New Arrival

at 0020 27 August July 2008. (Mrs Kong is claiming lack of sleep as the cause of the error!)

Baby Kong aka the nameless one for now.

Citron Shocker

Last weekend, Mr & Mrs Kong were looking forward to a trip down nostalgia lane on Sat by having dinner at our old haunt (and pak-toh favourite) Cafe Citron on Lorong Stonor.

Imagine our surprise and horror to find huge apartment blocks surrounding what used to be a quiet, leafy bungalow - with Indonesian construction workers actually living in the bungalow!

Cafe Citron used to be a place where you felt you were in the middle of a park whilst having a gourmet dinner in the city centre. It was a sanctuary in the middle of bustling KL. Sad to say, leafy sanctuaries are no match for 'development'.

Still reeling from the shock, Mr & Mrs Kong then went for the backup option - another old faithful, Genki Sushi at KLCC. Only to find it closed! Being replaced by Sakae Sushi! Ptoooei!

I guess its true - some things are better left as memories. You just can't go back. Sigh.

At least The Rendevous Steak House is still hanging on...

Great Weekend

Nothing much to report except an expanding belly.

Great weekend all in all: managed to finally get a new shoe rack for our vast collection of shoes.... relatively speaking :). Looking forward to the next already.

Norwegian National Day Celebrations

where Mr Kong made some pizza...

and had some family over

... as it just happened to be Mr Kong's birthday too :).

Back to Life

Mrs Kong surrounded by little ones!

And yes we are.

After a hiatus of nearly 6 months, Mr and Mrs Kong are back living life. Mr Kong's knee is better (though still not back to normal after knee surgery) and Mrs Kong is finally able to stay awake during dinner!! We finally had Mr Kong's good friends come over to visit us tonight, and share a dinner of roast chicken and potatoes (and salad) with us. Mr Kong whipped up two delicious roast chickens and lovely buttery and herby potatoes.

Yes we also have had nice news recently, and have been looking forward to the month of August when our bun in the oven is due. Well, looking forward until tonight.

Observing our friends and their mini families tonight, we have realised that in only three months, our life as a twosome will change drastically. Smelly nappies, cries, and a lifetime of child training will probably be the norm. We will cease to be a twosome and perhaps with the finality in this change, three months now seems like too short a time now.

Well, as the Chinese say, cross the bridge when you come to it and the road will straighten out then.

Chinese New Year Again!

Almost a week to Chinese New Year, and everyone is frantically making preparations to welcome the year of the rat. Some do it which huge shopping and cleaning sprees; some others attend Feng Shui talks in the hope of gaining a perceived advantage over the rest for the new year. I have never understood the latter, but I suppose someone has to keep the Feng Shui industry thriving.

We on the other hand, are bumbling along as per usual, in full knowledge that our house is still in want of a lot of DIYs and cleaning up. We had hoped to be done by this time of the year, but "other" events have kept us busy enough to stall further efforts to clean up. Mr Kong has been busy winning Frisbee tournaments and Mrs Kong has been ... busy.

Nevertheless, those who choose to visit us during Chinese New Year can rest assured that there will be at least beer at our place. Hopefully we will be able to rustle up something in addition to beer for the chinese new year visits!

New Washing Machine ... !!

Yes, it is taking some time to get our house and all its contents in order. Nevertheless, we are happy to report that our washing machine is finally in working order, on its new cemented and tiled pedestal. The pedestal is courtesy of the construction workers currently renovating the house next door. One of them came over one day and built it in a few hours, under Mr Kong's supervision.

We regret to say that we have no pictures as our digital camera is sort of not around. (actually we need a new one!)

Now we just need a new clothes horse!

Happy 2008!

... even though this may be just a wee bit late!

This is the year Mrs Kong's 10 year US visa actually expires. Its been 10 years since the passing of her footloose and fancy free days. Boy is anyone feeling old?

It is nevertheless nice to welcome the new year; new resolutions, new dreams, and new hopes.

We hope to do more traveling this year, hopefully a trip to Melbourne end of this year. But then there are also dreams of a white Danish Christmas ... how wonderful that would be!

