Moments in My Life

It is Sunday evening now.  We had just returned from a mini vacation.  My hubby did a lot of driving these past three days.  It was more than 800 miles round trip.  He did all the driving while I took care of Brandon sitting at the back of the car.  Brandon loved the hotel stay and he didn’t mind the long drive in the car.  We get to meet some friends during this trip too.  Will post more pictures on it later.

I have been wanted to write about this since we returned from our KL trip. I put on an extra 6-7 pounds just for that 5 weeks trip. We had 4 meals a day, sometimes 5. Breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper. My aunty fed us all very well. I never thought I would come back to LA and found myself weighing more than before since I’ve been climbing stairs many many times a day. But that was not enough exercise to compromise with the food I ate. And thanks to all the sugary and carbohydrate food I took, I gained the 7 pounds. Honestly, I ate a lot but not as much as I wanted to. LOL … I could’ve gained more weight if I didn’t control my appetite.

And since my return to LA, I’ve been watching what I eat. Unfortunately, the 6-7 pounds is going to stick with me. I can’t get back down to my pre-KL weight. *sigh* I don’t think I have enough motivation for weight loss as I constantly craving for sugary food like cookies and cakes after lunch and dinner. I tried to substitute it with fruits but the craving is always still there. Some days are better than others but the pounds are not going away anyhow.

I may need to try Skyler Madison Center for Well Being Nirvana Diet if my weigh increases.  For those living in Manhattan and Westchester New York area, you are in luck.  Skyler Madison Nirvana Diet can be done in person if you live nearby their center.  For those others, you can still call in by phone.  Their main concern is correcting the issues by approaching the mind.  That is one reason why this center also called as the ’spa for the mind’.  With this approach, it helps to generate new energy to fight with the old habits.  If you haven’t this method of diet, you should.  It might be much better than just counting points.

Let me do a review of oiur family visit to San Francisco Steakhouse in KLCC when I was there. With my father around, I suggested for us to have a family meal at San Francisco Steakhouse in KLCC while we were residing one night in the PNB Darby Park Service Apartments. We arrived rather early when there were only two tables with customers. I want to say it was around 5:30 to 6pm when we got there.

The restaurant is located on a second level. There is no elevator/escalator, so we had to fold down our strollers and carry them up ourselves. A good customer service would be having someone from the restaurant to help us carry the huge and heavy stroller up the two flights of stairs. Either that, they can have an area downstairs where customers can put away these strollers in safe keeping while having dinner upstairs, but I don’t believe they do as they only said to us “… bring your strollers up.” Luckily, my father and brother were there, so they helped to bring the strollers up.

We were seated immediately but they didn’t give us the child’s menu until we asked for it. When they brought over the child’s menu, they didn’t provide the crayons or color pencils for the kids to draw/color. Second bad service. We didn’t want to ask for it as my sister brought her own color pencils so we shared.

Here is their Junior’s Menu as they called it.

Junior Menu - a complimentary scoop of topsy-turvy wafflecone ice cream will be served with any order of Junior Menu.

Cheese Macaroni RM9.90 - Gratinated ‘Four Cheese’ sauce macaroni with beef crumble

Nemo’s Fish & Chips RM9.90 - Batter fried fish fillet with coleslaw, tartar sauce and USA potato fries

Road Runny RM9.90 - Fried breaded chicken chop served with coleslaw and USA potato fries

We ordered our oyster appetizer, a chicken ceasar salad, 2 main entrée plates to share and 2 junior meals.

The oyster came after about 10-15 minutes. We ‘wallop’ed away the oysters in no time. Then the ‘chicken’ ceasar salad came and my dad was eating it and he turned to me and asked me, “Did I order the ‘chicken’ ceasar salad or just ceasar salad?” I opened up the menu and saw they only have ‘CHICKEN’ ceasar salad. I called upon the captain and inquire about the missing ‘chicken’. He didn’t even apologize, took the plate away and return 5 minutes later with some chicken pieces on the top. If this were to happened any American restaurant in Los Angeles, they probably give you a new plate of salad with no charge. Enough with that third bad service.

