Barter Trade

Sometimes I invite my friends' children to my house after school to get some quick snacks on their way back to their home. Today, I gave away ice blocks to 4 siblings. I also wanted to pay $ for some fresh honey their mum sells. They said they wanna give it to me for free. Kids! So there you are, I barter traded 4 ice blocks for 1 container of sweet and delicious 100% pure honey which will be delivered tomorrow morning at my door step insha Allah. A bargain. lol.

Awesome Turkish Restaurant

Last night , dh and I had dinner at an awesome Turkish restaurant in Southbank with some of his officemates. The CFO wanted to treat the dept after finishing something I'm still vague about so she asked dh to recommend a halal restaurant to dine at. Realising dh would probably recommend an Indian restaurant cum takeaway (again) , I thought of a name of a Turkish restaurant that had previously advertised in a local muslim newsletter during Ramadan. They followed up with my recommendation much to my delight as I haven't eaten at a lovely turkish restaurant for ages. So the dinner was marvellous and we were really pleased with the food served. So appetising and yummy! The restaurant had a very rich red turkish interior with a cozy and well lit ambience enticing people to come and dine in . However, we were sitted outside which was equally nice as it was breezy and tranquil under the starry, starry night... Just beautiful!
Check out their website www.mado.com.au

Neglect

Sorry to neglect you, dear blog but I'm having techie problems right now and can't find anyone who would supply me a new AC adaptor for my modem. Where is after sales service when you need it?
*Update* Okay , so I managed to solve this techie challenge with the ac adaptor I bought from Tandy a few weeks ago after I could not get hold of the service provider on the phone (they are all automated now to save on high labour cost and they don't want to entertain cranky callers with minor probs) plus an electrical superstore asked us to deal with the supplier directly so what's the point . I just had to adjust the volt setting, as the 9 volt on the adaptor was not high enough for the modem to work.
I promise to update this blog soon and upload some great pics (insha Allah). How about that? (chuckle).

6 weird things

I've been tagged by Ms Blabs to write 6 weird things about myself.
1. I'm a travel junkie and at the moment I wanna travel the Sahara and meet the Tuareg and Berbers. If God gave me the choice of who I wanna be , I 'd say Michael Palin or Ibnu Battuta.
2. Dh thinks this is weird. I have sliced/ parts of cucumber in the fridge that I use to sooth my eyes and reduce puffiness.
3. I like to take a siesta during lunch hour. I thought this was weird til I visited South of Spain and realised they all have siesta in the afternoon from 2-5pm. The shops close during this time.
4. I like to buy hand creams even though I may not need them and the sales assistants keep telling me that my hands are soft even before I try them on.
5. I chatter more to taxi drivers/strangers than to my friends.
6. I'm telepathic and can read and send messages to my friends without the need to email, write letters , phone etc.
So 6 friends, you know who you are. You've been tagged. Lol.

