While I had imagined a lot of dining out at Red Star Restuarant or wherever convenient with good food, we ended up with the usual food prepared by my mother in law's (mil) helper, a auntie in her 40s with 4 kids that lived about 4 units away on the same street.
One thing I learnt from these home cooked food, usually stir fried veg with ikan bilis or anchovies and fried soya sauced or tomato sauced fish fillets or simply pork rib soup with carrots and corn is that home cooked food need not be so "cuisine". I shall occasionally prepare stir-fry beansprouts and lotus soup with carrot, dried scallops etc instead of mainly western grill that I so loved. Fruit salads and food that my fussy eater loves like crabstick, fish balls, chicken, pasta are a must.
Our first stop at Kluang after the no frills bus ride on Five Stars from Golden Mile Complex aka Singapore's mini Thailand sans all the red, yellow shirt protesters was to Milky House for a Mother's Day cake. OMG, that cake house must be famous, it was packed with customers!!! I've never seen so many people buying cake at the same time and we bought 2 for about RM20 each, dirt cheap!!! One decent half kg cake here costs easily S$20-30. One thing I hate about shopping in Malaysia is most shops do not understand simple English!!! Yan had to translate every thing!!! "Is it freshly baked?" We were still spooked by the incident in Rachel's childcare.
During her 2nd birthday which was a day 03 Jan, after the NY holidays, we bought 2 cakes from a reputable shop in Parkway. One for the childcare centre, the other for our family. While the cake tasted alright, our family was down with diarrhea for a few days!!! It should be the cake since we ate nothing much in common those days!! Then to my horror, I was told that the cake may have "aged" since the shop was closed for the NY holidays which means the cake was baked last year!!!!Thankfully none of the kid took ill. Enough said, it took me a while to buy cakes again!!!
Since our family adores chocolate and dislike vanilla and Sarah's family prefers vanilla, we bought 2 only to receive one more, pandan flavour from the same shop from guests. The guests were a young couple, think they are Yan's cousins (though not blood related) with their 2 month old colicky baby that wailed for a long time. It was a chaotic hour or so, with mil's TV at loud volume, people talking at louder volume and the baby wailing for attention at a louder volume. I felt dizzy then!!! Noise-related pollution!!! Just like the ones emanating from VJC, I cannot understand why they must bang on metal trash bins to cheer lead various activities and shout "VJ..VJ>>VJ" and make me hate my alma mater so much that I called the police to complain about the noise and the vibrations in my house!!! I am most probably the first to lodge a complaint since most residents here being elderly could be hard of hearing. Most are old retired school teachers as well.
A visit to Kluang must include the newly opened Kluang mall. I am so glad to let Rachel play at the "Polliwogs" type of playground and its ony RM$4 for 2 hours verus $18 entrance fee at the Eact Coast Parkway location. While the dutiful dad watched over her listening to his ipod, I had my pedicure cum nail art for only RM$48 so cheap!!! Only trouble is the manicurist is only conversant in local Mandarin and no English fashion mags for my reading pleasure!!
My bro in law, Paul also brought us to savor the Tingkat beef. Its delicious!!! Only RM $4.50 a bowl.
At Kluang Mall, I also managed to buy a balloon sculpture, "Lollipop" that "popped" within a few minutes!!!! These are mainly for customers who signed up expensive children's education software retailing at RM1000+ and the balloon sculpturist agreed to sell me these "free" balloons. From RM$10 to RM $3, I could tell he is a money-faced that readily accepts "bribes" though dispensing company products "balloons" that are meant to be for customers.
Well Rachel and Aerin had a great time with the balloon sculpture leftovers!!!
Mil also passed us some old coins mostly S$5 and $10 commemorative uncirculated coins and Old Orchid series banknotes that her late husband had collected. Anyway since we do not enjoy collecting and amassing these old stuff, we are going to sell them and save the cash for Rachel.
Lastly, I must say I quite enjoy walking uphill 10 minutes in the hot sun with an umbrella to Kluang Mall from mil's place, something that no locals will do, walk!!! But it's good exercise and I do get to see the poor living conditons of some "villagers??" In fact, my mil's helper the auntie's slippers were so worn out and fastened with tape that I immediately felt sorry for her and her brood of 4 kids!!! I shall get her new footwear on the next visit or through Yan/Sarah. Why should she suffer the agony of improper spoilt footwear and cook for my mil almost 5 meals a day???? Here I wore Fitflops almost $90 a pair that is said to improve posture but after a while I find them rather heavy and chunky!!! Crocs is the best!!! For casual footwear beach wear even to the malls and the airport. Beware of escalators though!!! And they do wear out so fast. Melted I would say!!!
Personally, i prefer mil to relocate to KL, perhaps near sil. It's more convenient to visit via air than to endure the long 3 hour bus ride that include causeway jams!!! Plus I get to visit Pavillion and KLCC malls that boast of brands I love and good dining!!! What's a trip without shopping and good hotel stay??? Let's hope we can shop this Dec/ Jan 11 holidays again!!!
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