Photos of the week - poses and facial expressions

Before I leave for Brisbane this weekend, thought of sharing some of my toddler's poses and facial expression photos....

Greedy for some cold and creamy indulgence!

This is how he will look like sporting a Santa Beard.

Doing some yoga in his sleep...

Drooling on his sleeves


Sleeping beauty??

"Beauty mate?"... as what the Aussies would say in their broad Ozzie accent...;)

Perumnas Market

Perumnas market is the wet market that we often shop at for our daily vegetables. Perumnas is short for PERUMAHAN NASIONAL, which meant national housing area (build by the government). It is one of the cheaper wet markets in Palembang. Vegetables from this market cost up to 20% less compared to the wet markets in town.

Since we gave up on having a live-in maid 6 months ago, I have been doing all the grocery shopping in this wet market. Normally every Monday I will bring my toddler son to this market to shop for the following items for the week:

1. Tempeh (soya bean cake - I like it when it is sliced thinly and deep fried).


2. Onions, ginger and garlic


3. Vegetables - Katu, Kangkung, Kobis


4. Kacang panjang (long beans)


5. Tofu


6. Bananas - for breakfast with oats

We seldom buy meat to eat but get our proteins from tempeh and beans. We also have some okra (ladies fingers) plants that supply us with once a week of vegetables as well.

In the market, they also sell fishes for decorations, just like this shop below. My son loves to stand around those tubs to watch the fishes swim back and forth. Sometimes the sellers will have a bunch of worms thrown into the tub for the fishes to feast on.

One day we came across this box that had moving creatures inside.... they are crickets! These crickets were meant to be food for the bigger fishes. They were all in the box eating away fallen leaves but surprising enough they did not try to escape from the container?

Hazy Week

Last week, the haze situation was terrible in Palembang. It was the worst since I last experienced so much pollution here in Palembang when I first arrived in Oct 2006. We have been turning on our air-conditioning for the whole day and yet the smell and some fine particles still came through.

The roads leading to my work place are hardly visible from 3km away. Normally we could see the urea factory's cooling towers from this distance but not throughout last week....

Here are is a photo showing the haze particles that landed on our ceramic floor outside the house. I don't think exposing ourselves long term to this polluted situation will be good for our health, especially when it is an annual event! For the past few years, my wife and son would travel to Australia before the "haze season" starts. However, this year because we wanted to travel together, we decided to "stick through" the haze period.... did not seem to be a correct decision!

Luckily for the past few days it rained and cleared up the haze. We are all set to leave for a 2 week break in Brisbane on Sunday. Hopefully the haze won't be back when we come back as the rainy season is supposed to start anytime now.

Toddler Hair

Since my son was born, my wife has always opposed to cut his hair. She said she likes his hair long. I always tell her that if we were staying in a colder country it would be ok but Palembang is very very near the equator!

Anyway, for the past few weeks the weather has been a bit hot and yet my son's hair has reached his eye brows already. Hence, my wife decided to tie my son's hair up like this!

My little toddler does not seem to mind what his mom is doing to him (maybe when he grows up he will!). Therefore, every evening I will see him sporting this SAMURAI hairstyle.

He said to me, "I like to look like a whale shooting water from the top of my head!"

Train Drawings

My toddler son has had this "train infetuation" since he was 2. He has never been bored with his Thomas and Friends toys and loves reading about T&F stories. He also watches T&F DVDs for an hour everyday. The following are some of his "master pieces" from this 3 year old:

He uses like 10 pieces of A4 paper everyday to practice on his drawings. Fortunately I get to bring back lots of recycle paper from work. It is still too early to call him an ARTIST but at least he is developing his artistic skills (must be a trait from his old man, ha ha!).