So What Did I Do for My Bday w/o Hubby?

We picked up Nur n Yayan at her work place cos she has to work saturdays.

Where are we going, Syifaa'?

We're going to Angsana at Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

We stopped for awhile at the first Toll Station.

Touch 'n' go is a tap card system to pay for using the North South Highway (PLUS). This is to prevent build up in the queue during peak hours from the physical monetary exchange at the drive thru booths.

Just to give you a view of what Johor's like.

Mostly, the roads are fronted by 2-3 storey shophouses.

First stop after we reached Angsana is LUNCH!!! It was 3+ by the time we "touched down" and we were certainly ravenous having not taken any bfast yet!

Me & Nur with our Vanilla and Banana Muffins. Can you guess where we are?

Ben's dish of 1/4 Chicken + pasta + 1 side dish priced at RM 17.90

Ayah had the same.

We fed Syifaa' w Muffins n mashed potato.

There were also a lot of children playing. Half of them Singaporeans i reckon by their dressing. At some point, Syifaa' was enjoying herself running around "entertaining" diners, adult and children alike, supervised by Ayah.

Total Bill: RM 106. That's like SGD10 per person!!! The service wasn't all that great, but that's only to be expected. Imagine, they served food first, cutleries later?!?! *shake head* Well, at least they were happy to give a bowl of it for free, otherwise, i will tell them off for charging for their services!

It was funny the way the waitress stood at our table while presenting the check, as tho she didnt wanna let go of it, for fear we might run! Excuse me, we need to do our accounting first. In the end, pressured by her presence, my mum just footed the bill first. and we settled it among ourselves later. Even then, the bill took prolly like 10 full minutes to be processed!! Like HUH?? Not like there were any crowd! *Shake head*

Anyway, were you able to guess the place? Haha.. It's Kenny Rogers lah.

After that was bowling!!!

According to mummy, that day saw a LOT of patrons. It is mostly vacant at other times.

It was SUPER DUPER CHEAP!!! Total for 5 person x 2 games each + 4 shoe rentals + 1 socks = RM 57 = SGD 2.50 per person per game! COmpare that to SGD 4.10 at Marina Square at peak hours. *roll eyes* But you just hafta put up with the slow service and old equipments lor..

As expected, Ayah played SUPER WELL! He almost got a turkey!!.

For the first game, he got strikes and spares for all save for 2 - 3 rounds! His score was about 130+? I got 2nd at 100+. I dont really remember cos we didnt get to snap a picture of the score! Get this. The screen is dot matrix old and cldnt even display all 10 rounds. We didn't even have our monitor to key in our names. Instead, there is a staff to input the names and watch the score for every 6 lanes or so. Gosh! I suppose, it's a good way to keep employment rate up?

Yayan improved a lot!! He's found his throw style already and got several strikes.

Nur got 1 or 2 strikes herself.

I only got 1 strike but a lot of spares.

Mummy used Ayah's "lucky" Orange Ball No 8 and strike too!!

But generally, we did much worse for 2nd game. Tired already. Even ayah~ You should see Ayah's throw. very unique! hehehe i will update this with videos later when i get home. So come back to check them out. BTW, Syifaa' slept thru out our bowling session! Alhamdulillah.

Ayah said earlier that if we had time, we will check out the Karaoke boxes. We got all enthusiastic at that prospect. But guess what? we didnt realised we spent like 2 hours in UO - a supermarket cum department store. It was almost 10pm when we were done shopping and stores were closing.

Though those boxes close at 2am, we were considering Syifaa' PLUS we still havent got dinner yet!

So Next Stop, Singgah Selalu.

Syifaa' & Nenek

Syifaa' & Aunty Nur

Syifaa' & Atuk!

Everybody just wants a piece of her!

Syifaa' got bored so Ayah accompanied her to the play room.

Before that, Ayah was sternly telling off the bigger children who was playing roughly. Throwing hard balls at the small babies!! How could they! Ayah said, "You can play, but throw softly." Luckily, they listened.

Ayah's dessert: ABC = Air Batu Campur = Mixed Ice / Shaved Ice.

Not to forget SATAYYYYYYYY

Our light dinner to compensate for the LATE meal and the heavy late lunch.

Me & Yayan at the decorative mirror.

There were a huge crowd as usual on weekends but esp so bcos the were showing the football match Arsenal VS somebody which i dont know and dont care. I was quite surprised to see quite a few Msians too cos i would have thought this is a Singaporean's haunt being just a few km off the Immigration Checkpoint.

Truthfully, i dont know why pple like to go to Singgah Selalu. Mostly pple say that they serve a wide variety of food. But when i browse thru the menu... nothing much really. Still the common Mee hailam, roti prata, fish & Chip and other vege, meat, seafood dishes to be eaten with rice. I suppose the latter's their specialty, which, i personally don't favour bcos u will end up spending more than necessary with even smaller portions or 3 - 4 dishes. Nope, not my kinda restaurant.

But take me to Al-Ameen, anytime! That's my kind! Thai, Indian, Pakistani, Mediterranean, Western... Oh i will always hafta break my heart when choosing 1 plate over 100 of them!

Guess what time we reached home? 1:30am!!!

All in all, it was a SUPER FUN day for me. Ayah warned me in advance tho that this is not a bday celebration. Just so happen that our outing coincides with my bday. No matter.


Syifaa' has been very good also! Not much crying but more laughing / smiling. She likes to roll on the floor in the most manja way, just like a cat!... even at UO's floor... Until she got a red dot on her face! I think my arms are sore more bcos i was carrying her than bcos of bowling! In the car, she clung to me most of the time while taking "shelter" or refuge when Uncle Ben and Aunty Nur threatens to tickle her! She even fell asleep in my arms... And it felt very nice :D


But i can also see that taking care of a baby or toddler is HARD WORK. Ayah had to eat quickly in order to look after Syifaa' and let Mummy take her turn to eat. When we were shopping, Ayah accompanied her the whole time! While I know Ayah likes to play w children and use it as a chance to relate to holy things, 2 hours is still NO JOKE. can't help feeling a bit guilty.


Lastly, thank you to my family for being there for me. And thanks to ALL my friends for remembering my Bday n wishing it. I've never truly appreciated them until now when i realised that it takes a lot of effort to REMEMBER somebody's bday and actually making the effort to TEXT well wishes.