still my love, disneyland?

tokyo disneyland got to be the worst disneyland i've been to, in terms of crowd! not that i've been to many but 3 so far..but the crowd is ATROCIOUS! they really should limit the # of people in the park at one time, really!

so many people that its either you chose to forfeit sight-seeing ard the whole park and just spent time queuing up in long snaking queues. or, just venture round the park taking in sights, shopping in shops and enjoying 1-2 rides max.

we opted for the latter for i really hate to queue up and each ride average ard 1-2 hrs with hot, fav rides taking up to 3 hrs! madness if you ask me.

spent the most time at toontown since its like the nicest land in the park and it has mickey mouse house which is lacking in the other disneylands i've been to!
and yes, we queued up a good 2 hours before we got into mickey's house!!
but its worth the wait! soo cute and nice inside his house. and we got to meet him in person too! lol.

okie, photos!

happy me. still unaware at the no. of pple ard me!

cute trolly ride in toontown

in mickey's house - here his study table. lol.

one of his room

using his telly.

with the mouse himself! *wee*

to be fair, tokyo disneyland is by far the nicest out of the 3 i've been to. HK one is a lil' small and the merchandising in its shops are abit not delicate. think rough/blunt designs.

Paris one is a lil' old and soo huge and sprawling, you've problem combing it.

but the crowd really sucks in tokyo. mayb japanese are hardworking by nature for the park was PACKED by 9+am & fast pass tickets out by noon!! tell me, how mad is that! siao.

okie, back to work for me. its just a wednesday today. *sigh*

falling snow, wasabi, asakusa temple & *drums roll* sakura!

and when i thought im damn lucky to see snow the other day @ the waterfall area (not supposed to see snow for japan is officially entering its spring season. but oh well, the cranky weather conditions nowadays work in my favor i guess), i saw falling snow the next day! :)

woke up in my hotel feeling *brr* cold and when i looked out of our hotel window, everything was covered in white! nice!

near my hotel area (Mt-Fuji area)

happy me frolicking (literally) in the snow!

made a side detour to a wasabi farm before hitting tokyo from Mt Fuji. quite a nice experience, seeing all those wasabis rooted in water. it takes an average of 2 years for a wasabi to grow into a sizeable size! tough work.

finally arrived @ tokyo for the last 2 days of our trip! tokyo, sent nice fuzzing feeling to the tummy when i reached. memories have their special way of making it to the heart, rendering it to jump to an irregular beat. crazy beat, if you ask me. whatever. its been 7 years and as they said, facing the past exorcises it. how true.

me @ asakusa temple. the famous temple with the big red lantern. missed it when i was in tokyo last time. nothing special but it made the mother happy. esp. the sourvenir shops ard it. :)

and then the SAKURA. in their full glorious bloom! wonderful. took a stroll down a river, with all the sakura around me. shiok lah! :)



okie, more on my fav. disneyland tomorrow.. such japan commentaries posts are getting sloppier and shorter. lol.

snow. finally at 27.

ohhh... did i mention i see snow for like the very first time in my life!!!
yup at old age of 27 somemore (okie, 26 year 3 mth old okie!)!

mummy, bro + me visited a local market at Takamaya before heading to a waterfall ( i cant remember the name, though..oops) where we saw snow!!
very happy lah.. i let the photos do the talking bah.

a river running besides the local market @ takayama

*wee* snoW!

moi playing with snowballs.

me with the tiny snowman built by me!

a very happy me posing in the cold!

Tojimbo, Kenrokuen Garden 兼六园 & Shirakawa village

and so we visited more UNESCO sites during the trip. the temperature started dipping the further we got away from OSAKA.. esp. when we were @ Tojimbo (Awara area) which is essentially an area where you got to see spectacular cliff shaped by waves over the years. but nope, this aint under UNESCO. though such natural wonders can only be viewed in Norway & Korea other than here at Tojimbo.

mummy_+me freezing our ears off in the wind!

