Powderpuff Mae

GONG XI FA CHAI to everyone.

We made our journey back to Taiping on the eve of New Year in the wee hours of the morning. My brilliant husband had made an elaborated plan concerning our journey in order to get us home without getting stuck in the jam. He slept at 9pm the night before the trip and woke up at 3am. I on the other hand had to do all the packing to ensure that the family had everything we needed for the next 3-4 days. I slept at 11.30pm and woke up at 3.30am. We left the house at 4.30am for Taiping.

Despite planning and coming up with the best route to take to avoid the crawl, we were stuck in the mother of all crawls at 4.30am. There was an accident in Rawang involving a bus. As such it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to Rawang when normally a 50km stretch would probably take us 15-20 minutes. The rest of the journey was smooth save for the congestion at the Ipoh toll.

Breakfast at Dunkin Doughnut in one of the stops

All in all we had a good time in Taiping. We didn't really have a big celebration this year as we were suppose to be still "mourning" the death of Ah Poh. When we got back to Taiping, we managed to eat the famous "kai see mein" (shredded chicken noodles) aka KSM. I find it strange that the "Taipingans" seem to love their KSM to no end and they never seem to get enough of this stuff. For example, we had "KSM" the morning before New Year . The next morning, Uncle Ricky bought KSM for breakfast. And James' doting mother made more KSM for lunch but she made enough to feed an entire village for a few more days. So everyone had KSM for breakfast, lunch and dinner. By lunch my entire bodily system was on red alert, too much KSM, need to eat something else, anything but KSM. So I stuffed myself crazy with all the chinese new year cookies and peanuts. Anything will do but please not another bowl of KSM.

Sadly all the good stalls were closed for the new year. So for the next few days we ate the worst food Taiping could offer. The good hawkers were on a well deserved holiday. Whereas the rejects were out to make a quick buck from hungry diners like us who refuse to eat at home. Anyway, the cookies at home were much better as such I stuffed myself with more cookies as the cousins festered in front of the idiot box for a whole 8 hours for our "Heroes' marathon. It was a great series.... save the cheerleader!

The cousins festering in front of the TV eating CNY cookies

Jesse and Baby

We got back last night. It was a long journey. We were stuck in another jam, but it was a great trip nonetheless.

I just came from the doctor's. I discovered this morning that had I lost my voice. In my attempt to avoid KSM, I stuffed myself with too much cookies and peanuts and this my friends have cost me my voice.