Nothing makes you more ‘aunty’ than going for a Corningware/Pyrex/ Visions/Corelle  Warehouse sale. Despite it being such an ‘aunty’ event, I actually had a lot of fun! Thanks to my very sporting colleagues.

So this was the modus operandi: We went there and straight away we wanted to back off the sale. The line to pay was so long. At least  a couple of hundred folks before us. My experienced collegue, straight away lined up while the two of us went around looking at stuff. My first item was the Visionsware which I wanted for quite some time but the price tag put me off. Now with the great markdown, I grabbed one set, had it checked for cracks and scratches and went to my waiting colleague.

The Visionsware in the Box

The Visionsware Out of The Box

But since my eyes did wandered a bit before passing the trolley to my colleague, I just had to grab the casserole set which was going for a song. I grabbed that and plonked it down with the Visionsware and obediently went to queue while hurrying my colleague to also join in the frenzy!

Pyrex Casserole

Pyrex Casserole in Threes!

While waiting, my other colleague also beginning to fill up our little plastic trolleys with more goodies.  By the time, we reached the checkout counter about 1hour later, our trolley was overflowing with about 4 feet of Visionsware, Corelle, Corningware and Pyrex!  Between the three of us, the bill came up to well over RM1000. This warehouse sale thing can be so addictive!

I am so excited! After so many year, I am having an outing with the girls, i.e. Chui Ying and Linda!  Jiunn Hoong, if you’re reading this, we are so sad that you are not with us here!!

The last time we had such a gathering was during our undergraduate days when we did a weekend trip up to Bukit Tinggi Resort while Chui Ying’s sister was working there. That was probably way back in 2000; nine years ago!

This time though, we are going to crash over at Linda’s new place in Penang. Since she bought the place, she has been asking us to go over but somehow the timing was not right. But this time, with Chui Ying probably moving out of the country, we went ahead and planned! Hopefully everything will turn out fabulous! **fingers crossed**

I find it especially hilarious that Earth Hour this year coincides with the annual Tomb-Sweeping Day for the Chinese people. On one hand, folks are trying to create awareness by asking everyone to switch off all the NON-ESSENTIAL lights but on the other hand, for Qing Ming, since the economy is so bad, everyone seems to be asking more help from their ancestors and as a bribe, they burn more paper money for them!!

So Which is your choice?

Everyone in a lovey dovey mood. So I just wanted to share one of my best holidays ever when I was just dating Alex!

A good friend send an SMS wishing eternal true love ~ The best gift anyone can have. I hope everyone will find their true love and it lasts an eternity

The pic’s clickable to run a slideshow
p/s: Scrap Blog fever still on..

On Saturday, thanks to my very-adventurous colleague, Seng Ming, we went to this conservation centres for Asian elephants right in the middle of our Titiwangsa Range. On the way of course, we had this great guru of Malaysian foods, Adrian to lead us to the not-so-tiny town of Bentong for wan tan mee. As ordinary as it sounds, this wan tan mee as far as Alex is concerned is the equivalent of the Sitiawan kampuang! Haha.

Upon reaching the conversation centre, we were quickly ushered into the office where we got our entrance stickers. The first activity on the itinerary was a video showing how translocation of elephants are being done here in Malaysia. Translocation is basically needed when new lands are open up (sadly for oil palm estates) and the elephants habitat is being encroached. Due to lack of space, these elephants usually wonders into the oil palm estates and creating havoc for the plantation owners. This is when the team from this conservation centre will do the translocation of the ‘trouble-makers‘, usually the whole herd, to Taman Negara forest reserve.

After the educational video session, the elephants came out in a parade into the river for a nice cool bath. This elephant here is the grand-dame of them all. She’s 70 years old and a native of India. I cannot remember what the host was commenting how this elephant came to Malaysia but with the age comes size. She’s the biggest one of them all too. A quick comment from Alex, ” So kesian la this elephants, being a grandmother and all still have to come out and perform monkey shows!”

My favourite is this little fella. He’s such a poser. When there were no one around, he did not do anything. The moment someone whips out a camera he starting posing and all! Such a cute little jumbo! But behind the jovial nature, this little creature actually has quite a sad past. The rangers found this fella left for dead after being attacked by tigers. If you look really close, you’ll realize that the little dude has got no tail.

Then of course, the keepers being to wash the elephants and prepare them to greet the visitors to the centre. You can see that these elephants are very use to humans already.

After they are cleaned, it is time to get up close and personal with them. We were allowed to feed them with various fruits such as papayas, bananas and watermelon. This fella that I am posing with is terribly greedy. When I went close to him, he started ’searching’ me for fruits! You can see that I was terrified of him!

The elephant ride was another exciting activity in the itinerary. This elephant that I am riding on is Mawar, a 9 year old. Doesn’t this picture looks like I am running off with the mahout??  LOL !

All in all, the trip created a lot of awareness in terms of the plight of these gentle creatures. We humans are sometimes really too selfish when it comes to development of our civilization that we forget the planet is for all Earthlings to share.

Valentine’s Day around the corner and this happens to be my mother-in-law’s birthday as well. So getting a gift is definitely in the works. Just that I am not sure what to get (and for that matter, what to expect).

One of the gifts I have always considered for Alex was a watch. In particular, there was once, a Swatch watches.But then again, I realized that Alex is not really into Swatch watches as most designs tend to be very pop-art. He’s more into the classic look.

So this year again, I am faced with a dilemma on what should be the right gift for him. It’s just so  hard to find guys a gift. Maybe I should get him a book since he’s always buying them anyway! LOL

p/s: any one of you have any ideas what we should get my MIL? That’ll be great!