Dinner with Directors

Last Friday night , we had dinner at Sanctuary Cove with a group of directors from Malaysia (Dato's and Tan Sris and accompanying Datins). As usual, dh would inform me at the last minute about important events so I did not really have time to find a suitable babysitter for our kids. Nonetheless, dh already figured out a plan with his M'sian colleague who was also invited to the dinner. We were to drop our 2 older kids at the colleague' s house after maghrib and he would call his babysitter service to babysit their twins and our kids. Then us parents (and one baby )would all go together in dh's car. Trust dh to make a foolproof plan. Their house was more than 20 mins away so I knew we were going to be terribly late from the start. (But better late than never hey?).
Anyway, we arrived at the seafood restaurant perhaps more than half hour than we're supposed to and the directors were almost done with their dinner. We introduced ourselves to the group and was later ushered to a empty table reserved for us. (I went earlier to the table coz baby was not happy when the co secretary wanted to be friendly to him). The colleague and his wife knew one of the datins as one of their friend's mum. So the datin came over to talk to them. A dato' also came over to our table and later on a CFO came over to chat with us whereas dh being the perfect host and equipped with his people skills, went over to the other tables to have a chat there while the colleague , his wife and I skimmed through the menu to place our order. I did not really want to order an appetizer as you know, we were fashionably late and it is really not good etiquette to let people (esp VIPs) to wait . However it did not deter the other two to order , say 3 starters and 2 mains amongst themselves while I just ordered a soup and 2 mains for dh and I. The directors looked like they enjoyed their meals and were ordering more stuff so we had some time to eat our dinner before we parted. There was nothing extraordinary about the seafood restaurant . It looked like any other fancy restaurant with white table cloths and cutlery laid meticulously on the tables while waiters in white shirts and black bowties attend to you. However, when I looked outside the glass walls, I could see the silhouettes of yachts anchored at the marina in the pitch darkness of the night. One of them directly outside the restaurant, OMG, was humongous and I thought it looked liked it was more than 70 foot long as it was bigger than 2 bungalows combined.
Initially, the M'sian co secretary had sought dh's help to find out where are the best hotels to stay in Gold Coast. Again, his opinion was sought to find halal Malaysian food and dh had recommended some restaurants we knew of .The next day , dh went to play golf with the directors( after they had their nasi lemak, roti canai and teh tarik for breakfast ) ,as he puts it, at the best golf course he ever played in. Even the golf balls can be tracked down by satellite, (dh mentioned the name of the tracking method but I forgot it). I can see a correlation here , even though the M'sian directors wanted one of the best hotels to stay in and the best golf course to play at, they still love their M'sian hawker style breakfast ie roti canai , nasi lemak and teh tarik in the morning. Soo typical of Malaysians la!

The Courteous Bus Driver

Sometimes I will take the bus to get from point A to point B. Public transport is quite efficient here and I can check the bus schedule on the net. Last week I took a bus. I sat in front of the bus as I was carrying baby and a stroller.
I like to observe people coming in or out of the bus or look out the window when I am on the bus. On that particular day, there was an old woman who wanted to get off the bus at one stop but she had difficulty bringing a large shopping bag on wheels down the steps. I wished I could help her but I could not leave my baby on the seat alone. Fortunately for her, the bus driver offered to help and the old lady managed to get off without a hitch after he turned off the bus engine and carried the black trolley bag down for her. She thanked him and remarked to him, "What will I do without you."
A few stops further, a student with deep blue eyes and an American businessman in a yellowish tan colored suit came on board. The student wanted a discounted fare. The bus driver explained to him that he would have to apply for the student card first and showed him the poster about how to apply behind his driver seat. The American wanted to go to the city somewhere and the bus driver said they were headed that way. I knew he was an American from his accent and he was phoning somebody on his mobile about his frequent flyer points what have you, and probably everyone on the bus could have heard his whole conversation of wanting to upgrade to a business class. Then a woman came on at another stop and asked the bus driver whether she is on the correct bus route and which bus should she take after that. The bus driver said she should take bus 333 after that but wasn't sure which side of the road she had to wait for it so he called someone on his phone to confirm before he gave her a definite answer. I was quite impressed with the bus driver's level of professionalism in helping his passengers (not to mention he did offer to help with my stroller down the bus). Bus drivers could be helpful and yet be quite punctual. Hence, being helpful to people isn't an excuse to be late. I don't know if the bus drivers in KL help people in this way at all as I am not a frequent commuter. The buses in KL seems quite crowded especially during peak hours and the safety and well being of passengers are not their utmost priority as the doors are sometimes left open and the bus driver will start driving even if you have not found a good seat to sit yet.

Aussie Muslim Lifesavers

Check this out.

Aussie Muslims Lifesavers spread Harmony.

