Medan Kota

My eldest son, Jadon will be sitting for his first primary 1 school examination on 16 November, lasting 4 days. The school, Piaget medan was kind enough to inform us the parents very early on… when I received the notes and the guidelines… I have a rather mixed and confused feeling … part of my little voice is saying…  ‘hai yah… he is ok… not need to worry… his only problem is carelessness..’ … but honestly, another part of my little voice is praying rather aggressively hoping for the best…

I am writing this because… I can’t think what is right or what is wrong any more… you see… raising such worries and concern with any husband… these men replied will be.. ‘don’t worry too much, our child will be alright…’ and when the result is out?.. they start interrogating the wife (instead the son/daughter) of why the result is such and such… and what tuition are the children put on…

for me… I never bothered to ask the dearest daddy… he knows I am the fussy one.. so no matter what he said… the final decision is up to me anyway…… with Jadon.. for all his class tests, his results were always above the 95%… the errors that he made were mostly carelessness… in addition to the fact that he has really bad writing skill… as a mum… what is right?.. should I scold him on his carelessness? but knowing that it is not big deal…? so why should I make his life miserable at such a young age… knowing that getting 100 or 95 or 80 right now will make no difference to his adult life… BUT on the other hand… knowing that he knows and that he should easily scored full marks? … he does deserve some  punishment dont you think?…

so with 2 weeks to the D day… I don’t really know what to do with him… should I choose to grill him?.. gosh… I am definitely jeopadising the mother and son relationship …. which I really don’t want to… but should I choose to do it in moderation form… seeing the end result will not make us very happy… which with Jadon’s personality, he will develop that… ‘it’s ok… my mummy is happy go lucky kind’... coz right now… whenever he came home with the silly mistakes… he will always casually replied me… ‘it’s ok mama… I know the anwser but I didn’t see it properly’….

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I was going through old clothing …. and somehow at the back of the cupboard found hubby’s old Versace jeans, shirts etc… I was not slowly picking the pieces out one a time.. instead.. I was sweeping it all off in one go .. straight from the shelves landing directly onto the ground… and I saw this…

many of the more ridiculous ones have been donated to the 2004 Tsunami victims….

I stared at it… shouted out loud and asked him to come over and looked at what I just did to his ex-treasure… he gave me that shocking look… and I said… ‘do u really think you will still want to wear these colourful jeans!!!…’

these jeans with holes… imagine my lovely then boyfriend managed to wear it during the UK winter season and yes… it’s see through and yes… it was freezing cold… and it came in different types of holes too…

I remembered the Versace era extremely well… it was around 1995/6… I came over to Medan for a quick visit during the school break… and it was my first time here as a non-tourist… on my first Saturday here… my now in-laws decided to take us out to watch a movie… I was about 20 yo and thought … ‘wow, hubby got cool parents‘.… we changed… I was in my typical teenage outfit… capri pants and t-shirt… while his parents were in full designer gear… I remembered whispering to hubby saying.. ‘it’s Saturday afternoon.. aren’t we supposed to dress casually?’.. well, he explained and I acknowledged with ‘ooohhh’…. ‘aarrrr’ …. ‘I see’

so it was lunch then over to the Medan’s Hottest and most Happening place to hang out at that era.. ‘the cinema at Sinar Plaza’…. we arrived at about the right timimg… what I saw was a ‘Versace’ fall/winter as well as spring/summer collection all in one…

no matter which angle my head turned… many young and old..and for some, the full family troop were dressing from head to toe in Versace gear… guys were wearing shirts in loud print and coloured jeans.. while the ladies were not only in the silky shirt with matching bottoms  etc  … but belt, bangles, earring… accessorizing the body were all glittering with Merdusa Head…

from then on… I began to understand the term ‘Indonesian are extravagant’… and yes.. I was badly influenced by hubby… I remembered buying a pair of ‘knee high boots’ from their Haute Couture line  which cost about USD 1900 at the then value… and yes.. I worn it like 4-5 times… when my mum saw me wearing it… she wasn’t mad at how ridiculously I was spending her money… instead she find it amusing seeing me in one…

the boots look similar to the pic shown except that it has the Versace trademark on… and I bought coz friends were saying like… ‘Vic… if you wear.. people will know it’s Versace’…  that was about the last time I ever spent so much on a pair of shoes… it’s still around somewhere in my BKK home cupboard though…

