Aga's first trip to the farm

Ee.. ii.. ee.. ii... oooowww....!!!

Since yesterday, Aga kept telling me he wanted to go to the farm.

Aga: Tomorrow no school, mommy. Tomorrow farm.
Me: Yes. How do you know you're going to the farm, did Ms. Delma tell you?
Aga: *ignoring the question completely* Aga wants to see coooowwww, sheeeeeeppp, chickensssss, duckkksss, doogggsss,.... errr...
Me: Yes. You'll see all that in the farm.
Aga: and... see... turtles.... lizards... fishh...
Me: *scratching my head* Uh.. OK. Maybe.
Aga: and... LION!!!
Me: WHAT? Lion? In the farm? Are you sure?
Aga: YES!!! Of course!!!
Me: But... the pig will be scared of the lion. *I didn't tell him that the lion might EAT the pig, though*
Aga: SEE LION IN THE FARM!!
Me: Lion in the zoo, Aga. Not in the farm.
I can see then Aga's thinking aloud. He surely remembered he saw lions in the zoo.
Aga: Lion in the zoo, Lion in the farm, as well!!!
Me: *giving up* OK. I guess we'll see tomorrow if they have lion in the farm.

So, this morning we went to this Chesterfield farm, organised by some of the parents from Aga's class. As soon as we entered the farm, Aga's on a quest.
Aga: *with his hands a looking against his forehead* Where are the cows... Aga's looking for cows.....
I couldn't stop laughing.

He was SOOOO HAPPY. Giggling away when he saw those baby rabbits. Here's the video with the rabbits:



I saw the BIGGEST PIG I've ever seen in my whole life. Seriously. Giant. Humongous. PIG. You can see her here in this photo below, breastfeeding her babies. Yes. Piglets, man. I was so impressed at how the pig being a mom to these piglets doing what she does best. I was watching her happily eating while wondering seriously are pigs really this big, when she suddenly walked towards her piglets. Once she did that, the piglets were all jumping around her, knowing it's time for milk. She took a nice comfy position and the piglets were all sucking happily. How does she know it's time to feed the piglets? Nonetheless, she looked sooooooooo comfortable whilst doing that too.

The humongous breastfeeding pig:



Aga holding chick:



Aga holding bunny:



Aga feeding llama:



Aga feeding two emus:



Aga feeding deer:



Aga feeding kangaroo:



Aga milking a cow:


Update:
While we're having lunch after the farm trip, I wanted to know if he had changed his mind about the lion being in the farm.

Me: Aga, did you see lion in the farm?
Aga: Mommy silly. No lion in the farm! Lion in the zoo!!!
Huh I guess the joke's on me.

Photo frenzy

Agastya's colouring has become better. I do not have to sit and keep telling him to finish it also. He seems to enjoy doing it. All I had to do is to refrain Lila from disturbing him: snatching his crayons, crawling under his table, crawling under his chair, standing against his table and shaking it vigorously, trying to climb on the chair he's sitting on, and persistent attempts to eat his colouring book!

Colouring results:







Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the smily princess:






Cheeky!!!

Indian head shaking thingy

Anyone who had acquainted with an Indian knows what I'm talking about. It's a head-shaking motion typical to all Indians whether they're speaking Hindi, Marati, Tamil, or English. Only Indians will know exactly when to use it and how to properly interpret it. Seriously, I've been in deep contact with a lot of Indians after I met Nagi, and even now I still can't do this head shaking thing myself.

It's a complicated thing, but it's a shaking that hardly means no. Here I will list the ones I've familiar with. It could mean:

1. Yes.
Usually very brief. A head shake must at least finish ONE circle. If you start from the left side, then you'll sway towards the right side and must come back to the left side.
Example: When someone ask you if you have had dinner, you simply answer with the head shaking thing. It's simply a substitute for a nod. I wonder why the Indians don't use nod for this case. To strengthen your claim (that you have had food), you can do the head shaking thing while rubbing your belly.

2. Uh-huh
This is when you're in a conversation with someone. You can head shake for the duration of the conversation, depending of how long and how much you've understood. I figured some people just head-shake to say that they're listening. The speed of the head shake varies too. If you're interested in the topic you speed it up. It's also useful to speed up when you the guy to finish talking.

3. Hello
This is usually when you meet someone for the first time. You're shy, and really don't know what to say. At the time of introduction, while shaking hands, you also shake your head. I think it means "Nice to meet you". I think you're supposed to head shake back when someone does it. Which is frustrating in my case. Should I head shake? Would I head shake right? How fast should I go? How much swaying / to what degree to each side should I go? Oh!!! I'll give you a trick for non head-shaker like myself. Just nod and smile. Smile for as long as the head shake.

4. Of course.
It could also be used when you don't want to get yourself in trouble. For example, when someone asks "Do I look good wearing this dress?", you just head shake. Do the eye movement also. I mean, make it so big that the other person can see all the white part of your eyes.