This year, the Diong clan decided to pay a little visit to the jewel of the Perak State, The Royal Belum State Park. Having spent most of my schooling life in this state, I heard about the state park only after I left. Many of the uncles in the family were very game for this but cannot say the same for the aunties in the family. Anyway,

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, the Diongs set out to Belum through the route of Sitiawan-Ayer Tawar-Beruas-Manong-Kuala Kangsar -Lenggong-Gerik-Belum to reach this wonderful place.

The drive took us about 3.5 hours from Sitiawan to reach the resort; The Belum Rainforest Resort

Upon reaching the resort, the check-in was a rather chaotic affair. Despite having to have booked the rooms much earlier, the staffs at the reception was still not equipped to handle a party of 23 people. There were some confusions about the mix of rooms we booked. Some were deluxe rooms while others were superior. The hotel wasn’t fully occupied and they had plenty of rooms to spare and yet this can still happen!

Upon reaching our rooms however, all the chaos were quickly forgotten when we peeked outside our window and found this splendid view of the River.

The place was just so serene, so green and so un-spoilt (if there is a such word!) .

Since it was already in the afternoon, plus it is after all Chinese New Year, we took a lazy afternoon playing some board games with the younger cousins. It was of course initiated by me. The cousins were already begin to head down to the river, but me being so very afraid of the sun, casually suggested, ” Who’s game for Scrabble?” Surprisingly, all of them was enthused and sat down quietly; quickly forming themselves into a team of two. The teams were Alex (aged 31) & Gareth (aged 12), Melodi (aged 17) and Ashlin (aged 8), Jeffrey (Aged 18) & Janet (aged 17) and me. (it was the eve of my birthday, so I’m still considered one year younger!) From that game, I discovered that having played Scrabulous and other online versions of Scrabble was a great advantage. But I was also disadvantage since everyone was playing with so many helpers besides them being 2 against 1  of little old me. Plus, Jeffrey represented his school at a state-level competition for Scrabble!

After the grueling mental workout, it was still pretty early and the gang decided to go down to the river anyways to try their hand at some fishing.  As bad as it sounds, it is rather bad to mix women, children and fishing together!  The whole time that we were down at the river bank, I think all the fishes ran away. The womenfolk must chat, so they retired to one nice little hut near the river bank. The kiddies however, were very excited to try their hand at fishing, but kids being kids shrieked in excitement when they manage to just cast their lines into the river. Mana-lah nak dapat ikan kalau bising bising nie! 

So my BIL pretended to have caught a big fish that got away, when his hook was stuck to some weeds! Isn’t he so cute?

After dinner, everyone was tired from the journey and went to bed early. We got up pretty early in the morning and was very excited for what was in stored for us today.

The day was rather cloudy and I was pretty happy about it. Cloudy skies are just perfect for exploring out in the open. But then, by mid morning most of the clouds disappeared and the sun was blazing hot! Luckily the journey into the deep forest of Belum wasn’t as long as the one in Taman Negara. The unfortunately part however was the boat we rented had only a little canopy and not everyone was able to be under it. Having to share the boats with my parents-in-law, the younger ones, i.e. their children and myself had to be out in the sun.

After 1.5 hours cruising down the river, we reached out destination. The reason for coming here to Belum was that this was also home to the world’s biggest flower, the Rafflesia.

The variant that is in The Royal Belum is not the biggest of the Rafflesia species. Our guide told us that the biggest of the Rafflesia species can only be found in Sabah, but that flower is also very stinky! The one we saw however was not stinky at all. In fact it just bloomed the night before. Probably because of that the flower did not trap too many small animals and insects yet. Most of the unpleasant smell, according to our guide was due to the rotting flesh of animals inside the flower!

Next on the itinerary was the orang asli village. At this point, I decided not to take any photographs of the place. Not to say that it was not picturesque but I felt that if I were to go around snapping pictures of the these folks, I was really intruding into their privacy. Mind you, this orang asli village is not one of those villages set up for tourist. These people actually live here. Before arriving at the orang asli village, our guide kindly reminded us to be very respectful of these people and do not ask them silly questions such as ” Kenapa pak, rumah tak de tilam? Tidor kat mana?” Despite the guide’s warning, some members of our party actually did ask silly questions. ” Sini tak de elektrik, so lepas 7 malam buat apa?” When that question was asked, I was both pissed and embarassed at the same time. Really don’t know where to hide my face! Gosh.

We finished off our big adventure by having a swim at one of the many waterfalls that they had in the park.

This was the part where I was most excited. Heavily shaded area filled with cool waters and the best part the surface was rocky! While I was at the watefall, there was this surface next to the waters, where you could actually scale the wall! I being a reckless fellow, went to scale before Alex quickly yelling to me to come down. Guess it wasn’t such a bright idea to do it in front of the kiddies in case they wanted a go at it! Thank God all of them were more sensible. chickens

Last but not least, from all the members of the Diong clan, we would like to wish all of you :

Just want to report in that everything is well except for the waistline. With non-stop feasting from the day we left Klang Valley till the day we returned, I think I better buck up on my gym routine and do a few more rounds of cardio-exercise!

Happy Chinese New Year!  Hope everyone’s enjoying themselves!

Hope the Year of the Ox will have lots of goodies for everyone!!!

I’ll be off the whole week but will try to update as soon as I can. Meanwhile, everyone be good. Remember, list of who’s naughty and nice is still applicable for Chinese New Year