Valen’s Vanity Square

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!

Holidays are always too short, agree?

Just came back from the very nice Awana Kijal Beach, Golf & Spa Resort Saturday night, already thinking of a revisit at the end of the year, haha! It was really the best beach hotel I’ve been to so far.

We did quite some activities there. We drove out mainly for food. Other times we were roaming around within the resort, either reading under the shades by the beach, having coffee at the lounge, or playing carrom and table tennis at their activity centre.

We didn’t get to test their driving range because we were lazy to wake up early, he he. The best experience would be the spa, of course!

I will write about it in my coming post, because now I have to get back to work. More work -> more money to spend on holidays… hopefully at Awana Kijal Beach, Golf & Spa Resort again! Haha!

Jeez, my favourite seat in Starbucks at Berjaya Megamall, Kuantan, has been taken up by a middle-age men!

Yeah, I’m now here at the cafe, a cup of latte on my table (may be I’ll get some dessert later too), and typing this blog post. I don’t like where I’m sitting now, it’s facing the cafe entrance and I feel quite ‘exposed’ as people can easily peek at what I’m doing with my laptop. But this is the last seat with a power point nearby. Oh well, I would just have to bear with this for another 2 hours, do what I need to do with the internet, and I will be internet-free for the next 3 days! (I’m going to miss the web…)

Now, I can’t help thinking of the white sandy beach that I will be seeing tomorrow, haha! I also wonder if the resort has a lounge with nice sofa sets, or a nice open-air area with beautiful patio furniture sets. Sometimes, just lazing around on a comfortable and cozy sofa doing nothing can be as just relaxing.

If I want to create a tropical vacation feel in my own house in the future, I would definitely place a set of patio tables and chairs in my garden. Okay, that is if I can afford to buy a bungalow before I get too old to appreciate all this, that is. Haha!

Woohoo! Our room reservation with Awana Kijal resort has been confirmed!

Unfortunately, their Deluxe single rooms (with King-sized bed) have been fully booked, we are given a twin bedroom. They are putting us on the waiting list though. Anyway, single beds in hotels and resorts are quite spacious. Hubby and I can always share a bed if we want to. Haha!

Now, I should start some research work to find out where to get good seafood around the resort area, and to plan our activities in the resort - pool (i.e. snooker, not swimming pool), golfing (driving range only, la), table tennis (I’m better than hubby in this game), spa (a full body scrub and massage, how exotic!)…

Can’t wait till July!

Finally got our Awana Kijal Golf, Beach & Spa Resort hotel reservation made this morning!

We tried to make an online reservation last night, but was disappointed to find out that the Astounding Saver package that we wanted is no longer available. It was a really good deal, less than RM200 per room per night. I checked their other online booking rates, it was above RM300!

So I decided to write in an inquiry to check if they have other better rates. Glad to receive their reply this morning that they still have standard rooms (known as Deluxe room there) available at RM280 per night (coz our stay will be during the low season). Got husband to SMS me his credit card details and made a reservation via email. Errr, actually, I am still waiting for a confirmation email from the hotel staff, he he. Hopefully I will get a reply today.