Mind you, this head shaking thing is deadly contagious. When one head shakes, the others would follow suit. However, I think you need at least one other person apart from yourself to head shake. If the other person doesn't respond, or at least you know the other person won't be able to respond, then you naturally don't head shake. Nagi for example, never head shake when I speak. But you should see him with a bunch of Indians (yes, they all head-shakers!), then the head shake is uncontrollable. It's part of their culture which a person who associate with Indians (like myself) should understand.

Now why do I bring up this topic all of a sudden? Now, my daughter - yes, the 9 month old one - is trying to master this head shaking thing! Obviously she didn't get it from me, hey I still can't do it, I don't want to embarrass myself. Not from Nagi either I think, because he doesn't head shake around the house. But this girl was saying "Ya ya ya ya ya" (like an agreement) while shaking her head. I'm not joking. I wonder if this head shaking thing is actually in the genes! I'm yet to video tape her for this. The sleuth is on the case.

Aga wants Lila's food...

Remember Aga's episode with my breastmilk? Now that I don't pump out milk, that never happened again. Now that Lila's food is textured, he sometimes looks at her bowl when he has done with his. Lila's food doesn't look nor taste appetizing. It has mashed this and that, with no salt or other spices.

Today, he dared to ask me. This happened just after his last spoon of yummy chicken and vegies soup, served with a plain rice.

Aga: Mommy...?
Me: Yeah?
Aga: Lila's food... nice, yeah?
Me: No no. Lila's food not nice. Aga's food is nice.
A few moment of thoughts....
Aga: Lila's food not nice?
Me: You want to try?
Aga: YES YES. Aga wants Lila's food!
Me: *evil grin* (wait till you try this one!)
Then I give him a spoon from Lila's bowl.
Aga: Hmm... YUMMY!!!!
Me: >.< *but hey, I remembered the breastmilk episode!* Then, do you want some more?
Aga: No no, finished.
Me: Phew.
Aga: (turn towards Lila) Lila's food, really nice. Really nice, Lila!!! Deliciouss!!!!
Me: HUH???

My own virtual album

I did this after seeing Mrs. Kittenhead did it. Was sceptical at first but in the end I thought it was a creative idea in a very random way. I like mine.

Here's what you do to design your virtual band's new album.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. You then take the pic and add your band name and the album title to it, then post your pic.

Here's mine...

Band name: Entomacrodus cadenati (bleh... I can't even write it. I just copy pasted it.)
Album title: Where the sovereignty lies. (okay, I admit took me twice to edit the word 'sovereignty'. Not even sure now if it's right)

But hey, look at the album cover.... Now that, my friend, is where the sovereignty lies!!! Not bad for an album cover, hey? Now time to recruit for members of E.C. (as I would like it to be called).

Travelling nightmare

I'm so tired I don't know when I'm going to finish this post, but everyone kept asking me how the flight was and it will be even more tiring explaining to every single one of them, so here it goes.

I was supposed to leave Semarang at 9:15 am on Friday 1st Feb. Unfortunately for me, it coincides with the recent big flood in Jakarta. Jakarta airport was closed for more than 5 hours, hence my flight was understandably delayed.

At 11 am they asked me to board the plan, only to hear the captain saying they have to wait for 20 minutes for an OK signal to fly from Jakarta. 20 minutes later, the captain spoke again to ask the passengers to go back to terminal lounges because the delay is going to be more than 1 hour.

At that point, then we quickly changed the Singapore leg ticket to a later one, in case we got delayed so we'll still be able to make it. It's not that I'm oblivious to the fact that there's no flight taking to-and-from Jakarta, it's because I was hoping they'll re-open the airport at 12:00 so I was told. It didn't happen. At around 12:30 they announced that Jakarta airport is closed until further notice, they don't know how long. It's not a good sign. We got sick of waiting at that point, we changed the flights to the next day's flight, exactly the same timings: 9:15 am from Semarang, 11:30 am from Jakarta to Singapore. I was hoping the weather won't be bad two days in a row.

We tried our luck again on Saturday. I was right. Jakarta was clear from rain on Saturday. However, they still haven't recovered from the delay they had the previous day. Added to that, because of the flood which was still ongoing on Saturday, they have less crew and staff. My flight from Semarang was delayed for more than 3 hours to finally leave at around 1pm.

At about 2pm we arrived at Jakarta, and we were in a hurry to go to check ourselves in for the next available Singapore flight, only to find out we haven't missed our flight. The GA 826 flight to Singapore which was supposed to take off at 11:30 hasn't left. However, they don't know what time the flight will take off, and or any other flights to Singapore for that matter. The only information they have is the boarding gate: E7, which they directed us to just wait there for further information.

