Spa Shopping Spree

So last night Ida and I went to CaVeNzI to select some furniture for the spa center. Ida was on "chummy chummy" terms with one of the salesman there, as she had bought most of her home furniture there also. As a result, we got quite a discount for the following items:

1. 2+3 sofa, for the manicure and pedicure/waiting area.
2. 3 coat hangers, to hang the bathrobes and for clients to hang their clothes.
3. 1 divider, to separate the waiting area and the activity/prayer room.
4. 7 shelf shoe rack, for clients to place their shoes and take the slippers before entering the spa.
5. 1 long wall mirror, dunno where to place yet but most probably in the activity/prayer room.

All in all, RM2+++ je. OKlah kot..now just to buy a few stuff for the pantry area and the office. Itu, kat Giant/Tesco?Carrefore je pun ok.

Tomorrow we'll be shopping for the jacuzzi, sauna and other "major" items for the spa. Hopefully we can get good discounts. It's been a a daunting process, researching all the items because this is our hard earned money we're using to buy all of these stuff. We're also looking for a nearby apartment for our staff, teh nearest so far is Koi Tropika. So if anyone knows of an apartment to let in Koi Tropika, please let us know. Thanks.

Also thanks to all my friends and family members who have shown tremendous support for the spa so far. I've received emails and sms's asking for vouchers for friends and officemates. You guys are the greatest.

Wanted: Photographers and Designers for IREE Touch

Sorry I haven't updated in quite some time. Been super busy, if not with work, then with work related to my new spa. Actually I don't like to call it a spa coz what we've got planned for it is so much more. We're IREE Touch, Post Natal Home Care Services, Wellness & Beauty Care.

A mouthful, right?

Anyway, Ida and myself have been meeting up everyday, talking about our business plan, our treatment packages, checking out beauty spa suppliers, surveying furniture, meeting with contractors, etc. It's been hectic but fun at the same time. I've been getting only 4 hours of sleep since Monday but hopefully it's only until our center opens.

Anyway, we're looking for people/designers to help us with our promotional materials, such as flyers, website and such.

As we have NO BUDGET to pay cash for these services, what we can offer is the following:
1. Free membership to IREE Touch, valid for 2 years.
2. 2 x Rejuvenating Full Body Massage (Free) worth RM160
3. 2 x Foot Reflexology (Free) worth RM90
4. 2 x Pedicure and Manicure + Henna (Free) worth RM120
5. 2 x Whitening and Hydrating Facial (Free) worth RM100

The above mentioned treatments can be taken at IREE Touch or at the comfort of your own home.

Any takers? Let me know kay? Can also email me at alongsj@yahoo.com. Thank you.

Come All and Rejuvenate

Dear Internet,

Yesterday was the start of a new beginning for me. I have decided to take a giant leap (with the blessing of beloved hubby) and take up partnership in my friend's health and beauty spa called IREE Touch. It's something I'm very interested in, actually can see myself contributing towards and perhaps..oh what a very big PERHAPS, doing full time after my contract with my company ends 2010.

As for now, the spa offers a range of services such as listed below:

1. Rejuvenating Full Body Massage (1 hour)
Normal Price: RM80.00
Discounted Price: RM50.00

2. Full Body Reflexology (1 hour)
Normal Price: RM90.00
Discounted Price: 50.00

3. Foot Reflexology (45 min)
Normal Price: RM45.00
Discounted Price: RM35.00

4. Pedicure & Manicure + Henna
Normal Price: RM60.00
Discounted Price: RM40.00

5. Whitening & Hydrating Facial
Normal Price: RM50.00
Discounted Price: RM30.00

We also provide post natal home care services, package customized according to the client's needs.

As our spa is undergoing renovation (the big launch shall be announced soon, insya'allah!!), we provide the abovementioned services at the comfort of the client's home. Just contact me at alongsj@yahoo.com or my partner, Ida Rafidah at 012-281 6016 to set an appointment. For those who live outside of the Puchong area, some transportation fee may be added on.

What can I say about this big leap I'm taking? For one thing, I just can't stop thinking about it. And in such a good way. In my heart I feel that this could only mean more positive things in life, insya'allah. Thanks so much to my friend for having the trust in welcoming me as her partner.