Tojimbo cliffs

Kenrokuen garden is one of the top 3 gardens in Japan to visit. it's massive, used to belong to one of the feudal lords in the past. we spent some lovely time in this picturesque place, adorned by many pretty flowers (though i know none of them..lol).


one of my fav. place for the trip got to be shirakawa village! its a very quaint village whereby you feel you are back in time. look like a scene out of anderson tales! :)
but its like freaking cold there for we can still see lotsa snow around...!

i love the atap-style huts there!


and there is this lucky mascot for this place @ Hida (where the village is) which is called Sarubobo which is lucky monkey if loosely translated. but the thingy looks nothing like a monkey and it has no facial features! weird, if you ask me. still, i took a pic with one of it below.

the one im holding is Sarubobo!

okie the lil'one is asleep! going out to look for hubbi for some couch-potato time. :)

mamalove high chair!

and the high chair has finally arrived!

and baby loves it for he can follow me to wherever i am in the house! *wee*

frivolous baby bag - but really again, do you even care?

tada, decided to use the new baby bag i got from japan today.
or rather, the bag is bought with the intention of being used as a baby bag.
*ding ding* presenting my new blue label burberry bag. a very nice + comfortable size! :-)
(loaded to the max with all kinda of (un)believeable baby stuff)

nicey?

oh, and i got another blue label sling bag for myself too. will upload the photo if i got the time. yah lah yah lah, spent on bags again lah. the husband has officially accepted that bags and me are synonymous. :P

and so we went to walk walk ard centrepoint area for a lazy saturday. the lil' one is spoilt. few moments in the pram and he'll decide to wail for our attention. and wail till pitiful somemore. but once picked him out from pram, he 'll then flash you his mega-watt smile!! *faint*

hubbi+ me got ourselves mega-blocks spiderman set! yay, getting ready to build it this wed when baby is over at my mum's place. heh.

*yawn* waiting for baby high-chair to be delivered soon.. okie later!

me+ baby YZ!

still dont want to smile at the camera. baby, be more like mammy, not pappy!

USJ, Kiyomizu Temple & spooks

the 1st attraction spot i visited in japan was UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN @ osaka! *wee* didnt regret the my choice of choosing it over the osaka castle. :P though we spent only a mere 5 hrs+ over here, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. USJ is decidedly so much smaller than disneyland, hence making it easier to explore.

despite the lack of time, we managed to slot in 1 ride (which we queued for an hr!! if you think this waiting time is ridiculously long, wait till you see my tokyo disneyland entry!). and that's *drumsroll* the amazing spiderman ride! lol.

me=a huge fan of peter parker, okie! and its totally worth the wait! as we snaked our way for the ride, we were presented with Daily Bugle (JJJ"s office) and we even see PP's cubicle! lol. its adorned with Mary Jane's photos of cos! (you've to be familiar with spidey to know what im talking about anyway)

and the ride is a 3D simulator ride (actually i feel its 4D for when the baddies get to us, we actually feel the heat of fire, droplets of water & big wind blowing through our hair) which is simply AMAZING! very surreal and most of the time, i really feel my vehicle is being flinged around by bad Dr Oct and there was this scene where we were brought up to those high NYC building and being flunged down. that was so real n the height really scared the hell outta me! but of cos, spiderman to the rescue!! haha.

okie, in all. enjoyed my time there. showing some photos below:

elmo!!

the ride!

in USJ

jaws!!

in snoopyland!

USJ!

we visited the Kiyomizu temple (清水寺) @ Kyoto too. its a UNESCO world heritage site and i got the major hots for UNESCO stuff lor. like these sites are going to disappear ever so soon and its really great to see them before that happening.

the part where we climbed upslope to reach the temple was fun too for the road is narrow & winding and lined with nice (touristry, no doubt) shops. mum seemed to enjoy it better for we were very lucky to chance upon a geisha and took a photo with her too!

