ROMANTIC LANGKAWI ISLAND

After Chinese New Year and the shipment arriving, we went on a lovely holiday to Langkawi Island in Malaysia (paid by my mum as a thank you for looking after her last year). George and I had stayed at the Sheraton there many years ago for our honeymoon. We stayed in the original hotel for a couple of days- which according to the website was supposed to be extensively renovated, but instead we found only 7 rows of tiles in the pool were a shade lighter than the rest - that was the extent of the renovations. (lesson 1, Travel 101 - don't believe website blurb.) The other trick was we paid for bed and breakfast for 2 adults and a child and when we got there and asked for the child's bed, we were told we HAD A KING SIZE BED, she could sleep with us! There was some "discussion" after which our daughter's roller bed immediately appeared in our room. Bloody cheek!

So on the second day we hired a car and inadvertently found ourselves going in and inspecting all the hotels on the island. It was great, we had safe jungle walks, watched Lion dances being performed, saw some AMAZING architecture and luxury and then found our dream hotel. It was a beautiful hotel with stunning views of the Datai Bay, so we took back the car and checked out of the Sheraton.

We had a rainforest room with a sea view and our own balcony with two sun lounges and an umbrella. On the first day we arrived at the new hotel we were told by the staff not to feed the monkeys and not to ever leave our room balcony doors open. We were soon to find out why…. Someone on the floor above threw a little milk container onto our balcony and all of a sudden we had monkeys everywhere. Then the naughty neighbours above threw boxes of Pringles and bananas. We had monkeys in heaven. After the feasting was over, they sat on our balcony (we could see them through the floor to ceiling window/doors) just looking in at us. Mya and the monkeys soon made friends. The next day as we were walking back from the pool, Mya just sat on the grass and all of a sudden she had about 5 monkeys sitting with her, just observing her. It was like a little family gathering of monkeys (our little monkey included!!)

There were also huge colourful butterflies, geckos, flocks of colourful ocean blue birds, loads of squirrels, and we even saw a couple of toucans flying in the rainforest. I took George up to the Spa to show him the views I'd seen the day before and we fell in love with the place again. But some of the monkeys had got into the treatment room and completely ransacked it - what fun they must have had. One of the hotel guests hadn't heeded the management's warning and came back to find their room completely ransacked and not a thing left in the room - to sheets, no towel no clothes - nothing!! It was really a wonderful holiday. Mya made a couple of friends and they would meet for play dates at the kid’s club, she went fishing, shell collecting, we couldn't get her to go snorkeling, but she did just about everything else. I unfortunately slipped on a low gutter and damaged a couple of ligaments badly and ended up in a wheel chair for a couple of days, but fortunately recovered very quickly and was able to walk onto the plane.

For Valentine's Day we had Mya baby sat and enjoyed dinner on the beach with silver service. Our menu was printed by hand on woven bamboo. The food - loads of little course before the main lobster, steak and chicken platter was superb. I won't mention the dessert and chocolates because I'll start drooling again. They built fires on the beach and surrounded us with candles. George of course had bought the dozen red roses as he had 13 years ago, and we had a musical group serenading us, as we watched the sunset. Hmmmmmmm lots of brownie points for this night. When it came to my birthday last week he asked me out to dinner, and I said "I don't think you can beat Valentine's day" so we ate at home, I made a luscious chocolate iced sponge cake with strawberries for a birthday cake and we shared the leftovers with our neighbours.


Mum has been well until last week, and has had a couple of crisis, but still manages to recover and bounces back remarkably every time – given she’s had cancer for such a long time. She has lost a lot of weight and is now only 36 kilos. Despite that, she is able to do all her own cooking, shopping, driving, washing and ironing and only gets help with the carpet. She has lots of friends visiting – almost every day someone goes to say hello and have a cup of tea with her. They make the tea and clean up so she doesn’t get tired unnecessarily. Fortunately she has not been in pain, so she has been very lucky. It'll be good to spend some time with her. Whilst we are in Australia, George will knock over more business travel. He will be in Japan, Korea and China.

I have to admit my birthday was a bit dampened by the fact that I had a lovely long chat with M Mum in the morning and then whilst driving home realised although I'm grateful that I've had another year with her, we're not likely to have another Birthday chat together. That brought flood loads of tears pouring down my face as I was driving dwon the freeway.

