Leonardo Da Vinci in Kuala Lumpur

The National Science Center in KL is hosting the world acclaimed 'Da Vinci - the genius' exhibition.

We went there this past weekend. It is a must-go to all those who wish to know more about Da Vinci, his life, his inventions, paintings etc.

The exhibits have been brought all the way from Italy from the Il Genio de Leonardo da Vinci Museo. The exhibits help to bring to life the genius that was Leonardo da Vinci - an inventor, artist, scientist, anatomist, engineer & architect.

There are numerous exhibits (life scale) that we can actually admire and handle, right from simple mechanical stuff to the 'vertical flying machine'. The exhibits are a treat for sure.

The highlight is of course the 'Mona Lisa'. One entire hall is dedicated to this mysterious lady. There is loads of information about the painting, facts, trivia. There are many photographs that are part of a assignment by the famous photographer Pascal Cotte; these photographs help us to uncover many unknown facts about the Mona Lisa. One gets to see what the original painting looked like.

There is also a small TV hall, which plays a documentary about the life of the genius, I think it's a BBC documentary. Very informative and worth sitting through.

We enjoyed the exhibition immensely, Aadu held on for quite a long time, but soon lost it when we were watching the documentary, he went off to sleep. He had a great time handling the exhibits, working models etc.

Overall a great way to spend an afternoon.

Details:

Venue: National Science Centre, Bukit Kiara.

Time: 9 am - 6 pm.

Infoline: 03-20921150 / 03-74933010

Tickets: Children upto 7 years - FREE !!

Children 7-17 - RM 20

Adult - RM 25

Senior Citizen - RM 13 (free admission with pension card)

Family(2 adults & 2 Children) - RM 70

(Waiver of ticket fee for 1 person if you carry any one of the following:

Astro Bill

TM Bill

Malaysia Airlines - Enrich Card member)

Fire-flies at Kuala Selangor, Kampung Kuantan

Our quest for something new and different around Kuala Lumpur, led us to Kuala Selangor, which has the largest fire fly colonies in the world.

The drive there was good, the route was full of plantations, and we drove through some small pretty towns, and thus got to see the real Malaysia. It was indeed very refreshing to see normal people do things other than mall hopping and shopping. We saw children run along their gardens, big boys enjoy a game of football, kids on bicycles, and people driving around slowly, talking & waving to friends go by.

We left KL around 4 PM, and we took around 1.5 hours to reach Kampung Kuantan. I had read on the net that there are about 4-5 places from where you can take boat trips down the river to see the fireflies; we chose to go to the Fire Fly Park Resort.

Once there we freshened up & smothered ourselves with insect repellents. All of us wore full sleeved clothes. We then bought the tickets & went in.

The Sun was just setting as we went in near the boat station, so we had to wait for around 20 minutes before the guys announced the first number. There were life jackets for all to wear.

The most un-cool part of this place was that while we were waiting for darkness to engulf us, the boat guys were watching a documentary on 'Snakes' !! I was totally grossed out, and much too scared...coz we were going to enter water in the dark !!

Anyways, the number was announced & we threw the life jackets on and each one checked the other's straps, we headed to the boat, sat down, and the sound-free boat started down the river. Sound free coz they were electric boats, and it served the purpose of maintaining silence. We also spoke in whispers...Aadu had some questions, and I am super impressed with him for keeping his voice down for the entire boat ride.

The sight that was waiting for us was simply superb !! It was as though we were looking at trees decorated with tiny twinkling lights, thousands and thousands of blink-blink lights. It was very soothing, as nature was at her best, and these marvelous creatures were giving us so much joy.

They really looked like the largest colony of fire flies...we rode downstream for about 12 minutes, and then turned upstream and went on for another 15 minutes.

Each and every moment of the boat ride was lovely, and we loved it. This time also was strange as we were in complete silence, and after living in a bustling city one tends to forget what total silence is.

No photography was allowed during the boat ride, so we have no pictures of the best part of the trip. The graphics are engraved on our minds though.

I would recommend this trip to everyone. Except maybe people with real tiny babies. One has to remember to wear full clothes, cover yourself well, use insect repellents.

My son wants to be a Doctor

Yes !!! Yes !! Yes !!

That's what he said to me last night !!

And it is the first time that he said anything like that to me I mean about what he will be when he grows up, profession wise etc.

Well the background is like this:

We were watching Patch Adams, the autobiographical film about Dr. Hunter (Patch) Adams.

In this movie, Patch is a person who has a great passion for life, and for connecting with other humans, add to this the fact that he wants to help as many people as possible; so he decides to enroll in Medical School.

While at the school, he brings joy and laughter to all around him, by sometimes being a clown, on another occasion by filling his room with balloons and inviting a friend in for a surprise birthday party !!

All these incidents in the film made Aadu jump up in laughter and that is when he said 'Mumma I want to be a Doctor'.

And Mumma being the emotional mom that she is, hugged the child, and plastered some kisses on his cute face, and said 'Yes my baby, you can be a Doctor, and I know you will be a good one, and will help everyone'.

But seriously, after his surgery, I really felt the need of a Doctor in the family, leaving the parents aside, all of us my brother, myself, my husband, my bro-in-law, all of us a Engineering graduates. My mom did want my brother to be a doctor, but he was adamant on being an Engineer; also it is worth noting that I drew all the frogs, Earthworms, etc in his Biology journals, so by no way he would have gone to a life-science field !!