I was surrounded by..

the whitish hair of senior citizens. You'd think I was in a bingo hall or a place of worship. Nope. I was watching the latest flick, Miss Potter about the life of the writer Beatrice Potter at a cinemaplex. I had 2 free passes to see the movie and I had to go and see. This is one of the rare occasion that I could get to watch a movie of my choice and calibre. Dh sent us to the cineplex after which he had to send ( and babysit) our sons at one of older son friend's birthday party. It was a mid morning show and dd and I headed into the theatre at the same time as 2 senior citizens. I offered to help one lady with a walking stick up the steps. She said she was fine. Dd had shooted ahead and I could not help the old lady much. I just have to admire their sense of independence.
Anyway, about the movie, I could just totally relate to Beatrice Potter who had a mother that could not quite understand her inclination. My mum and I are totally different in personality. She, ultra feminine , ultra tidy, prim and proper sort of a person whilst I am pretty much laid back and pragmatic. She says none of her offsprings follows her traits , being tidy to a t etc. However, I believe my sister follows many of her traits than my mum gives her credit for. They could be twins. The only thing is, my mum would only tell things to me as I could keep a secret better than my sister who would impart any info she knows/hear on the next fella she meets. I like one phrase that the main character Beatrice Potter used in the movie about her relationship with her mother, that she and her mother has reached an understanding that they will not be able to understand each other. Sums it up quite nicely.

A Taxi Tale

The kids have started their new school term this week and it looks like they are settling well in their class. So I decided to go out for some shopping today instead of staying in. I took a taxi instead of going by bus as it was raining heavily in the morning. Usually, I would call my normal cab number and they would come right away but today I thought I'd try the alternative cab co. It took quite a long time for the taxi to arrive as my number was linked to another address on their database . Finally, when the taxi arrived, I huddled my baby and stroller in the car while the driver looked on. Normally, they would help me put my stuff in the boot.
When we were in the cab heading to the destination, the driver asked me what religion I was. I said I am muslim. I asked him whether he is muslim or sikh. He said he is Sikh. Then he asked me why muslim men can marry 4? This is one of the favourite questions I get asked by cab drivers when they know I am muslim. So I usually answer it by giving some logical explanation that came into my mind. Honestly, I think a man could rationalise and be able to answer this question himself better than a woman! Today I reasoned that there is only one very very short sentence in the Quran (which contains >6000 aayah/sentences) that mentions men could marry more than one. (So why the fuss?).
Anyway, this particular cab driver was asking me a lot of questions. Eg Where are you from? I answered Malaysia. Before you went to Malaysia, where were you from originally?? Malaysia. I thought I answered that already. Do you speak Urdu? No I don't speak Urdu. More qts. How old are you? How many kids? Are you married ? Are you happily married??? Gosh! He was bombarding me with some personal questions and I wasn't ready for the onslaught. My mind was on other things like when would we arrive at my destination! I am sure he was driving slower... and slower...
At last, when we were almost there, he said "Actually, you have a beautiful face, especially ...." When I heard that, I had to laugh and I said "Gosh , I haven't heard someone said that to me for a long time". And then he went on to say "If you were not married, I would offer you." ??? ?? Me think , OFFER ME WHAT??? But I rather not know the answer. To that, I just hurried myself and baby out of the cab after I paid the fare . He said that he hoped to see me again. No way, jose is all I can say. I am sticking to my old cab co next time.

The Scent of the Sea

I like to try the perfumes and room sprays whenever I am at the shops. One of my fav, Crabtree and Evelyn has room sprays call Waikiki and Salt Air which I have not tried before. I wonder if they really smell like the air near the sea though I feel no matter how many perfumes and sprays we make, nothing could beat the real thing.
We are planning to go to the beach less than an hour drive from here soon. The coastline in Oz is so beautiful with its golden sandy beaches stretching for miles and miles. And so are the beaches back home. They each have their own allure... To me, there is nothing more delightful than walking on the beach, looking at the waves breaking and collecting seashells ( and in my kids case , building sand castles and hitting the water ). Will the Salt Air spray smell like the true scent of the sea in the crisp morning air? Oh, I wish... so that I can have a part of the sea with me when I am at home in the city.
I can still remember the scent of the sea at Sydney Harbour when we were there last month. The wind was blowing strongly making it quite cool though it was a sunny afternoon. I went to the river side next to the Botanical Gardens to look at the view there while dh and the kids climbed up the stairs of the Opera House to take pics . I inhaled and smelled the rather pungent salty scent of the saltwater lingering in the air. It made me realise that the sea was not too far away from the harbour. The Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge looked quite grand and stunning that day.... but grander still was the harbour with the white sailboats, yachts and ships sailing through its river mouth.

