Disciplining other people's kid

An incident which happened at a children’s playground of a department store last weekend had me mulling on the topic of disciplining other people’s kids.

Now, I don’t know what it is about some parents’ or guardians’ stance of (not) disciplining their kids these days, but in my world, there is no place for bullying. And, every toddler who has the tendency to do so ought to be disciplined. 

Let me be clear that while I have no intention to try to discipline other people’s kids, I have no qualms doing it and putting the kid in his/her place if and when the need arises.

For a toddler too young to defend herself, I don’ t think it is ever intruding to intervene, especially so when the behaviour is dangerous or harmful to another child. It is something which you just cannot ignore. 

In my mind, any child who misbehaves (that includes mine!) needs to be removed from the situation completely. That is, behave and you can stay, or misbehave and you are no longer allowed to play. Kick and scream for all I care - you don’t get to play if you are not being nice! 

What happened that weekend after our frantic search for a playground was this: 

Whilst letting Spud loose at the said playground, I observed a behaviour which I deemed completely unacceptable displayed by a toddler of about 3.5-4 years of age.

The venue, for the record, is a small little playground tucked away in a children’s section and, going by one of the ground rules, the playground is only for kids whose height is NOT MORE than 100 cm. (Spud’s about 95 cm tall with a tiny head, and that kid was clearly at least 1.5 head taller than her!).
 
According to height limitation, that was Rule #1 broken. He was also easily the oldest kid around. I honestly did not care much about his presence initially.  Spud has been playing quite happily by herself and at the same time, also making friends with other kids as they chased each other around. 

But as time went by, I noticed that the 3.5 year old boy was actually quite boisterous and was purposely getting in the way of other kids. 

He basically disregarded other kids - shoving them aside as he went down the slide.  Without any inhibitions (I guess that’s what toddlers do, which is acceptable provided they are supervised), pushed kids from the back of their heads and then just SLAMMED himself as hard as he could to the other tots who were sliding down to the bottom of the slide (which is completely unacceptable under ANY circumstances)! 

The first time I saw him doing that to other kids, I let it go thinking that it could just be something unintentional on his part or that I was just being sensitive.  Nevertheless, after getting some affirmation from Silver Bullet who also saw the incident, I continued observing him from the sidelines and wondering who his parents or guardian was.  He was the kind of kid who sorts of expect to get his way all the time, and if he doesn’t, he jolly well makes sure he gets it by being a bully to systematically take all others out of the equation.

Moments later, I saw him doing the same to Spud. He shoved her aside even after the poor girl had actually let him go first, and then pushed her head when she went down as he slid down and then crashed into her. The moment I saw that from where I was, I let out a rather loud “Oiiiii!” and a shriek. 

Too late to intervene as Spud tumbled down the slide, face first. I kept my cool, waiting for Spud’s reaction as the boy’s Nanny called out his name and basically did not even move her ass to him and continued “watching” him from the sideline.  

Spud, not sure what had happened, saw me smiling at her (I had to put up a brave front!)  and took it in her stride when she went a-tumbling down. She quickly recovered, giggled heartily with a huge grin on her face and ran off again. Seeing her reaction, I let it go; but not quite leaving my eyes off that boisterous boy. 

Then I saw him doing it to Spud at least twice more. All of this time, the Nanny did nothing to stop his terrible behaviour.  As we were about to leave anyway, I walked nearer to the top of the slide to gather up Spud as she was about to come down.  I then saw him coming from behind Spud.  This time, he actually pushed Spud to the most left side of the slide (she actually scooted over to give way to him) as she was about to sit down on the slide to get herself going. She lost her balance slightly (horror on my face as it was quite a height), and as she was just about to recover her balance, he pushed the back of her head with his bare hands to get Spud out of his way.  She tumbled again slightly and, had he pushed her any further or harder, Spud could have easily lose her footing and fall off the higher end of the slide and potentially break her neck! 

By now, I was seething with anger. I had to intervene. I basically held Spud, stopped the boy in his tracks by getting to his eye level, held out a finger to his face , and  in a very stern, loud  and authoritative  tone of voice  said, “BEHAVE! Stop it. That was not nice! YOU BEHAVE”. 

The brat had the cheek to look at me and grinned back, as if mocking me. Gosh! I wanted to slap his face purple. At this point, his Nanny came forward and just called out his name. Again. That was all she did. Called out his name and nothing else! I was so mad at how she handled it and I told her off quite loudly that she needs to teach him some bloody manners and how to behave properly. She did not even apologise, and let him loose once again. 

I then passed Spud off to Silver Bullet - all the while very conscious that at least 10 pairs of adults’ eyes were on me. 

In particular, there was this one older man (likely to be in his 50s) who was giving me a deathly stare while he was talking to the boy’s  Nanny  as we were getting out of that place. I wanted to ignore it, but I was still extremely pissed off, and so I then looked back at that old man (he was still staring intently at me) and in a confrontational way I went, “What?! Was that your kid?!” (Ok…one could argue that I should just let it be and ignored his stares, but on this one, I was not willing to let go) 

That man immediately went berserk on me.  He started yelling in Thai, obviously unhappy that I challenged him; perhaps because he felt that I had made him “lose face”.  Maybe because I was younger than him, and as a general rule, the older Thais do not appreciate being challenged. I then raised my voice at him, telling him the same thing I told the Nanny – teach that boy some manners!  He wanted to fight me and when Silver Bullet intervened, he started hurling abuses in Thai as if challenging us to fight him 

He was relentless and as he got all riled up, his wife (I assumed) and a few other people were all trying to stop him from launching himself at us. It is usually not like Silver Bullet to be as confrontational as I am, and when he did (while he was wearing Spud!), I had to pull Silver Bullet away as it got all intense. That stupid guy was just hideous! 

I assumed he must have been related to the boy, possibly his grandson or something (or why else would he be so defensive?). At the back of my mind, I was actually more petrified that it would get out of hand, and if he is an influential guy, there may be a chance that he may get people to come after us! In fact, the chances of the rest of the Thais ganging up on us to side with him were very real as we are the foreigners, regardless if it was his fault in the first place.

Still seething, we walked away…his yelling and abuses could still be heard from a distance.

It was not pleasant. In fact, that was one of the most uncivilized ways for any mature adult to deal with such a situation. Had he been nicer about the fact that he is unhappy that I was disciplining his grandchild,  the least he could do was come to me and ask for an explanation. Instead, abuses were hurled in a language I don’t quite understand, and trying to lure us to get into a physical scuffle  if it was up to him; an assumption I made, judging from his aggressive body language.

Honestly, I have nothing against the kid, but I blame his behaviour solely on his parents/guardian who fails to see the effect he would have on other people as they think it is OKAY to turn their heads with an excuse, “oh! He is just a little child!”

Sure, he is just a little child on his way to ascend the throne to bullyism and being a menace to society, that’s what!

