Another long weekend with longer days

This weekend was for 3 days as the Prophet Muhammad's birthday was on Monday - which is a public holiday in Malaysia.

Saturday - spent some time plucking chikus from my tree. Tail end of this crop now. Would have just left them on the tree, except that squirrels were dropping by and my dogs were barking incessantly at them. While plucking the chikus, one squirrel panicked when the fruit plucker went close to it. It dropped 15 feet to the ground and within 5 seconds, my dogs pounced on it and it was a goner. Sorry squirrel. I did not see you.

Sunday, Elaine C's bro, Allan was planning his house warming. Shirley invited me for 4pm. What I did not know was that this was a house warming party for the families. Well, I have always treated Elaine C like a God daughter, so does that make me family?? Maybe not. But I now consider her as part of my extended family, just like Elaine W.And Shirley was a bit too early in her timing. Me and my family turned up past 4.30pm and were the first guests. Food wasn't ready. Luckily Alex had his PSP to amuse himself. I took some time to have a quick look at what Allan's neighbor (my tenant) did to the house next door. They had put in cameras both front and back of the house. I like what I saw outside of the house. The tenant was out of town, so we never did get to see the inside.

By the time the army came in (I could almost swear they came in a bus as there was suddenly a deluge of people and kids everywhere), the food was hastily laid out and feasting could commence. Another day where my diet just went to pieces. Too much really good tasting food.

After the meal, the kids started their games - hide and seek, AEIOU and so on. Alex had a good time, but we had to call it a day earlier as I planned a trip to Sungkai to indulge in a popular hot spring.

Monday. We had invited Alex's tuition teacher and her daughter along for the trip. As the papers had notified the public of road closures for the day and one of the roads I used was closed, I decided to depart from the Damansara toll that is near the office. Before starting, we stopped at Toast and Coffee for breakfast. Wen Xian (the teacher's daughter) almost cause the trip to crash even before we started. During breakfast, she complained of migraine (11 years old this year!!). She turned pale and her lips were distinctly whitish. We stopped at 7 Eleven to get a carton of eggs and a strip of paracetamol. Wen Xian took a couple of tabs and asked us to continue while she slept. By the time we got to Slim River, she was almost recovered.

The Hot Springs at Sungkai are about a 75 minutes drive from KL. Take the NS Expressway and exit at Sungkai. Take a left after paying toll, and follow the signage for the hot springs. It is located almost 8km inside an Oil Palm estate. Entrance is RM10 per adult and RM8 for the kids up to 11 years old.

It was raining the whole day since we left KL. That put a damper on our tour of the Hot Springs. We managed to try the pool which had a temperature of 43 deg C to 50 deg C. It was so hot that everyone was putting only their feet in the water.

The kids wanted to try total body immersion. So we found another pool that had temp up to 35 deg C. Wunderbar!! The pool was shaded by an attap roof. So when the rain came puring down, it was cramped full of people.

After a while, the kids wanted to try the mountain spring pool - this is a cold water pool. So off they went while I took the eggs to be boiled. takes about 7 minutes to get the eggs hard boiled. You could do more than boil eggs. There was a sign that says you could also try prawns, cockles and other food. Yikes! My mistake - other foods prohibited!Must try that next time.Once done, I took it over to the cold pool. Half an hour later, everybody came out of the pool to try the eggs. They were still a little too hot to touch!!

When we finished with the Hot Springs (rain still drizzling down), we drove up to Bidor to try the famous Duck Thigh soup. We bought some fresh guavas and headed home.

Long day!!