frequent updates on recent happenings. Now, I have to be perseverent and industrious in frequently updating the church website, or not we would be receiving complaints on why the reports in there are so backdated! After church, the Young Adults’  and Sunday School Team met up to wrap up our li’l package for Mothers’ Day. With many, many helpful people to assist us, the wrapping up of presents took less than 1/2hr,thankfully. After that ,we had a very productive Young Adults’ Meeting. Woahhh…it was the very first Young Adults’ meeting after the AGM and it was a greattt feeling discussing upcoming projects and ways and means of gettin’ people together for various activities. My personal favourite is this upcoming aerobics-cum-dance class  (F.O.C, of course!) that one of my church members(who’s part of a professional dance group!) is going to conduct on a weekly basis! Once we get the green light frm the senior church members, we’re all set!

Then, the excitement began to build up. Robz and I have been planning a li’l w’kend romantic getaway for months and finally, we applied for leave frm work on Monday & Tuesday and decided that if we don’t do it now, that idea will probably just fly out of the window and we’ll completely forget ’bout it in due time! Upon flickin’ thru’ various adverts and travel magazines, we came up with the perfect holiday destination -

PANGKOR ISLAND! We drove to Lumut and then took a ferry to Pangkor Island. The ferry trip was very scenic with nature’s beauty at its best. Sitting in the ferry gazing at those eternally alive-waves reminded me of my years as a young 8-year old kid who’d sit in a ferry back in Penang with my Mom right next to me. We’d go to Butterworth to pick up my granma frm Ipoh and then come back frm Butterworth upon sending her. The trip back to Penang upon leaving my Granma in Butterworth would always be depressing. I’d just sadly gaze at the waves with tears in my eyes and pray for a safe journey back home to Ipoh for my Granma whilst I silently counted down months till Granma’s next visit to our home in Penang.

Back to my ferry-trip to Pangkor Island…I was hoping we’d see dolphins on the way. Then again, I suppose I was being over-ambitious expecting to see dolphins on my way frm Lumut to Pangkor Island! It took barely 20-25mins to get there. There we were, on the sands of Pangkor Island. Being an ‘off-peak’ period, the island was very desserted! Besides us, there was this other foreign couple in their mid-40s who were in our ferry. This was so much better than being in a sardine-packed ferry, all waiting to rush onto the island; the exact reason why we chose an ‘off-peak’ season for our li’l holiday.

We stayed in Pangkor Island Beach Resort, a very pretty place with traditional antique architecture. Naturally, this resort overlooks the majestic magnificent sea. B’fast and dinner was provided by the resort and the food was super-delicious! Their seafood selection is extremely fresh as itz fresh from the sea! The next day (Monday), we did a ’round the island tour’. Being a quaint li’l tiny island, we didn’t expect much, but it was still an intrigueing tour.During the tour, there was a very artistic temple that was one of the stops. We did a fair bit of shopping at one of the stops. Luv their batik-beachware outfits!

For me, a holiday ain’t a holiday until a spa enters the picture! Thankfully, they had a beautiful spa-centre as part of the hotel facilities. Robz was upset as they didn’t have a gym there. He compensated for his workout by goin’ for early-morning jogs by the sea-shore at 6.30am! Unsurprisingly, I stayed back in the hotel and grabbed a couple of additional hours of sleep! Hehe…thatz what holidays are for, aren’t they? I dragged Robz to the spa ‘coz I have this theory that whilst we’re on holiday we have to be doin’ things TOGETHER or not it defeats the purpose of goin’ on a holiday to spend quality time together  For the records, the morning jogs DON’T count! Hehe… I treated Robz to a pleasant foot massage-cum-reflexology whilst I tried out their full body aromatherapy massage. Lavender fragranced incense is the best fragrance i’ve tried thus far! Absolutely fantastic and very very calming and soothing to the body,soul & mind!

After our spa & foot massage, a good 1 1/2hr nap followed next. It was the perfect thing to do after the spa! Nothin’ beats the feeling of lying on the bed at 3pm whilst everyone else is workin’ hard at their offices on a Monday afternoon back home in KL! *grins

Being an anti-sun person, I told Robz that we shall go down to the beach once the sun’s about to set ‘coz I can’t possibly have a romantic stroll on the beach whilst worrying ’bout the various negative effects the sun would have on my skin! Yeppp, you got it.Vain thoughts.

It was cute to see Robz chasing after li’l baby crabs on the sea-shore. The thought of tryin’ to build a sand-castle crossed my mind. However, the idea of gettin’ my manicured fingers soiled with sand beneath the nails turned me off! *giggles

The evening by the sea ended with Robz and I jumping into a serene swimming pool. Again, since it was an off-peak season, the pool was VERY quiet! There was this ‘Kingfisher pool bar’ located INSIDE the pool, meaning that the stools are underwater and you literally float whilst havin’ a drink! We ordered a drink each just for the experience of floating whilst drinking! I tried a mocktail called ‘ UNICORN’S MILK’ which consists of fresh bananas, pineapple juice and fresh milk! Very refreshing drink, tasted somewhat like fruit-milkshake. Swam a bit more and then had a bath and had a lovely dinner, whilst being accompanied by a live band frm the Phillipines.

Tuesday arrived, the day of return to KL. We spent most of the morning playing table-tennis, a newly discovered sport that we both enjoyed! Knowing that I was once an ex-tennis pro(yyyeah rite!) , Robz always wanted to take tennis lessons frm me. However, I know that my patience doesn’t last very long,particularly on the tennis court and hence, we somehow never got around to playin’ tennis together.

However, table-tennis is a whole different cattle of fish! For starters, itz an indoor game which suits me fine. No worries of the sun burning my skin! Secondly, it hardly requires formal lessons to play a decent game. Itz a relatively easy game to master and we had so much fun whilst playin’ !!

Since we were all sweaty and quite exhausted to get dressed to have lunch at the hotel’s banquet-restaurants. We lazily ordered ‘room service food’. Hehe…another luxury that comes as part and parcel of the whole ‘being-on-a-holiday’ feeling. After that, it was time to pack all our stuff. I checked every single drawer and cupboard at least twice ‘coz I always have this paranoid fear that I’d leave somethin’ precious&valuable behind e.g jewellery, favourite pair of shades,etc!

With all our luggage intact, we set off to the ‘jetty’ and off we went on the ferry. It was a good 3-hr journey on the road frm Lumut to KL. As usual, I tried to get sleep in the car, but again, I didn’t get a wink of sleep! Unsurprisingly, Robz slept and slept almost thru’out the journey! Arghh…Sleeping is such a difficult chore for me, especially at odd hours of the day.

As we arrived back in B’sar, our cutey doggy SAMMY greeted us with a wagging tail whilst jumping excitedly in his cage. Unpacking everything was a breeze as we had organized ‘clean n dirty’ clothes pretty well in our bags whilst packing in Pangkor. After the li’l holiday in Pangkor Island, itz time to get back to the hustle and bustle of city life in Kuala Lumpur. Back to wakin’ up to go to this thing called A JOB. Back to daily routine activities. Indeed, it was fabulous to be back home ……as they say,

‘ HOME SWEET HOME’.