Why is Good Help So Hard to Find?

My maid is a dofus.

She's been with us for 4 months plus now and she's just as hopeless as the first day she arrived.

Cooking = hopeless. Unless I specifically spell out the menu of the day, the kids would either eat fried chicken or fried fish. Or fried chicken. Or fried fish. With vege. Vege soup. If she's really not in the mood, then just eggs. Bloodyhell!! Even with the teachings of my MIL (for months now), her menu is still the same. Even the girls, who are not picky eaters, are starting to complain. Boringlah bu, balik2 makan benda sama je.

I don't think it's because she can't cook. She has 2 grown kids already, come on lah. When I asked her whether she cooked for her family back home, she said "ada, tapi tak sedap." Masya'allah, from there we can see her reluctance to learn.

Relationship with the girls = strained. I don't want to boast, but my kids are pretty friendly. And they have manners. But with my maid, it's like the kids can just sense that she doesn't really like them. When I asked her if she had ever taken care of kids before (she claimed to have worked in Saudi for 5 years), she said, "saya jaga rumah saja."

Housecleaning = average. She claims she's only 40 years old, but then she admitted to my MIL that she had menopause a few years back. I suspect she's more like 47-48. She sweeps and mops the house every morning but that's pretty much it. I have to tell her to clean the windows, or clean the glass surfaces. Her dishwashing skills are also sub par; so many times have I found spoons and forks still greasy. Even my dad, who normally never complains, complained about his favorite cup still having coffee stains at the bottom. Sigh..kata pandai jaga rumah, takkan basuh pinggan pun nak ajar kot.

And today she did yet another stupid thing. She locked herself out of her room and couldn't find the key.

Luckily none of the girls were inside the room but Dania had to get ready for her Kafa school and all her clothes were inside my maid's room. I had to rush back home during lunch, despite having told my maid where to find the keys to the room.

When I got home, I found the key and turn the lock. Door = open.

"Oooo, putarnya ke kanan, Saya putar ke kiri."

Geramnya aku!!!!!

I don't think I can stand a year with my maid, what more 2 years. I've got to send her back soon and get a replacement. Ala, more money in the wind but what to do.

Takkan anak2 aku nak makan fried chicken manjang.

Trip to Kota Kinabalu - Day 3

Before this gets really stale, I better write down what we did on our last day in KK.

Day 3 started late. We overslept. Breakfast was gobbled up in a hurry because we had planned to visit the Sabah zoo, better known as Lok Kawi Wildlife Park. Dania had demanded to see the rhinoceros and hippo, though I seriously doubted we would.

We checked out from the resort at around 9.30am. Unlike our check-in experience, checking out was a breeze. We bid goodbye to the beautiful resort with a slightly heavy heart.

Getting to the zoo took almost 40 minutes. If you're coming from city center, head towards the airport and then keep going straight. Follow the signs saying "Lok Kawi" and soon you'll be seeing signboards that point the way to the zoo. The inner roads were kind of bumpy and we miss the entrance to the zoo once. Fortunately we hadn't gone far up the road so turning back just took us a few minutes.

The parking is quite far from the entrance which is kind of silly, so hubby dropped us off while he went to park the car. I bought the tickets (RM10 for adults, RM5 for children 3 and above) and then we entered.

It was already 10.30am by the time we got to the zoo so the weather was ultra hot. Before long, each of us were sweating bullets. I had my jeans on which made the whole visit a bit unbearable. There were not a lot of animals to look at, maybe a lot of them were taking a nap.

We did get to see some great elephants. They were so cute. One elephant came up real close and if you reached out your hand, you could juuuussttt touch the tip of his trunk. It was phenomenal.

We saw the orang utans but unfortunately we didn't get to see any up close, unlike what was advertised. We saw the usual animals you see in a zoo but unfortunately for Dania, we didn’t see any rhinos and hippos.

An hour later, the weather had gotten too hot to handle, so we headed back to the exit. While hubby went to get the car, the kids and I stopped at the souvenir shop to buy some fridge magnets.

