Valen’s Vanity Square

Good times always pass by so fast. It’s already the last day of our holiday, and we’ll be driving back to KL tomorrow.

All we have been doing these few days are eating, sleeping, watching TV, reading or surfing the internet in the room. We have not become couch potato, but bed potato, haha! There’s also free wireless connection here at Flamingo Beach Hotel, so I didn’t have to go to Starbucks in order to get online.

The only time we leave the hotel is when we need to eat. We also have enough drinking water in the room by boiling water taken from the bathroom. I know some people tend to just drink the water right off the tap, but I don’t know if the hotel is using a good water filter system, so I better do it right and safe instead of regretting later.

Everything is great with this holiday, we feel so relax and really unwind from the usual daily hustle and bustle. The only down side about this holiday is that it has make my lose weight plan even tougher! But what the heck, just have to work out harder when I get back home.

Hubby and I are planning a short trip out of town next month some time around the National Day.

After considering a few places, we decided to revisit Penang, the island where we had stayed for 2 years. Looks like short holidays in Penang will be some sort of annual thingy for the rest of our life, since it’s like a second home to us. In fact, we went to Penang twice last year! One was hubby’s working trip, the other was to attend a friend’s wedding.

Usually I would be the want who make the hotel reservation online, after checking the room rates and reviews. It’s important to check hotel reviews before deciding which one to stay in, just like people who want to lose weight should read diet pill reviews before they know which product to use. I don’t want to end up in hotels that are poorly maintained, and worst, with spooky things going on….

But this time hubby is faster and smarter; he found an online hotel booking website that charges about 10% cheaper than the one I normally use. Okay, so hubby is getting more internet savvy these days. Haha!

Anyway, we have booked for three nights, a sea-view room, with the newly refurbished Flamingo By the Beach Hotel at Tanjung Bungah. Initially we planned to stay at Batu Ferringhi, but all the hotels along that beach are very expensive, except for the Hydro Majesty Hotel, but we had stayed there twice. Now we want to try a new hotel. So, Flamingo is it.

The first thing to do as soon as I arrive in the office tomorrow morning is to apply leave!

Wanted to watch the movie ‘Valentine’s Day’ after lunch, but tickets were sold out. In fact, almost all movies at all hours were fully booked!

Well, firstly today’s Wednesday, the movie tickets are 30% cheaper. Secondly, many Chinese have yet to return to work, like hubby. So the best thing to spend time is to watch movie. But it’s difficult to get tickets on the spot during holidays, you usually have to call earlier to reserve tickets or make a booking online.

Okay, no movie for us, so we thought we could get a cup of free coffee at Secret Recipe cafe. They are having a promotion of buy one piece of cake and get a cup of coffee or tea for free. We didn’t manage to have that either, coz the promotion is only available from 3pm to 6 pm. It was only 2.30 pm then, so we decided not to wait. Save money, and save myself from gulping in extra calories, haha! (Otherwise, I won’t be writing this post but looking for weight loss help on the website www.quickweightloss.org now.)

But it’s okay. I bought a CD of Kay Tze, I will entertain myself learning new songs later. Planning to go karaoke-ing this weekend. But this time I’ll make to call and make a reservation first!

The day just ended with another feast of dine and wine. Well, I just got home from a dinner with the parents in law of my brother in law. You must be wondering what do my brother in law’s parents in law got to do with me, right? Well, they really have nothing to do with me, this is just part of the custom after you got married.

And after eating so much over these few days, but not eliminating every day, my jeans and skirts seem to have gotten tighter than they were before CNY, haha! I think I have another two dinner occasions to attend before the week ends. Eeeks!

It won’t be a surprise if you see colon cleanse products selling like hot cakes after this festive season, coz I think everyone needs to clear all the junk they eat over the holiday, hehe.

Luckily, there won’t be any family gathering tomorrow. I’ll be cooking like normal and eating like normal tomorrow. Suddenly, I’m craving for a bowl of hot old cucumber with pork ribs soup…

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy Chinese New Year to you if you’re celebrating this festive.

Today’s the second day of CNY. Yesterday, we visited my father in law’s relatives. Today, we’ll be visiting my mother in law’s. Well, this is the ‘tradition’ of my hubby’s family. Anyway, I’ll be going back to my parents’ this evening for dinner. The second day of CNY is the day where the wives get to visit their own family.

I think the city is pretty quite today, so are the highways. The highways were super duper jam last Friday and Saturday, where many drove back to their hometowns to be in time for reunion dinners. Lucky for us, we moved back to KL more than a year ago, so we didn’t have to go through the ‘balik kampong’ traffic agony anymore.

