Food, Oh Glorious Ipoh Food

Being an Ipohite, I can say that Ipoh has one of the tastiest hawkers' food on mother earth, next to Penang. One of my favorite hawker's food is the kai see har hor fun (flat rice noodles with shredded chicken and sliced prawns) sold at the famous Tien Chun coffee shop (House of Mirrors) @ Ipoh Old Town. The soup/broth which has a tinge of orangy color is really tasty and sweet... by far the best I've ever tasted.

And did you know that Ipoh produces the finest and smoothest hor fun on earth? Ipoh also produces the freshest, sweetest and crunchiest ngar choi (bean sprouts) and the smoothest tofu and tau foo far. They say it's because of the water that flows from the limestones surrounding this beautiful city.

And people also say that Ipoh produces very pretty girls... Ipoh mali one sure very pretty and fair wan wor. Well Dato' Michelle Yeoh is from Ipoh and a few other Hong Kong TVB actresses are also from Ipoh. But I don't think this statement is all that true.

The famous Ipoh kai see har hor fun with the rich, sweet, aromatic broth made of prawn shells, prawn heads and chicken bones. I for one who dislikes hor fun has an exception for this and the other day, I had just polished off this bowl of noodles all by myself. I also chomped down some very tasty and fattening kuihs that hubby bought. Oh gosh, I hope I don't need to pop on some Apidexin when I return to KL. I have been feasting on the best hawkers' food on earth both from Penang and Ipoh for almost a month and have not had a proper work-out for almost a month too. I really have to start increasing the intensity and duration of my jogging sessions from tomorrow onwards.


2 days before Baby C's first surgery, we were back in Ipoh. My dad treated me to a sumptuous dinner at Han City Chinese Restaurant @ Ipoh Garden East (where my parents stay). It was my belated birthday dinner treat. Here are some of the delectable dishes that my dad ordered :


This 4 Seasons (Sei Yuet Fun) dish is my all-time favorite Chinese restaurant dish. This dish alone cost RM200+ and was enough to fill our tummies up... so much that my dad had to cancel the pork rib dish at the eleventh hour.





Steamed fish with soy sauce.

Braised mushrooms, tau kan, garlic, brocolli and fresh scallops.

Whenever we are back in Ipoh, hubby would surely patronize his favorite curry mee stall located opposite the police station in town and the hakka noodles in town. The hakka noodles and meat balls sold at the corner coffee shop in Ipoh Garden East are also super yummy. Perhaps I should ask my dad to buy me some tomorrow so that I can snap some pix and blog about them.... and tempt you peeps haha!

Important Telephone Numbers... Just In Case

Before I left for Penang, I wrote down a list of important telephone numbers for Alycia and Sherilyn... just in case of emergency.... as my mil will be single-handedly looking after them. I wrote down daddy's, granny's, 999 and my numbers on stick-on pads and stuck them on the fridge door and next to the telephone. Thank God, Alycia didn't have to call the emergency number but she called us several times a day to keep telling us how much she missed us!

I also wrote down on a piece of paper and stuck it on the fridge door, for my mil to remind her on what she has to coach Alycia to do everyday, i.e. spelling, ejaan and ting xie and on other important matters.

After a month, Alycia can now memorize all the telephone numbers and even told granny that she has to dial 999 in case of emergency.



The past 1 month has been extremely hard for me, my mil and my gals but we managed to survive.

Hospital Food

In the hospital that we stayed in, food is charged separately from the room charges. A single room costs RM330 per night and food is RM55 per day. It consists of:

Breakfast - I always chose omelette, 2 slice of white bread, butter, strawberry jam and Milo.

Mid-morning breakfast consisting of homemade soy bean milk.

Lunch - choice of Western, Chinese or Malay.

Afternoon snack - wholemeal muffin, sandwiches, egg tart, buns or cake with a cup of barley or Milo.

Dinner - choice of Western, Chinese or Malay.

Supper - A cup of Milo.

I normally shared my meals with my maid as the portion was quite big. My maid got to drink all the Milo.