From teh zoo, we headed straight to Terminal 1 to send back the car. Our flight was at 2pm so we had to be at Terminal 2 by at least 1pm. Fortunately traffic was ok and we made it to the airport in good time. After checking in, we spent a few minutes touring the airport and buying some much needed drinks.

Everyone was poofed thanks to the zoo trip so we all slept on the flight home. Fortunately we got a whole row of seats to ourselves so the kids were able to lie down and get comfortable.

We arrived at LCCT at around 4.30pm. Ibu was already waiting for us so we then headed back to my parents' home for dinner.

What did I think about Lok Kawi Wildlife Park? Eh. Oklah I suppose but it was just too hot for us to enjoy the animals. We probably should have started our trip much earlier. The elephants were wonderful but other than that, I think our visit to the Sunway Petting zoo was much nicer and educational.

Overall, we all had a great time in KK. I wished we could have stayed longer, maybe we could have enjoyed the city center more. We didn't even have time to buy any prawns! Oh well, maybe next time.

ps: can't upload any pictures yet so I'll edit this post later.

Car of the Future?

This is just so wrong on so many levels.

I am speechless.

Mid Life Crisis

I recieved this in my inbox from one of my colleagues. Made me chuckle. Hope you enjoy it.

***************************************************************************
When I was married 25 years, I took a look at my wife one day and said,

"Honey, 25 years ago we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 25-year-old blonde."

"Now we have a $500,000 home, a $45,000 car, nice big bed and plasma screen TV, but I’m sleeping with a 50-year-old woman. It seems to methat you are not holding up your side of things."

My wife is a very reasonable woman.

She told me to go out & find a hot 25-year-old blonde, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Aren't older women great? They really know how to solve your mid-life crisis.

What Goes Around, Come Around

Today I found out my previous maid agent had passed away a few days back. She had cancer.

For those of you who can't remember, this was the agent who put me through this hell with her lying and scheming.

When I heard the news, that very bad part inside my head said all kinds of unnice things.

Then I remembered, death waits for no one.

There may be someone out there who has similar thoughts about me.

I hope not. Nothing would be worst than having people hate you till the day you die.

I'm taking this as a lesson; if you do bad things to people, takyah tunggu lama, Allah balas dengan cash sekarang!!

Whatever it is, I'm not that cold hearted.

Al-fatihah to my previous maid agent.

&%$#@*&^

Frustrated.

Don't want to think about it.

Reminders everywhere.

Yeah, congrats to you guys. I am not jealous.

If I get it...whatever.

If I don't....what else is new.

Auto pilot mode dude...auto pilot.

Overheard on the ERL

"Baby, remember the new computer game Mommy bought for you yesterday? The shopkeeper said it's not compatible with the computer so Mommy will buy you a new computer, ok?"

FYI, based on the rest of the conversation, I deduce that "Baby" is approximately 5-6 years old.

Huh...

This Man Made Me Cry

His name is Paul Pots. He has the most innocent face ever, yet what he is capable of is.....outstanding, to say the least. I've seen this video 100 times and it never gets old. Goosebumps everytime!! Enjoy.

Trip to Kota Kinabalu 2008 - Day 2

Day 2 in Karambunai was a bit more happening. We decided to make a trip to the Tuaran Crocodile Farm. It's about 35k from city center but from our resort, it was much nearer. After getting some directions from a very friendly security guard, we made it to the farm around 10am. After buying tickets (RM10 for adults and RM5 for children aged 4 and above), we were told that there was to be a crocodile feeding session at 10.30am and a live show at 11.00am. Cantik punya timing!

As you enter into the farm, the first thing you'll see are some very interesting crocodiles posing. No fear for these crocs are not real, or maybe they were real stuffed crocs. Whatever, they make for very interesting photo sessions. Dina was a bit apprehensive at first but after a while she warmed up to the crocs and had fun posing and hugging them.

There were also some fish ponds with thousands of fish in them. These fish were very hungry, ravenous to be exact. We bough a bag of fish feed and fed the fish, enticing shrieks of laughter from the girls as the fish fought and pushed each other for the food. I'm going to try to post a video we took of the fish, to illustrate what I mean. Hopefully it works.