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It has been many many years since we last applied for a credit card… we hold the HSBC and Citibank.. and is given to us since we have accounts with them… the application for the cards were applied on behalf for us by relationship manager or the RM which is safe and sound…

anyway, about 3 weeks back… we had lunch at Taipan… as we were leaving the restaurant, we were approached by the Mega credit card people… 2 youngsters who definitely have no appeal as a banker at all… came to us… saying “ko.. cie.. free first year and now with Mega cc, it’s 50% off at Taipan”… hubby looked at me… father-in-law turned and said “50% off leh…“… so I said to the salesperson and asked..” how do I cancel it should I want to discontinue the service after the 1st year”.. (after that BCA incident… it’s gonna be my first opening question to all these people..)… anyway… I am not that keen…and I didn’t want to manage another account… but the in-laws and hubby went ahead…

First they asked to fill in the standard information on the form that has the usual empty dotted line for address, billing address, income etc… next, copy of the personal identity card.. which obviously we don’t carry the copied version… so they ended taking out their handphone and capture the ID… Third, asking for a copy of the credit card that we already hold… and again, since none copying machine insight, again both guys used their mobil phone to capture the front and the back of our credit card…

I was sitting nearby and seeing how the whole thing being process…. something striked me that could these people be a fraud?… darn.. they took all our details!! …including our credit card details for both front and back!!… as an online person… what we gave them is more than enough for them to go online and have a big shopping extravagenza!!!..

I seriously didn’t feel right about the whole thing… so I turned to Hubby… explained my whole concerned .. and asked them both if they are those freelance credit card salesman employed by the Bank? or the full time employee…. well.. they replied ‘No’… which was not a relieved to be honest…. whether they are one or the other… they definitely have more than what is needed to be known….

somehow… hubby went ahead with the application… he just received a call about further verification… and frankly… this will be our last … the more I think of it, the more I feel unsecured !!!… well.. do take precautions… Medan does has scammers… actually in all places around the world… but it’s the way they do things here that make it worst… and the law does not protect the credit card holders like how it used to be…. so watch out…

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lately… I have friends and relatives coming to me saying that I should have another child… a ‘girl’ they said… the truth is… deep down in me.. 1/2 of me would definitely love to have a girl… but 1/2 of me is my energy level… with 2 boys being old enough,  I can simply just pack and go any place anytime… the thought of a new born kind of making us unsure if we want to go through the whole early years again…

over last weekend, we have dinner with a group of friends… and I only just found out that a friend gave birth to her 5th baby girl!!! … (it was an accident she said….)… so the conversations lead to the baby issue… as we all know that people have come up with the different ways of conceiving baby boys or girls… In Medan… I have heard of people gone through the natural techniques… some are successful and some not…

The Natural Techniques… many of us would have know of this .. anyway.. just a quick reminder… Y (male) chromosomes are supposed to have a better chance at the time of ovulation or up to 1-2 days afterwards, while carriers of X (female) chromosomes are supposed to have a better chance 2-5 days after ovulation.  In addition, during ovulation, other methods involve charting body temperature (hotter for a girl, room temperature for a boy) and charting changes in cervical mucus.  Well.. I have followed this method… I gave birth to 2 boys…