Granted, if Spud happens to be the bully, I would also like it very much for the adults who saw Spud bullying other kids put Spud in her place. I would certainly appreciate the gesture of any parent coming forward to me and inform me of Spud’s misdeeds so that Spud knows she won’t get away with any of it. There are of course, always 2 sides of a coin – but I’d like to think that I can be fair as a parent and as an adult.

Of course there would come a time when Spud needs to stand up for herself, for I can’t always be defending her all the time. However, until that time comes, she is still a defenseless child who could barely string 5 words together to form a sentence, let alone understand the whole concept of bullying. My primary instinct is to protect her from getting physically hurt just because of another child’s misdeeds from poor disciplinary measures exercised by the parents/guardian.

I, for one, just don’t have the patience for rudeness and bullying. And for fucks’ sake – you are the parent, these kids are your responsibility and yes, boundaries need to be established. As parents, if you don’t start setting the boundaries now, then when?

Please PARENT,  if you have kids.  If you are not there to do the job, delegate that task to the nanny/guardian who is minding your kids and give them the authority to do the disciplining. 

And, as for that stupid fuck -faced Thai guy who hurled abuses at us, I hope you fall flat on your face one of these days, break your teeth and choke on them as your beloved grandchild stomp all over you on your big, fat, arrogant and senseless head!

Rocker's outfit

The iconic Rolling Stones T-Shirt...

A Beatles' hair-do...

And something that resembles an electric guitar....

This, I swear was not planned and purely coincidental, and somehow it all came together nicely.

The T-shirt, however, was something I discovered not too long ago while we were throlling around at MBK.  I had to buy it when I saw a size which Spud can fit into. How cool is that!

Buy Storage?

OKAY. I am annoyed!

In trying to upload some photos to my blog post on blogger.com, I encountered this message:

Seriously? Now I have to pay for storage!? On a monthly basis with minimum of 2.49 USD per month to get 25 GB of space? Really? I know it probably is not THAT much, but do they have to do this?

I guess I'm spoilt after getting this for free for so long. I'll have a think about it. I am so not happy!

Playground Blues

Since we bought the annual pass to Siam Ocean World almost a year ago, we have, naturally, been   a rather frequent visitor there. We go there almost every other month, usually on a weekend to keep Spud and ourselves occupied when we have nothing better to do.

The best time to get there is the first thing in the morning as we don’t have to battle the crowd. Getting there any time after 11.30 am on a weekend is a royal nightmare with finding a parking spot as well as having to join in the snaking queue to get in (for some reasons, they do not have a special line for members with annual pass, which is a very silly thing to do!)

Besides the penguin’s exhibit as Spud’s favourite and the sight of the fish which may or may not intrigue her depending on her mood that day, the other worth-it area is was actually the kids’ indoor playground. For us, it is a good way to idle away time in a somewhat educational way, but also enable us to “park” Spud there for a bit as she tires herself out before we stop for lunch.  

Considering that we don’t usually spend more than 2 hours in there, buying ourselves the annual passes have been a rather worth-it investment as the passes enabled us to not spend an insane amount of money on a per entry basis.  Because it was so worth it, we thought all along that it would be a good idea to renew our membership in the upcoming months when it expires sometime in August.

Until last week , that is;  when we discovered that they have completely overhauled the kids’ playground area to a useless and senseless money-making 3D photo studio booth. Suddenly the thought of renewing our membership is not appealing anymore, as truly, the indoor playground was actually quite a big part of the draw. For parents with small kids, huge aquariums and playgrounds are ideal.

To say that we are “just disappointed” is an understatement. In fact, I am extremely annoyed that they replaced the kids’ playground with some stupid photo booth which I don’t really give a crap about. What a shame!Shame!Shame!

 

What’s worse was that Spud actually remembers about the playground and kept saying, “play, play, play” as she went around trying to look for it – and this s despite the fact that we have not been there in more than 2-3 months at least! 

It was quite disheartening to see Spud as well as a few other helpless little kids (and parents alike!) , looking around for the playground and not being able to locate one! 

We have been making her excited about the fact that she not only was going to see fish and penguins, but gets to run around and bounces off the walls of the Ocean World’s playground! For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to feel so disappointed for not being able to make-good our promise to Spud. 

We left almost immediately after that, feeling a little sorry for Spud. We then made our way to Central World where we usually go to on every other weekend as well, to let Spud run around. It is a much bigger playground located on the 6^th floor (or was it 7th?!)  of Central World (and it’s free!) and we know that  Spud loves playing there as well. 

Unfortunately, when we got there, the playground was also closed that day!  I don’t know if the closure was permanent (I hope not!), but I reckon that it was closed only temporarily for renovation (which is way overdue, really!).  

What luck!

Luckily, Silver Bullet remembered that there is another small-ish playground within the Kids’ Department at Isetan and so we made our way there just so that Spud could release some energy. It was not spectacular, but it was doable – enough to make-good of our promise to Spud in bringing her to a playground so she can play.  However, that in itself became another story altogether befitting for a separate post.

What a weekend that was.

One thing for sure, we ain’t gonna be renewing our membership passes to Siam Ocean World next time round !

Spud & Fudge

Of all our 3 cats, Fudge continues to be the only one who would tolerate Spud's smothering and terrorizing the poor feline to her heart's content.

This is one of Fudge's favourite spot in the apartment, and out of the blue, Spud decided that she was going to squeeze in whatever space there was left and sit next to Fudge, along with her favourite bear.

Fudge, in the meantime - bless her, grudgingly scooted a little from her original sprawling position that took up the entire chair, leaving just enough space for Spud to climb in. 

Spud was all grins and smiles when she successfully climbed up the chair by herself and plonked right next to Fudge. It was quite a sight that I just had to fish out my camera in trying to capture the moment.

Look at her all happy and contented!

The little girl could not sit still for very long on that chair and meddled with Fudge's comfort space quite a bit. Within minutes, the annoyed, sleepy Fudge finally decided that enough was enough and left the scene to get some peace and quiet elsewhere in the apartment.

While that left Spud a little confused, she was absolutely undeterred as she almost immediately chased after Fudge to give her a kiss and a hug!

Lovin' It!

The cats were due for their annual rabies jab this weekend and every year, a visit to the vet with 3 cats requiring their mandatory feline shot never fail to bring a smile to my face whenever I see the bill.

3 cats.
3 jabs
And always a special attention required to one particular cat, Andy,  who always happen to have problems with her in-grown nails (she's such a lazy fart who refuses to scratch her nails, and tend to have her nails grow into her tiny little paws) 
Some medication (for Andy)

All of that cost less than 500 hundred baht...which is equivalent to less than 20 SGD. Check this bill out:

Ain't that awfully sweet?! Compared that to the amount of money a pet owner has to pay for  an annual jab of just ONE feline friend in Singapore - which is easily more than 3x the cost for 1 cat...ouch!