For the croc feeding, we were made our way to one of the pens nearby. There must have been at least 30 crocs in there, some nearly 4 meters long!! All of them looked really ganas and I held the girls tightly as we made our way across the bridge to the center of the big pond. I didn't want to think what would happen if any of the girls slipped and fell inside the water, arghhh, nauzubilla, mintak jauh bebanyak.

Finally at around 10.35am, one of the workers opened the door hatchet to the pen and blew his whistle to signal to the crocs that it was feeding time. We heard splashes of water all around us as the crocs made their way to the landing area. We watch in awe as the worker threw pieces of chicken to the crocs who gobbled them up hungrily. One even used its tail to whip a piece of chicken closer to its mouth, denying its pen mate some food. Hehehehe, pandai jugak buaya ni, creative and innovative!



After about 5 minutes, the feeding frenzy was over. We all then made our way to the segregated croc pens to see the various types of crocodiles held there. There were some really interesting crocs, as shown below, but the one that we spent most time looking at was Bujang Sukau. Apparently this crocodile had already killed one man and bit off the leg of another before he was captured and placed in the farm. This croc was huge!! And he made all these growling sounds, like he was pissed at been taken out from his wild habitat and put on show for humans.

Pandak, the short-tailed crocodile

Bongkok, the hunchback crocodile
The Big Guy, Bujang Sukau

At around 11am, we made our way to the performance area for the live crocodile show. At first there weren't a lot of spectators but then a big bus full of rombongan makcik kiah made their way in, so it became a very lively crowd. The performers (or crocodile charmers, as I called them) were 2 boys and 2 girls, who entertained the crowd with their antics of dancing with the small crocodiles and posing on top of the big one. It was rather entertaining but you could see that the performers held much respect for the crocodiles and were on full alert throughout the show. The possibility of getting your limbs bitten off by a crocodile is not something you should take lightly!!
The show lasted for about 30 minutes, which was just nice because at 11.30am, there was a cultural show at the long house, just behind the performance area. In this long house, we were entertained by dancers who dance the local cultural dances, such as the Kadazan dance called the Sumazau, the Bajau dance called the Limbai and my favorite, the Murut dance. Hehehee, not my favorite because of their, ehem, rather skimpy costume but because the audience was invited to try the dance. Guess who was first to volunteer? Hehehehe, the girls shrieked in excitement as they watched their mom dance the Magunatip (this is the dance with the bamboos). Sorry, no pictures or videos because someone forgot to charge the camera's battery the night before (hangs head in shame..sob), so instead a made a link to a page with illustrations to give you guys an idea.

After the cultural dance, we just spent time wondering around the farm, taking more pictures with the stuffed animals there (using handphones). The girls even got to touch and pet a real live crocodile!! Granted, its mouth had been snapped shut with some string but it was still very exciting. Dania marveled at how hard the scales were and how soft the belly and legs were. Dina fell in love with it and wanted to bring it home..hahaha.

We spent 2 hours at the crocodile farm and we all had a blast. It was very entertaining and very educational. Their souvenir shop left much to desire; granted they should some excellent crocodile handbags (some costs up to RM15,000!!) but they didn't even have any fridge magnets or postcards of the place. They did however have a restaurant, which served scrambled crocodile eggs. Eeeeeee, I dared hubby to eat some which brought us to a discussion on whether or not we could eat the eggs, seeing how crocs are haiwan dua alam. Ntahlah, whatever...hubby decided he wasn't that hungry or daring to try any anyhow.

We reached the resort at about 12.30pm and seeing how it was a hot day, everyone felt sticky and tired from the outing. After a few hours nap, we spent the rest of the day, enjoying the swimming pools and just relaxing at the resort. After dinner, I took the girls to the Nexie Kids Club for some coloring and playing. We stayed until the club closed at 9pm then made our way to the room for some much needed sleep. The girls were tired after such an activity filled day that they fell asleep without much fuss.

My verdict of the Tuaran Crocodile Farm? A must visit place. If you're coming from the city center, just head up north and follow the signboards that say "Tuaran". There's plenty of signboards to lead you to the place and even though the entrance looks very blah, don't be fooled and just enjoy the wonders these ancient dinosaurs have to offer.

Next up, Day 3.