Guess who?

Some grumpy kid

Flying by the seat of our pants

Showing off the tickets to the last seats on the last flight of the day.

So we decided to take a trip to the much recommended White Beach of Borocay Island in November 2007. Much recommended as some have raved about their fantastic honeymoon on this beach, and I suppose we were going to be in the neighbourhood anyway.

But of course, we did not book ahead. Of course we would have preferred it that way, but found making travel arrangements to be quite difficult. Our tour agent could not make bookings for us, and neither could we as no one in the Philippines seemed to answer their phones!

Our first hours in Manila, involved taking a 1.5 hour bus ride from Clark (the Air Asia terminal OUTSIDE of Manila), 'wrestling' with local taxi jaga boys, and begging for an internal flight from Manila to Borocay on the same day. We did it, thank goodness!

After the domestic flight, we took a taxi to the ferry to the island, and then a taxi from the ferry point to the hotel which we had NOT booked! Luckily for us, there were a few places which were not so popular (though still a little pricey for what you get) still available just as the sun was setting.

the ferry

Hibiscus in our apartment

Diniwid Beach

We stayed in a small hotel on White Beach on the first and second night, to enjoy the life and bustle on White Beach. Nothing anyone has told us about Borocay would have prepared us for what we experienced, as we found the place to be quite busy and inhabited. There are of course quieter and more expensive parts of White Beach, but instead of forking out small savings, we decided to make migrate to a service apartment on Diniwid Beach on the 3rd, 4th and 5th night. Here we absolutely enjoyed the privacy, and seclusion of Diniwid. For one, there were less vendors trying to see us stuff.

Here we enjoyed a massage on the beach, and just chilling out in the clear blue waters. We made our daily pilgrimage to White Beach ten minutes walk away for groceries and just food. we had grilled seafood, Mexican and local dishes such as the chicken adobo and sinigang.

We did not learn any Filipino words, though lots of people spoke to us in the language having mistaken us for locals.

Here we fell in love with the very relaxed lifestyle, the sound of waves crashing against the rock cliffs, and the art of just simply doing nothing! Anyone want to share in an apartment in Borocay? Check out - http://www.sprboracay.com/ and let us know!

Renovations Over!

So here we are in our new house! We still have a few little kinks to iron out but the good news is that we have finally moved in! Some say its an achievement in itself... but renovations did take some time. So for the moment, we are just trying to enjoy the house!

Our first House, our family

When Mr Contractor completes work (hopefully) next week, we will be moving into our very first Home.

We have lived in several categories of rented accommodation before, but this is probably the most exciting of all our previous domestic experiences; partly due to the time it has taken us to prepare our house, but mostly because we will be planting our roots for the first time in 3 years.

Everything from land assessment to the plants in our garden will be within our realm of responsibility, and from this, we anticipate a less care free life. Notwitstanding the added responsibility, we do look forward to a life together in a place we can truly call our own, in every sense. Perhaps this is a significant part of being a grown up, and building a life together.

It is a sense of pride, that we feel, that flows beyond words; or perhaps it is the case that we just can't find the words to accurately express our happiness.

Things are finally looking up... I think (Part 18)

The good news is that our house is finally done. Save and except for some minor touch ups here and there, Mr Contractor is moving in the right direction.

Further good news from since our last post is that Mr Contractor has finally commenced rectification work on the long bath. Today, Mr Scared Looking Indonesian boy came with Mr Contractor to add cement to the bottom of our bath. We were hugely relieved that that is all they needed to do (ie remove one tile and slot cement in) because otherwise, the whole long bath would have had to be removed. We are even more relieved that Mr Contractor is taking this seriously (as we still owe him 20K!). We certainly hope he keeps this up till the end!!

Still we dare not say when we will be able to move in just in case it gets jinxed! We have been very stern with Mr Contractor over the last week and thankfully Mr Contractor has played ball & cooperated.

Can't wait for the Holidays!!

Anywhere!!