This is the bit where I go, "I absolutely love this country". Because,  when it comes to prices like this - I really do love what Thailand has to offer. With such superb and professional service at the vet, the experience and cost have been  absolutely amazing.

Life as working parents

Being a working mom forced me to be more disciplined in managing my time between work and family.

That for me means getting home in time to be able to give Spud a shower, have a little bit of cuddle time as she sips her last milk of the day while indulging her whims to watch any cartoons she wants for half an hour, get her to brush her teeth before reading her a few bedtime stories and then put her to bed no later than 7pm. 

I get annoyed if people at work waste my time or even think of scheduling  a 5.30 pm meeting. It annoys the crap out of me if they turned up for meetings an hour late and be a complete time waster, especially when I am already in the office by 8am.  These days, unless completely necessary, I don’t stay in the office beyond 6pm.  In fact, I usually draw the line at 5.30 pm if I can help it because I want to be home in time for Spud’s bedtime.

That pretty much has been our routine since I went back to work when Spud was 3 months old. If, for some reason, I am delayed and not able to put her to bed, I know I can depend on Silver Bullet to get home in time to do the same  – provided I tell him a few hours in advance!

I have to admit that it requires a helluva lot of discipline on MY part to be able to walk away from work at the end of the day and say screw this, it’s 5.30 pm;  I’m leaving for the sakes of my kid to spend less than 2 hours with her before she goes off to bed, and I can always continue with work after 8pm if necessary. 

For some reason, both Silver Bullet and I absolutely hate the thought of anyone else but us to be the ones putting Spud to bed. And so far, despite our chaotic (mostly mine!) work schedule, I am glad that we have managed that feat every single evening, for the last 21 months or so.

Every day can be a mad rush, and it seems crazy to actually want to do it even though we have a nanny whom we can depend on. The thing is, we hate being so dependent on the Nanny. And as far as we are concerned, we want to be the first human contact Spud has in the morning, and we are the last contact she has before she slumbers the night away. On weekends, she has the both of us to put her to bed.

Call us mad, but I guess, given the limited time we get to spend with our daughter and being mostly the weekend parents that we are, this is one of a more feasible way  for us to ensure that we have a stronger bond with her – regardless how inconvenient the timing can be. 

It warms my heart that so far, Spud has never once asked for the Nanny when her Nanny is not around over the weekends or when we go on our little family vacation. It’s like she just knows!

I guess, in a way, we have done something right in that aspect. And indeed, it is a very nice feeling that we both have managed to keep that up for almost 2 years now (and still counting!)

I don’t know how other career-minded working parents do it, but it is hard to imagine that work-life balance can come that easy; especially for those who travel often for business (something which I don’t have to do, thank heavens!).  Like it or not, there always is a trade-off and you cannot have one without losing a little bit of the other when it comes to managing work-life balance.

In my case, the trade-off for being in pursuit of some financial stability is being so dependent on external help and not being able to spend time with my own kid during the day as I try to keep my day-job. While it sucks big time, I have to admit that being physically at work does work to my advantage given that I don’t think I can cope with being a full-time mom very well.

While career is still important to me, having a family does change my outlook of life. It is about finding that work-life balance, and having the utmost discipline to do so; as it tends to be something that is (unfortunately) not always possible due to societal pressures to perform at work.

And so, we try our best to make time for Spud and each other whenever we can and make sure that we spend time together as a family.  It makes us both extremely tired week-in-week-out, but in the end, I guess it is all worth it!

Quote of the Day

"Love is like a fart. If you have to force it, it's probably shit."

Source: Unknown

Kuih Bakar Berlauk

Funnily enough, I only discovered that I liked this other savoury version of Kuih Bakar a few years ago at my brother's wedding. (Sorry - I don't really know how to translate the word "berlauk" in English) For a long, long time, I decided that I was not going to like it (don't ask me why as I don't really have a valid reason for it), and so never did have the slightest inclination to even taste-test it.

Ironically, the only reason I got curious was when Silver Bullet tried it and then raved about it! And then, he got me hooked.

This one requires a little bit more work from the sweet Kuih Bakar, but worth the effort nonetheless. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 500g minced beef
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 1 tspn cumin
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• 1 small clove garlic, pressed
• 2 thin slices ginger, pounded
  
• 1 tspn white pepper powder
• 300g all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• 350 ml water
• 200 ml coconut milk
• yellow colouring
• oil for frying

For toppings:

• parsely
• scallion
• sliced red chilli

Method:

1. Fry cumin, curry power and coriander without oil till golden brown and set aside
2. Heat up some oil and add in ginger, pressed garlic. fry till a little browned.
3. Add beef and white pepper. Then add back  the mixture of cumin, curry powder, and coriander. Mix them up well till cooked
4. When done, set aside.
5. In separate bowl, mix flour, water, eggs, coconut milk and yellow colouring. Strain several times till the batter is smooth and creamy
6. Add in the spiced meat which was fried earlier into the batter. Mix well
7. Pour the mixture into a mould.
8. One by one, add the sliced red chilli, scallion, parsely on each of the batter
9. Bake in a 200 degree celcius over for 25-30 minutes or till evenly cooked

Enjoy your hard-earned labour!

Mine turned out pretty well taste-wise, despite a somewhat a visually retarded look, without the parsely.

Feeling sentimental

We have a little evening ritual every single day, Spud and us.

On weekdays (mostly by default)  I am usually the one who would be doing the evening routine with Spud as I am a lot closer to home from my office as compared to Silver Bullet.

Spud usually has ants in her pants and we all know that she cannot keep still! However, in the last few months or so, a different side of her emerged as her tolerance to sit still gets better and her attention span to the TV gets longer. 

Since then, the best part about the evening ritual for me is the fact that she can sit still on my lap for a good half hour as she finishes up her milk while we both watched whatever it was she requested for. (And this could be Happy Feet for the7 ^th time for 7 straight days for the last one month or so – and to date, we still haven’t quite watch the entire movie because she usually gets bored after 10 minutes and will ask to switch to Gruffalo, Nemo or George The Monkey)

It doesn’t matter though – it still is the best part of the day. It is  the only time when I get to cuddle up with her, babble or sing along with her, shower her with hugs and kisses as she sits quietly on my lap for a little bit before putting her to bed.  Without protest!

I get sentimental these days as I realized that she is also showing stronger sense of independence. While she does tolerate the little cuddles to a certain extent, Spud also much prefer to sit independently as she sips her milk while watching TV.

Sometimes, just me picking her up to put her on my lap will rile her up in a crying protest!

A cliché to be saying this I know – but really,  I am amazed as to how much and how fast Spud is growing up. Very soon, she’ll be resisting all those little cuddles we used to have as our evening rituals. Very soon, she won’t be a bumbling toddler and I won’t have the chance to carry her in my arms anymore. 

She will, very soon, be her own little person…an independent girl with her ways about the world.