When there’s such heavy traffic on the highways, naturally there will be increased incidence of road accidents or cars breaking down. You have to call for help, then wait by the roadside for assistance to come, it might be a very hot day or raining cats and dogs, your journey is delayed…

Can’t imagine if you’re driving a heavy duty automobile, such as a motor home, and this happened. That would be such a big spoiler to your plan, be it a RV or camping trip. Of course, if you’re in US or Canada, you don’t have to worry a bit coz there’s good sam motorhome towing ready to your rescue if your motor home breaks down.

Anyhow, the best way to prevent all those unfortunate road incidents is to get your vehicle checked and serviced before you set off, and drive carefully on the road.

Have a safe journey, wherever you’re going!

I think I’m almost done with all the necessary shopping for the coming CNY. Basically we shop for stuffs to give away when visiting relatives this festive season, not for ourselves, haha!

We still need to get some plants to decorate the house though. We’ve just changed our curtains not so long ago, so we are not going to change them again! We have a set of new bed sheet and pillow case, bought few months back during the sales, so that part is settled too.

Our carpet and two single-seat sofas are in red color, so our house is pretty much in a CNY mood already, haha!

The only thing that we have to do now is to clean the house! That’s the tough part…

Hmm, what else do I need to do….

Oh, I must remember to remind hubby to get a replacement battery for his SMARTag device (an automatic payment card for the toll) and reload his Touch N Go card, since we’ll be traveling in the town quite a bit this holiday.

And finally, I am going to bake cookies. I did bake butter cookies and oatmeal cookies last week, but the recipes I used ain’t so nice. I’m going to modify and experiment with the recipes again this week. :p

While others may be planning for a long year-end holiday, hubby and I are just planning a 2-night stay in Penang island.

The main purpose of the trip is to attend a friend’s wedding on Christmas night. Of course, we will also take this as a short Christmas holiday, and a revisit to a place where we had lived for 2 years. Knowing that it will be a super peak holiday season, I have quickly made room reservations in two different hotels - the Eastin Hotel located next to Queensbay Mall (just officially opened 10 days ago) for the first night, and Hydro Majesty located at Batu Ferringhi for the second.

You see, this is the benefit of holidaying in our own country. Cuti-cuti Malaysia! We know the whereabouts, we can make our own hotel reservation, we can go anywhere on our own. That’s the fun of traveling actually, being able to schedule the destinations and do things on our own pace. Of course, if we were to holiday in Las Vegas, we would definitely sign up one of those las vegas packages.

Why are we staying in two different hotels? Well, the first night is our friend’s wedding banquet, the hotel is just next door away, so hubby won’t have to drive even if he gets drunk, haha! At the same time, hubby wants to chill out at the beach town, that’s why we will check into a beach hotel the second day. It’s seems a bit troublesome, but again, that’s the fun of it.

Luckily the island isn’t that big, there’s never a problem of traveling from one end of the island to the other. One can never get lost there, haha!

Oh dear, I’m seeing red light bulbs blinking all over in my bank account. Luckily, I have settled this month’s credit card payment, now I’m waiting for a big paycheck to come rescue me for the next couple of months. The check is oh so delayed….

I have been postponing my passport renewal due to cash flow shortage, haha! It’s expiring Jan 2010. This means I can’t go any where out of Malaysia now, until I renew my passport. Well, I suppose there won’t be a year end trip for me, I don’t think hubby would suddenly tell me that we would go for some orlando vacations for Christmas. Such wonderful surprises only happen in my dreams…

But I do hope to visit somewhere near, like Hong Kong or Bali in the first quarter of next year. I’ve never been to Bali. It’s like everyone in the world has been there, seen there, eaten there, taken photos there, except me. However, I’ve visited Hong Kong twice and still feel like going back again. I don’t know why, I just like Hong Kong so much; I think it’s a really cool short holiday destination.

Anyway, useless to plan for anything now since I don’t have a valid passport and lots of cash. :<

Have you been to the US, whether it’s for work or for holiday, and would love to be back again? I have not been to any part of the US, so I don’t know if I will like it there. But my gal friend who went to New York once, loved it so much (note: ‘Sex and the City’ influence), that she was so excited when her company recently assigned her a working trip to NY again. Unfortunately, the trip was canceled due to some changes in her project.

If you ask me which city or state in US I would like to visit, I would say San Francisco - the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, steep roads, historical architecture, climate, etc. Somehow I have a liking to ‘old’ things, haha!

Of course, there are many more interesting places in US worth visiting. North Carolina seems like a good place. Have heard about its island and beach vacation hot spots at the Outer Banks. It’s no wonder that some people actually bought Outer Banks homes, moved there, and started running their own holiday rental homes or motels so that themselves can be ‘on a beach holiday’ everyday!

All said, I don’t really have plans to visit US for the next 10 or 20 years, haha! Two main prohibiting factors - money and long-distance traveling. Even if the money issue is out of the way, I can’t persuade myself to do a 20-hour flight. It’s agonizing!