The Medical techniques
some 5 years back, while I was having my regular pregnancy checkup with my second son Elson, I couldn’t resist but asked my Thai gyneacologist blankly if there is any sure way to choose a baby gender…. his replied was ‘I can guarantee you 80% with the natural technique and 100% the medical way‘…. he then continued to informed me proudly that he has been doing it for many years now and 95% of the times goes according to what the parents requested for!!!… I remember clearly … I was lying there thinking … darn.. why didn’t you tell me earlier… then it became… why didn’t I thought of consulting him in the first place.…  well, for the medical way, Sperm washing is often used, followed by IVF…..

anyway… a friend then mentioned something else … saying that since the gender of the baby depend mostly by the no. of X and Y chromosomes in the sperm… what many people have forgotten is that… we should get the hubby to do the sperm checking… i.e to test and see if he has more of the X or more of the Y… let’s say.. the test result shows that 90% of the chromosomes are X… then each time you try to conceive.. you will only have 10% chance of getting baby boy… well.. in my hubby case… it sure looks like I have to go through the Medical technique since the entire Leong family… of 10 grandchildren.. only 1 (ONE) is a girl and that my sister-in-law has gone through the natural technique and got lucky I guess..

Honestly… I have been contemplating about going through the Medical technique… in fact Hubby has since agreed… saying that he is willing to go through the whole process so as I can have someone to be by myside to do all the girly stuff with… I also did some calculations… with the travelling between Medan and Bangkok constantly… plus medical expenses… the whole process may cost at least US$ 30.000… ^0^….

this looks more like a balance family.. dont you think?…. ahhahah

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I have a rather balance appetite for food… I am open to options .. Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, French, Spanish, Mexican… all are fine for me… though my daily diet mainly involve soups, pizza, pasta and salad…

I was just looking through my bills last week…. only to notice that we have been dining at just Trattoria and Sushi Tei routinely for the past 2 months…. just as I was craving for something new… an email came informing me of The Royal Middle Eastern food promo at JW Marriott Hotel Medan..

frankly.. I have little clue to what exactly Middle Eastern cuisine is… from my times spent in UK… all I can think of are just Hummus… Kebab and Fafale… oh…  and of course the pita bread…

then came the food tasting day…. while everyone was breakfasting… I was break-dieting… the food was full of flavor, sweet.. sour.. touch of spiciness… it’s utterly yummy…!!!.. at least there’s no kecap manis used…  I had a bowl of lentil soup… and 2 plates of pure savory… okay… I can hear some of you saying… ‘Vic… come on… you are not being frank again… you are writing just as you need to report again….’

2 plates of the above plus a bowl of soup… surprisingly I was not at all bloated… mainly becoz… the dishes had little carbohydrate…. lots of veg… so it’s a real healthy choice…

well… for this one… you all have to take my words for it…  if you like vegetables and salads that involved lots of cucumber, tomatoes, bell pepper, onions, garlic, lemons then seasoned with fresh herbs and exotic spices… Middle Eastern food is definitely for you…. I tried all the dishes on the buffet spread… apart from the Moutabel which is rather bland for me… others are undoubtedly perfect…. I am not a meat person… so it definitely suit my diet perfectly…  for the full review and food photos, it’s on at MedanKu.com …

If it wasn’t my diet mission for the week… I would have easily continue with the 3rd plate… dipping the pita bread into the heavenly Hummus, Mushwieh and wrapping it around falafel… I could just go on and on and on…. as most of the dishes were either cook in its original form… i.e no prior frying.. steaming etc…  else its grilled or pan fried …. and with the drizzle of olive oil… it’s totally healthy to the body and soul….

mini falafel sandwich

the offer is on till 20 September…. well… if you have not try ‘Middle Eastern’ cuisine before… get adventurous and have a go at it … whether you like it or not … at least when someone asked you ‘what Middle Eastern Food is?’… well.. you know what and how to reply… take the opportunity to explore food of other cultures… at least it won’t break your wallet to try it out in Medan at just Rp 128.000++ pp….

feel free to leave comment after your trial… I’m curious to know if it’s just my tastebud or everyone feel the same way… ^-^

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