Daddy's Birthday

It is a great idea to come dubai so early too.... because we get to celebrate Max's birthday with him.. in the morning, Max got to celebrate his birthday in office with his colleagues..

Meanwhile, at home, me and Ace took the no bake oreo cake that Ganma Seokling bought for us to bring to dubai to make a birthday cake for daddy...

That is Ace helping to decorate the cake..


The finished end product:)

Anyway, since it is Max's birthday, we decided to go out to eat.. Max says he is easy with eating watever and Ace chose to go to Sino Chai.. our favourite Taiwanese restaurant in Dubai....


Max helped Ace decorate his rice so that he will eat his food quickly...

And when in Sino chai... always.. ALWAYS order BUBBLE TEA! Not as good as Gong Cha.. but well, at least it is better than nothing! Max with the pearls in his mouth and I say this is how Max will look like when he is 70 years old... wahahahahahah

Ace also tried to copy cat...
Max eating his birthday cake..

Alas, Max only had one piece of the cake.. the rest of it is eaten by Ace Chua.. I also only ate one piece and a half and there were 8 pieces in total....

Well, Max did say that his best birthday present this year is the fact tat when he woke up, his A &A are right beside him for him to hug and kis.. hee:)

Previous Post: Want Toys? Work For It Lah

Want Toys? Work For It Lah

We have always been telling Ace that if he wants something, he has to work for it...

Since he arrived to Dubai, Ace has been asking his dad to buy him toys and so, his dad set up a reward system where he can track the good things that he do in return for stars... and every two stars he gets is equal to one dirham for him to use to buy toys that he likes...

The items that his dad has set up include:

1. Helping to cook rice




2. Wash the dishes




3. Making the bed when he wakes up




4. Sleeping early




5. Completing 10 pages of homework




6. Reading a book




7. Avoiding junk food




8. Being polite and kind

Just to get him excited, we brought him to toys r us to see what he might like to buy...

After one round to toys r us, Ace came up with a list that goes like this... in terms of priority..

1. Space Lego




2. Star Wars Lego




3. Remote Control Ferrari Car




4. Hotwheels Car (colour shift)




5. Angry Bird Yellow Bird Soft Toy




6. Police Lego
   

So next trip, we went with him to pick specific items together with how much they cost and how much stars they will require... THat is him posing with the Lego City Police set that he wanted.. and this set costs almost $200 sing lor

That is the hotwheels car that he wants...

Anyway, I also have my own wish list.. hahahaha.. It is to have a Xbox Kinect (costs $1650 dirhams in most places in Dubai) But Max says might be more viable to buy Wii since now Wii is very cheap liaoz....

That is Max trying out the Kinect ping pong game.. however, he says the machine is driving him crazy cos it is difficult to get it to respond.. i never heard complains from my frens who have it though.. I think it is cos in a shopping mall, there are just too many pple in the area for the machine to be accurate and respond fast..


Another thing that I wanted is MAGIC SING.. it is a portable karaoke set.. wahahahahaha.. but leh, I want the version with chinese songs and ang moh songs... it costs about sing $600 when I checked.. I found a cheaper version here in dubai..but alas they only have tagalog and english or hindi songs.. bummer....

But leh, all these are really desires at the moment.. no real need yet... if given a choice, I will choose kinect.. then dun need to always only watch movies and go supermarket shopping.. very boring existence it is at the moment now since summer is not so good for exploring Dubai...

Lucky I got my son to entertain me.. wahahahah..

PS: But then again, i am still getting used to having Ace around 24/7... When we are outside, I dunno if it is because he is used to it... even when Max is just in front of him, he goes, "Mummy, mummy.. I want to show you something..." and every 5 minuites or so, I hear him go "Mummy mummy.." till I almost going crazy.... if we are at home, every 5 minutes or so, he tells me his brain is thinking about hug hug and he will NEED a hug hug from me before he can continue to do homework lah.. eat his meal lah..etc.... HAIZ.....

Previous Post: Indian Food Galore

Indian Food Galore

Dubai is the land of indian food... especially if you are vegeterian...

When we arrived, it was eid, then one working day and then weekend liao.. so literally like a long weekend. And since we just arrived, we havent really gotten used to life here and so we were eating our meals outside most of the time....

Since we already had mac donalds, I was not looking forward to eating mac donalds AGAIN so when Max suggested to eat at an indian place, I was more than happy ;)

After hanging out a few days here... I realized that it is super duper hot and that even if I was just walking from the car to the shop, I got so much darker my watch left an 'imprint" on my wrist.. so leh, now I clever liao.. wear my shapes and bring my cap along... it is strange how the pple here dun really use umbrellas against the sun..

Max brought us to one of his favourite indian shops.. who supposedly has a branch in Singapore...

Ace requested to eat prata but leh, somehow, I was told.. tat in real indian food, there is no prata.. only Pharata... Prata is Singaporean! So leh, I told Ace we will order Ball Prata for him.. (Poori) to mix with sugar... he din really like it though and prefered our Thosai as it was less greasy...

A few days later, we were faced with the decision about what to eat for our breakfast... even though Ace requested for Mac again, me and Max voted for indian food as i forsee at least one mac breakfast every week in the weeks to come....

We tried indian man tou...

And some mashed potato like thingy... I must say though the side sauces that come with it are super delicious! I dun mind eating this often! And hor, the shop has one of the BEST mango lassi I have have had... the mango juice is flavourful.. there are bits of mango inside the the yoghurt is thick... only slighty less thick than a milkshake.. YUMS!

But Ace din quite like the sauces because he said it is slightly spicy...