These are some of the dishes that I ate during my 3-week stay in the hospital :



Western set - roast chicken with cauliflower, brocolli and mashed potatoes, blended spinach soup (quite tasty but I couldn't bring myself to finish the bowl of soup coz it really looked like baby C's green bile vomit!), 2 slices of bread with butter and papaya for dessert.


Chinese set - stir-fried turmeric chicken slices with rice and veggie, ABC soup and cut apples for dessert.


Western set again - a huge slice of pan-fried ikan tenggiri, potato salad and baked beans with veggie (funny combo eh?). In fact, many of the dishes were cooked in wierd combination.


Though the food tasted kinda bland (well, they are all cooked for sick people, can't expect MSG and salty food right?), I would say they were all of good quality and tasty enough for me and my maid to polish everything off, most of the time.

GPS System

When we drove to Penang for the first time a month ago, we could not find our way to the hotel and hospital. My dad and hubby had to stop the car to ask passers-by for directions. Finally, after wasting an hour driving our car round and round the town, we found our way to the hotel. I told hubby that he should really hunt around for some gps systems for his car. It would be of great help to people who are direction-challenged, like me!

Baby C's Reunion Meal

Baby C was finally reunited with her 2 cheh chehs last Saturday. On Saturday morning, daddy, Alycia and Sherilyn took a lift from kai yeh (the gals' godfather) from KL to Ipoh. From Ipoh, koong koong drove them to Penang. Click here to read more on Baby C's reunion with her 2 doting cheh chehs.

On Saturday night, we had dinner at Kimberly Street as koong koong wanted to eat Penang hawkers' food. In fact, we have been having hawkers' food and chap fun (Economy rice and dishes) most of the time during our almost-1-month stay in Penang. Penang food is really good. There's one chap fun stall in Macalister Road that sells very tasty and cheap dishes and hubby always went there to pack food for me during my stay in the hospital. The facade of the stall and shop look really run down and unappetizing but the dishes are really good! Right now, I'm missing the Pasembur Indian rojak. It's by far the tastiest Indian rojak I've ever eaten. Too bad I had forgotten to snap pix of this rojak during my stay in the hospital. You know, when I was staying in the hospital, I really didn't have much mood for anything, except for Baby C to get better.

Anyway, here's what we ate on Saturday night:


Loh kai (braised chicken), loh kai keok and ngap keok (braised chicken feet and goose feet), loh cheong (braised pig's intestines), char koay teow, fishballs, ching poh leong with extra gingko nuts and white almond tong sui. Ermmm, it was really an artery-clogging meal and jelly-belly-loving meal and I didn't quite like most of the dishes, except for the char koay teow.



Baby C having her dinner of fish porridge and soup, which the Sister in the hospital had specially arranged for us.

My Days Spent In Room 507 and 503

During our almost-1-month stay in the hospital, hubby had even bought a stainless steel tiffin food carrier so that he could pack hot meals for me. He also bought bowls, knife, spoons, laundry detergent, fabric softener and other household items. I really felt like the hospital was my home. Good thing the nurses, sisters and other staff were all very helpful and warm. Cost aside, I felt quite comfortable staying in that 5-star hospital that gave us a bill that really choked hubby and I.

Here's one of the meals that hubby bought for me :


Fried mamak mee (supposedly a very famous one but I didn't quite like it), roast chicken and some deep fried stuff. Hmmm, not a very healthy meal and I only ate very little of everything and passed the rest to my maid.

Pix Taken From Room 503

Whilst in the hospital after her second surgery, Baby C felt really insecured. She wanted me to be near her all the time. She didn't want just pats and strokes at night but wanted me to sleep next to her all the time. I had to climb into her cot and lay next to her until she fell asleep but when I climbed out of the cot silently, she sensed it and cried again. Finally I asked the nurse to rearrange the machines and tubes so that she could sleep on my single bed, which is really narrow. I could not sleep the entire night as I was really worried that the NG tube that was hanging precariously on her nose would slide out and worried that she would sleep on the tubes and pull off the central venous catheter that's hanging on her chest. Those nights were really terribly frustrating for me. Nothing causes more stress than not having any sleep at night and being woken up every single hour or half-hourly the whole night.