*Update* Dd collected some stones and shells from a beach on the Gold Coast and I said she could make a potpourri with it. She washed her shells and stones and put them on our back deck to dry them under the sun. I had to bring them inside when baby raided them. The bathroom where I laid them suddenly bursted with the scent of salt air from dd's homemade potpourri!

Back to School

This week I had to walk down to the school and get my children's school booklist as school commences next week. That was the plan. I got them dressed and stashed some money in my pouch in case we made a detour to the shops after that. When I got the list, I realised that I had to make a payment to the office for resource contribution and booktexts. Of course. How absent minded of me not to realise that I would need more money for school expenses? After all, there was always something we parents had to pay or contribute to for our children each week of the school term. I had to admit to them that I didn't bring enough ca$h and may I possibly pay it next week (as I did not think a second trip down in scorching heat my idea of fun). Better stay home and alternatively ask dh if he could squeeze some time to make the payment before he goes to work.
Well, we did make a detour to the shops and on the way , we saw 4 humongous spider on their webs which they spun between a power line and a tree. We also saw some pink/grey colored parrots on the school field and some green parrots flying. (I have to look up what their proper names are) . I went to the news agency with the list of stationery and asked the newsagent if she could do it for me. She said she could and I asked if she could get some of the stuff ready while we wait , then that would be great. So she sorted the things and got the stuff ready for us even though there were a few interruptions when other customers came in to buy some things. At last when she managed to put all the things together and summed it all up, the grand total was almost $100 and I realised that I only had enough money on me for 1 kid's list of things. She suggested I get just one kid's list of stuff and pick up the other one later. This is unthinkable. I can't get just one kid's stuff . The other kid who didn't get one will sulk until he/she gets his/hers. I had to get both or none. I chose the latter. Again, I promised that dh will turn up tomorrow morning to make the payment... While we were there some of dear son's classmates and their mums also turned up with their list of stationery (which they obtained last term) to give to the newsagent to sort out by next week. We were all in the same boat of last minute shoppers and in my case, one forgetful mum short of ca$h..

One morning at Southbank

Today, we decided to go to Southbank, a buzzing popular local attraction near the CBD. Dh's officemates had been recommending it to him but we never got to go as we were always interested in going somewhere else. Well, since there were some activities held in conjunction with The 5th Asian Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery, I thought it was a good idea to have a look at the area. We parked our car at the basement and had a brekkie, then decided to stroll along the river bank. We didn't have a glimpse of any gallery or museum when dear son saw there... an artificial manmade beach near the river, and our program to see the gallery went haywire. Play dad took out wetsuits for the kiddos and after a change of clothes , they were all set to hit the water. They stayed there for hours. Luckily, there was a craft market nearby and I had a stroll with baby. I bought him a big hat to protect my precious baby from the glaring sun and sent him back to have some fun at the the beach.
There were some interesting things at the market. One lady was selling some locally made olive oil and spices. I am a sucker for Mediterranean food and had to see what was on offer. She demonstrated how to eat the dukkah. Use a toothpick to pick up some bread ( cut into bitesize pieces) , soak it into some olive oil and then dunk it into the dukkah spice mix. Yummy. I bought some dukkah and olives straight away. I also had a look at a stall that was selling swimwear with UPF 50. Full body attire swimwear is the rage in Oz to avoid over exposure to the sun. Funsunwear. The lady was willing to measure me and make a tailor made and full body cover swimwear for me. I had to take a raincheck. I already had a burqini I bought from a ahiida.com dealer.

Play mum?

