We had a really good chillax time in Bali with friends. There was nothing much on our agenda, other than food. We kinda planned our day around food and chilling (or trying 101 ways of jumping into the pool) by the pool in the villa.

By night, we sat and chatted by the pool and looked at stars. Beautiful. We even spotted shooting stars! (Yes, by last count, I wished for 3 Birkins!Hahah).

It felt as if we were back in the good old days of “chalet-ing” with friends…It’s our first trip with friends in a long while and we are really thankful for eye_deas and bw and their partners for accommodating us and a toddler who could get abit cranky at times. Really appreciated them entertaining Nat.

And I loved that I had some time out to read! There was no Internet connection, or rather, we didn’t pay for it. And so, we just did what we do before Internet came along – watch movies, play ipad games, chill by the pool with music and drinks etc etc.

And yes, my appetite really did get back in time! It started from a pre-flight meal of pizza hut, then a $10 chicken sandwich on board Jetstar…And went on to…

:: On our night of arrival, the rest decided to head out in search for supper and found a gem of a place – Teh tarik and prata shop (murtabak!) located near our villa. It was so good, we went back again and again, packed back to villa every day for supper and tea.

:: We chilled at Cafe Wayan after Ibu Oka Babi Guling. And we chilled for a good 2 hours, with drinks and dessert. “This is life”, I proclaimed!

:: Metis (the foie gras!) was absolutely yummilicious and worth every IDR we spent. It was our first dinner and it was a high benchmark to match. In fact, we were joking about booking the next cheap flight out, just to eat the foie gras!;)

:: Though we had breakfast in-villa, we opted to venture out for food. Kopi-Pot was a great discovery, introduced by our friendly driver (highly recommended!). I am still thinking of the banana pancakes! *slurp* Our next breakfast haunt – Klapa – was great in terms of view, but low in terms of food (by the last day, we had many many good food liao!)

:: We came to a conclusion that places with good view doesn’t necessarily equate good food. La Lucciola was one such place. But then again, we were benchmarking against Metis. But hey, Nat enjoyed his fish&chips, & that’s all that matters to me!

:; Before our night flight, we managed to head down to Seminyak for dinner at Ultimo. It was a good choice! The food was great and certainly very value-for-money. Definitely a good foodie note to end the trip.

And with this, I shall let the photos tell the story…

It’s really been awhile.

The radio silence here is due to me doing a “What to expect when expecting” rerun and lethargy got the better of me.

That and the missing appetite just threw me off doing anything else but a need to lie down in bed and snooze after work. And it doesnt matter what time I sleep or how long I slept, I still end up not wanting to wake up or still feeling tired in the morning.  Alot of energy is needed to grow my baby…

Yeap, I’m pregger. Almost at the end of the first tri and as I speak, I think I can feel my appetite coming back.

Which is good news. Seeing that we are off to Bali this evening with Eye_deas and bw!

When we booked this trip months back, we wouldn’t have known that it was going to become our babymoon.

I’m determined to enjoy the short trip, have fun, not think about work and come back hopefully more refreshed and energetic to take on the world and what August has in store for me (all the work deadlines!).

In 2006 when I was last in HK (it’s been too long ago!), I took a “picture with him”….

4 years later, I got to ‘hold his hand’!!!!!

Hahaha, cheap thrill, I know. His ’star’ was the most popular ok. There’s always a crowd!

I mean, HK is about shopping and sightseeing and eating. In that order, for this trip.

I hit 2 H&M outlets – Central and the latest one (which was the flagship store) at Canton Road. Tehpeng has since learnt to not ask why the need to hit multiple outlets of the same store.

Nat has also learnt to have fun while mummy shop. 

This trip, we checked ourselves into a service apartment in HK island . Thanks to bff Dada’s recommendation when she was helping me source for accomm. HK, afterall, is also her playground

Besides the larger floor area compared to normal hk hotel rooms, the location was superb. It was just opposite Times Square which made it convenient for us in terms of transport (cabs at the doorstep and a MTR exit, though it’s quite a long walk underground before we even got to the train), food, supermarket run (fruits and juices at City Super for that healthy boost!) and of course, shopping.

The night before we checked out for the 2nd part of our HK trip (Disney hotel), I managed to hit the Pedder Warehouse Sale, as a last burst.

What do you know, having given the SG one a miss this time (it’s always crowded in a small place), I kinda scored (again) here. A much enjoyable experience, less people and larger floor area.

Not sure how, but I managed to pack in 6 shoeboxes and the clothes into our luggage…;)

As what tehpeng said, our HK trip ended faster than our countdown to it.

And I found that nat and I share a love for space…

For nat, it was the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride.

In fact, he liked it so much (admittedly, me too!), we went thrice in the span of 2 days (staying at Disney hotel meant our tickets allowed us 2-days entry. YAY!).

He will go “shoot!’ and make those astro-blasting sounds when we talk about the ride. Very cute.

For me, it was SPACE outlet. When we reached there after Ocean Park, Nat was all ready to space out….

It was located in a residential area and right next to it was a wet market. Kidding you not. When we enter the building, we had to whiff the wet market smell first. Very strange. But that didn’t stop me from grinning hugely and my heartbeat went faster.

