Moments in My Life

I feel so lazy to update my blog now that I am using FB to update most of the things that are happening here.  I have pictures as well as good description along side them.  But anyhow, I will still want to keep this blog and hope in a few months time I will come back here and actively posting new items and interesting posts.

Update: We have just moved to our new home a few weeks ago.  I am still in the unpacking stage and trying to figure out what to put where.  As you know, we moved from a 3 bedrooms house to a smaller 2 bedrooms house, there will be a slight difficulty to find places to put some of the items.  And since we don’t have much storage space in the new house, we are still in the planning stage to buy more cabinets for our stuff. 

Also I am busy because my sister from Adelaide is here visiting us with her son, Ethan.  They had been here since June 6th.  They flew in on V-Australia.  One funny thing - after we picked them up and driving out from the parking garage, Ethan asked, “Can we go back to Adelaide now?”  He didn’t like LA much I guess.

A few days after their arrival, they were on the plane again.  This time we flew with them together for a 8 nights vacation at Disney World Resort and Universal Studio Orlando.  We spent 5 nights at Disney World Port Orleans Riverside and another 3 nights at Fairfield Inn Marriott for our Universal Studio experience.  Apart from the heat and sweating, I love Disney World.  I hope to go back again in a few years.  Actually I don’t mind going back there again next year.  It is fun to be at the theme parks. 

We were at Universal Studio Orlando for one day to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Their grand opening was on June 18th and we joined the crowd for the celebration.  Believe it … we stood in line for 6 hours to get into Hogsmeade Village.  We didn’t get to the rides in that park because the lines again was too long (except for one double roller coaster ride which we were not really inrerested).  It was really hot and the que was not moving too fast.  We spent so much time in the sun that each of us were a few shade darker after that.  Luckily, we took turns at the line.  At least we get to go on some other rides in that park. 

The first ride I went on (by myself) was the Incredible Hulk Roller Coaster.  It was fast!  But that didn’t bother me until my buckle that connects the main restraint to the chair came off.  I was holding really hard on to the shoulder/body restraint because I was afraid I was going to fall down.  The ride has several upside down loops.  I had a slight migraine after that and was glad that I was on the ground again.  We may return again to this theme park for the Harry Potter rides in future, may be in 5 years time??

Now that we are back in Irvine, we are resting and trying to stay indoor as much to gain back our original skin shade.  hehehe … it doesn’t really help that we are now in summer as we will be heading out to the beach very soon.

Have you watched Mamma Mia the Movie?? It brings back memory of my childhood when my parents were listening, singing and dancing to songs like Dancing Queen and Take a Chance on Me. I wasn’t sure about the lyrics but I was sure I could sing the songs by heart. Imagine a 4 years old little Chinese girl who was singing these English songs loudly in the little village. She probably didn’t even know and speak English. But at that time, everyone knows about these songs even though we do not live in America.

When the movie came out, I knew I had to watch it and I love it. If the movie is so magnificent, what do you think of a live show on stage?? This is your chance to enjoy the live Mamma Mia, the musical. Now in Sydney, at Lyric Theater in Star City, and only for 15 weeks (23rd Oct 09 to 7th Feb 10). This may be an excellent choice of holiday gift to present to your parents to reminisce their young time. Mamma Mia! Live musical will continue in Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.

You definitely will not want to miss this funny and timeless musical. Hop on to the link above and read the worldwide reviews. And then make your booking through Ticketmaster for one of the best musical performance you will never forget.

We just returned from shopping when the gates to my aunty’s house opened and she drove in the car we were in. As I hopped down her silver CRV, my son was shouting, “Meow-meow! meow-meow!” with his right hand pointing towards my cousin’s cat - HeeChul. She was climbing up the navy blue CRV parked in the car porch and then stood high above the car’s rooftop while looking up above. My cousin was trying to ask her to come down when she noticed bats hanging above the car porch. The cat was actually trying to tell us there were intruders in our house. Smart cat!

There were three of them there, hanging upside down sleeping. No wonder some of the droppings on the cars and ground have tiny seeds in them. Now we know those were from the bats and not from the birds.