Me contorting my body to fit into the baby cot.... which resulted in me having stiff shoulders and neck and backache.




How on earth can anyone have a decent night's sleep when your baby with a bunch of tubes hanging all over her body and nose hogs the entire bed? The very little space that's left for me on the right side of the bed was all I had. I could barely turn to my sides. On one night, I even slept with my head at the foot of the bed (and legs facing Baby C), so that I could find more space. Those nights were my worst.... and I hope I will never ever have to experience them again in my lifetime.

Pix Taken From Room 503

Pix taken yesterday:



Despite having both her hands bandaged (to prevent her from pulling the tubes on her nose and on her chest), my dear sweetie-pie sat up on the bed and tried playing with her toys by scooping up the toys with the bandaged hands. She's a survivor... she'll go all out to find her way to pick her toys up.... even with both hands tied up, with a bunch of tubes hanging on her body, a cut on her neck with stitches and 2 painful cuts on her tummy.


Yea, I'm a fighter!

We Will Appeal And Fight All The Way

The hubs and I will appeal to our insurer for consideration to reimburse us Baby C’s second hospitalization expenses. We could not believe our eyes when we were given the latest interim bill by the hospital yesterday. The amount was over RM24k for the second hospital stay and we had to further top up the deposit. We will definitely go all out to fight for a reimbursement for the hospitalization bill as the condition is non-congenital and is not under the Exclusion clause. If indeed our appeal is still rejected, I think it’s high time we cancel our policy with this insurer and start looking around for fresh insurance quotes.

Pix Taken From Room 503

These pix were taken a few days before Baby C's second surgery. Baby was feeling so terribly uncomfortable with her distended tummy that I had to prop her up with a huge pillow behind her during the day. She also often puked in her sleep while in a lying position. So propping her up to a sitting position helped ease her discomfort a little.

What A Waste

For over 3 weeks, I have been expressing my milk and pouring them down the sink.... another big heartache. I feel it's such a waste. I even asked the nurses if they knew of any patients (babies and toddlers) who needed breastmilk but all the patients in the pediatric ward were on formula. Each time the Sister came and saw me expressing, she commented on how wasteful it was that I had to throw my breast milk away. She suggested that I drank the milk myself and know what? I took her suggestion and drank it!!! Gross hor? I know, I know, it's really geli.... I can't bring myself to drink it fresh from my boops and I had to add some Nescafe and some cold fresh milk to force it down my throat lol! I drank my own breastmilk several times and I think I wouldn't want to do it again! Eewwwww!!


10-15 ounces of breastmilk a day .....all down the sink....

Baby C's Second Post-Surgery - 2nd Day

Baby C continues to be more alert and responsive today. Today, more and more of her usual antics resurfaced. For the first time in 3 weeks, she called 'cheh cheh' when she saw her 2 sisters' pic in my handphone. She also said 'mek mek' (milk milk) when I carried her and pleaded for my milkie. After being on the TPN drips (nutrition drips) for 1.5 days, she has regained her strength and there is also color back on her face and lips. However, her face and eyes got puffy today. When our surgeon came in about an hour ago, he said the puffiness could be due to too much of nutrition drips. So he cut down the amount of drips to be released. Also, the morphine drips have been reduced from 2ml/hour to 1ml/hour to 0.5ml/hour today. Tomorrow morning, the morphine drips will be stopped.

Baby C did not nap the whole afternoon today. She was wide awake from 2pm through 10pm. This afternoon, she kept fussing and fretting and I didn't know what was wrong with her. I thought she was in pain and discomfort. But when I switched on the TV and played her favorite VCDs, she instantly stopped whining. She has been watching VCDs from 4pm through 10pm today! BTW, after more than 9 months, she still loves her "Your Baby Can Read" VCDs and will always be very attentive whenever the VCDs are played.

