Milestones

Jeremiah reached one of the major milestones a week after his 1st birthday - walking. Days just before his birthday, he was still reaching out for chairs and tables for support while on two feet. Shortly after, he took two, three steps on his own. I think he was thrilled and the cheers for everyone gave him great support. So we pushed him further by enticing him to walk a few more steps with toys and food. And there was no stopping.

Before we knew it, he was cruising around the house effortlessly, delighted at his newly acquired skill which enabled him to reach for "new" toys. We started to put more things aside again and had to be more cautious about things we left lying around.

One of his favourite item is the cordless phone that is often left lying around. The backlight gets triggered when he starts punching the keypad and if pressed correctly, the speaker would be on and the "sound effect" will double his fun. I just hope he would not accidentally press "999" again, it had happened once and I was in time to end the call. That was NOT fun for me!

Adjustments

More than two weeks ago, I came back from Japan with a pain in the neck that would not even go after two weeks. It was all caused by a night sleeping on a pillow that was too soft and low. I could not quite turn my head to the right and the pain was quite intense during the first few days. I gritted my teeth throughout the rest of the trip and was so glad to come back to my own pillow once home.

I thought the pain would gradually subside after a few days but it continued to disturb and irritate me, making me tired and worn out everyday. Deciding that it was enough, I went to see a chiropractor. After the first visit, I was requested to have some x-rays taken to have a full and proper "look" at my spine. He gave me two neck adjustments then and already I started to feel less tension in my neck! It was scary at first cos he turn your head like the way the kungfu masters do in the movies when they want to kill the bad guys.

KKRRAAACCK! Ok, then another KKRRAAACCK! on the left. It sounded so loud! For a moment, I thought my neck snapped!! Luckily I was wrong.

My x-rays were taken and the chiropractor shared his findings with me. I actually have 5 areas in my spine where the vertebrate is out of alignment, subluxation and spinal degeneration has occurred. This could have been caused by bad posture, pregnancy, etc. I was in the early phase of subluxation and symptoms might now show up until months or years later. But I do certainly at times experience pain, swelling of tissue and muscle stiffness in my neck and back.

So. I am now under the initial intensive care of the chiropractor to be "twisted" back to shape three times a week.

All thanks to the pillow ...

1st Birthday

We celebrated Jeremiah's first birthday couple of days ago with a simple chocolate cake at home and just the five of us.


I think he was more fanscinated by the flickering candle on the cake more than anything else. It did not matter to him the birthday song we were singing to him or the three cheers we gave to him. The candle mattered most. Perhaps if I had let him burn his fingers, he would have thought twice, or thrice?


The happiest person in the party got to be Sofia again, because it is her favourite chocolate cake! She ate and ate so much cake, like it was the last chocolate cake on earth.


I also brought Jerry to the hairdresser to chop off his baby locks, this is him, before and after. Doesn't he look like a smaller version of Daddy now??

Kobe II

It was our final day in Japan and we woke up in the morning wondering how did our holiday passed so fast? Of course we were all missing Jeremiah, who is at home with Ana, 公公 and 婆婆. We were sure he was missing us too, all his playmates had disappeared for so long!

This morning we brought Sofia to the Kobe zoo, the last trip to the zoo in Singapore was ages ago so we thought it would be very interesting for her since she loved animals. We saw plenty of animals, eg. panda (who were sleeping cos it was so hot), koalas (also sleeping), giraffes, elephants, penguins, monkeys, etc..


By then, it was close to noon and the scorching heat was unbearable for us. We took a break and had one of those cute panda 包, it was pretty delicious!


After watching a couple more animals, we decided to head downtown for lunch because it was really too hot.


After our lunch and nap, we decided to hop on the free city bus tour to a place called Mosaic Kobe Harbourland at the seaside.


The place is a modern shopping and dining area, developed on the edge of the Kobe Bay. There are restaurants, bars, a movie theatre, a shopping market, an amusement arcade and a little amusement park.


The place is very lively and there are all sorts of activities going on in the open field.


We decided to stay on for dinner and enjoy the beautiful night view at the bay.

Going to miss Japan very much as we head back to Taipei tomorrow, before flying back to KL the day after.

Kobe

We spent the next morning doing some laundry and doing some last minute shopping at Hiroshima. After lunch, we made our way to the next destination - Kobe!

It was close to evening by the time we were done with checking in and settling down. There was this beautiful park at the back of our hotel so we decided to explore the hilll before heading downtown for dinner.

It was very windy and cold, Sofia was pretty exhausted by the time we reach middle of the hill.


So we took the ropeway again to enjoy the city view.


Of course, the highlight of the day was to have Kobe beef for dinner!! That is exactly what Kobe is famous for right?
We chose this little restaurant where you can order any type of Kobe beef and grill it at the table yourself. The beef tasted REALLY good. We were told that there are actually quite a few conditions to "qualify" Kobe beef, for example:

-Tajima cattle born in Hyōgo Prefecture
- Farm feeding in Hyōgo Prefecture
- Bullock or castrated cow, to purify the beef
- Processed at slaughterhouses in Kobe, Nishinomiya, Sanda, Kakogawa and Himeji in Hyōgo Prefecture.
- Marbling ratio, called BMS, of level 6 and above.
- Meat Quality Score of 4 or 5
- Gross weight of beef from one animal is 470 kg or less.

On top of that, the cattles are fed one beer per day, massaged with sake daily, brushed to set their fur, and fed on grain fodder. I am not sure if the above is true unless I visit the farm itself and witness all these "extra" treatments but if this is truly happening, then it does have an impact on the beef because it was REALLY GOOD! In the end, the three of us went back to the hotel with a bulging waistline!