We will be back in Australia in 5th March. I will be staying with Mya in my mum’s new unit. I'm looking forward to seeing Mum and Loretta is coming from Pambula and Yuko John and Emma from Sydney. I look forward to seeing my friends and Brett/Jodie as well. I will not be running around visiting, as the purpose is to be home with mum. Mya will be going back to Manningham Park primary school for the two weeks. George flies off to England tonight for work, and to see how damaged our home is that was flooded 5 weeks ago. We apparently won't see it back to normal for 6 months or so. It's heart wrenching as the house was an award winning converted barn that was absolutely gorgeous. Now let's see if they can restore it again. The insurance company of course has been having a holiday with it because we are not in England and can't see their constant delays to scream at them. That was supposed to be our retirement asset (not that I'd ever live in England again) but we planned to sell it and make a bucket. Now all we hear is contaminated water going into those buckets.

Anyway yesterday when I was at hospital I saw a man with a soup bowl size part of his head missing. That put things back into perspective.

IT'S ALREADY FEBRUARY - WHAT A MONTH

Twenty feet up in the air the lion dancers do their amazing acrobatics. Each Lion is made of two people hopping around on steel poles like they are playing children's hopscotch, often one on top of the other's shoulder in a frenzy to the drums beating and cymbols clanging - fantastic.


Langkawi Island in Malaysia is truly a picturesque place.

Everywhere we fly Mya wears her Singapore airline outfit. Here we are being greeted at our hotel.

Mya enjoys herself in her new chinese outfit. All children are given new clothes to bring in the New Year.

One of my Singapore families - the Chays. My two sisters Cecilia and Omoh and of course my Mama.

Lo Hei is the tradtitional dish served at family reunion dinners during Lunar New Year. Here we are mixing our good fortune to celebrated the coming of the New Year. It is such an honour to be considered part of the family and to be invited to such memorable cultural gatherings.

Mya dressed as "Nien" the lion dragon, respectfully gives the traditional two oranges to my SINGAPORE MUM.

You know George loves to call me "Panda". Well, he got to hug another Panda- a real one in Chendu China.

We loved Chinese New Year. It’s always a time of year as special as Christmas to us. We had friends come for a sleepover - 2 kids and mum - it was great fun for them to experience living in the suburbs. Embarrassingly, our house was the best decorated in the street – even though we are not Chinese. Mya dressed several times in her lion dance costume and brought lots of happiness and laughter to people. We had a reunion dinner with our Singapore family- it's so nice to be considered part of their family. We visited all the neighbours and gave the children Ang Paos (red envelopes) with money in them and did the very important visits to my two Singapore mums and gave them the traditional 2 oranges. What was lovely was Mya got a really good education on the "behind the tradition" stories. She was also the only girl to be chosen for the lion dance at school. They also had a steam boat lunch at school to celebrate Chinese New Year. She's so unafraid of trying Chinese food like fish ball soup and hard boiled eggs in soy sauce. It’s a delight to watch her eat so “globally”. As I write this our neighbourhood is abuzz with a lion dance being performed in our street as one of the nighbours celebrates Chinese New Year with their family in their new home. Mya and Ferilita have gone down to watch the performance. We woud have seen 1/2 dozen different performances this year and they never cease to delight. The acrobatic one on poles was the best. The celebrations go on for 15 days. We had a night on the Singapore River watching the fireworks. I just love Chinese New Year.

Then we received all the boxes that I'd sent from Australia – so it was finding them a place too (almost like another house move) but I’m happy to have everything I own in the one house for a change. Lots of mum's things came, and also all my quilting bits and pieces and materials. The best thing was "MY BABY" arrived. Yes after almost 10 years of wanting a Horn sewing cabinet I bought one before I left Aus and got it in my shipment and miraculously it arrived all in one piece. How lovely.... It's a wide and deep as a coffee table, but when you open it, it almost fills the sewing room when fully expanded. It has room for my sewing machine, my over locker, my teaching size cutting board, my iron and ironing board, project and patterns. I've been really enjoying sewing and have finished quite a few UFO's. I even designed a new bag style all by myself recently and I felt really good to design something so different from scratch.

George had business trips to China and Vietnam (Ho Ci Minh City). He had a spare few hours in China and had the wonderful experinece of holding the Pandas. He rang me and said "You and Mya have got to do this!" So we are going in June. It's rare that George gets to do anything touristy when working. In 2 years of going to China almost every month - he's only climbed the great wall of China and held the Pandas. It's a shame we are so close and can't go with him. Company policy! It is verbotten to have family fun when husband iz verking 24hours a day for zee company! Das is nicht gut.