Wahahahahaha... Too bad for him... we are going to visit this restaurant very often!:)

PS: My hubby is yellow indian skin according to our fren AC.. wahahaha:)

Previous Post: Indoor Nerf Shooting Range

Indoor Nerf Shooting Range

Now that I am in Dubai and Max is around, it seems I will have less to do right? Since Max can help...

WRONG!

Hai.. now that I am in dubai... I actually have more to do.. I have to take over Popo's job of mopping the floor... Ah Yee's job of teaching school work, Gong gong's job of cooking meals and Zeng Popo's job of nagging... so leh, actually MORE BUSY...

So what does Max do? According to him, he is in charge of teaching Ace moral and ethics... and HAVING FUN....

I guess it is time Ace has some male companions also lah. if not I will only play GIRL games with him.. like talking softtoys or tickling each other... his dad will play games like wrestling and shooting guns.....

Since Ace already shipped over his Nerf Gun... the father and son did a makeshift shooting range right in the living room and started having shooting competitions.. wahahaha...

So what does the mother do? Take pictures and blog about it lor...

Previous Post: Housework Helper

Housework Helper

It seemed that Max had some sort of idea in mind what he wanted to achieve for his son.. he probably spent all his free time planning wat he wanted to do when we are here.. and trust me, he has alot of free time.. ahahahahahahhha...

And being a do-er, he put it into action immediately... and by day 2 in Dubai, he told Ace that since he is 6 years old, he has to learn to do some housework around the house.. and so max taught Ace how to cook rice and how to wash the dishes.. things he would never have a chance to do while in Singapore and staying with my parents...

So the plan is this.. day 1, Max will tell him and show him the steps and let him help a little... The picture above is the rice tat Ace cooked on the first day.. he was so afraid the rice wun taste nice. wahahahaha...

By day two, he required only some verbal reminders about what to do and some correction about the way he washed the rice... and by NOW.. he is an EXPERT:) wahahahaha....

Now that he can wash the dishes, he gets a star for every two dishes that he washes he gets a star (that can translate into dirham to buy things that he likes).

Just today, it felt so xing fu.. that after busying around the kitchen and preparing dinner, I can sit down, cross leg and watch tv because my son washed the dishes for me!;) woo hoo! good life.. here I come! :)

Ace learning how to fry an egg for our dinner...



Yeah, Chef Ace!

Ace helping me to cook cauliflower for dinner...

Ace helping to bag the shopping items and helping to carry the shopping bags...

And so you see, once your children get to a certain age, if you are willing to train them.. they do become very helpful help.. hehehhe:)

Previous Post: Eid Fireworks In Dubai

Eid Fireworks In Dubai

In dubai, there are a few BIG holidays.. one of them is EID... which is like our Hari Raya in Singapore.. (actually it is the same things.. just called a different name here.. i think due to the fact tat arabic and melayu are different...

So it being a BIG holiday, they actually have fireworks in Dubai to celebrate the event lor. And they dun only have it for ONE day.. they actually have it for like three days.. each time is a 6 minuite show lor...

If there is one thing I have learnt about the culture here the last time I was here.. everything here is inshallah.. everything here can change despite what they put on the web...

Unlike in Singapore where the Hari Raya is decided in advance, Eid is only decided upon consultation with the astrologers... I dunno it has to happen on a new moon or what lah.. anyway, have to look at the sky and all that to decide and so the day before EID, you will get calls from your boss telling you that tomorrow is a holiday.. and so you pass the message on to your kar kiah and tell them it is a holiday... and usually, like CNY, the holiday is two days...

The first day I was here, I saw in the ads on TV that there will be fireworks during EID at Creek Park.. which is near our place.. But I did not think much of it as I was too tired...

So leh, on our second night here.. we just had dinner and were happily washing the dishes when we suddenly heard loud noises of fireworks and then I remembered wat I saw and we quickly went downstairs... heng it is a long one and so by the time we were downstairs, there is still fireworks going on...

Silly Ace was so afraid of the fireworks burning him.. tat is why he looks so stressed.. hahaha... silly boy, so far away also dunno he scared of wat...









On the second night, Max said we should finish our dinner early and drive down to the creek but leh, remember what I said about how things can change? You see... the stipulated time in the ad and on the internet states that the fireworks starts at 9pm. The first day... it went off at around 8.40... so we expected then to start say the same time.. but sorry hor.. they started this time round at 8.35pm instead...


So we only caught the fireworks in our car.. by the time our car made the correct turn to go towards the creek, the fireworks ended already... wahahahaha.. so we went home lor:)

That is how it is like on watching the fireworks in the car.. guess Max is the only one who din get to watch it since he had to concentrate on the road...

On the third night... the fireworks started at 8.30 lor.. we went to this big plot of empty land near our place and had quite a good view of it...








We checked online and it said that the fireworks were until 2nd Sept.. so on that fateful day, we went to wait for the fireworks.. alas, we waited from 8.30pm till 9.05pm in the hot desert weather BUT THERE WAS NO SIGN OF FIREWORKS at all lor:S

I figured the fireworks were suppose to last for three days and since they started blasting three days ago, they forgo the one on 2nd sept lor.. the Singaporean in me cannot figure out why they cannot follow the dates they stated and also the timing that they stated.. not too much to ask for a 9pm fireworks to start at 9pm everyday right?:P

so leh, my personal conclusion is... NEVER trust any information in this country.. everything is written and unlike in singapore, it is not for sure.. the underlying is tat everything is STILL subjected to changes and there is NO clause tat warns you about that...:P Good training for control freaks who always want to be in control and follow skeds.. wahahahahaha..

Inshallah... if god permits, then it happens lah.. if no, it doesnt.. no big deal, nothing to worry about or be upset about.. :)

Previous Post: The Naked Chef