@the temple


happy mommy with geisha

oh, and one of the nights we were actually staying over at this onsen (hot spring) place and seriously it freaked me out just that little. the place was quite old and our group seems like the only group staying in the hotel at that time. *errie* and though our room was big (i have this thing about big hotel rooms, too much space makes my hair raise!), it feels cold & when we opened the sliding door of a cupboard, there was this big gaping hole on the inside wall, peering into unknown darkness! eeks.

okie, abit over the top here but was really glad we survived the night and i was never happier to check out of a hotel before. :P

okie more on other places later!

CUTE OR NOT!

newsflash! on the kilos!

wee! a week + at japan has done my waistline (actually not really) GOOD!
perhaps its all the walking. perhaps its all the early nights (read somewhere that a good rest aids in weight loss). perhaps its the staying off of *evil* milo and drinking healthy green tea non-stop.
FOR... im finally at 54kg! *wee*

been 2 months since i last shed my last kg to be at 55kg in Feb.. wow the last few kgs are very hard to shake free leh!

still, a good 1-2kg from my pre-preggy weight. no mind, shall work hard. so it's true as the books said. need at least 9 mths to be back in shape.. this is really happening to me. bah!
so so, another 4 more mths to go.. jia yoU!!

IM BACK

from JAPAN!!

had a really smashing time there!!!

- saw snow (falling one okie!) for the 1st time!
- saw sakura for the 1st time. thank god they are in full bloom @ tokyo where i spent my last 2 days of the trip!
- tokyo disneyland for the 1st time (though i've been to HK & Paris one before)!

everything is still very chaotic @ home. done with washing clothes + unpacking but most stuff are still lying around in my study room.

oh, and i miss my lil' pumpkin so very much!! been staring at my hp wallpaper (HIM!) whenever im on the coach over there.
the 1st thing i did after reaching home (after changing into a clean set of clothings + washing my hands of cos) was to rush to the BABY!
he was just waking up from his nap and he SMILED when he saw me! geez.. totally melted my heart! my baby remembers mammy!!

and he changes soo much. sobbie + gleeful @ the same time.
he looks bigger + taller though when i weighed him yesterday, he gained weight of 150g nia. ha.
AND, he can put his weight on his legs when i hold him in a standing position! previously, the legs like jelly haha.
AND, he is blowing raspberry ALOT now.
AND, he can raise his butt abit and pushes himself forward a lil' to get objects placed infront of him.
AND, he makes "small talk" with me alot now.
i love lil' pumpkin to bits! :)

now, i wonder if i can survive 2 weeks without him in early june when hubbi + me go on our couple trip. hmm... i really hope so. :

and the little one turns

5 mths old today! :)

how time flies! before long, he ll be a toddler and i ll miss the baby him SOOOO much!

random pixs of pumpkin!

taken last sat with pappy!

i suspect the son is just like pappy when come to taking photos. both dont like to smile!!!


just learnt how to flip ard 4 mths 1 week old

blog title, clever little pumpkin + stash

was updating my profile in a yahoo group im in recently and suddenly dawned upon me this blog is called "BLISS".
*gulp* sound a bit mush and fluff and those who know me would agree im no such person (at least not all the time lah!).

anyway, i named this blog that because it was started end'05 when hubbi and me were busy preparing for our wedding. we were this young (at least me, not him) couple about to take a big step ahead together in our lives. and im convinced that there's no other way to go except into happiness. :)

but we all know, reality is definitely not so. we've our fair share of ups and downs throughout our marriage + my pregnancy. we fight. oh yes, we fight ALOT. as i was just telling ayu, the things we fought over were all really small + insignificant. but its the way we fight that did it.
my way of dealing with conflicts differ from his and this leads to mayhem!

and so we had yet another fight last week over something small but as usual it escalated to a huge row. *bleh*
so were not on talking terms for like 2 days before we were back on track again. ha.
i guess we'll never be those ideal couple who never/seldom quarrel. hmm....

oh the whole point of the above is not really about us for us having spats is really not unusual. its the little tyke.
so when the husband and i were raising voices at each other with him snuggled in my hubby's arms, past his bedtime, he just lied there quietly looking from hubbi to me, me to hubbi.
so unlike the usual him, who wailed and demanded to be carried around to fall asleep haha.
really ver cute lah, dun know how to describe. like he understands what was going on and knew better to keep his tiny gap shut. :)