As tehpeng waited with a sleeping nat, I went around and bought. I had to restrain myself and my limited budget also helped to restrain me…still, I think my loot was not too bad!

We went on to another building (17 floors of outlets!!) which was just a taxi-hop away, but by then, I was all shopped out and even Joyce & Lane Crawford outlet didn’t manage to excite me…(very limited selection of red soled shoes in my size).

One of the rare days I managed to get out for lunch, it was a dept lo-hei lunch and it was just across from the office. We happened to walk past the Samsonite store and was attracted to the current promotion of a $299 luggage with trade-in of any luggage (which will be donated to Salvation Army).

Now, not that we needed a new luggage but the promo was quite good and one of our work-horse luggage was kinda wobbly anyway. So, after consultation with tehpeng (got to love having the iphone - snap a pic and email!), we decided to go for it. It will come in handy for our HK trip next month.

And I realised why I like online shopping much. No need to deal with or face sub-standard service.

As I didn’t want to lug the luggage to office, I asked if I can pick it up later. The sales guy said,ok. The transaction was done and the receipt was given to me.

lilsnooze :: Erm do you need to write down somewhere that I’ve yet to collect the luggage?

Sales guy :: Ah yes.

*does nothing* And lilsnooze gives the “yes???” look. He finally plucks off a piece of post-it and asked for my name and contact details. My receipt number was not even tagged to it.

Sales guy :: you must come early tomorrow cos Im on morning shift and I scared my colleague mix up.

lilsnooze :: But I paid for it. You should have to keep 1 for me and label it as sold or smthing!?

Anyway, I left it as that and left, cos I am not going to tell him how to do his job.

Thankfully, tehpeng came to pick me up so I went after work to collect the luggage.

The same sales guy took one out from the carton box and in doing so, toppled the new luggage against the edge of a cupboard. And.there. was.a.scratch.

lilsnooze :: It’s scratched!

Sales guy :: Luggage use, sure will scratch.

Lilsnooze :: But it’s new and I’ve not used it yet!

Tehpeng said its ok (less I kick up a further fuss, maybe?) and we left with the luggage.

I was honestly cheesed off by the sales guy’s attitude. I am considerably not a demanding person and I would not have insisted for a new luggage to be given to me (I’m really not that fussy) but his reply was “cannot-make-it”! And truly un-acceptable.

Im not in the retail industry but the seemingly right way to answer a customer in such a situation would be an apology and an offer to give me another luggage. No?!

Gimme online shopping anytime. Email queries are answered promptly and nicely!

I actually meant the last weekend where we self-declared it as a long weekend. As my dad was back to settle some visa issues, I proposed a drive up north, booked the hotel and last Friday afternoon, we set off for a weekend of shopping and eating. Nothing like these activities to bond a family eh.

And with GPS leading the way, as tehpeng and myself were at the hotel back in 2006! It was a pleasant journey, Nat didn’t really fuss much (thanks to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the PSP) and there were only 2 detours made (the highway can get quite confusing nearer the city!).

The hotel was linked to 3 shopping malls and there were alot of F&B outlets, giving the area a very lifestyle-feel. Most importantly, there were Skin Food, Face Shop, FOS and Padini Concept Store.

Saturday was a whole day of walking around and after each mall, we did a stop back at the hotel to drop off the bags before moving on again. Nat was so hyper with the new scenery that he didn’t nap at all and ended up falling asleep on the hypermart trolley in the evening. No kidding. We were at the checkout and he must have known it’s the end of the fun so he finally nodded of. It was a hilarious sight!

Again, Nat showed that he’s totally at ease sleeping in hotels. In fact, we overslept on our first morning and missed the hotel’s breakfast as we were depending on him to wake up at his usual time of 7-8am but, we only roused at 10 when my dad called to check in on us.

And I must say, the highlight of the trip must be the food we had. And to think, we just went in to wherever our tastebuds led.

We were so hungry when we finally reached that we dropped our bags and went in search of dinner. Not that hard as the streetwalk was lined with F&B outlets and buzzing with activitiy. We ordered up a storm with dishes flooding the table at Italiannies.

And we realised the portions were for sharing, but we had a dish all to ourselves! With starters and drinks (wine for my dad and sangria for tehpeng & myself), the bill was pleasantly affordable.

I had the BEST prawn noodle for lunch on Saturday, at the Little Penang Cafe.

I went to Penang many years ago and I remembered that was the only time a very skinny me walloped two bowls of prawn noodles. This is possibly as close as to the real thang in Penang as I can get, for now. It’s super yummy, the soup stock is super flavourful (as if it had been boiled since day 1..haha) and the right amount of spiciness. Really, nothing in SG can compare.

As my parents opted for the authentic kopi at Old Town, the young ones went to Winter Warmers for the ang-moh tea.

Nat ain’t too interested about the food, he’s much more engrossed in his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Not too long after (I did say this trip is really food-focused), we had dinner at The Apartment, as we were intrigued by its Loft-inspired interiors. All too soon it was time to head down and we had a late lunch at Malacca. Not the usual peranakan feast, but at a Chinese restaurant which my family used to patronise.

All in all, yummy food good prices.