The kids are still on their summer vacation and so I am pretty tied up with cooking and cleaning up after them whilst kiddos watch more and more DVDs and also they seem to play endlessly. Dd sometimes want me to play with her and she would make a pitiful face and say "Mama, you NEVER play with me!". It is half true as I have lots of unfinished house chores to do and I don't really fancy playing after all that. But I obliged today and we played a little version of " monkey in the middle" in the corridor as it was scorching hot outside. Wow, it was fun and I felt energised but then after 15 mins it was back to mundane work and surfing the web after that. Lol. Dh sometimes argues that I should play more with kids (He relishes his role as play dad on weekends!) but I tell him I honestly don't see any mums I know playing with their kids that much. Mums are always cooking or housecleaning or doing chores inside/outside the house and some mums are not even around for their kids and they want me to be play mum? Can someone tell me how many play mums are out there playing ball/soccer with their kids?

Travelling whilst Muslim/Malaysian

A brother who has been an Aussie citizen for almost all his 20 plus years of his life told me he was detained for about 2 hours when he came back from his hols to Malaysia last year. The airport personnel asked him why did he choose to go to Malaysia? He told them that he likes Malaysia! He told me that he probably got detained coz he wears a kufi/kopiah on his head. So I guess they do some racial profiling on muslims especially supposed young single muslim men sometimes. The bro is married with 4 kids. This year if he gets detained by airport staff and if they ask him why Malaysia, he can say it is Visit Malaysia Year 2007!
I have some airport tales but not as dramatic as the brother's story. I lost one of my kid's metal spoon (why on earth did they confiscate that?) at heathrow airport once and a small penknife at the airport in Oz . I sometimes like to bring a swiss army victorinox penknife to cut open food wrappers for my children. My sister bought me a pretty flowery swiss army penknife from Switzerland when she went there in oct of last year and when I wanted to travel to Bangkok a few weeks ago, my dad being ever security conscious, asked me to surrender all sharp objects to him before boarding the plane. I gave him the flowery penknife and it is still in my dad's possession as I forgot to take it back. Anyway, I managed to buy 2 nail clippers at the airport terminal before I boarded the plane. My nails were bugging me. I had to cut my nails on the plane.
Well, the customs at the airports in Oz are more interested in the food products you bring in their country than anything else. We declared that we were bringing some food as usual when we came back from KL. Dh forgot to buy plastic wrappers with bubbles and so he stored some of the soya sauce bottles in our baby's clean nappies so that it would withstand the impact of bag handling at the airport. He was really serious in bringing the bottles of kicap/soya sauce as the ones sold in Oz were quite bland by Malaysian standard. However, it wasn't the bottles in the nappies that caught the attention of the custom officer. He immediately zoomed in on 4 packets of our 3 in 1 instant teh tarik and 1 packet of 3 in 1 instant nescafe and took them out of our food bag and stacked them outside. We hoped for the best when we saw this but in the end the whole 5 packets got confiscated as it had milk/dairy products in them. Dh was a bit stunned to learn that milk/dairy products processed in Malaysia didn't get to be on the list of countries that follow Oz's perfect hygiene standards. If only the 3in 1s were manufactured in Singapore. I bought the 3 in 1 teh tarik packs for dh knowing he loves teh tarik, the hot cup of very sweet frothy milky tea fare in Msia.(As for me, I don't drink coffee and I prefer tea with milk and no sugar). Poor dh, I guess he has to drink the normal bland aussie fare for the coming months.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back on line. Oh my! It is so good to be online again using broadband connection. I used someone's old tmnet account connection in KL and the speed really sucked. I mean it could not even download yahoo homepage. The earthquake off the shore of Taiwan probably had something to do with the phenomenal slow download of the internet too I gather. Who knows?!
Well, now I am back on the blog, I really don't feel like writing anything. *Sigh*. It feels quiet and surreal here after a few weeks living in the fast lane of KL. Anyway, I am so glad to be back home again. No more nephews to boot out of my room. Just my own flesh and blood.