Baby C's haemoglobin has dropped to 7 from 8. But our doctor is not keen on doing a blood transfusion just yet. The risks of a blood transfusion are too high. When he came in and saw Baby C about an hour ago, he told me that she doesn't need a blood transfusion since her cheeks look pinkish and her lips are red again. I just hope her haemoglobin will now only go up and that very soon, she can take iron supplements without having to do a blood transfusion.

I am still very worried that Baby C hasn't passed out wind or poo pooed. But our surgeon is very positive that she will do so soon, after listening to her tummy with a stethescope this evening. I am praying very hard that Baby C will fart and poo poo lots coz if she doesn't, we will have to go through one whole lot of agonizing tests again.

Sorry, no pix today.... too tired to download them into my laptop from my camera. I am really burnt out and severely sleep deprieved. I better sleep now that my baby is sleeping.

Not A Single Cent Claimable From Our Insurer

I am really disappointed with the insurance company which we have purchased our medical insurance for Baby C. The company has rejected our claim for Baby C’s second surgery. This is the second time the insurance company has rejected our claims. Nevertheless, I will try to appeal to the insurance company for a consideration but I doubt they will approve my appeal. As of today, Baby C’s hospitalization bill is already close to forty thousand ringgit and we have to settle the entire amount through our nose! My dad has asked me to switch insurance company and insurance agent. When Baby C is discharged from the hospital and everything is settled, I may scout around for a good insurance agent and seek term life insurance advice and medical insurance.

Law Of Attraction

Chin Nee kept telling me to use the Law Of Attraction to help Baby C get better. This morning during breakfast, I tempted Baby C with my food. First, I used slices of oranges to tempt her. She was excited and moved her head forward to lick the orange. When I took the orange away, she cried. I then tempted her with my omelette and she too licked it enthusiastically. Next, I tempted her with my slice of multigrain bread with peanut butter and kaya and she too licked it fervently! I told her to quickly fart so that I can start feeding her "mek mek" and she can go home to see her 2 cheh chehs soon.







When daddy went back to KL a few days ago, he had recorded videos of Alycia and Sherilyn. Alycia kept singing songs to baby, especially Alycia's special song for baby. This morning, daddy showed baby the videos on his handphone and she looked at them intently. I kept encouraging her to fart so that she can go home soon.


Check out my other blog to read about Baby C's second surgery yesterday.

Nasogastric Tube Again

I am enraged, really boiling mad... with my maid this morning. Baby C went through a very harrowing time late last night when the nurse inserted the nasogastric (NG) tube into her nostril. Baby C was fussing, tossing and turning and crying round the clock last night because of the NG tube. She felt really uncomfortable with the tube hanging from her nose. The NG tube also made her choke, cough and retch the whole night. Can you imagine a tube that passes through your nostrils, throat and directly into your guts? It must be darn irritating and painful. I didn't get to sleep at all, not even an hour.

This morning, my maid put the collection bag (that's attached to the NG tube) behind the baby cot without first asking me. She was meddling with the bag and the tubes. I told her to put it back at the side of the cot so that the dr. and nurses can easily see the bag. She listened to me but later put it back behind the baby cot. Minutes later, Baby C cried, struggled and tried to pull off the NG tube. My maid quickly carried her up and because the collection bag is behind the cot, the tube wasn't long enough and it slid off baby's nostril! I was horrified because this would mean that my poor baby has to go through another round of extremely traumatizing and painful procedure of having the NG tube put back. I can never forget the shock, pain and fear on my baby's face when the nurse put the NG tube into her nostrils. She cried and screamed till she puked.... green bile stuff and some blood (must be from her nose or throat that was being scratched by the NG tube). My poor baby, it was really heart-wrenching to see what she had gone through.

