My Year 2021

Just like what most of us predicted, pandemic ain't over. This pandemic had caused us not being able to go back to celebrate Chinese New Year for the very first time. We were not able to take our tradition picture as well. That's when creativity comes into handy and our brilliant cousin managed to pull it off!

This also made us to be grateful for what we have around us. Even though all of us could not go back, we had our own celebration in Kuala Lumpur. It was mostly eating, drinking and playing cards.

Compared to the previous year, I was able to meet my friends this year. I had a friend who came back from Riyadh for vacation. I had checked that the last time we met was back in 2017, oh gosh! I have known her since kindergarten time. Hope we will have that girls trip to Bangkok one day with the other three ladies.

I was able to meet up with my favourite girls too. We had just met up over dinner recently. It felt so good to see familiar faces and also to see how much Rye Liv has grown. 

The very same year, we welcomed a new member into our family and this boy has grown so much in five months. The father was not able to recognise him in his newborn picture so, you could imagine how much this boy has changed.

We did another staycation in Mandarin Oriental Hotel again to celebrate my birthday but, we have more people joining us this round as my birthday present from the husband. We booked two rooms that included MO's Club Lounge benefits to have most of our meals covered. Did you think I was the happiest girl during this staycation? The answer is no. My niece was the happiest girl during this staycation. She was so excited that she did not take her nap the day we checked-in the hotel. 

We ended this pandemic year with a lovely Christmas celebration again. However, we had the celebration this round at another unit in our condominium and we had special guests joining us - my brother's parents-in-law. Food, drinks and of course, presents (mostly for the kids). I believed it was the happiest day for the kids as they opened so much more presents compared to the previous year. It was already a chaos with two kids opening their presents. Imagine having 4 next Christmas. 

And that was how I ended year 2021. Actually, thanks to this pandemic, I had a lot of family time and that was how I bonded with my niece too. You know what they said, the first 5 years are really important. Also, I managed to pick up a few games namely NieR: Automata and Dragon Age: Inquisition. I tried picking up Spiderman but I was really bad in it. Out of these games, my favourite is NeiR: Automata and I had not moved on! You will know what I mean if you had played the game.

Anyhow, here's to a better 2022 and wishing all of us can travel out of Malaysia soon!

My Year 2020

It has been more than a year since I last updated my blog - it's like year 2020 was totally wiped out in my life. Actually, if you take a closer look at my blog, 2019 was wiped out as well except for Hokkaido trip.

To be frank, 2020 had been an eventful year even though most of us stayed at home due to Covid-19 pandemic. I remember that things were really good in the beginning of the year. 

January was a busy month for me. I traveled out of Kuala Lumpur most of the time for work that one of my back-then colleagues commented that he had not seen me for a very long time. It was also the same month which I was really looking forward to as I was heading back to Sibu for family reunion, celebrating Chinese New Year - and little did I know it was the last time for me to be back home with my family.

Things were still good in February when we were still allowed to dine-in with a big group on the same table in a restaurant. Also, face mask was not compulsory back then since Covid-19 was not wildly spread in Malaysia back then. Glad that I was still able to have another reunion meal, celebrating Chap Goh Mei with my family in Kuala Lumpur.

The condition started to get worse in March and I was glad that I was able to have a makan-makan session with my back-then colleagues, apart from my farewell dinner. Our boss told us about this place that sells really good satays - Satay Zainah Ismail. Hope the business is still going strong in the midst of this pandemic. A week later, March 18th, Malaysia began its implementation of movement control order. That was when all of us started to stay at home, work from home and prepared our own meals most of the time. This went on in April as well. I somehow lost about 7kg even though I had 3 meals a day at home. It was definitely because I cut down a lot from eating out. Sadly, I gained it back in May when I started to venture into baking which I shall share soon as well. But hey, April was not that bad. We had Final Fantasy VII Remake to keep us busy at home. 

May was a fun month. Not only I started picking up baking, the husband and I also started to babysit our niece after her school. That was when we had seen her grown up so much. From speaking a few words here and there to be able to converse in a full sentence now. I am really blessed to be able to witness her growth. They really grow up really fast so we, as the adults, should treasure these moments with them.

We continued to babysit our niece after school until middle of the month. Why so? We had to change our house's internal piping. Hence, our place became really dirty and dusty so, it was not suitable to have her around. Fortunately, the project did not run long, so I was able to clean up the place to have her around again. It took me close to 2 days to clean up the whole house myself because an OCD like me could not trust a hired cleaner. And why did I have the leisure time to do all these? I had tendered my job in AML and joining the new company in the following month.

#HaLauFamily managed to do a little bit of Cuti-Cuti Malaysia during this pandemic too. We managed to go to Aquaria KLCC and Zoo Negara. 

I had never been to Aquaria so I was quite excited. My favourite part was the underwater tunnel where you could see turtles and sharks! I cannot swim well and I do not think I will ever dive underwater so, this experience is good enough for me. Unfortunate for my niece, she was shocked so she cried throughout the tunnel.

As for Zoo Negara, it was my third visit but my first visit with the husband. This place did not change much but it does have a few new exhibits - Giant Panda Conservation Centre and Savannah Walk. Without a doubt, Xing Xing's and Liang Liang's place was our favourite, with cool and clean air. This place was equipped with don't-know-how-many air-conditioners and don't-know-how-many Philips' air purifiers. Sadly you would not be able to stay long in this centre. Each batch of visitors have time limit inside.

In the year, we did meet an unfortunate event as well. The husband knocked into someone else's car. It was when we were supposed to go meet the family for dinner to celebrate his birthday. Through this incident, we did find a few blessings in our lives as well. One, no one is hurt. Two, our family is very close to us so they came to help and check on us real fast. 

Though we were not able to travel out of Malaysia, we did a staycation in Mandarin Oriental Hotel. We booked a room that includes MO's Club Lounge benefits - beakfast, afternoon tea and evening cocktails. Hence, it was a eat-drink-and-sleep days for us. We truly enjoyed our stay as the service and food provided satisfied us. 

We ended the pandemic year with a lovely Christmas celebration at our place. We had food, gifts and best of all, family members beside us. The children were the happiest ones though. Each of them received a present from all the adults. It was really fun to watch them unwrapping the presents. 

That was how we ended year 2020. It's funny to think that 2020 was not eventful when you first thought about it but when you really thought carefully, there were tons of things that happened. There could be more which I did not share in this post but one thing for sure is that the pandemic is not over yet and together, we strive for better in the years ahead to win this fight.

I want to travel out of Malaysia oh so dearly!