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? (Part 17)

The standard question asked of us these days is "have you moved into your new house?" and our standard answer is "almost". The whole experience feels like a long car ride to some unknown destination when what we'd rather be doing is lying on a secluded beach somewhere!

A lot has happened since our last post. Mr Contractor has gotten his act together on a few occasions, and then slacked off, and then gotten his act together. The good news is that the house is done (yay!)

The bad news is there are a lot of defects, with the bath tub being a major one. Mr Contractor has installed the bath tub incorrectly, causing the bottom to be slightly flexible. Mr Contractor did not think anything wrong of it mainly because he did not test it when installing. This certainly raises alarm bells, but what can we do now but to insist he hacks it up and redo the job?

Sunday Action (part 16)

After much pressure, telephone calls, temper tantrums, Mr Contractor has finally move into fifth gear with respect to renovations on our house.... for the last 2 days anyway.

Yesterday, Mr Wooden Flooring arrived at 8am to start work. Mr Marble Floor was here at 3pm to fill in the gaps, in preparation for polishing tomorrow, Monday. Painter boys arrived at 10.30 am started painting, and finished the second coat on the interior walls downstairs. The basins and WCs were installed, and Mr Contractor has finally gotten thinking about the fittings.

Today, Mr Plumber even attended briefly to look at an outdoor pipe. Things are finally moving. More has been achieved in the last 2 days than the last 2 weeks.

So we are finally hopeful. We are not relaxed yet, but hopeful.

Blood Sweat and Tears (Part 15.5)

Mr Wooden Floor has given a verbal, albeit personal guarantee that the uneven colour will be of the same colour once they finish polishing the floor. Mrs Kong, being so mad already, told him that she will put this down in writing. Mr Wooden Floor did not look too happy.

Too bad for him.

Blood, Sweat and Tears (Part 15)

I can quite confidently say that there has been effort and tears spent on every inch of our house,
ONCE COMPLETED! We are no where near completion in case you are wondering, with only less than 8 sq feet worked on this week - and yes, I am referring to the flooring!

Last week, Mr Wooden Floor laid wooden slabs on an uneven floor, causing a disparity in levelness of at least 1/2 an inch. At least this was the obvious mistake. Today another different landing has been subjected to even more mistakes: colour of the so called "teak" we paid for is off.. resulting in 4 different shades of wood, ranging from the darkest to the lightest... all within 5 square feet.

I wish we had better news to report. I wish we had some progress for a change.

Our Trip to Singapore

We went to Singapore last weekend, for the SUO 2007 tournament. For one weekend, we did not think about our construction site. (A Good Break!!)



Instead of the usual hotel off Orchard Road, we stayed at the Perak Hotel, which was only 10 minutes away from the fields. It was a brilliant choice, for Little India is just filled with colours, sights and sounds. It is perhaps a part of Singapore that we have not seen, which is strange since we have both been so many times over the years.


Perhaps we have never seen Little India for the essence of this place for the sake of experiencing something different on a holiday. If you squint very hard, and look down the streets and the buildings, you could think you are in Penang! The shops and people itself remind us of Brickfields. A little like Brickfields, but a little more organised and less rubbish.

It is in places like Little India that we get slightly confused. In so many ways, it is like home in Malaysia, and yet, it is so different in other ways. I think many of us forget that Singapore used to be a part of Malaysia, and that we used to be the same country. Many will say that Singapore has progressed much further on in just 48 years, and that it is now completely different from Malaysia. (though this is in itself is a point of contention between Malaysians and Singaporeans... for we don't believe progress can be measured in economic terms alone)

Then again, no matter how different Singapore becomes as a country and society, its history and culture will remain very close to that of Malaysia.

More Delays (Part 14)

Just when we think we have our house renovations done, up springs more surprises. Yesterday evening, we discovered the wrong grills installed on our doors and windows. Mr Contractor called Mr Grillman this morning and discovered that Mr Grillman had used the wrong design!!

Now is that ever possible? Well apparently so, and not surprising since no one writes anything down in this business!

Mr Kong is extremely disappointed with this outcome and Mrs Kong is thinking of buying the Mr Contractor a notebook.