We waited very long for the entrée. I called upon another waiter to inquire about our food and he went to check. After 10 minutes, the entrée arrived. But then where were our kid’s meals? They went back and after 15 minutes, they came with the rest of our food. Fourth bad service. Kid’s meals should have served first.

The quality of the food is OK but with the bad service they gave us, not worth it. And on top of that, they forgot to serve us the COMPLIMENTARY wafllecone ice cream that should have come with the junior meals. Fifth bad service. Come on, your restaurant servers should know better about it. I didn’t even know there is complimentary ice cream until I came back to US and looking through the menu a second time. I messaged my sister on msn messenger and she was also upset by this mistake the restaurant made. I almost wanted to call them from US to let them know they forgot to serve the ice cream to our kids.

We spent over RM280 for the meal. Is it worth going back a second time? No, I would prefer to go somewhere else with prompt and better service for western food in KL.

We had such a nice time staying over at PNB Darby Park Executive Suites that we may return again if we ever go back to KL. We booked a 2 bedrooms apartment suite on their executive floor with view of the KLCC for RM650/night. Included in this price was breakfast buffet for 4 people at their 39th Restaurant on the 39th floor.

The check in office for executive floors was on the 32nd floor. We took the elevator straight up to the 32nd to check in. Upon check in, I was requested to put down RM100 as deposit for incidental damages. It was around 3pm but our room was not ready so we were given an upgrade to the 35th floor which I was glad. Actually, my booking was for an apartment on the 23rd to 31st. Our room number #3512, a corner unit facing the KLCC.

I had a very nice feeling entering the apartment. It looks elegant. There are 2 bedrooms with bathrooms attached. There is a powder room by the main entrance, a working kitchen with all utensils, a dining area with seating for six, a nice size living room with TV and DVD player and locked balconies. I like the open layout of this apartment.

Here is the living room. My brother was taking a break there to watch TV. They even have a DVD and Karaoke players.

The dining room that opens to the living room.

My father and brother slept in this 2nd bedroom with two single beds. This room has the view of the KLCC from the huge window.

My sister and I (and our kids) slept in this Master bedroom on the king size bed.

The master bedroom has a master bath that is attached. The bathroom has a shower as well as a bath tub. Too bad, the bath tub doesn’t have a shower curtain. The management should think about getting unique shower curtains that have a nice KLCC view on it. With out this curtain, the water will splashes out easily wetting the floor. We don’t like the bathroom floor to be wet so we didn’t use the tub. This bathroom should also have two sinks but they only have one.

Even I just had my vacation not long ago, I have the feeling I need another one soon. Well, the last time we went to Malaysia was without my husband. This time is going to be a family vacation. We will need to find a place to go … somewhere far … somewhere fun.

Actually, my husband has never traveled to the East coast. I had. I went to Atlanta together with my father for his work and then we met up with my mother in Orlando. It was end of summer 1996. My father took me to visit the Coca Cola Factory downtown Atlanta and rode the tram up to the Stone Mountain. The view from the top of the mountain was magnificent. I teased my dad to take me to the Wild Adventures Park but he said, “No!”. The rides probably would be too exciting for him. LOL!

If we would have known about Trusted Tours back then we probably would have make our Atlanta tours booking from them. We could have save money from buying tickets online than at the gate.

For now, I will browse Trusted Tours to check out their tours. If I found a nice one, I may drag my husband to go with us for a short family vacation somewhere far (or near) … somewhere fun … somewhere away from our home for a little while.

I am actually started thinking where we should be going for our next vacation. The previous trip to KL wasn’t really counted as a family vacation since my Hubby wasn’t able to join us for that trip. I am thinking now to go to Hawaii, Florida or may be down south to Mexico. Things are cheap in Mexico. I heard the food is good too, provided you like Mexican cuisine. My Hubby love Mexican food a lot and my son too. So it will not be a problem for us to go there.