It is only a matter of time…

As it is, I could hardly carry her for long these days and I sometimes miss it.  She has gotten so heavy now that I don’t have the strength or energy to be carrying her or I’ll break my hip! 

And with Spud’s recent desire for independence to want to do things on her own, I get even more sentimental as I realize how precious a time it is to be spending as much time as we can with the little baby we have. 

And that I now realized it is okay to be carrying the little child most of the time when she’s still a tiny little baby, because, before you know it, 4 years have passed and there is no turning back! 

Sometimes, when I checked on her before we go to bed, I almost wish that I could pick her up and cuddle up with her in bed her while she is sleeping . (But I also know that that would not be a wise thing to do – so that is unlikely to happen) 

Looking back, I am so glad I got into baby wearing as seriously as I have always done, for, once Spud passes the stage of toddlerhood, we can never go back this way again. 

I guess it is true when “they” keep telling us that kids grow up too fast!

Kuih Bakar Pandan

A sudden bout of having an another "itchy-backside" moment  had me scouring the kitchen for ingredients to make a traditional delicacy called "Kuih Bakar" - or literally  translated to English as "Burnt Cake". [Although in a Malay context, the word "bakar" can also loosely mean "to bake"]

In any case, this is something I have never attempted before; and somehow felt the strong need to try making it as the recipe looked so easy. There are actually 2 versions of this traditional goodies  - one is sweet, the other is savoury made with meat. I made both at the same time as they use the same base.

I am featuring the sweet one in this post first. Typically a decent Kuih Bakar Pandan would look like this:

Image from Google Images

But mine turned out all wrinkled-up like this:

When I introduced it to Spud, she promptly exclaimed  "Turtle!", and refused to eat it.

It didn't look at all appetizing, I admit, but what lacks in looks, I made up for it with taste (I think!). I haven't figured out why it went all wrinkly on me. I'll have another go at it when I feel like I am up to it again.

Taste-wise, it is a little like cooked custard, flavoured with coconut with the fragrance of pandan. Here's the recipe I attempted:

Ingredients:

• Half cup pandan juice (1/2 cup water + several pieces of pandan leaves mainly for colouring)
• Half cup sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 250 ml coconut milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp melted butter
• A few drops of green colouring
• 1 tbsp pandan paste/essence (I did not use this as I cannot find it!)

Method:

1. To make pandan juice,  blend the leaves with water and set aside
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and beat it into a batter. Add in pandan juice
3. When done, pour the liquid batter into a mould
4. Bake for about 25-30 minutes on 200 degrees oven or until golden brown

It is that easy! Although next time, I might attempt it with a mixture of evaporated milk.

I'll post the  savoury version in a separate post.

Skidamarinky-doooooo

Spud’s crooning quite a lot more these days since she started going to playschool.

Every so often, I'd hear her humming her little songs to herself, and when I look at her asking her what she is singing, she’d be giving me this big grin and then soften her voice a little bit – as if a little shy that she was caught red-handed.  It is quite endearing to “catch” her doing that, especially when she seems caught up in her own little world; like when she is seating in the car, or when she’s doodling or when she gets her nappy changed or  even that few minutes before she drifts off to sleep at night. 

Usually, when I can make out the songs which she was singing, I would sing along with her. That seems to make her happy. Sometimes, I can’t quite make out the songs and I have no idea at all – that was when she would look at me a little funny, making me wonder goes on in her head!

So anyway, in the last few days, she starts to croon away with barely audible words when I prep her up after her evening shower. The tune was not so clear, but she kept going “ki dink ki dink…love youuu..di ki dink…morning…afternoon…ki dink..ki dink…moon…youuuuuuuu”

As this went on over and over again and over again, she kept looking at me while attempting to sing it; perhaps wanting me to sing with her. For the life of me, though, I can’t quite figure the song out initially.

Then suddenly it hit me. 

It could be a song I knew from a long while back. And,  it was a song I hated so damn much that my hair stood on ends each time I hear it! 

It then dawned on me that it could easily be that stoopid Skidamarinky-dink song and now I have my child singing it to me and it makes her so happy!

So what did I do?

I did not have the heart to ignore her, so I tested water and sang what little I know of the song with with her…

And that made Spud smile a million smiles, as if really pleased that I knew the song; completely making my heart melt.

The worse bit was that she couldn’t stop going ki-dink-ki-dink on me after that and telling me “I love youuuuuuuuuuuuu”  (more heart melts!)

What do you know - for a song which I hated so much,  I actually knew the tune AND some bits of the lyrics! Arrghhhhhhhhhhh!

 Looking at how much she actually loved the song, out of curiosity and biting  the bullet , I then searched  for the lyrics of that song after Spud went to bed just to see what the actual words were. And this is what it is:

Skidamarink-a-dink-a-dink Skidamarinky-doooooo

I love you

Skidamarink-a-dink-a-dink Skidamarinky-doooooo

I love you

I love you in the morning, and in the afternoon

I love you in the evening, and underneath the moon

Oh….. Skidamarink-a-dink-a-dink Skidamarinky-doooooo

IIIIII loooooooooooooooooovvveeeeeeeeeeee yooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuu

You know what other stupid thing I did? I then even downloaded the tune to my phone for her later that night with the intetion of surprising her the next day. (Slaps forehead!)

Silly Skidamarink song. What is it with kids and that song?! And now I cannot get that frigging annoying song out of my head. It will probably stay that way for days on end, too.

If you don't know what I'm talking about and curious about the tune, at the risk of the song playing in your head for days on end, here's a clip from YouTube for your "listening pleasure". It's like super-retro for kids.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

(I am about to crawl back into a deep dark hole and bury myself in there while slap myself silly and cringe away at the hideous tune)

Oh! Cabbie...

[Warning: This is a rant]

Every once in a while, I encounter a cabbie whom I will not hesitate to label as being extremely annoying. Not only because he drives like a maniac, but,  also because he tends to disregard what I say when I told him where to go as well as the directions on how to get there.

This usually happens when I take a taxi from the office to go back home – essentially, if all’s well, traffic permitting, I should be home in less than 10 minutes.

And I should know this. It is my home, I go there every day, and I jolly well know my direction. To add on to that, I often only give directions in Thai and usually, 4 in 5 cab drivers understood me perfectly well.

Yet, on some odd occasion, some annoying cabbie finds it very noble of him to argue with me by not following my instructions. When I told him to U-turn, he insisted on going straight till I had to raise my voice, as if I am scolding a little kid. Then when I told him to keep right, he insisted on going left and turning in a soi away from where I was supposed to be. (And no, it is not a short-cut). And I had to repeat myself several times telling him over and over again to just keeping fucking right and turn right where I want him to, and not because he was certain that he was going the right direction.

Why he thinks he knows the direction better than I do and refused to listen to me is beyond me. After all, I have only been going home to the same place and actually know the path like the back of my hand for the past 5 years! I should know the direction, right?