A Break in Bangkok

Dh, baby and I had a short break in Bangkok. Initially we wanted to go somewhere in M'sia but thought it would be difficult to get a hotel room at popular destinations like Langkawi, PD etc at short notice. My dad recommended that we go to Bangkok through one of his associate's tour package. I had not been there for years so we thought we'll give it a try. Overall the experience was pretty awesome and dh , baby and I thoroughly enjoyed it, alhamdulillah. Bangkok has grown into a big metropolitan city with a population of 10 million and it was amazing to see the development and difference since I spent a few year there when I was a young kid . In general the Thais are a very friendly lot and they really like babies. Our baby son was very popular amongst the people we met because of his cuteness and his little antics. I'll write about Bangkok when I have more time soon , insha Allah. Today , my kids have to attend their cousin's birthday party at Mac D.

Back to hectic KL

I haven't had time to post an entry since now I am back in Kl for a visit. It is rather hectic in KL as I have to do some chores and settle some outstanding bills for my old flat. I even received a summon for illegal parking in PJ written for my car which was normally parked at my in laws house and used occasionally by my youngest and responsible 17 year old brother in law when he goes home for breaks from his pre uni studies. My dad and I went to MBAJ (PJ municipal council) to sort it out. It was an obvious error on the council's part. The description of the car and road tax registration number did not tally with my car's. So we had to sign their petition form to rectify their mistake. I have never received summons or speeding tickets related to my car which was due to my fault (so far). I think I am a law abiding driver insha Allah. A defensive driver (as my dh calls it ) as oppose to all those offensive drivers in KL. Hehehe. Tis hard to be on the defensive whereas many drivers out there just wanna break the rules when they get the chance. However, I aspire to drive with the coolness of my dad's. Dh said that dad remains very cool even when people cut into his lane or queue. The way people drive in KL are a stark contrast with that in Oz. Some drivers in KL think they own the road and they could suddenly turn left or right from their lane without giving the proper indication or signal. Another common offense is that they don't even stop properly at T junctions and look in both directions for oncoming cars. I could write down an endless list of offenses committed by people on the road daily. Double parking, stopping at a yellow line/zone, cutting queues and overtaking in the left lane or at double lines, using a mobile phone while driving etc . These do not include offenses by motorbike riders who are even more prone to accidents if they or others do not abide the road rules.
Pedestrians are the sure losers in KL. Whereas drivers in Oz would sometimes give way to pedestrians at junctions where there are no pedestrian crossings, KL drivers hardly give them a second glance. I was honed at by a driver behind me a couple of times after I decided to give way to some scared looking young pedestrians who wanted to cross over to their car at One Utama's carpark (a very popular, busy suburban mall during the weekend and public hols). Drivers would only slow down in carparks if they think your gonna vacate a parking lot. Why are KL drivers so impatient, selfish and stressed up??? Big question. Can there be a day in KL when people drive and abide by the law for their own safety and ours? Well, at this rate, I guess not in the foreseeable future. One can only dream.

Dd won an award!

Dd won the high achiever trophy for grade 2. I missed it when she went up to get the prize. A mommy friend said that she won and that I was late by one minute. I have to take her word for it and I did see dd holding a lil trophy after the ceremony. We were a bit late as ds was making a fuss and refused to budge on the sidewalk , insisting his shirt was too big and he wanna go back home and change. Anyway, I am glad she won something as she missed her kindergarten's presentation ceremony last year because we had to move to Oz. She also missed the preschool photo session when she and her classmates were supposed to wear graduation robes. The school didn't inform me early and we had already gone to my mum's house as I was due to deliver at the time. (I didn't get to wear a robe til I got a degree. Lucky preschoolers!)

The mystery fruit..

