Skinny

It was with a shock that I realised SE had lost weight to be point of being skeletal.  People had earlier commented that she has grown thin and I'd attributed it to her growing taller and losing puppy fat.  Then I noticed her bones were jutting out, her clothes were loose.  

See the skinny arm

She has been on a 'watching diet' stage for about half a year.  First she stopped eating snacks - according to JE this was initially to be for a month but was extended.  Then it moved on to her rejecting extra food at mealtimes and not having tea time.  She would announce she was full.  I'd assumed it was a phase that she would grow out of.  Her overall food intake still seemed fine.

When I realised how thin she'd become, the alarm set in that the problem was physical rather than behavioural.  Made an appointment at Avisena Women and Children's specialist hospital.  I picked Doc Koshy since he had evening clinic hours - he seemed more efficient than naturally friendly.  Oh well.  He looked her over and ordered blood tests.  Hmm this would be the first time SE had blood taken.  And this was a kid who ran away during dentist visits and school vaccinations.

Poke poke

Extracting

Poor kiddo.  She was a trooper actually, sat there without fuss throughout the procedure.  2 weeks later we went back for results.  Liver function, kidney function, abnormal cells, even cancer screening (at the request of a paranoid mummy who didn't know this would be expensive) - all were fine.  So now she has a clean bill of health.  

Yet the weighing scales still seem to be showing some decrease.  On to the next phase.... have started her on an egg a day for breakfast, and have ordered Pediasure.  Hopefully these will help arrest the weight loss and move the scales the other direction. 

Working cat

So sometimes I don't know which of the girls place the toy at my laptop when I stop working a while.  (No I am not working from home, this is from the weekends where lately I also need to work).  This time I got the girl in the picture too.

Cat working hard

Hahaha. 

The Teddy again

SE actually wanted to go to The Teddy for her birthday.  But she wanted to be there wearing THIS particular dress.  Which wasn't ready at the time.  So we postponed Teddy to another time.

Greetings from us and our bear friends

As usual, it was bears galore.  Very cute!

Little bears here

A bear burger for me and Jojo

Waffles and ice cream. With bears and a black friend

I had butter squid pasta, hubby had lamb - overall good and I love the dessert.  

Hubby's birthday

Hubby's birthday is in March, like mine.  This very belated post is for recording purposes.  

Hubby's family isn't into celebrating birthdays.  I masterminded this lunch and dinner for him as he didn't have any requests where to go.  First, Soup Restaurant at 1u.  We have walked past this place countless times.  The beautifully-arranged plate of chicken always caught my eye.  Well it tasted good as did the other dishes. Portions were small hence considered pricey. 

Chicken dish highlight

For dinner (not the same day) we went for steamboat which is one of hubby's favourites.  I randomly picked Happy City in Kota Damansara.  Was surprised that it has tanks for live seafood and even more surprised that live prawns were so affordable with the promotion going on (buy 2 pots free 1 pot of prawns).  I should have taken photos heh.  There was so much we took home more than half the prawns!  Err they were of course dead by that time.

At the beginning of the meal

Gave myself a pat on the back for arranging food that hubby likes.

Ipoh - Food

Rounding up the Ipoh posts with what we ate.  When in Ipoh I focus on our tried-and-tested places since we aren't there for that many meals.  This round we headed straight to Kong Heng (our appointment at Han Chin Pet Soo being at 2pm).  Satay, popiah, chicken noodle soup were good as usual.  This 'hor hee' JE is eating which came in a steel bowl... was tasteless.

We shall not order from this stall again

I couldn't resist this cafe nearby called 'flufff' (yes, 3 'f's' at the end) and we walked up.  The souffle pancakes were soo light and fluffy!  Hubby's grapefruit soda drink was refreshing.  Not cheap but we enjoyed these 2 items.  JE ordered tiramisu which wasn't good and to this day is still sitting in our freezer haha.

Chocolate souffle pancakes

Went to Soo Har Yee again as it had been a while since our last visit.  One thing I like about Ipoh, places aren't far when compared to the distances and travelling times we are used to in KL.  This dinner turned out sweeter than expected - the "1 bone" pork is always sweetish (love the charred 'char siew' taste).  This time we picked french beans which were fried with caramelised belly pork slices - delicious but sweet too.  The crabs in the bun were unfortunately not firm even though we'd checked beforehand with the captain on the crab quality.  Next time must choose prawns which are less variable. 

Crab bun, pork, veg

For breakfast we headed for Zui Le Xuan as I didn't want to brave the queue and parking woes at Ming Court.  I obviously didn't research properly... pulled up to the place only to find it closed.  What to do... it was late and we were hungry.  Without time to find another place, we headed back to town for Ming Court.  Got lucky as there was parking right in front plus the queue wasn't long!  Phew.  Erm this time the dim sum didn't wow me like before.  Maybe expectations too high haha.  Still, everything tasted good enough and the price was reasonable.

Dim sum to fill our tummies

On to another favourate, Restoran Hooray.  Aiks where Soo Har Yee was a 'sweet' experience, this one turned out to be 'sour' one.  The pickled onion pork was good as usual.  We also had sour veg soup and hubby ordered assam seafood (note to self not to order this again as the seafood was obviously of the frozen variety) as he assumed it's what I would like.  Ended up 3 sour dishes!  

Sour sour food

Final food destination after a lot of internal 'discussions' - Pusing Public restaurant.  We had been driving past it daily as it was a stone's throw from our apartment.  The kids are never keen on Chinese food.  In fact SE said she had had enough Chinese and hawker food already  We headed for another place but couldn't find parking... so seemed like fate for me to declare that we were going back to Pusing!  I loved the yam kailan which had a 'restaurant' feel.  The ginger chicken and other dishes were just ok but I plan to be back to try other dishes.

Drawing something.... ignoring the tofu with fish paste

 Ok that's a wrap for our holiday.  Definitely was the break I needed!

Ipoh 2023 - Han Chin Pet Soo

In my quest for other activities besides eating, came across this - a museum on Hakkas in tin mining.  It is on donation basis, just need to register online.  Set expectations low first...

Oh it was fun!  The museum is the actual premise of the old tin miner's club.  We walked in to a large table set for a 'meal'.   There was a guide who made the whole visit interesting and informative.  

We are sitting at the original meal table

We are standing on the original floor tiles

SE walked with me and I tried to make the information more relevant and fun.  I could relate to some of the history from growing up in Ipoh.  JE was with hubby who is never interested in these things (travelled with this person to Egypt and he wasn't bothered with THAT fascinating history!!).  Ended up SE thought it was good while JE thought it was 'meh'.

Oh well for me, I would totally recommend this place.