If Aadu chooses to be a Doctor, believe me I will be very happy. But then again...we have decided not to put our wishes and dreams onto him, he will have the complete freedom to choose his profession. Actually we'd rather see him as an Artist/Musician/Painter etc. ..... than see him slogging off in hard core science faculties ...

I think from now on I will try to show him the real life examples of professions. Now that he has seen a film about a Doctor, maybe some more about different fields of work....All suggestions are welcome !!

Indian Army - Lakshya

Fireman - Ladder 49

Artist/Painter -

Musician -

Singer -

etc

etc

etc

The book sale...where I went mad

The Big Bad wolf Book sale was on, and I had the calendars marked, actually 3 of them marked so that I don't miss the sale under any circumstances.

The first day was last Thursday, and I wanted to go in early in the morning, but since it was a school day, I decided to go in at 4 PM after the kid was well fed and had dozed off for a couple of hours.

I had told another mommy blogger about the sale, and we had made a pinky-promise to exchange notes depending on who went first. Well she went first and I had my first review and reaction wherein she told me that it's amazing and the prices are to die for, and the collection of books was superb. Now these are the only things that a book lover like me needs. She also warned me about the crowd and asked me to be careful with Aadi around. OK points noted, and I got about packing my bags, one with food and drinks for the Son, the others were huge IKEA bags to carry the books and yes a grocery trolley to dump books as I life them off the shelves.

All preparations done, I was awaiting the clock to strike 3:30 when the husband had volunteered to come & pick us up. I love you for this dear Hubby !!

As we approached the place (Amcorp Mall), I saw people with bag full of books, and I felt that I should have come in the morning to pick up all the hot stuff. But never mind lah .... I was sure to find good ones still waiting for me. I firmly believe in the adage 'daane daane per hota hai khaanewale ka naam' just tweek it a bit and it reads 'kitaab kitaab per hota hai padhnewale ka naam' (wow i'm good at this).

All said & done I was after all going with a well researched & thought-out strategy. I was going to attack the large books, your typical coffee table type books, about flowers, grasses, animals etc. These are usually priced very high & it's a great buy if you can get them at a bargain price. I'm talking fresh books people, not second hand ones.

We entered the place, there was no line to get inside as opposed to the morning rush where people had waited in line for upto 30 minutes just to enter !!

We went on picking books, the coffee table types, the cook books, the parenting ones, some management ones, some biographies, and yes books for the young reader at home.

We walked out with 40 books that cost us 340 RM, and I can give it in writing that we got a great deal.

After this round, I deposited the son with the Dad who took him to his workplace nearby....this was strategy # 2. So that I had some my-time at a place that I like. Again I went in and came out with 9 books, this time, some light non-fiction, and more management books.

I was/am so overjoyed to see all those books in my house. I have yet to find shelf space for all, but they are my reading material for as long as they last......

I get my love of reading from both my parents, and I am happy to see my boy turning into one too.

I finished reading the first book- Many lives Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss; finished it in 2 days and then started with a light non-fiction called 'Waiter Rants'.

Will keep an reading update on this blog.

So any of you who went to the book sale...do share your story and what all you bought.

I will put up the list in the next post.

Adios....the waiter waits to be read

of najar...evil eye....etc..etc

oh my days have been plagued by some bad 'najar' ...so who ever it is please quit .... it's caused enough turmoil and trouble to me....now ur happy???

OK

now please quit.

I am from hence forth going to mark my posts with a 'kala-teeka' (black dot) to ward off any evil eyes that any of you are casting my way....It is not one of my readers I am sure of that......but I just want to be safe (than sorry like I have been for a long time since Diwali)

There was my back muscle pull during Diwali, that was followed by a long fight with cough, and the green mucous that I was throwing up with every cough........Goshhhhhhhhhhh....I'm so glad all that is over....

Funny thing is that the medicine that was given to me to relax my back muscles, kept me awake all night....and needless to say the following day was like the day when I was at the height at my nastiest self, much like a lady with a bad case of PMS !!

Then the antibiotics for the cough left me more time in the loo than on the bed......once the capsules were over I was so relieved I wanted to party !!

And actually the cough went off after the meds were totally stopped...no throat soothing liquids, no cough concoctions, no tablets....that was my way of healing.

Oh yes that was not the end of the evil-eye effect....there is more....

My phone....my darling phone....my nokia 6210 ....my red phone....the phone that was given to me by my brother as a rakhi gift....

it broke down :(

It all happened in 5 minutes....we were heading to Gardens Mall, and in a hurry I put Aadu's water bottle (the leaky filthy piece of plastic) into my purse along with my precious phone...and until we reached the destination my phone had stopped showing any activity on it's screen. Thankfully there is a Nokia store in Gardens, and we went there only to be told that we must rush the phone to the service center ASAP !!

Did all the running around, but to this day my dear phone is not working :(

OK enough of my rants and negativity.....

Hey just one more.....Oprah is saying bye to her talk show...

This piece of news had me lost for words and in a daze; I looked up the news channels, I dived into the world wide web to confirm....re-confirm.....re-re-re-confirm

And boy it's true.....What will I do now? What about my dream to go on the show?

Ok that's about all that I have to cry about.

My brother is here, so I have lots of cheer around.

Oh and BTW: Buri nazar wale tera mooh kala !!!

Now I just had to say that !!