Pasha and Negaraku

Every Monday students at Tadika Noble are required to sing the National Anthem and the Selangor Anthem. We have never taught Pasha to sing any of those and the songs that he knows are mostly the tunes from his favorite TV shows such as, Thomas and Friends and Chuggington. Other than that, he is only familiar with some nursery rhymes such as, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the Alphabet Song and a few others. As such, Negaraku is something new to him. Can you find Pasha? He is standing on the left, the third boy from the front. While others are singing, you can see Pasha doing other things such as closing both his ears, scratching his head. Well, he is doing many things except singing... Now Mama Pasha has downloaded Negaraku and Duli Yang Maha Mulia for him to listen and learn. Negaraku Negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku, Rakyat hidup, bersatu dan maju, Rahmat bahagia, Tuhan kurniakan, Raja kita, selamat bertakhta. Rahmat bahagia, Tuhan kurniakan, Raja kita, selamat bertakhta. Duli Yang Maha Mulia Duli Yang Maha Mulia Selamat di atas takhta Allah lanjutkan usia Tuanku Rakyat mohon restu bawah Duli Tuanku Bahagia selama-lamanya Aman dan sentosa Duli Yang Maha Mulia P/s: Papa Bear does not know the Selangor Anthem either...

Bandrek and Sate

The great thing about going back to Dumai apart from being able to have a family get together and celebrate Pasha's Granddaddy's 63^rd birthday, is the food. Previously, I wrote about lontong and now it will be about Bandrek and Sate. These are the food that this entry is all about. That's why I did not have the  time to look for visitors...

That's the sate still packed. Notice the marketing effort that the owner has put into his sate. It's not just some old newspapers or generic, blank wrapping paper. This one came with a logo, name and contact info. Banana leaf was a nice touch as well.

This is Mama Pasha's favorite sate, the Sate Padang (beef). The yellowish spicy sauce made from a mixture of rice flour, coconut milk, turmeric and few other stuffs is the trademark of Sate Padang. I don't quite like it as much as Mama Pasha does. I would normally just eat the sate without the sauce.

This is my favorite, the Sate Kambing (lamb). This version came with peanut sauce instead of soya sauce. I had the soya souce (Sate Kambing Bumbu Kecap) version on another night but did not snap the photo as it was too delicious to wait.

Last but not least, Bandrek, a special drink that I could not find anywhere else but Dumai. I could get the instant one from Jakarta but the taste is nowhere near the one made in Dumai. Bandrek is not even known in KL. Brought back some instant Bandrek home but they're just not that nice...

Bandrek is made from a mixture of cinnamon sticks, star anise, cloves, coriander seeds, cardamom pods, lemongrass, Indonesian palm sugar (gula merah), milk, coconut and optionally, egg. I love mine with egg added. I can't describe the taste. Only those who have teated Bandrek know what it taste like.

So, if anyone asked me, what's more worth it than getting as many visitors as I could to this blog when a buffered earning from Nuffnang was on? The answers are all of the above. All Nuffnangers know that when you have a BE, the best thing to do is to get as many visitors to your blog as you can since that is the best way to maximize your BE earning. However, for me, BE came at not quite the right time...

The statistics taken from Nuffnang Analystics clearly showing a huge dip in visitors on the column labeled 01-Jan. That was the time that we were in Dumai, Indonesia. The two high spikes are the results of AFF Suzuki Cup 2010 and AJL25, repectively. Nevertheless, our lost there was our gain with our family in Dumai.

No BE or any number of visitors can beat that...

Grape is Green

Last Thursday, 13/1/2011, Sun-Maid held a talk at Pasha's Tadika. For the benefit of those who have no idea what Sun-Maid is, it has nothing to do with any maid, except for the picture on its logo, but has a lot to do with the Sun and lots of grapes. Sun-Maid is all about some good raisins. Check it out at Sun-Maid.

For your information, The Sun-Maid girl trademark was inspired by a real person – Lorraine Collett Petersen, who in 1915 lived in the Fresno, California, area where the company began its operations.

Now back to the Sun-Maid event. During the talk, students were called forward to answer simple questions and Pasha came forward and was asked about the color of the grapes. He successfully answered, "Green!" and won himself a 500g tub / canister Sun-Maid raisins.

 

Pasha peeking at the raisins that he had won. We are glad that Pasha was brave enough to step forward and stand up there while many others were watching. Something like a public appearance and he had no problem with it. Mama and Papa are proud of Pasha!