Well, I guess not because it gets worse as instead of just listening to me and get me to where I should be, some of these morons actually get upset as I insisted on MY direction. The taxi driver in question would then actually start grumbling and scolding me in Thai because apparently that is not the place I want to go. 

Seriously, WTF is wrong with these people? I don’t understand their mentality. Most of all, I don’t understand why they get upset when I should be the one having all the right to get upset because they are taking me to someplace else where I did not want to go.

Sometimes I really just want to get the hell out of the cab and not pay them a single cent – a risk I’m not willing to take for fear of my life as they could easily run me down out of anger. (you do not want to make any Thai mad!)

Thai cabbies baffle me sometimes. Why can’t they just listen, not rile me up and save me the ranting spree?

Kid's Fashion

Kids are just weird, I tell you!

When Spud was much younger, she was never into wearing bibs. The moment we put a bib on her, she got cranky and would immediately try to get rid of it by pulling it away from her neck. Never mind if the bib looked cute, or even trying all sorts of different designs on her, Spud did not really care for it.

So after a lot of tries, we gave up and did away with bibs altogether for almost a year. She dirtied her top, we just changed it as many times as we needed to. Sometimes, we (mostly, me) just let it be.

And me being me, just really could not be bothered to dress her up like a girly-girl. Save the odd occasion of putting a dress on her on a "just because" reason. Most times, I think it is much more convenient to dress her in T-shirt and shorts!

Recently, while cleaning up her wardrobe, I (re)discovered that she had a Muay-Thai boxing shorts tucked away in a pile of her clothes. It was still new and has yet to be worn. It was a gift from her Dutch Uncle and we have completely forgotten about it because for a long time, that shorts was just too big for her. It was a nice find, and quite a cute little number! Definitely a perfect fit for her to be running around the house with.

Add that to her unruly hair cut by yours truly, Spud was quite the model for kid's fashion disaster, courtesy of her laid-back Mom!

And anyways, back to the bib story....

Then suddenly, out of the blue she showed some interest in bibs - so much so that she volunteered to put it on herself and run around the house with it. And of all the bibs that we have, she showed a particular interest in "Miffy" bib - one that we got free from KLM on our first trip to Holland.

I don't quite understand where the sudden interest came from, but I had a sneaking suspicion that our Nanny may have something to do with it when Spud started to drool incessantly some months back. For some reason, she just managed to get Spud on board with using bibs better than us!

I managed to get a few snapshot of her in such outrageous ensemble. It is such a joy to be a kid - at this age, they just don't know any better! [No judging (me) here! ;p ]

Fruit Season is here again!

It may be sweltering hot and humid in May - albeit slightly better  a temperature (only slightly!)  than April's extremely hot and over 40 degree Celsius weather - but one thing I like about this month is the appearance of the tropical, exotic fruits on the streets.

Yep. It is that time of the year again...and like every previous years  which I have always blogged and raved about the glorious fruit seasons, this year, the rambutans seemed to have come slightly earlier than usual.

In fact, I started buying those rambutans home almost everyday at least in the last 2 weeks! And like any other day, I always buy from the same vendor, day after day, year after year. This time round, I had accidentally snapped a picture of him when all I wanted to do was take a picture of those fruits.

2 weeks ago, rambutans were sold at 40 baht per kilo. This morning, I bought them at 25 baht per kilo! How cool is that.

I hardly ever buy mangosteens, but this time round the mangosteens looked so awfully good that I just had to get them. There weren't too many lychees in sight and if there were, the ones that I have bought turned out to be quite sour. Bleahhh.

No sights of longans yet though. I'm guessing that it won't be too long!

Funny sign

Another one of those wrong-sounding-turned-out-funny signs Silver Bullet found in one of the toilets in a shopping mall:

Roasted Chicken Rice

Swept by a sudden craving for Chicken Rice, I knew there was no way of banishing the thought off my mind, despite being acutely aware that I may have to spend more time in the kitchen than I was prepared for.

I last made one a couple of years back, and I seemed to remember that I spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen...which explained my inertia of making it in the first place for  along time to come.

But.

The image of succulent roasted chicken on top of fragrant rice with tangy chilli sauce, continued to dance around in my mind for a few days! And so, being weak-willed,  I finally caved in and bought all the necessary ingredients over the weekend for my Roasted Chicken Rice Mission.

With a little bit of twist to the recipe, I actually surprised myself that all it took was less than 40 minutes of prep time in the kitchen. It does look like a lot of ingredients, and therefore seems to be a lot of work. But as I found out, roasting the chicken in the oven saves a lot more time (DUH!) than having to marinade and then fry them.

And I stand corrected: A chicken rice is NEVER just chicken with rice!

Here's what I came up with:

A) Ingredients for roasted chicken

• 1 whole chicken  (about 1-1.5 kg)
• 2 inch ginger, pounded
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 tspn salt
• 1/2 tspn ground white paper
• 1/2 tspn five spice powder
• 1 tspn cumin powder
• Pandan leaves
• 1 inch ginger sliced

B) Chicken Rice Soup

• 2cm ginger
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 medium sized shallots
• 1/s tspn tumeric powder
• Chicken neck and feet from the whole chicken
• Half a cube of chicken stock
• 2 tbsp chives, chopped
• Some parsley
  
• Salt and Pepper to taste

C) Ingredients for Rice:

• 500 g basmati rice
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1.5 cm ginger, peeled
• 4 mid-sized shallots
• 2 cloves garlic
• Chicken stock water
• 1 cube of non-MSG stock cube
• Pinch of salt
  
• Pandan leaves

D) Ingredients for Chicken Rice Chilli Sauce:

• 5-6 fresh red-chillies
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3cm young ginger, peeled and sliced
• 1 1/2 tspn fresh lime juice
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• Half a tspn salt
• 5-7 tbsp chicken stock

Sides/Garnishes:

• Cucumber, sliced
• Lettuce

Method:

1. Cut the feet and the neck off the chicken (set this aside to use it for soup). Trim the fat from the chicken, rinse and pat dry. Pre-heat over at 200°C.
2. Combine pounded ginger, dark soy sauce, honey, salt, ground white paper, five spice powder and cumin and rub it all over the chicken. Leave it to marinade for min. 30 minutes. 
3. When done with marination, stuff the pandan leaves and sliced ginger into the chicken and then put it on an aluminium foil. 
4. Crimp the edges of the foil loosely and stuff it into the oven for 20-30 minutes. Then reduce heat to  170°C and roast for 30-40 minutes. To make the skin a little crispier, I would open up the aluminium foil for about 20-25 minutes (Make sure you check often or there's a risk of the skin being completely burnt!) before covering it up again and let it roast for another 20 minutes.
5. While the chicken is roasting, prep up the soup by pounding the ginger, garlic and shallots together. Heat up some oil and stir fry the pounded ingredients till fragrant. Add in tumeric powder and stock cube. Stir fry them all together before adding in some water
6. Add in the chicken neck and feet and boil together (for as long as you want to get a nice broth-like taste)
7. Then add in parsley, chives and  salt and pepper to taste 
8. Wash and drain the rice. Blend/pound the ginger, shallots, garlic together. 
9. Melt the butter in a pot and add in the pounded ingredients till a little browned and fragrant.
10. Stir fry the rice into the mixture for 5 minutes and transfer it into the rice cooker. Add in chicken stock, pinch of salt and enough water to boil the rice in (you can use the broth of the chicken soup if it is ready). Throw in the pandan leaves into the rice cooker as well.
11. While waiting for the rice, prep up chilli sauce by blending all of the ingredients in a blender.
12. Set aside to be served together with the rice.

