Yum Yum in My Tum

I've been suffering from jet-lag this past week so have fallen behind a little on my blogging, plus if I admit it I think I've been hiding too as it's difficult to come back from a lovely holiday and face reality. 

After my last post we spent a few more days in Kuala Lumpur with OH's family, luckily we had no further car drama's but we did continue to stuff our faces will all things spicy :-)

Now, this photo may not look that appetising, but trust me, it is delicious! This is a 'steamboat' restaurant. Each table has a portable cooking pot with it's own gas supply (novel), the pot is split into two sections, one side has tom yam soup, the other side clear soup and you basically steam fish, tofu, noodles and vegetables at your table, the hot soup is completely addictive, yum yum in my tum.

We then headed back to Thailand to have a few days of much needed relaxing time on our own and chose an amazing resort called Indigo Pearl, where every fitting and fixture was in their tin-mining theme, pretty cool. It's their peak dry season there at the moment but we did experience some freakish weather, our first evening there was mad thunderstorms and lightening for about 2 hours, we lost all power and got ready for the evening by torch light (thank you iPhone!), made it interesting though.  We did have grand ideas of taking a boat trip to the Phi Phi islands, but it didn't take long after we arrived to decide we were firmly staying put, the resort was really nice and we didn't want to leave.  

I was hoping that these few days I could really relax and get away from everything and forget my worries . . . felt like it was impossible though to completely forget, infertility is such a big part of our lives now so not sure who I was trying to kid by thinking I could forget it all.  We did have a relaxing time though, our days mainly consisted of laying by the pool, laying by the beach, drinking cocktails, napping, reading and more laying by the pool and laying by the beach. There was a spa on the resort so we treated ourselves to a couples massage and facial, OH skipped the facial and had a steam bath instead though :-) Ironically, the spa package I chose was called a pregnancy package (if only!), this was the only one that had a massage and facial combined so I went for it anyway and very quickly explained ha haa, keep smiling, I'm not pregnant but can I have it anyway, ha haa, keep smiling. What I didn't bargain for was to come away with 12 insect bites, yes 12!! Now, anyone that knows me knows that Moon and insects are NOT FRIENDS, EVER. I tend to have some over-reaction to insect bites and the result is not very pretty, enormous lumps and bumps. Doesn't matter how strong the repellent is and whether I have dosed myself up on antihistamines it happens every time, in fact, it's quite boring now :-) After one trip to the chemist and two very sleepless nights I was better just in time to come home. Just to make sure that I truly had a break from it all, Aunt Flo also made her appearance on my last day, fan-bloody-tastic. Anyhoo, we really did have a lovely time though, and it was really nice to be away and only have to worry about where to sunbathe today and which restaurant to eat in, we had an amazing room, I beat OH at pool (once!) and it was hot hot hot. I read a book called One Day by David Nicholls, a good holiday read that I'd recommend, and I'm about half way through Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert which also seems quite good so far.

Whilst I was away, Shona over at aPGDblog was kind enough to give me a blog award, yay for me. Thanks Shona, I really appreciate it, if you haven't seen Shona's blog, please go over and read her story.

Here are the rules for the acceptance of the award:

• Thank and link back to the person who awarded you the award.
• Share 7 things about yourself.
• Award 15 other bloggers.
• Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

Here are the 7 things about me that you may not already know . . .

1. My little kitty cat is called Macy, she was a rescue cat and I love her to bits.

2. I have an unknown allergy and carry an EpiPen (adrenaline). A couple of years ago in Malaysia I suffered an anaphylactic reaction to something I ate (very scary!!) but I have been unable to identify the cause.

3. I have a love hate relationship with snowboarding.

4. I have OCD tendencies and like things to be straight :-)

5. I hate cinnamon.

6. I have this weird fascination with the Gherkin building in London.

7. I miss who I used to be before infertility.

Here are the peeps I'd like to give the award to (in no particular order) . . .