 

The winners posing for the camera. Then, Pasha could not resist the raisins anymore and he opened it up and ate some raisins right there and then. I am not sure whether he was actually hungry, or curios about the raisins or simply excited and could not wait to taste his very first prize in school. By the way, the talk was still going on behind him...

Good job Pasha!

19 Loves

Love to me is about being near to the heart and yet far from being fully describable. If you somehow managed to fully describe your love, it only goes to show how limited of it that you have... Poor you...

Nevertheless, for the purpose of fulfilling the love of blogging friendship aka a contest initiated by Cik Peah, here is an attempt to describe what love is by narrowing the scope of love to a predetermined time of about 8 hours during a day of my life...

Here goes the love story...

Love to me is about having to wake up early in the morning just to leave my loved ones behind and go to a dreaded place where the majority of the inhabitants have almost everything but love. For love, I have to be at a place where people who love to talk more can work less and get lovely perks...

You know where that is...

And then, I would spend lovely hours reading the alphabets that have been put together and some of those that have been fused to many sheets of papers, covering the aging of my otherwise, lovely desk...

And later on, love to me is about making the sadistic decision to join the madness of the evening Klang Valley traffic with the singular aim of being back with the loved ones.

Only love can make me do all that...

Ok! Enough love already for now...

Those who want to join this, please visit Cik Peah! The more the lovelier!

P/s:
This was composed under the intoxication brought by too much of chicken mandy. So, excuse me if it seems pointless while meeting the requirements in full...

Dec 2010 Cakes

These are the orders that we received in December 2010. d Cuppies is now open for 2011! Check it out!

Louis Vuitton Mini Speedy Multicolor Cake

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Theme cake

Mickey Mouse cookies and cupcakes

Mini Cooper cake

Cupcakes

Princess and Lightning McQueen cake

Lightning McQueen in buttercream

2D Figurine cake

Another Lightning McQueen cake

Go visit or jalan-jalan to d Cuppies for more cakes and details!

Pasha's First Day of School

Today is Pasha's first day of school. Pasha is only going to be 4 this year but we feel that kindergarten would be good for him. It is more for him to get to know kids his own age and socialize instead of playing only with Mickey Mouse, Darby, Dora, Diego, Mr. Bean and the rest of the PHDC gang only. All his classmates are 5 years old except for another boy who is the same age as him but in terms of size, they are all about the same...

 

Pasha and cats. Pasha was distracted by that cat that somehow followed him from the entrance all the way to the classroom. It took him a while to get him to forget about the cat and entered the classroom. The next picture was Pasha coming back from visiting a big fat cat in a cage at the other end of the building...

 

Looks like the classes at Gymboree paid off. He did not seem to have any problem playing and interacting with other kids and the teachers.

 

... And the parents who were there experiencing the first day of school as well...

 

The break time and the play time. In summary, Pasha enjoyed his first day of school and he wants to go there again tomorrow. Great!

A Quiet Morning in Dumai

A quiet late morning in Jalan Paus, Dumai. A far cry from the hectic Klang Valley back home...

Nothing much to do. Just wait for the next meal... This is what taking a break is all about...

Happy New Year 2011

Happy new year 2011 to all! May we all have a blessed life this year.

Papa Bear and family is in Dumai, Indonesia. This will be a short entry just to wish everyone happy new year 2011.

Ps;
This post was written on Wordpress for Android and it's my first attempt at mobile blogging...

We are in Melaka

We are spending the night in Melaka. This is just a transit point for our yearly trip to Dumai, Indonesia. Travelling on a tight budget, M Motel has become our choice again. This is our second time here. This is really a no frill, dirt cheap and yet very clean place to stay in Melaka. It's location that is in the vicinity of the Melaka jetty, makes it an ideal stopover spot for us.

Tomorrow morning, we will be boarding an Indomal ferry that will take us to Dumai. We will be celebrating Mama Pasha's dad aka Pasha's granddad aka Papa Bear's father in law's birthday.

Pasha was already very excited earlier this evening. By the time I got home, he was already mentioning something about going to see his grandpa in Dumai. Well, I could only understand the grandpa and Dumai parts...

He knows that there will be a candle blowing session and he knows that he will be entrusted with the most fun task of the event, i.e. to blow the candles... Must be the most exciting job in the world for a 3 year old...

Since internet connection is a luxury in Dumai, we will not be able to actively blog while we are there. So we, especially Papa Bear, will be missing from the blogosphere for a few of days.

See you later folks!

Nov cakes

More cakes at http://cuppies.kisahberuang.com/