Here we go! I've got soft, juicy and succulent chicken almost falling off the bones when it was ready to be served.

Certainly a very toddler-friendly dish as well, as Spud decided that it was perfectly fine by her to live on Chicken Rice and Soup for several days from then on.

So done being nice!

I came home on a Friday late afternoon in a pretty good mood; happy after a surprisingly unexpected, but pleasant outcome of a meeting which I expected to end with a “no”.  I could feel myself bouncing in delight and was looking forward to a good weekend.

After a quick hello kiss to Spud and being my friendly self to the Nanny, I decided that I was going to go for a quick shower whilst Spud was being fed her dinner. 

While showering, I realized 3 of the usual things in my bathroom were missing – my  precious treatment conditioner and my shampoo  (both of which I had hauled back from my hairdresser in Singapore) as well as my feminine cleanser,  were not where they usually are. My shower gel and another type of shampoo were still where they belonged.

I search high and low for them in the bathroom, but could not seem to figure out where they were. Thinking about it, there was no way I could have misplaced them and I was left in a puzzled-mind  throughout my shower.  I decided I was going to ask my Nanny about it, thinking that perhaps she may have placed it somewhere while cleaning the bathroom. 

Now this is where I got annoyed. Royally, pissed-off annoyed!

When I asked her about it, she, in jest (and giggling too!)  told me that oh! She has put them in her bathroom and used them because her shampoo is finished.

Oh? Really? Fucking really?

You should have seen my face. It turned black in a spit second and I immediately raised my voice with a , “YOU WHAT?!” I literally flew off the handle. 

What do you mean her shampoo is finished? And since when did the guest bathroom become HER bathroom? 

And I KNOW for a fact that in that bathroom, there is still a leftover bottle of shampoo, a shower gel as well as a FEW tubes of conditioner. Why would she suddenly see the need to use MY stuff? And guess what! without my permission too!

So, NO -  I did not take that too well. I know it is just a shampoo and conditioner and some feminine wash for crying out loud. (whoever shares feminine wash?!) Not only those things are expensive, and apart from the feminine wash, I actually cannot get them in Bangkok. But that is not the point. The point is that she does not have any right to use ANY of my stuff without my permission. For fuck's sake, I even ask permission if I can please take a sanitary pad from my own mother!

There and then, I immediately let her know that I was none too pleased. In fact, I told her off that under no circumstances can she ever use my stuff again without my permission. I then proceeded to tell her off in her face that I DO NOT LIKE HER USING MY STUFF.  She did apologize, but the damage was done and I was fuming. 

I don’t care if she just wants to prettify herself because it is her birthday and that she wants to look her best. She, THE NANNY, needs to know her place and that I do not tolerate such behaviour.   

Perhaps we have been too nice to her. and at this juncture, I'm thinking that sometimes, it does not pay to be kind.   

While we do keep an employer-employee relationship and maintained our distance, we have been very nice to her. We even granted her request to take Monday off despite it being a working day for us because it is her birthday and Silver Bullet agreed to stay home to mind Spud.

You treat them as a deserving human being and then they take advantage of your kindness.  3 hours later after that incident, I was still pissed off. I almost did not want to give her birthday present which I bought for her before I got home.  

So much for showing kindness!  You give a finger, and she takes the arm. What she did was effectively betrayed my trust. Of course it is easy for people to say that I may have over-reacted. After all, she was only using my shampoo, conditioner and feminine wash right? Small things. Negligible.Right?

WRONG! Like I said it was not about using my stuff, but rather about the fact that she just took my stuff without asking for my permission prior and treated herself to my things as her right.

And you know what? It sparked off even worse thoughts  as with this incident, I can’t help but be suspicious of what else has she done that I did not know of or what other sneaky stunt she will pull afterwards.

I know this seems a bit far-fetched given that she has been a fairly decent nanny to Spud, but I can’t help but wonder as it begs the question of to what extent is my daughter safe under her care?

This incident shattered my trust big time, and she’d have to try very hard to gain that back again. One thing for sure, I’m not going to be so kind anymore.  7 hours later, I am still frickin’ fuming. I am so livid that I can't sleep!

And oh! Did I ever tell you that I can bear quite a grudge?! And that unfortunately I am unconsciously finding excuses to nitpick on her for one slightest mistake?

So I over-react. And so be bloody it. And you know what? I am so done being nice here.

[Actually partly ranting away on this space here so that I can get it off my system,in the hope that I'll be able to get over this pissy mode, move on and stop dwelling on it!]

Hug Me Machine

Another yet inspiring campagin from Coke where a Hug-Me vending machine was installed at the National University of Singapore. The machine responds only to hugs and you get a free Coke!

Dream Theater

Ahhh....where do I start?

I knew about Dream Theater when I was 17 years old, and while I liked their music, I was not as crazy about  it as I was with the likes of Green Day, Pearl Jam and Tool to name a few. (Different league, I know!)

I knew a few of their songs (i.e Dream Theater's) , but perhaps, at such a young age, I could not have understood or even appreciated the hype of their musical talents.

For a long time, Dream Theater laid buried under my subconscious. It was a case of sheer nonchalance  - I know them , I like some of the stuff they played. I did not dwell on it, and it was not something I'd listen to every day or go ga-ga with. And that was that.

Fast forward almost 15 years later, I was reminded of them again when Silver Bullet discovered it a while back and started playing Dream Theater's music in his car. Bits and pieces of some of the songs I heard sent me back to my growing up years. Somehow, there were were fragments of the songs which took me back in time, and to the friends who introduced me to Dream Theater;  and I couldn't, for the life of me,  pin-point the band that was playing on his car stereo.They sounded so good to my ears, but I had a hard time deciphering in my head some of the somewhat familiar melodies I was hearing ( I can't believe I cannot identify the band!) and finally asked Silver Bullet what he has been playing in his car.

"Dream Theater!", he said. "And, I love them! Their music is amazing"

Like a deer with a headlight, I went, "Really? That's Dream Theater? Seriously? Gosh! When did you start listening to this? I remember liking them from when I was a teenager; only  I did not remember them being this awesome! They actually performed in Thailand a few years ago"

Fast forward to sometime later, we found out that Dream Theater was going to come to Bangkok for the 3rd time, and like excited teenagers, we both bought tickets and went to the concert last night.