AND, when the session ended, as if on cue, he started fussing and we made him sleep in 10 mins time. lol.
and the only thing we talked about after our fight was about how the little pumpkin is so smart. >_<

shopping for me again! (does anyone even care what i buy nowadays? i guess NOPE!)
i got the below over last week (totally not helping my cashflow):
-yet another pair of shoes
-a nicey red top
-a cute 到爆的 bib + jacket for baby
-a novel, 2 asterix comics (im a huge fan), 1 enchanted tales treasury & 1 ABC book (for the little one), new language CD rom (guess which language im interested in like from forever?) from harris + times book fair @ great world city & expo respectively

okie, got to go for lunchie now.
sidenote: this weekend marks the 2 years anniversary at my workplace for me. eww... how gross!

when it comes to the little tyke...

im very fussy and won't tolerate any slipshodness.

1) im very particular with bottles cleanliness. all bottles/teats/pacifiers must be properly sterilised. rinsing bottles with hot water DOES NOT equate with sterilising.
babies' digestive systems are still immature and sterilising minimise tummy upsets for them.

2) pacifiers need to be rotated. cant stand baby sucking on the same pacifier for more than 12 hours. imagine the no. of times it fall off his mouth and hit god-knows-where and we just pop it back into his mouth. ewww.

3) night-time dressing MUST be long sleeves & long pants. this will not resulted in over-heating for the fan is on in the room, the window is wide-open & the clothing is good cotton. at most abit warm for him nia.
for the night is the coldest from 4am - 6am! sometimes i see hubby and me shivering and pulling our comforter up till our neck, i wanted to bash myself up for allowing baby to wear only a thin cotton long sleeve pants covered with a cloth nappy only. our comforter is much thicker than what he has lor.

4) if possible, change his clothings/hankies/cloth nappys once they are not too clean.
i ll use the same hankie for his milk feedings for at most 2 times provided they aint very wet from the 1st feeding. and also, must use hankie even if feeding plain water.. water slipping to his neck and *horror* to his ears aint funny lor. will result in angry rash or ear infection if not careful.

clothes once kena urine/milk/what's not will be CHANGED. even if its only plain water. just change and wash with the next load. no such thing as "its only water and let it dry to use next time (?!?!)"
cloth nappy used to lay mattress can be used twice provided its relatively clean and not sucked on/wetted by baby. NEVER use the same cloth nappy for laying on mattress to cover him at night!

okie, so far can only remember the above. i really hope the husband gets to read the above. *stare hard*

*praying hard that everything will go smoothly during my absence from home end of this month*

WISH ME LUCK!
im gonna need all i can have!

baby bjorn, yakitori and my fav.

finally mum get the bjorn washed and ready for us to use! it was much easier to handle than the combi one, much to my surprise. and seeing how baby was all excited when put facing out makes me smile. :)

so far we used it for both yesterday and this mornings. brought baby out for breakfast @ tiong bahru BK & redhill hawker respectively. he was quiet and nice inside, occasionally kicking his legs in excitement. though my back aches alittle when home.. think the carrier can sustain him for 2 more mths at most. it can "tahan" up to 10kg but baby is ard 8+kg when we last weighed ourselves few nights ago! jeez.

all ready to go! pardon my messy get-up, its 8+ in the morning nia.

the ng family went out to raffles city yesterday. just learnt that for those with visa signature card, you can get a complimentary car park pass (for 4 hrs!) at raffles city!
but by the time we reached at 3+, its already fully redeemed. boo. no mind, we managed to exchange for a 2hr complimentary pass still (available whenever you charged $50 to visa).

having nappy before going out

ready to go!

we went to this new japanese "marche" style outlet at raffles city basement. food aint bad though price is a bit steep for the food tastiness.


the shitake mushroom yakitori is YUMMY!