In my anger, I kept scolding my maid. Because of her disobeying me, my poor baby now has to suffer another round of traumatic procedure. On one hand, I knew she was trying to be helpful but on the other hand, she likes to do things without first asking us and things that need not be done, she would do them.... and enrage us. I have asked the Sister to check with the doctor if it's ok not to put the NG tube back coz the tube is causing baby more distress than comfort.

.... to be continued.

Please Don't You Puke Anymore Baby

Our surgeon told us that if Baby C continues to puke today, he will have to insert an IV line on her body, i.e. on the part near her collar bone... to pump in nutrients into her body. This procedure has to be carried out with Baby C being sedated and I think it would hurt like hell having a needle poked on that part of the body. My poor baby has not eaten or drank anything for 3 frigging long days. What crushes my heart to pieces is to see her body shrink by the day and her weight has plummeted from 8.2kg (pre surgery) to a starking 7.8kg now. I am heart-broken, really heart-broken :(

In the event Baby C turns the corner and bounces back with no more vomiting, our surgeon will allow her to drink some breast milk tomorrow. I am really really praying and hoping for that to come true. Please pray for her complete recovery with no more vomiting, friends.

Pix Taken From Our Hospital Room

Here are some pix of our hospital stay taken last week:


Still with all the tubes hanging from her tummy and belly button but feeling good enough to sit up and play with her toys.


I got a real pleasant surprise when I received this hamper from this mummy... all the way from KL. Thanks Rachel!

Deprieved Of Milk Milk

What crushes my heart a lot now is having to deprieve my sweetie-pie of her milk milk and her comfort and security. By order of the surgeon, she is to be nil by mouth to rest her lazy guts or Ileus. Her cries, bawling and pleas begging for "mek mek" (milk milk) can really drive me bonkers. Last night, she wouldn't want to sleep. She was screaming away and crying for "mek mek". I got so desperate that I expressed my milk out, then let her suckle on an empty boop to sleep! Pulling her off my boop was also challenging. My maid and hubby had to lull and pat her to sleep. Today, my poor baby is too weak to cry for "mek mek" and has been sleeping almost the whole day. Poor poor baby... I hope she doesn't need a surgery to fix her guts.

Dear Lord, please heal Cassandra's guts and spare her from another surgery. Amen!


Baby C desperately pleading for "mek mek" and 'finding' her "mek mek".

Baby C Re-admitted Into Hospital And Alycia Misses Us Like Crazy

Our joy from being discharged from the hospital 2 days ago had been shortlived. Baby C has been re-admitted to Gleneagles Hospital in Penang yesterday. You can check my other blog to read why she has been re-admitted.

Meanwhile, Alycia is missing daddy and mummy very very much, so much that she has been calling us several times a day. The things that she has been saying to me have been so meaningful and matured, so touching that I really felt like crying and giving her a big big hug.

This was our telephone conversation yesterday evening, which really moved me:

Alycia : Mummy, I wish I was a supergirl so that I can zoom to Penang to be with you. I wish you can be a good mummy and stay in KL with me the whole year and don't go away. I wish there was a big aeroplane to bring me to Penang now. I wish I can jump inside the handphone now and be in the hospital with you. I thought you were in Ipoh yesterday and will come back to KL tomorrow? I wish you can come back so that I can give you a big big hug.

Me : Mummy will come back soon ok?

Alycia : What very soon? Everyday say very fast but never come back.....

MIL : Kay Lynn.... quickly hang up...(in Mandarin)

Alycia : Mummy, bye bye.... (very sad tone and on the verge of crying).....

Haih.... I wonder when I can be back in KL to see Alycia and Sherilyn. I have been away from them for more than 2 weeks and miss them very much. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, doesn't it?

Exorbitant Room Rates

The room rate for a single room at the private hospital which we are currently staying in is exorbitant. The rate for a single room per night is almost the same as the rate for a room in one of those Las Vegas hotels. Food and nursing care charges are not even included in the room charges. That’s how our bill amounted to over twenty four thousand Ringgit when we were discharged several days ago. I must remind the hubs to request for a discount from the hospital when Baby C is discharged from the hospital for the second time next week.