It was a different concert. A league of its own. The crowd mainly consisted of those within our age group or older; which makes it seemed all appropriate.

A review I read described them as having achieved a "startlingly sublime synthesis of soaring and unmistakable melody, progressive instrumentation and aggressive heaviness unrivaled within hard rock music".

I cannot have described it better.

The atmosphere was mellow and intimate (we were sitting around and not jumping like monkeys!), yet energized by the aggressive and explosive energy of awesome instrumental calibration. Their musical talent shone through on the instruments they played.

They have the craziest drum set I have ever seen and the drummer, Mike Mangini blew me away! I'm even more impressed by the fact that Mike Mangini, apart from being a musical genius in his own right (he set five world record in World's Fastest Drummer), he  also has quite an impressive resume. Not only did he pursue a Computer Science Major and worked on programming software for Patriot Missile program, studied the links between human brain and body, as well as lectured at the Berkley College of Music and wrote two books.

The bassist, John Myung, plays a 6-string bass and was once voted as the greatest bassist of all time. Their guitarist , John Petrucci, apparently played a 7-sting guitar yesterday (Silver Bullet dropped from the sidelines and squeezed to the front to see up-close the number of strings he had on his guitar just to confirm suspicion), and the keyboardist, Jordan Rudess has got a very cool synthesizer which makes him look like keyboard wizard.
 
And when they play, man! Considering that they changed their beat and rhythm almost constantly, they were still so perfectly synchronised with their music despite what seemed to be like a challenging feat!

 It was, all in all a brilliant concert! It went above my expectation and it definitely was an enjoyable concert. I can't quite compare it side by side to other concerts that I have been, for like I said this one, was really a league of its own.

Here are some not-so-sharp snapshot of the concert. You'd have to squint if you want to make out that crazy-looking drum set in the centre...

21 months update

Our little cheeky monkey is keeping us on our toes. Whilst she is more than capable to play by herself and be left alone for a short while as we watch her from the corner of the room,  there are moments when a heart attack (for the parents) is imminent.

Like when she decides that it is fun to do somersaults and back flips with her head positioned right at the edge of the couch or the recliner chair. 

Like when she thinks that it is perfectly OK to reach for a  rather heavy-set glass jar on our dining table and then tries to hold on to it by hanging on to the lid with just two of her tiny little fingers. 

Like when she thinks that it is perfectly reasonable to turn on the fan and tries to poke her tiny little fingers into the gaps on the cover of the fan.  

Like when she finds that it gives her such adrenalin rush to RUN like a flash from one corner of any couches to the other corner,  almost slipped and may come crashing down on the glass table because she lost her footing while attempting that dash.

Like when she KNOWS  that she was not supposed to be doing something but attempted to do it anyway , perhaps just to see how you react. This happened at school when I picked her up the other day.  I was still trying to sort out her bag 2 meters away from her, and after putting on her shoes and despite me telling her to stay put and wait for me before she headed out for the door, she defiantly walked around me and ever. so.slowly. inched towards the gate (which essentially leads to the main road) WHILE looking at me with a “watch me and what are you going to do look" as I scrambled to get myself unstuck with her bag. I roared a stern holler as she turned the knob as she continued on putting 1 of her foot OUT of the door, while still eyeing me cautiously. I managed to yank her back in time and royally chided her for it. She was not too happy. 

But! She has to know that some things are just not negotiable.

Spud jump-starts my heart way too often these days, resulting in me screeching and screaming as a reflex, more out of fear and anxiety rather than anger.  Although I am quite an extreme nutcase when it comes to safety, it sometimes makes me wonder if I am just being protective. Road hazards aside, I sometimes wonder if I should just let her be and let her fall. At the same time, knowing how fearless and brazen Spud can be, the way she might fall when she did any of the above is not something I want to imagine happening for the fall may jolly well be quite a bad one indeed.

I’m thinking that Spud is also asserting herself more these days, and I’m sure she thinks she is an adult. She gets a little annoyed when you call her a baby and will come back with a retort, “No, not baby”. She  does not want to be read to anymore at bedtime, preferring to do her own flipping and then telling us when she is done with her books before she starts climbing (trying to!) into her bed.

She is also starting to express herself better. Like when she tries to force me out of my own chair (whining unhappily away with a “Mama, no sit! No sit!”) and asking me to sit somewhere else so that she could sit in it. She won’t stop whinging and trying to pull me out until I get off my arse.

Her understanding of consequences has also somewhat improved in my observation. Recently, when we told her that she’ll not get to watch Penguin (Happy Feet) and Monkey (George the Monkey) until she eats her lunch or dinner (which seems to be a constant challenge for us), she seems to understand that and obliged by opening her mouth.  So far (knock on wood!), that trick had worked and we have told the nanny to be consistent with that as well.

When she could not stop whining and crying the other day after she woke up from her nap, instead of me losing my head, I just told her calmly that she can continue crying and be sad and everybody will not be happy;  or that she stops her nonsense and we can find loads of other happy things to do. I told her to choose and I’m just going to wait till she stops crying as I am not going to do anything. That seemed to get to her.  And almost immediately, the crying stopped (I had to grin when I saw the unexpected effect and gave myself a pat on my back!) 

Spud, despite all that, bless her, has not shown any signs of further rejections, and if anything, she has been quite kind and nice to me; asking for kisses and hugs. The other day, when I put her to bed, she melted my heart when she said, “Goodnight, Mama”.

With her soft, angelic voice accompanied by such earnest grin on her face, she had me bait, line and sinker! Endearing.

Just like this picture here as Spud insisted that she was going to try to carry that little kitten in her hands and shower the little bugger with kisses and affection. 

And I thought I had nothing to update in her 21^st month of life!

Potty tales

We bought Spud a potty for a while and a bit now.

So far it has been rather under-utilised as Spud prefers to inform us of her deed only AFTER she poos and then incessantly goes “Change, change, change…” as she grabs her rear, walks to her changing station  and she goes on like a broken record until we follow her and actually change her. 

A couple of weeks ago, she surprised me by telling me for the first time that she wanted to poo. Checking that her diaper was still clean, I figured, perhaps she really did want to poo. So, I quickly took off her diaper and have her sat on her potty. The deed was done in less than a minute. Despite trying really hard not to breathe in the stinky poop she had honourably laid upon me, I did beam with happiness when I saw what happened. To top it all, Spud had also seems to be really pleased with herself! 

Her first tell-and-poo seemed like a success.

And of course, it was a fluke, too.

I have yet to catch a repeat of that one!

On the same day though, she decided that the next time she pooed, she was not going to tell me.

