Tristan at 14 months

Tristan has 4.5 teeth now, his teeth seem to take forever to grow, but some said it's a good thing because the tooth decay will come later.


He's still in crawling state now, although he can walk with support, but he seems to be timid to take the challenge of his first few steps, he would stop after his first step.


He can say some words now such as bear, bird (he read it as burp), clock (read as cog) etc, he would pick up our cellphones or any remote control devices and say "hello", today he even act like talking to someone over the other side of the line. And oh, he can also say a malay word "apa" but doesn't say any Mandarin words although my parent-in-law speaks Mandarin LoL



He loves to play inside the car, switching on all the buttons, turning up the volumes, playing with the steering, and would refuse to come out of the car.








He likes to hit people's hand (oh no no no, he's not picking this up from me). He loves our dogs and would crawl freely in the front part of our house with the 2 big dogs trying to lick him, he doesn't like to be lick so he would use both of his hands to protect his face when they come near him, like a kongfu baby, that was quite funny.


He loves bunny's DVDs, we would play those for him when we feed him porridge. He will move his body to the left and then to the right repeatedly whenever he hears music or song, he even does that when he's in crawling position, but he has very little interest on the xylophone I bought for him.


He has only 3-second span on most of the toys, but he would spend more than 15 minutes repeating the action of plugging and unplugging an ear piece to my old walkman.


He started making dreams nowadays. He said a single word twice during his sleeps, and once he was waving both of his hands like what he used to do at day time when refuse to be carried away from me, and he laughed this morning in his sleep.

Grindelwald

This is my old post but I'm redoing it to add more pictures. Grindelwald is a well known winter tourism spot in Switzerland, located in the state called Bern, within the disctrict of Interlaken.




We took a train from Interlaken to this place, we found it so quiet but we really enjoy the piece here.




We took a walk here, built a small snow man, took some pictures and playing with the snow.




The snow was so thick, other than the Colorado ones, this is the second time I have seen such a think snow.





The 2 skiers seemed to be looking for the good spot to ski.




No birds chirping, only snow quietly covering the trees.




After a good hour or so, we finally see a car passing by.




Then we met a French couple, a 70-years old businessman and his young girl friend, they were playing with this sledge and offered to lend us while they were having a break, so we did and it was quite fun.




It was so cold out there so we went into a cafe here to have some coffee, met the French couple again and joined them for drinks.





First time seeing heavy snow fall, it was a wonderful experience.




Before leaving, took one last photo at the neighborhood area. The 2 trees at the back looks all white with the snow covering all their branches.



This is the Swiss Hotel that we stayed in Interlaken, cleared from snow. It has internet access for an hourly rate, no breakfast, the price is affordable in winter and is close to the train station.



The small building on the left side behind me is the train station, and that's the station we took the train to Grindelwald, passing through all the snow mountains with great snow view.

Sleepless in Seatlte ?

Have you seen this movie called "Sleepless in Seattle" ? That was the first time I heard about this city, which is located in Washington State of America. It's also the place where the first Starbucks Coffee was opened, and the home to the world's richest man - Bill Gates.




This is the Space Needle, a tower which is the major landmark and a symbol of Seattle. It was built for the 1962 World's Fair, stood at 605 feet (184 m), with 60 stories.



With a ticket, you can get to the observation deck to see the Downtown Seattle skyline and many mountains such as Mount Rainier. It also has a SkyCity Restaurant and a gift shop.



The city view.



A big metal statue outside of the Art Museum.



The entrance of the Art Museum.





We don't have much time for the museum, just took a few pictures & left.







The Pike Place Market, where fresh food, flowers, antiques, fruits etc are sold here. The first Starbucks Coffee shop is near by, and there's an Italian Bakery Shop that serves excellent coffee and bakery's that's irresistible.



The downtown area. There's almost at least 1 coffee shop within a few blocks of shops here, and I remember finding at least 1 Starbuck coffee shop in every streets. Other than the first Starbucks coffee, we also tried the Seattle's Best Coffee, Tully's etc, I ended up drinking 5 to 6 coffees a day, partly also due to the cold weather. Personally I love Tully's the most and wish that I would have the chance to try it again.

Brooklyn Bridge

This is one of the oldest suspension bridges in USA, connecting Manhattan & Brooklyn. It took 13 years to complete the construction, opened in 1883 (124 years ago !).






It soon become an iconic part of the New York skyline, and was designated a National Historic Landmark later in 1964.






