For as long as I can remember we've always celebrated Christmas with all trimmings. In our family that's what good Moslems do :D In KL we celebrate in the German tradition of Aunty Marga, on Christmas Eve, with a huge stuffed bird, sugar dusted star-cookies and thick slices of stollen. When I lived in London we lounged around all morning in front of a crackling fire, with ButteredToast-SteamingTea-TheTimesSupplement, listening to the Queen's Speech on telly and playing monopoly till turkey, brussel sprouts, roasted parsnips and brandy butter was served around 3pm for lunch. In Dubai, Ch [View Full Entry]

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Divers ascend the underwaterworld in stages - it's about balancing the pressure in your bodies' airspaces. Reacclimatising. Easing into life on land. We had 36 hours in Brisbane. Our little stopover. Post-paradise and pre-populace, pollution and... parenting! It was about balancing the pressure in our minds' breathing spaces :) Brisbane has by all accounts morphed from that pitstop on your way to and from your REAL destination - to an adult city - burgeoning with the sophistication of trendy cafes, modern galleries and cool converted warehouses. Our little layover in the Central Busin [View Full Entry]

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Pacific Airways FJ 930 to Nadi from Melbourne. FINALLY we take off. The overlyloud aircraft music was all harmonised lilting voices and plucked polynesian ukuleles, flight attendants had cream frangipanis tucked behind their ears, drinks were plentiful and multicoloured - it was South Pacific HolidayVibe overkill. Wasn't Halloween a couple of days ago already?? This was just scary! - in a charming twilight zone sort of way ... It's past midnight, I smell of airport, am jetlagged and sleep deprived, still tightly wound from arranging hectic schedules in my absence back home... Ok - dee [View Full Entry]

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hon.ey.moon ·ˈhənēˌmoōn· noun a vacation spent together by a newly married couple the first month after marriage Life as always gets in the way of the best laid plans :) But we finally did it - quietly, privately - ish - and 3 and a bit months later - as plans got shafted by life again :) - actually got round to the equally-important business of getting away on honeymoon. The complicated compromise of where to go! begins here - on Bangsak Beach, Takuapa, Phang Nga Province, Thailand. Everyone - ok - fore [View Full Entry]

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After 2 days of hectic Eid celebrations (13 hours of feasting on the 1st day!) we finally loaded up the car, escaped Kampung KL and drove the 1.5 hours down to my birthplace - the historic and newly-anointed World Heritage City of Melaka. It's been years and years since either of us has visited Melaka and sans Sprog we were on our usual Mission To Eat! We checked into the lovely and recently-restored Majestic Hotel on Jalan Bunga Raya Pantai - just across the road from the Melaka River with colourful picturesque Malay kampung houses lining the banks on the far [View Full Entry]

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5 nights in Langkawi. Probably the best of my many many trips out here over the years :) We stayed at The Andaman as it's Sprog's favourite hotel in Langkawi - this in no small part owing to the intermittent presence of its Resident Monitor Lizard. The beach at The Andaman isn't as nice as the wide powdery-white stretches at Tanjung Rhu or the super luxurious Four Seasons - but I like it here a lot. It's the familiarity - being nodding acquaintances with Resident Monitor Lizard and all. Sprog was on a quest to find as many 'LIZARDS' - from [View Full Entry]

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Ok so here I was on my annual pilgrimage to one of my favourite cities in the world - YAY! - this time with AlmostSpouse and Sprog in tow. AND... horrifyingly... I was deathly-chills-and-fever-achingly BEYOND ILL for the whole 2 weeks! We should've known that this wasn't JUST severe flu when my fever didn't break for TWELVE days and that horrid pink rash appeared... I later discovered, after blood test results returned with spiked white blood cell counts, that I had, prior to the NYC trip, ingested a waterborne bacterial infection (meaning consumed somethin [View Full Entry]

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Ushered in the New Year with some of our best friends (Hi Iz, Hi Mayam!) at yet another overhyped overblown overpriced affair. Lobster Champagne SpectacularFireworks RooftopViews Streamers Hats Noisemakers AJollyGoodTime KissingStrangers TheConga!! Really - and I stress that again - REALLY gotta get out of KL next New Year's Eve!! So our (AlmostSpouse's and my) antidote to - whatever ALL THAT was - was another LastMinuteDotCom getaway... Destination - Tioman Island... Yes where that snippet of South Pacific was filmed... On this vol [View Full Entry]

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Daily breakfast in Hanoi: The open air balcony of the executive floor dining room at the Melia Hotel. Fresh fruit, nice smoked salmon, good eggs, steaming pho bo, decent tea. The view is lovely and misty this early, the ant-sized traffic below still barely humming - Good Morning Vietnam:) I'd visited Saigon a few years ago. Fleetingly. Stopping off with Sprog on the way to the beaches farther north. Hanoi is prettier. Full of sleepy FrenchColonial character. You can almost see Catherine Deneuve et Vincent Perez se sont promenent sur les wide and leafy boulevards. There are woo [View Full Entry]

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The last time I was in San Francisco was on a females-only-family-trip almost 2 decades ago. It was Mom, Aunty Molly, Big Sister, Middle Sister and me - quelle nightmare - picture The Joy Luck Club on amphetamines :p Mom the Chanel-clad tour-Nazi totally in competition with her spinster banker sister Aunty Molly who lived in Canada which naturally made her the SF expert - both of them nostalgically waxing lyrical about their peeps in Chinatown; whilst the 3 of us just rolled our eyes wanting to head back south to Disneyland, Marilyn Monroe's prints at Mann's Chinese Theat [View Full Entry]

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