Instead, she chose to stick her hands INTO her soiled diaper and then whinged for a good 10minutes without even mentioning the word “Poo”.  Honestly, I did not realize what had happened – I thought she was just being a drama queen and ignored her whining – and asked her to help me pick up her toys and put it aside (which she obliged! while whinging away) as I cleaned up the mess she made at her dinner table.

It was not until I was about to shower her when I was done cleaning up her mess did I realize what happened. There was poo all over her tiny little hands …and Horror! Horror! Horror! All over her toys which I had asked her put aside earlier as well! 

No wonder she was whining away as she does not particularly like gooey and icky stuff (and smelly in this case!) on her hands. 

Oh God! I did not know whether to laugh or to cry as I hurried her to the bathroom to clean her up. Poor little girl, and silly old me! I actually saw her ducking her hands into her diaper, but did not think anything of it just because she did not say anything.  I guess I should have known better!

I guess it will be a matter of time now before we can expect Spud to smear her crap all over herself, her cot and her bed sheet when we pick her up from her bed one of these days….

All I can say is that at least all her toys were given a good scrub and a wash after we put her to bed that day!

These days, she sometimes tells us “Want Poo” and when we bring her to her potty, she treats it as a game. She pulls down (or tries to!) her pants, sits down, and after about 3 seconds, says “No. No more poo”, and then tries to put her diaper back on. It gets really tiring this, as she thinks that it is fun to do this over and over again. It is times like this that makes me want to ignore her…

For now, potty training is taking a back-seat. I reckon she will be ready when she is ready. 

The joy of parenting - exciting as always!

Wrinkles vs Brains

"When it comes to the effects of getting older, Thais are more likely to worry about ageing skin and wrinkles than about mental deterioration, a recent survey found."

It was an interesting finding, indeed. When I read the article, I cannot help but be stereotypical of the society we live in. The contrast of wrinkles and mental deterioration are just too extreme a comparison . Beauty without brains comes to mind as marketers  will continue to capitalize on sheer shallowness of human beings in the name of beauty.

I  suppose one can draw your own conclusion from reading this. 

Welcome to the real world of superficiality!

Creamy Chicken from the Oven

This is a simple, yet surprisingly palatable chicken dish first served up by my mother in law when we were in Holland, It was so good that I had to ask her for the recipe!

Silver Bullet made this a while back, and had only recently translated the recipe from Dutch to English for me to be able to post it on my blog. Worth a try. Really good for when you don;t have time on your hands.

Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken fillets
• 4 roasted bell peppers (from jar, drained)
• 1 cup or 200 ml of crème fraiche
• 1 jar or 100 grams of red pesto
• 1 dried chilli pepper
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1 greased up oven dish

Method:

• Pre heat oven 200 degrees Celsius
• Score the chicken filler with a knife
• Season chicken with salt & pepper
• Arrange bell-peppers side by side in the oven dish
• Put chicken filler on each one
• In a bowl, mix crème fraiche with pesto and sprinkle the dried chilli peppers and garlic
• Season with salt to taste
• Scoop pesto mixture on top of the chicken fillet
• Bake in the oven for 25 – 30 mins until chicken is done

Robbed in Bangkok

A colleague of mine, recently come to the office with shocking news - he was robbed at knife’s point on a Friday evening on his way back home. He had taken the BTS train to the last BTS station - Wongwian Wai, and because it was very crowded (just like any other Friday night) round about 8-ish, he decided to walk a little further away from the BTS station to grab a cab home.

Just like he always did in the last 6 years or so.

According to him, as he was still walking, 2 men on motorbike descended upon him  with a knife to his face and demanded that he surrendered everything he had. They took his wallet and his I-Phone  and was looking for something more, when fortunately, a taxi pulled up right in front of him as a passenger was being dropped off. The men immediately fled, but not without yanking the gold chain around his neck. 

He said that the guy who got off the cab seemed to have an impression that something was not right, and asked if he could help. My colleague was so stunned that he went blank and all he could ask for was a 100 baht so he could take a taxi home. The taxi driver had also refused to accept his money and dropped him off at his home for free after he told his story. 

He shared that he woke up several times that night and felt like it was all a dream, because, he was still in bed and everything seemed fine. I cannot imagine how traumatic that incident may have left him. 

Granted, I have heard such stories happening in and around Bangkok, but this is the first time I personally know somebody who got mugged. It felt so real, and when he related the story to me, I was literally shivering down my spine. 

When I first came to Bangkok, I used to shrug it off when well-meaning colleagues in the office told me to be extremely careful when I go off on my own especially after 7pm. In my previous organization, bosses or colleagues were always offering to drop me off at my home. No, in fact, they did not only offer, they actually insisted and demanded that I wait for them so that they can drop me off if I leave the office after 7 pm. When I told them that I can always take a taxi, my excuses fell on deaf ears. It also did not help that I don’t actually want any of my colleagues to know where I was actually staying!

I used to think that were overtly paranoid. I came from a very safe-haven of Singapore where you can walk the streets at 3 am at night and no one would bother you. While I am aware that Bangkok is unlike Singapore, I still did not think that it could be dangerous, and that their reaction to such things was just a little OTT. 

Besides, the last thing I want to do is inconvenienced them as sometimes, depending on the person who was kind enough to offer me a ride, where I was going may not be necessarily be on their way. Yet, for a good 2 years, they insisted and insisted such that most times, it became a norm. Sometimes, I had to lie and told them that Silver Bullet will be picking me up as I really did not want to trouble them. Their concern was rather stifling.

Over the years, such petty crimes made it to the headlines and I started to err on the side of caution. And if my colleagues knew that I would be alone with no one to drop me off, they would insist that I let somebody know the taxi number and colour I was in.  This has actually become a habit of mine – whenever I am alone after dark in a taxi, I make sure that I texted Silver Bullet the necessary information. 

I truly had very caring colleagues then. When I moved on to a new organization, I never really did get any offers from anyone. I guess that is the peril of working for a much larger organization. The more structured they are, the less personal they become while they suck the living daylight out of you as a corporate slave. 

Now that I hear such a story from someone I personally know and work with, I begin to appreciate the concern of my previous ex-colleagues even more. They had warned me right from the start, and I truly have no reasons to doubt them. 

Their paranoia was nothing but valid.

To those out there who thinks that Bangkok is relatively safe at night, when you are out and about on your own, think again.

Buddhi Belly

Thanks to Silver Bullet, I now have discovered a new love interest in the form of this:

 This, my friend,is a cup of a divine yogurty-yogurt from a local chain called Buddhi Belly.

The first bite into this soft, creamy , delicious tub of sin sent me to the high heavens. As I discovered, it tasted really good with lemon sauce. There is something about the lemon sauce combo that makes it so addictive and lethal to your taste-buds. I kind of like the quirky looking logo too!

I wonder why I have not given it a second thought whenever I pass by the yogurt stand almost every weekend in my 7 years in Bangkok.

Right now,  just thinking about it makes me salivate….

Whoever came up with this is an absolute genius!