When I went to pick up my children from school, I came across two women of South East Asian descent (possibly from the Philippines). One woman was using a long pole to pound the branches of a tree repetitively so that the ripe fruits would give way and fall to the ground, and another had a black refuse bag to collect them. I crossed the street to them as it was the route I normally take to the school. I gestured to them and asked "Is the fruit edible to eat?" "Yes" she replied and added something that I did not quite hear as I was walking away from them in the direction of the school. Hmm.. Edible fruits. I wonder what they are? The neighbourhood street is dotted with trees which I can recall seeing back in M'sia, of which one tree had long outreached branches with fern like leaves, vibrant red flowers and huge black pods.
Anyway, I came across a similar leafless tree that looked like it was hit with a long pole by the same women earlier on! Though the pods were dangling from its branches in abundance, they were not within easy reach. I picked one of the bean pods that had fallen to the ground and broke the crumbly brown exterior shell apart. Inside was a guey brown substance. The consistency reminded me of tamarind or asam jawa as the Malays call it. (I am not sure what the people in Java would call tamarind but definitely not asam jawa). It tastes soury sweet and is usually used in South East Asian cuisine. Malaysians used them a lot for asam pedas (usually fish in chilli flavoured soup) or in fish curry or laksa. Any dish with fish in it will taste better with tamarinds added. I never really got to taste dishes with tamarinds from the Philippines. However, I do recall going to dinner to a restaurant called Tamarind Springs in KL and which specialises in Indochinese cuisines (think Laos, Khmer and Vietnam) and they presumably used a lot of tamarind as the food was not spicy hot by KL standard.
When I came back home, I had to investigate and check in the wild plant book that I recently purchased last weekend. There I found some facts about native tamarind trees but the the description and pics of the fruits/flowers do not really resemble the pods in the backstreet. Maybe it was another variety or the pics were photographed earlier in the season. My deduction was inconclusive at that point but in the evening, I came across a tamarind wrapper I brought from KL and it had a picture of a bunch of tamarind pods. They looked identicle to the pods on the tree in the street . Thereon, I can safely deduce that they were indeed from a native type of tamarind tree. Well, what da ya know, one of my favourite cooking ingredients is actually growing on the trees along my ally. I better find a nice stick to poke the ripe tamarind pods on the branches so they will fall and then gather them up for my cooking pot!
*Update - I brought some of them home and showed dh and he confirmed that they were tamarinds. He was a bit puzzled by my question and asked me haven't I seen a tamarind tree before??? That's what I would like to know ie whether he has seen one across the street from us.

Booklist

[Great ! The post editor is functioning now.]
Dd's read 90 pages of her book "Charlotte's Web" which she got yesterday. Amazing! Considering she only attempted to read 1 page a day from another book she is supposed to read from her school's reading file.
I also bought some books for me to read last weekend, mainly non-fiction books about nature or parenting tips. With a baby that suffers separation anxiety if more than 2cm away from me, it is not possible for me to be engrossed in a fiction. Though I bought the classic "The Count of Monte Cristo" (abridged) by Alexander Dumas last month, hoping I could spend some time on it. (I am still hoping...)
I am quite interested in the natural habitat of the city I live in so I bought 2 wildlife guides of plants and animals of the greater city area at the quaint lil corner shop cum gallery at the Botanical Gardens. It was good to be in there at the very least as it was very hot that day. (It rained eventually in the evening.) The shop owner even put up a sign to entice customers to her air-conditioned shop. While chatting about some books at the shop, she told me I could find a great deal of facts from the nearby library but alas, it was not possible for me to go there with 3 hyper active children and a dh to boot. So 2 reference books it is then. I managed to ask her the pressing question in my mind "Is a gum tree the same as a rubber tree". No was the answer. "Is it the same as the eucalyptus tree? "Yes was the answer. Oohh... So the kookaburra sitting on the old gum tree from the Aussie song was actually sitting on a eucalyptus tree which is a very common tree in the woods and parks here. Sometimes, I could hear a kookaburra's distinct laughter erupting in the suburb I live but I could not pinpoint which tree it was on.
The helpful shopowner assisted me further when she learnt I had children waiting outside her shop, by recommending some activities early next year which I might consider for them like the guided walks , dragonfly tours or print making/book reading workshop, insha Allah.