My Cheap Violin 

Yolk

My TTC Story

Hoping For Rainbows

Tales of my Follies

My Lazy Ovaries

Love, Life and Infertility

Built-in Birth Control  

Liberal Granola Girl

Baby Wishes

Buford Betty 

The 2 Week Wait

Braving IVF

One Good Egg 

A PGD Blog (rules are for breaking so I'm linking back to you) 

On another note, I've had an eventful week in terms of our TTC journey, on our first day back to work we also had our follow up appointment to discuss our failed cycle (in hindsight, perhaps not a great idea for my first day back, not sure what I was thinking!) and on Friday we had our first appointment with a potential new clinic . . . will blog about this soon.

Shopping Mall with a Slide

Yep, that's right, you read that correctly, why not have a slide in a shopping mall!? 

This is a new mall called Empire, so I guess this is their attraction, odd but true. So for about 12 rinngit (about 3 GBP) you too can have a go :-)
So we haven't been up to much, more eating, more drinking, more sleeping and last but not least, more shopping. The exchange rate is not too favourable at the moment so I haven't bought anything [boo]. We treated ourselves yesterday though to manicures and pedicures, so I'm sporting a nice classic French manicure and pretty pink toes ready for Phuket on Monday.
We've been hanging out with some of OH's extended family too so it's been nice to catch up. 

We've been going out for drinks in the evening, mainly to the latest hip & trendy area called Bangsar. Everywhere looks so pretty at the moment with lanterns everywhere as it's almost Chinese New Year . . . although saying that, the constant high pitched Chinese tunes played in the shopping malls drives you a bit crazy . . . la dee dah happy happy de dah deee!


The main cool bar we have been going to is called WIP (originally 'Work in Progress', but now 'Whipped into Place' - cheeesy!). Yesterday we walked into another place called Twenty One, sat down, for maybe 2 minutes and decided it was too quiet and headed back to the buzzing WIP bar, but it looked like an uber-cool place, definitely one to go back to.


Whilst I'm off having a wonderful time I know the infertility world continues and many of my tweeps are at some stage of their two-week-waits, hoping that the news is good news for you all. I wanted to give a special mention to one of my tweeps, MyTTCstory, please show her some love, she is having a difficult time at the moment and I know she would appreciate our support.

Adventures of Moon

The adventures of Moon continue including car dramas :-)

Losing the car in the shopping mall car parks, I can handle that, it's mildly amusing even in the soaring heat, yesterday though we reached a new level in the car dramas :-)  we took a trip to the dentist and innocently parked the car on a side street as the car park was full . . . everything is so busy here with zillions of cars everywhere so it can be hard to find a parking spot (honest!), so we just copied others (mistake number 1) and parked on this side street alongside some other cars . . . we even bought a car parking ticket to show willing! As we walked up to the dentist we noticed a car being towed, OH even said "ha unlucky" but we carried on our business anyway (mistake number 2!). We were gone for about 45 minutes maybe, we come back out, and there is my father in-law's car ON A TOW TRUCK being driven away . . . we watched like it was in slow motion . . . errr panic! Actually there were several tow trucks taking cars away and lots of policemen hanging around, they had a one-day operation in the area, arrhh nightmare! OH gives his best sorry face to the policeman, luckily he agrees that he'll stop the car going to the compound but we still need to pay the fine and pick up the car from the police station up the road, PHEW! 350 ringgit (about 70 GBP) later we finally get the car back, and RELAX! :-)


Another day, another shopping mall (seriously, there are that many here to choose from).

I decided to be a bit more adventurous and tried Tom yum spaghetti for lunch, hmm looks appetising huh!? No idea why I chose it, in my defence there was no picture in the menu but then again, it said minced chicken so still not sure why I chose it!


Yesterday we went over to the Batu Caves as we're lucky enough to be here at the time of the Thaipusam hindu festival, bonus. 