I know many people including college students and retire couples love vacationing in Rocky Point, south of Arizona. College students love to go there to party and drink beer/alcohol. Retire couples love to visit for the beautiful ocean and relaxing environment. Family can have fun too. Let the kids enjoy the beach and the ocean while the parents can kick back and relax. These vacationers may want to try make their reservation through Rocky Point house rentals.

Renting a house is much more convenient than a hotel room, if you have more than 4 people. With a house you can have a group of people all staying together and play games and make as much noise as you want. And it may be cheaper per person too. And at Oceano Rentals, they provide many pictures of the house for rent which will give you a very good idea what you will be expecting when you arrive. So next time if you are visiting Rocky Point, remember to check out Oceano Rentals first and make your reservation on their website.

Isn’t this view beautiful? I have this as my wallpaper on my laptop now. This is the best night view I ever have on KLCC Twin Tower. I took it using my Canon SD630 digital camera without a tripod. I rested my hands on the window to make sure the picture turn out clear and not blurry. And it did! This is actually the view from the second bedroom in apartment we rented at PNB Darby Park.

This picture was taken from PNB Darby Park service apartment on the 35th floor. We reserved a two bedrooms apartment (Unit# 3512) for a one night stay for our Kee family. It was a very nice experience. The view is magnificent. Definitely worth the RM23 upgrade. If I get to wake up to this view every morning … it will be heavenly. Although there are many constructions surrounding this building, the noise hardly bothered us, at least we didn’t notice them much.

One of the things I listed on my to-do list in Malaysia was to visit a Fish Spa. I took my knowledge that there are fish spas in two places from what I read the bloggers wrote about. There is one in Bangsar. Another one in Pavillion Mall.

What I didn’t know that there is a new Fish Spa Foot Master at One Utama, a shopping center which is much closer to where I was staying. The first time we learned about this place was because we were visiting an eatery (KTZ) next to it. The promoter was very friendly and even invited Ethan dipped his hand into the tank. But because our time there wasn’t for this purpose, we didn’t go for it.

The next time we went, we already planned it out. It was about noon time and the kids fell asleep while we drove from TTDI to One Utama, very short distance. We knew immediately we had to stop at this Fish Spa since our kids both were sleeping. We pushed the strollers to aside and 4 of us went to dip our smelly legs into the tank. Each 30 minutes session is RM38. But we signed up for the package of 10 sessions with free 2 sessions, so we only have to pay RM380 for 12 sessions total.

My sister was the first one to dip her legs into the tank. And immediately she screamed! It was ticklish. Then my cousin sister joined in and later, her brother too. I was the last one as I was a bit frightened to put my legs in. I slowly immersed my right heel first. Then I got the ticklish feeling too. It was like a little electric shock when the fish biting kissing on your feet. This feeling lasted very long and I almost stopped half way. But after about 10-15 minutes, it gives a very nice sensation. We continued for a total time of about 45 minutes.

We enjoyed chatting with each other. I think is nice to go with a group of friends or family. Can chit chat mar. JoAnn’s son woke up first so she left the session earlier than the 3 of us. So did our feet feel much smoother? May be a little bit. I have deep cracks on my heels which was hard to heal with just kissing from these fishes.

We went back again before we left KL. It was also 4 of us, but that time my cousin brother was replaced by my Aunt (kammo). My account still has 4 sessions left. It has no expiration date and I left the acct with my cousin sister, hopefully she will bring her mom there again to enjoy.

The 5 weeks break from being at a full time housewife is heavenly.  For that 5 weeks, I hardly cooked at all  (except a few times I made pasta for the kids).  I did not have to do any chores, no cleaning, no dusting, no cooking, no driving.  As for laundry, we shared this chore between my sister and I.  But most of the time my sister did it. And sometimes my aunt help with the laundry too as we were busy caring our sons.  Thank you kammo!! Most of the time, our laundry is folded by my aunt’s maid, Tini. Thank you Tini!

Now I am back being a full time housewife and a part timer blogger. I have to blog, clean, plan what to cook, cook, dust, research for groceries sales, cut coupons, buying groceries, wash laundry, fold laundry, etc etc … hmmm … actually I think I would prefer to go back to KL to continue my break for another month or longer. LOL!