We cleared immigration and went to gate E7, there was no one there except for a lot of strayed passengers for flight GA 826. I thought, if we have to wait in uncertainty like this, we can't wait inside the boarding gate like this. Reason being:
1. We cannot bring water inside the boarding gate. Remember I'm travelling with Aga and Lila, accompanied by my mom until Singapore.
2. There was absolutely no ground staff inside the gate, so I don't see the point of waiting around there.

We decided if anything, we have to keep ourselves fed, at least the kids, so they don't get cranky. So we went to the restaurant, and ordered some noodle soups. Our order turned to be the LAST ONE. They closed right after we ordered. Ran out of noodle soups!

After we finished eating, I was wondering if I should go back to E7. You may ask, why I can't just look at the information board to check my flight status. Well, the information board doesn't even say that boarding gate for GA 826 is in gate E7. They have no information about GA 826 or other flights to Singapore. I only know about E7 from the check in counter and is written in the boarding pass.

I asked my mom to just check the status in E7, she said nothing, but there were a lot more passengers than before.

They gave no refreshments, no snack, no drink, or apologise for the delay. I was delayed twice in Semarang, on Friday and on Saturday, and on both accounts they gave me snacks and drinks, and they kept us informed about the flight status all the time. In Jakarta, we can't even find anyone to ask. It was frustrating.

We decided to wait along the aisles on the way to xray before the gates. It was around 4:30, when we saw a Garuda stewardess walking by. My mom asked if she was a Garuda stewardess and she replied yes. Then we asked which flight. She said GA 830. The one to Singapore, but 3 flight after GA 826 in the flight schedule. She said she doesn't know the status, but was told that the flight is at 17:45 (GA 830 was scheduled for 14:00 or something).

We rushed back towards the immigration to see if we can go back into the check in counter to change our flight to GA 830. On the way there, we met 4 more stewardesses, and they were all GA 830 crew, and we asked the same question to them. They said they don't know, but pointed to a guy which they said is the ground staff for Garuda, so we stopped the guy and asked. The guy explained that there was still no information on which flight is going to take off first, and the status of flight GA 830 was also still uncertain. Both GA 826 and 830 are still waiting for their planes to arrive.

The ground staff guy suggested us to wait in E7, because that's what he was told too. The stewardess told us the same thing, and they added, the crew for GA 826 are complete too, they're all waiting for the plane. With that, we went back to where we were sitting. Not inside the gate but on the way there, just before the security checks.

About half an hour later, I saw the ground staff guy again walking towards the gate. I asked him, how's GA 826 status. He said still uncertain. I asked what about GA 830. He said definitely will take off at 17:45. He's going to the gate now. We rushed back towards the immigration.

The immigration officer told us that only one of us can go back to settle the matter, so I sent my mom because Aga might get cranky without me around. A while later my mom came back, the information from the check in counter was: they have no information that GA 830 is leaving. In fact, 826 is scheduled to leave at 16:00, just like 830 is scheduled at 17:45. But no one knows which one would leave first.

Luckily at that point we saw the ground staff guy again. I asked him again, and he still said GA 830 will take off. I asked him what about GA 828 that was supposed to go to Singapore too, scheduled after GA 826. He said that one took off too! I decided I have to go back there myself to ask.

After passing the queue, I was told by the check in lady that if I want to change my flight to 830, I have to speak to the supervisor because she has no authority to do that. I asked where the supervisor and she pointed to a guy who were leaving. I ran after him and when I caught him I told him my situation and that I cannot possibly spend the night in the airport with a baby and a kid. I have to leave now and the way to do that is by taking the flight 830 which is definitely going to take off. I don't mind upgrading my tickets if that's required. With my request, the supervisor checked his computer. I was told the same thing my mom was told. There was no certainty that GA 830 will take off. He asked me, what happen if GA 820 take off before 830? When he asked that I was confused, but fortunately there was a guy replied, "No way. 830 is definitely taking off now. I was at E4, the boarding gate for 830 and they're boarding passengers! Now I want you to change my flight to GA 830 so I can leave now". The supervisor took his words and gave his permission to change flight. I said I want to change too. He asked me if I have luggage checked in. I said yes. He said he can't move my luggage because it's too late, my luggage will still be going with GA826 as scheduled. I said it's OK. Then he gave permission to change my flights too. I called my mom to return to the check in counter to exchange our boarding passes. Then we were asked to proceed to boarding gate soon.

When we arrived at boarding gate E4, there were no passengers. Can you believe, all of them were already inside the plane waiting for the plane to take off, but there was no information in the board saying GA 830 is taking off, nor audio announcements saying so. There was none about GA 828 previously too. I know this for a fact because I was there kept my eye on the information board! Which turned out to be a useless act.

Luckily my luggage also arrived later and was delivered to my sister's house at 11am the next day.

Had we waited in the E7 boarding gate waiting for the uncertainty, we wouldn't have took off that night.

How many times do I have to say this: I hate Jakarta. I hate that I was far away from it yet still got affected by the flooding!