Visiting Australia was our biggest travel this year.  It was our first time at Down under.  We visited 4 cities in our three weeks vacation -  Brisbane & Gold Coast (Queensland), Adelaide (South Australia) and Sydney (New South Wales).  At each city, we stopped for 5 days except at Adelaide where we stayed 7 days.

My direct flight to Brisbane from LAX was good.  We flew out at night and arrived at 6am Brisbane local time.  The airline didn’t give me the seats I pre-booked online and instead they put us towards the back of the aircraft in the middle row.  Fortunately, there was an empty seat between us and the other passenger which gave us a little more space to play with.  My son skipped his supper meal in the flight as he was already sleeping.  He slept for 8-9 hours in our almost 14 hours flight.  He was awake in the first 2 hours of the flight and then the last 3-4 hours before arrival. 

Unfortunately our return flight from Brisbane to LAX was very uncomfortable.  I booked us to be flying off from Sdyney on the (not-so) new Airbus 380.  Thus we took a flight down from Brisbane to Sydney and stopover for 1hr before our adventure on A380.  Our flight to Sydney wasn’t delayed or anything but when we arrived at the Sydney airport, it was a rush.  We had to pass through immigration and then immediately board the plane.  Most of the other passengers were already in the plane waiting for the last group of transfers (us) to get on.

Upon finding our seats, a quick look at him, a very nice college student age boy was sitting on the window seat.  We had the aisle seat as we know that I need to take the little one to bathroom very often.  It never came to me that the post-college boy, Nathan, had to use the facility more than my son.  He went once before the flight took off.  Then for a total of six more times in the next 5 hours.  I took my son to bathroom only 2 times within the 5 hours.  And on top of that, Nathan was drinking a lot of Barcadi coke and I could see his face was turning purple and sense that he might be throwing up.  It wasn’t just me, the passengers behind our row as well as across from us saw the situation.  I was told to inform the flight attendant which I did and they eventually moved me to the back of the plane and seated next to a very delightful 80 year old lady travelling by herself.  Btw, she only asked to come out once from her window seat for bathroom during the 8 hours I was sitting next to her.

Later I found out that Nathan didn’t throw up at all but instead he was sleeping and occupying all the three seats on his row.  What a bummer!  We shouldn’t had moved!  But another I found out about westerners are … they are as greedy as the Asians.  This boy, in his mid 20s, took all the extra Barcadi liquor, utensils as well as the magazines, and he even kept away the bag of toys which I left in the pockets of our seats that were given to us upon boarding the flight.  He even took our overnight bags containing toothbrush, toothpaste, eyemask, socks, which were given to each long haul passenger.  This is the first time ever I saw a ‘male’ passenger taking something from the flight that wasn’t his to begin with.  It is very digusting to me seeing a westerner male doing this. 

When I told this story to my hubby immediately when I saw him at the arrival terminal, he was laughing and couldn’t believe it.  You will definitely get to see all kinds of people when you are traveling more and more.  And now, I may have to prepare myself for another long haul flight again … probably in a week or two.  *wink*

There are many online travel websites that can help you search for flights, hotels and vacation packages. But it is a hassle to check them individually to be able to find the best rate for your hotel stay because each travel agent may have their own promotions running at different times. If you want more time doing other important things rather than sitting in the computer to search, you have to visit www.HotelsCombined.com for finding the best rate for your hotel reservation.

HotelsCombined is the one place that helps you locate the best rate because it searches all the travel websites (not limited to but including Expedia, Hotels4U and eBookers) and presenting to you the BEST rate available at the location or city picked by you. They even search the individual hotel websites if they have the better rate, it will be shown at the end of your search. Usually, I like booking directly from hotel websites as they always have the best and lowest rate. But instead of visiting individual hotels’ sites to find which hotels in the city I chose has the lower rate, I just search it all on HotelsCombined.

And for now, if you participate in HotelsCombined’s Spread The Word For Charity, they will make a donation to a charity. They believe the best way of advertising would be by the word of the mouth. There are three options - they will give out $20 for a blog mention, $10 for a tweet and $5 for becoming a fan of our Facebook page. So please join me and spread the word for them.

Can you believe it is actually cheaper now to fly from New York to Kuala Lumpur than from LAX? You know me, I love to check around for good deal on flight tickets. I was looking at the Malaysia Airline website and currently they have promo. And then I saw the price flying from New York to KUL.