With 5,989 feet long, it was the largest & longest suspension bridge in the world (50% longer than any previously built), it is also the first steel-wire suspension bridge at completion.







The bridge has a Gothic style architecture and is built from limestone, granite, and Rosendale natural cement.






Washington Roebling was the one who cotinue to build the bridge after his father died soon after the bridge has started its construction, but later he himself got a decompression sickness called caisson disease after 2 years, his wife then started learning engineering and communicating his wishes to the on-site assistants. When the bridge opened, she was the first person to cross it.






This is one of the visiting spots in our East Coast Tour, these photos were taken while we were in a cruise, in 2003.

Victoria's Cathedrals

As promised in the Victoria post, I have included the 5 pictures of the cathedrals that I saw in downtown area, and 2 night shots of the Parliament Building.


I just happened to see the Parliament Building's night lights on my way back from downtown so took down these 2 pictures, they should look better if I took them in a closer range :







Gothic style cathedrals :









The 2 pictures below are the Christ Church Cathedral.






What do you think about these cathedrals ? Do you like to take photos of buildings with different architectures ?

Thank you, my dear readers

I had been busy lately with eBay, trying to sell unused items in my closet. I managed to sell off my second item, a knee-length skirt, and got 2 positive feedback from my first 2 buyers, I was so thrilled but then Tristan had a fever and I was so worried about it, I took off work earlier to take care of him in the past 4 days and thankfully he was fully recovered yesterday.






I want to take this oportunity to thank all my dear readers who has paid my blog visits from time to time and spent time to give me great comments (some of you send your comments to me in emails) :

1. Jenny How at eBay Tips Blog
2. Kuan Hoong at Kuanhoong dot com
3. Kathy
4. Tat Oon
5. Jamy at her Kopitiam
6. Jerry Lee at 38 blog
7. Emila Yusof and her Illustration
8. Shantanu Ghosh and his Travel Tales
9. Bee Ean at her France Blog
10. Jo and her Vee Vee Waa Waa Blog
11. Walter Lim with his Cooler Insights Blog
12. Janice Ng and her Miracle Blog
13. Random Thots of a Blur Mommy
14. Sook Fang
15. Yoke Ping
16. Ben
17. Tuyen
18. Elaine
19. Chee Koon

Victoria, British Columbia

Victoria is the westernmost Canadian provice which is located south to the Vancouver Island. The statistics from Wikipedia showed that it's capable of drawing 3.65 million visitors a year which have contributed to more than one billion dollars into the local economy.


British Columbia Parliament Building






There are many tourism attraction and landmark such as the Empress Hotel, the Royal British Columbia Museum, Christ Church Cathedral, Chinatown, Victoria Butterfly Garden, Pacific Undersea Gardens etc. (I'll share the Cathedral photos in my next post because this post is getting too long)








The city is so quiet that I wasn't aware it has hosted several sports events such as the 1994 Commonwealth Games, 2006 Skate Canada etc.






It's a place for retiree, probably that's why it's so pieceful there. And I found this in Wiki : An historically popular cliché about Victoria is that it is for "the newly wed and nearly dead!" ... But I went there alone LoL






The Empress Hotel







The 150-foot vessel to get to the Pacific Undersea Gardens




the Royal British Columbia Museum & the IMAX theatre




Wawadit'la, also known as Mungo Martin House



Chinatown



What do you think about this map ?




In downtown, there are many small art galleries, and there are many English Tea Cafe that serves delicious cakes, desert that I had to make a stop for them. There was one that I went in even sells many exquisite teapot, cups, tea leaves etc.


There are many other tourism attraction in this place such as the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Pacific Undersea Garden that I haven't been able to visit. If you happen to visit these places, don't forget to share your story with me ya :)

First eBay earning !!

I mentioned in My First eBay Adventure post that I had a blouse listed and that someone had placed a bid on it, so what happen to it ?





I considered myself lucky as I have received the payment from buyer on Tuesday night. So I went ahead and sent out the blouse yesterday morning, not sure if she will receive it today, I do hope that she will receive the blouse today and that she's satisfied with the quality.






The reason for her delay payment was because I have only 2 bank accounts and she doesn't have account on either of these banks, so I offered a RM2 discount for the wire transfer fee and she made the payment immediately. I guess when it comes to selling, if we can offer a little more to the buyer, they will be happy to get what we are offering, do you agree with me and do you have a similar story to share with me ?