Mom, Daughter & David Archuleta

SweetTeen is a true blue David Archuleta fan ever since she watched him sing on American Idol Season 7. We watched him perform at the Sunway Lagoon Amphitheatre 2 years ago when I won 2 free passes from the Hitz.fm radio station.

So when an article about his upcoming concert in Malaysia was published in The Star newspapers together with a contest to win 2 tickets, I quickly sat down at the PC  to send in my entry. Had to put on my thinking cap and come up with a catchy slogan... and about 4 days later I saw this in my email inbox:

SweetTeen was sqealing with excitement when she saw it. We collected the tickets on Monday and yesterday I decided not to drive so we took the LRT to the Hang Tuah station which is about 10 minutes' walk from Stadium Negara.

The concert was at 8pm but we arrived about 5.30pm to queue since it was free seating for the tickets we had. There were about 10 people already waiting at the gate when we arrived. Brought some sandwiches and had a mini picnic while waiting since food and drinks were not allowed into the hall. Decided to join the queue at 6.30 when more and more people started streaming in, and waited for about an hour before the gate finally opened.

I think we Malaysians are quite civilised even when it comes to free seating as everyone queued patiently and nobody rushed, and we managed to get seats with a good view of the stage. There were people of all ages, not just screaming teenage girls.

After the opening act by local artiste Hao Ren, the organisers allowed everyone to upgrade to better seats to fill up the middle portion of the hall as it was not a sold out concert, which was such a pity because David Archuleta can REALLY sing, and he does it so effortlessly! This young boy even writes good songs. No fancy dance moves or stage effects...just his soaring voice and sunny personality that made the concert such an unforgettable event. And he had a really good band backing him up.

SweetTeen was on cloud nine the whole time and long after the last note ended for the night. The sound system was cranked to maximum volume and my ears are still ringing a little. Here is one of my favourite songs that he sang:

19 Years on 11-7-11

On the 11th of July, this is what was displayed in the sidebar on my blog...

Yup, it's been 19 years and I've known some friends and cousins whose marriages have crumbled so I'm really blessed to have a wonderful loving husband.

We had our celebration on Wednesday the 13th instead because SweetTeen had to go to school early (she's in the afternoon session and CoolTeen is in the morning session) and CoolTeen was staying back after school, so we could go 'pak-tor' until late evening :)

Usually we would go for a buffet lunch or dinner at some fancy restaurant but as age catches up with us, we find that we can't eat large meals anymore...so this year we decided to try doing things that we haven't done before.

As it turned out, SweetTeen didn't go to school that morning for basketball practice because of the haze so she came along with us for a dim sum breakfast at the famous Kedai Kopi Dan Makan Seong Kee at Taman Connaught, Cheras. She said that although she didn't really enjoy dim sum, it was at least better than staying at home alone. This was the first time we've tried the food there...verdict: Yummy!

Hubby's favourite vegetable

After dropping SweetTeen off at school later on, we headed to Kenko Reflexology and Fish Spa at Mid Valley Megamall to experience the foot spa where we feed fish by letting them eat dead skin from our feet...! The place was clean and there were only the 2 of us at that hour so we had an enjoyable time relaxing and taking photos of our feet as we tried the different pools with different sizes of fish.

The smallest fishes - they are like mini vacuum cleaners as they thoroughly clean our feet. A little ticklish but enjoyable.

The medium size fishes - very ticklish! I could only dip my feet there long enough to snap this photo!

The pool with the large fishes - not for the fainthearted!

We haven't been to Madam Kwan's in ages so we had a late lunch of nasi lemak there...spicy but delicious. We had wanted to share a burger at Carl's Jr but decided to do that on some other day...when we figure out how to cut a burger in half at a fast food restaurant!

After the foot spa our feet felt refreshed so we could do a bit of shopping before fetching CoolTeen from school.

Had a fun 'together-time'...looking forward to next year's anniversary and many more years of 'together-time'. (big smile)

Yvonne Foong

A few years back I had read in the newspapers about Yvonne Foong, a young girl with Neurofibromatosis, an inherited disorder where multiple tumours grow in the brain and along the spine. She was 16 when diagnosed with this condition and instead of going into self pity she wrote a book entitled "I'm Not Sick, Just A bit Unwell".

A few days ago I was at the hair salon getting a hair perm and was flipping through a magazine when I came across an article about her, but that article was written in 2006, so I looked up the internet to see how she was doing. I found her blog and she has accomplished much in the last few years, all listed here. Currently she is a university student and upon graduation she aspires to become a psychologist and therapist providing support to children with hearing aids.

What inspired me to write about Yvonne is her optimism despite all that she has gone through - she has undergone 8 major surgeries from 2002 till 2009, she almost went blind and her hearing has been badly affected by the disease, yet she does not depend solely on charity but raises funds on her own for her very costly surgeries (between RM90,000 to RM200,000 each!) by selling custom-made t-shirts, and a few days ago she posted on her blog that she is going to sell mooncakes to pay for her trip to the US to take part in a 4-year clinical research program that studies the long-term development of Neurofibromatosis Type 2.

Have a look at her blog post entitled "Mooncakes For Health" and let's do our bit to help someone in need. I'll be placing my orders soon.

ROTFL

If you are having a dull day and need a good laugh, try looking up the travelling directions using Google maps:

1) Go to 'http://maps.google.com.my'

2) Click on 'Get Directions'

3) Click the car icon

4) In the A box, type 'new york'

5) In the B box, type 'tokyo'

6) Click 'Get Directions' below the B box

7) Read direction #51

Here's another one that will tickle your funny bone...

1) In the A box, type 'tokyo'

2) In the B box, type 'china'

3) Click 'Get Directions' and read #48

Now try travelling from 'china' to 'taiwan' and read #48...well, it's only 165km...!!

And one more thing I discovered:

1) Go to 'http://translate.google.com.my'

2) In the From box, select 'English'

3) In the To box, select 'Chinese (Simplified)'

4) In the large box beneath, type 'how old are you'

5) Click 'Translate'

6) Laugh...if you understand Mandarin :)

(The people at Google sure have a strange sense of humour!)