And I was so happy and was hoping that flying from LAX to KUL would be around $450-500 per person, usually around $100 lower. But I was so wrong when I saw this LAX to KUL fare.

Instead of being cheaper, it is almost $50 more flying from LAX to KUL. Do you know LA is nearer to KL than New York to KL? I still don’t understand why MAS has put up the fare like that. Could it be because there are less people flying off from NY to KL than from LA to KL?

Just got back to Brisbane from Gold Coast this evening.  We were in Gold Coast for 5 days 4 nights from June 10th till  14th.  Visited two theme parks - Dreamworld and Sea World Gold Coast.  We spent a full day at each theme park and found the Sea World to be better than Dreamworld.  We stayed until over the closing time when we were at Sea World.  The last 1 hour we were too busy shopping and buying gifts from the shops.  Me and my sister and our sons went on a 5 minutes helicopter ride which we paid extra for it.  It was fun, for all of us, especially our sons. 

We drove back to Brisbane after sending off my aunt and cousin to OOL (Coolangatta Airport).  They took the evening Air Asia flight back to Malaysia.  As I am typing this, they are probably sleeping on the plane already.  We had to drop them off at around 4pm (their flight at 9:xxpm) after driving down south to Byron Bay.  We had to return back to Brisbane before sundown.

My vacation is coming towards the end.  We will be leaving for LAX on Wednesdays and my sister will be leaving for ADL on Tuesday morning.  So far it has been fun and exhausting too.  I can’t wait to be back home to rest. 

We are in Sydney now and will be here still Saturday morning.  Then we will fly up to Brisbane to meet up with my father and his wife.  Our flight arrived Sydney on Tuesday 11am.  By the time we reached the city, we were all very hungry.  We checked in with no problem at Meriton Serviced Apartment on Pitt Street.  We like the location a lot as we are very close to all the things - restaurants and groceries.  After checking in, our first goal is to get lunch.  We bought some bento boxes and noodle bowl from the Sakura restaurant next door.  The boxes are around AUD10 each.  Then we went back to our 37th floor 2 bedrooms apartment to eat.  After lunch, we put our toddlers to sleep and then me and my sister went back down to Woolworths to get some groceries.  We are not planning to eat out all the time, so mainly we were going to get some food to make for dinner. 

Most of the evening time that day we spent walking around the city area.  We walked down to Circular Quay (20 mins) and then took the train back.  The train ride cost $3.20 for a single way.  The Sydney Opera House was lighted up when we were there and it was magnificient. 

Yesterday, we walked to Darling Harbour and then to the Sydney Fish Market to have lunch.  After that we took the tram, train and bus to Bondi Beach.  During the trip to Bondi Beach, the kids napped.  It was nice weather when we arrived at Bondi Beach.  We were glad as this morning when we were walking to the Sydney Fish Market, it was raining very hard.  We spent about an hour in Bondi Beach and took the bus back to Bondi Junction Mall.  Later we took the train back to the city and had very simple dinner back in the apartment. 

Today, we will be meeting up with our blogger friend and family - Mommibee.  Can’t wait. 

What would you do if you win one of the five Kissimmee Vacation Giveaways? You have a few options. You can splurge yourself or you can choose to go with the free activities.

There are many free and fun activities around Kissimmee which is located in Central Florida. You can check out the wilderness preserves or just walk around the historical downtown area. Coming up on April 25th is the 6th Annual Dark Sky Festival. The admission to this outdoor stargazing festival is free from 6pm to 11pm.

And if I win one of the vacation getaways, I will splurge myself and my family with theme parks’ (Universal Studios® Orlando, Walt Disney World® and SeaWorld® Orlando) tickets in Orlando which is located about 35 minutes driving distance north of Kissimmee. We’ve been planning to visit Walt Disney World® since my husband and I were dating. So if we win this, it will be our dream come true.

The best vacation is when you get it for free. Don’t you agree? There will be three drawings - 4/1/09, 5/1/09 and 6/1/09. The next drawing is in a week. So come and join me in this Freedom to Enjoy Sweepstakes. All you need to get started is your email address. You can also check out the website for more fun things to do in Kissimmee if you are planning for your next vacation to this location.