This is what the Batu Caves looks like normally at night, it's a big tourist attraction - the most popular Hindu shrine outside India. There are 272 steep steps up to the temple in the cave . . . I've made it up there on a previous trip to Malaysia and it's pretty spectacular.


The Thaipusam festival is every year around this time in January, I've seen this on the TV before but this year we were lucky enough to visit to see it person . . . wow, what an experience! Dr Google tells me that the festival is about faith, endurance, penance and for devotees to show their appreciation to one of the hindu gods. 

It was quite shocking, the pilgrims seem to go to extreme lengths to show their faith, some pierce their faces through the cheeks or tongue with skewers!! others put metal hooks in the backs, it's pure madness. Apparently they don't feel any pain or bleed as they are usually in a trance, the eyes of some people looked like they were in another world.

It's quite amazing to see, my photo's don't really give it justice. The crowds gather and there is a lot of chanting and drumming for the pilgrams who have walked bare foot for miles to make their journey to the shrine at the top of the Batu Caves.

Anyway, stay tuned for more adventures of Moon :-)

Out of Office

Blogging from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ain't technology great :-)


So . . . here I am, at my in-laws apartment in the hot, humid weather . . . chilling out, eating, drinking, and eating some more [impossible to resist the yummy spicy food here, and with the jet lag I'm muchos hungry - my excuse!]


My flight over to Bangkok to meet OH was quite nice and I managed to get a few hours sleep and watched a couple of films too, Social Network [fab film] and The Switch [hmm not too bad, mildly amusing tale about an unmarried 40-year old (Jennifer Aniston) who uses a sperm donor to get pregnant, obviously it worked on her first attempt, cos it's really that easy!]. 
I spent one night in Bangkok with OH and had dinner with some of his work colleagues and then we escaped to Vertigo for some midnight drinks at the Moon bar there, an amazing rooftop bar at the Banyan Tree Hotel overlooking the city [ha ha, the "Moon" bar - so kind of them to name it after me, it would have been rude not to visit].


We haven't done much since arriving, just chilling out and enjoying being 'out of office' :-)
Here are a few things that have made me chuckle in the last few days:

• It's very much still Christmas in Bangkok! In our hotel there were three Christmas trees in the lobby and two nodding reindeers :-) I'm guessing they didn't realise it's bad luck if you don't take the decorations down by the twelfth night, or maybe they did and they plan to keep them up for the entire year!
• We popped in to the Levi's shop at one of the malls here, I'm browsing for some new skinny jeans, the size they had on the rack was 23" waist with 32" leg, err who has a body like that?! When I asked for my size she chuckled, ha ha, everyone is so so tiny here!
• We made a school boy error and lost the car in the shopping mall car park . . . cue 15 minutes aimlessly wandering around trying to retrace our steps! We've made this mistake many times before on our trips here to malls as the car parks are very confusing!  I even took a photo of our exact location, but it was no help when you're in the complete wrong car park and lost, LOL!

We've managed to already have our top four favourite dishes too . . . all with a spicy connection, I was so busy stuffing my face I forgot to take photo's but here are some from Dr Google, mmm yum yum in my tum!

• Roti canai - Freshly baked layered flat bread with spicy curry and dhal sauces on the side for dipping, costs next to nothing but tastes amazing. 

• Laksa - my favourite dish, a spicy noodle soup  usually with chicken and prawns, completely addictive. I've had this dish twice already!

• Banana Leaf - rice, curry and vegetable side dishes all served on a fresh cut banana leaf.

• Kway Teow - spicy fried flat-noodle dish with vegetables, chicken and prawn with a yummy charred taste.

We did a spot more shopping today at another mall, KLCC, had yet another Starbucks (OH has discovered Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino a.k.a heaven) and chilled out watching the world go by . . . OH took a great shot whilst we were at KLCC, right next to the Petronas Twin Towers . . . if only we could stay here longer and holidays could last forever . . .