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 . . .

I'm Back

. . . and raring to go, I 'think'.

Yup, I've still been in hiding since my last post . . . seems I needed more time to get over our first failed treatment cycle, especially with the festive season too, it was harder than I expected and I guess it was a bit of self preservation and I couldn't bring myself to write about the difficult days, it was too depressing.  I tried to keep up with my tweeps though on twitter and that certainly helped get through some of the tougher days (thank you ladies). But, I 'think' I'm back on track a bit more now, new year, new start, same old mantra, LOL

• Take one day at a time
• Be strong
• I can do this

I don't want to dwell on the last few weeks as it doesn't make fun reading and I'm not sure it will be therapeutic for me but I will mention a few things to put you in the picture. Since finding out the treatment didn't work I think the hardest things have been facing my family and newly pregnant SIL and also trying to adjust being back at work and being 'normal', in hindsight I should have realised these would both be impossible tasks. To top it off I came down with a nasty viral chest infection a few days before Christmas day and so I had a trip to the doctor [first time in ages for something other than infertility related, novel] and I have consumed nearly one whole little bottle of honey and 2 lemons and I think I'm only just about over it, right in time for going back to work, perfect!

Christmas with the family was HARD, that's all I'm saying on that topic, we were so glad to back to our own space a few days later . . . New Years Eve was much better, but as expected when midnight struck it was emotional for us both, the end of such a horrible horrible year, full of sadness, we were both completely drained from all the emotional turmoil and I guess it had to take it's toll at some point. Ha, New Years Day was hilarious, we were both feeling so down that we stayed in our pyjama's till like mid-afternoon, haven't done that in years, it felt good and by the evening we were thinking about the year ahead and our hope felt a little renewed.

On the infertility front, we have made progress (with a little help from my tweep, thank you @IVFLondon), I called the new clinic, Herts & Essex, and the woman on the phone was really lovely, all I needed was a copy of my medical notes and I can book my private cycle, yay. I ordered a copy of my notes from Bourn Hall and they arrived last week, it's like a different language though, not sure what most of it means but I plan to look a few things up to see if I can work it out, plus we have our follow-up appointment with them on 31 January. 

So our first consultation appointment is booked with the new clinic, I had a pick of dates actually (makes for a nice change) and chose 4 February, after our Bourn Hall follow-up appointment as we might be more informed by then and also after our holiday, did I mention I'm going on holiday [yawn] ;-)

OH left this morning for the airport already, he has to do a few days at the Bangkok office before I go out to meet him, boo, miss him already [sad but true]. But only 4 sleeps to go!

I fly out on Thursday evening to meet him and then we travel from there to Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia the next day to see the in-laws for about 9 days and then back to Thailand to an amazing resort I found in Phuket for 5 days, bring it on!

ps - I've been tinkering with my blog lay out too, I've add some 'pages' at the top left of the page that you can click on, think I might store other bit and bobs on here and remove them from the main page, any brighter ideas you bloggers might have let me know :-)

pps - it's good to be back 

 

Cherry on Top

More choccies from a dear friend (thank you!) . . . gotta stop feeding me these naughty things soon though otherwise I'm gonna be the size of a house before Xmas arrives :-)

I haven't blogged for a little while as I felt like I needed to hide for a while . . . not that hiding solves anything and until now writing has helped me cope these past few weeks, but I guess it's a form of self preservation. I still feel incredibly sad that our treatment cycle didn't work and this is making it difficult to return back to normal, I do keep asking myself though, what is normal? 
My main concerns are that all the drugs, procedures and all the waiting is emotionally and physically draining . . . why were our embryo's not strong enough . . . will it ever work . . . did the other stress I was under affect anything? If I rationalise it, I know it's a numbers game too and I believe in fate and so it wasn't meant to be our turn this time.  Also seeing so many other infertility tweeps get BFPs lately does give me hope that it can happen.
I've surprised myself actually, I usually 'cope' with everything but I guess the accumulation of the events has not helped, not really sure where I go from here, I'm not sure counselling will help as I know I just need to focus on moving on and taking sick leave from work is not going to help me either. So . . . instead we've booked a holiday and boy do I need some pampering time.  So I'll be gone for just over two weeks in January and then it will be February before I know it, perfect, I literally cannot wait to get away and chill out!

I went back and read some of my older posts (makes interesting reading, ha!) and with everything going on I forgot to mention a blog award I received back in November from one of my favourite tweeps, Low Fat Lady, so sorry it's taken so long to post but thank you!  I was so chuffed to get this as this is my first ever blog and was wondering if anyone would enjoy my drivel.

The rules: link back to the person who gave you the award, pass it on to five (or a bunch of) other blogs, and leave them a comment telling them of the award.

So here goes . . . I give this award to (drum roll please) -

My Cheap Violin 

Yolk

One Good Egg

My TTC Story

Low Fat Lady (rules are for breaking so I'm linking back to you as I love your blog!)

The other day @saleschick reminded me of my mantra from one of my first posts, I'd forgotten all about it!

• Take one day at a time
• Be strong
• I can do this

I need to be stronger and I know that's a state of mind so that's what I'm gonna do, be strong, I know it's ok to cry from time to time, but most of the time I hope to be strong and I know it will get easier.

Actually, I'm currently in a dire 4 hour teleconference (who schedules 4 hour calls?!?!), and I am showing great strength in persevering :-)