after which we went shopping (what else?!). bought more bibs for the drooling monster and some misc stuff at robinsons.
MPH was having 20% sale on all children's books! how not to miss!
the bookworm in me was VERY excited. in the end bought these:

from left: waterproof book for baby during his bath time! he did seem to enjoy it this morning :)
roald dahl treasury which is for me lah!
i read noddy when im young and find it extremely interesting. so bought this for reading to baby next time. heh.

oh, and i saw the shoes that i want at the nine west branch there, having my size!! and so i got myself yet another pair of shoes. heh.
the husband has officially wash his hands off me, i presume.
it was going at 50% off! *Sweet*

and so we went..

to the isetan private sale.

learnt 2 valuable lessons:
1) its better to take leave for the sale if there are specific things you are considering to buy. or at least reserve the items the day before.
2) NEVER NEVER take direct bus to orchard from my workplace. even if it means taking bus to mrt, change stop at dhoby ghaut, walk to isetan from orchard station, i will still reach earlier as compared to direct bus by AT LEAST 15 mins. *pui*

so hubby was waiting for me @ lucky plaza bus stop to ferry shivering me (an hour in the cold cold bus is not a joke) with his umbrella to isetan scotts. we reached at 8pm. can it be anymore later? and the crowd is still there! *faint*

1st stop: got my make up remover + toner from shu uemura since they are about to run out. the queue kills but thanks god for hubby who queue for me 1st as i go squeeze with the others for the products. managed to get a complimentary travel kit (comprising of mosituriser, toner, make up remover etc) which is great for my upcoming japan trip.

2nd stop: dashed to the shoes' section and was seriously tired out by the many many people there. finally saw a pair @ Nine West to my liking but alas! no size left lah!

3rd stop: women's clothings at level 2. people everywhere again. but managed to get a skirt @ MNG. very lucky to see a friend's friend who was an isetan manager and so happened to station at MNG for the day.:)
so got an additional 10% staff discount.

4th stop: baby/kid section!
didnt get much stuff for hubby was looking seriously drained by then. still, managed to get a combi bib, safety gate, some sleepsuits + toy for the little one.

was 10+ when we left scotts. wanted to shop at the supermarket at B1 too but bad hubby growls no. :

im looking forward to the next sale already.

it's amazing

how negativity can really get one down.
been feeling irritable, grouchy and ever-so-ready to snap for last few weeks.
a trip down memory lane via photos makes me realise how happy i was back then.
and so i decide to change my perspective and think on the positive side.
and it helps.

so im happy once again. ")

whistling:"always look on the bright side of life...."

a lion, house-hunting and a wedding

wormy is truly blessed to have a cousin whose mummy LOVES buying him lotsa clothes.
that means wormy got to inherit quite a fair bit of hand-me-downs. :)
think ard 70% of his clothes is from cousin ziheng!

and so he's a lion yesterday. and he DID roar when we were out. heh.
now the baby loves to shout alot when out and excited. his 2 little feet go kick kick kick and he just yodal away. cute.


the husband and my lives now more or less centered around the little tyke.
the plan is to let my mum take care of him full time in the long run, hence the need to relocate back to the east side.
so we went house-hunting during the weekend. just for fun lah. we cant sell our current flat for the 1st 5 years unless we forgo 20% of sales proceeds to HDB as sales levy.
ALSO, we cant own another property in 5 years time as ours is a new flat.
quite a bit of problem. but i understand the basic working of public housing is to provide affordable housing to people who really needs them.
if we can jolly afford 2 properties, why we go fight with others for a HDB unit?
but still, things would be alot esaier if we can sell our current one/buy another apartment. *hmm*

oh, and property prices is still on the ridiculous side. perhaps everything will work out fine for us.
let's hope that 3 years down the road, when its time for us to have another property, market will be slowing down and we can get a better deal than now.

Anyway, went for my colleague's, kelly, wedding at Oriental. first time attending a church wedding and its really different. lotsa standing up singing songs. hee.
still the food is really nice, albeit different from the usual traditional wedding dinner dishes.
but the air-con is *brr* tooooo cold for me.

all in all, a rather fulfilling + busy weekend for me!