Emila Yusof

Taking time off up the tower

November 30, 2009 FT of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

My body was aching and my knees hurt from the long sedentary position while working on illustrations for my book. The TV was on, the cartoons were screaming dingbodingboding, mishka mushka and other cartoony words, my son was talking non-stop and was expecting me to attend to him and answer all his questions. While figuring out answers to his questions, I remembered that I haven’t done my laundry. And then I remembered that I have typesetting amendments to make,  drawings to illustrate, illustrations to draw (however you put it), yada yada yada, the list went on. My stress hormones suddenly went imbalance and before I snap, I quickly took a deep breath and said to my son, ” ok, let’s go somewhere.” This is a way for me to combat the stressful work or environment. I’m not saying that home environment is stressful but I’m working from home, home is my office, so yes, sometimes it is stressful.

Even if we cannot afford to go for a good vacation, a trip to local attractions is good enough. My son had been wanting to go to KL Tower since last month and the last time we went, he was 3. He said he could not remember what was it like to be on ‘top of the world’ and in need to refresh his memory. So yesterday, up the KL Tower we went.

It was just the two of us; my husband had to go to work.

After purchasing tickets of RM66 for both of us (including pony rides, animal zone and F1 simulator), we went up the tower; straight to the observation deck.

I screamed from the top of my lung, “KL, we’re up here!!”

Well, not literally; just softly in my heart.

I snapped pictures of buildings and was like ‘whoa, this building is pretty, wah that one is awesome, ooooh what an antique building‘ and so on. From the look of Yassin’s hey-this-is-supposed-to-be-my-trip face, I know he was getting bored so I told him he could buy something before we went down.

“I want that Emperor penguin“, he pointed.

Yassin is a big fan of animals and you could see his drawings of animals that I put up in his blog.

So, off we went to the Animal Zone. Yassin was expecting Indian Rhino or Siberian Tiger…

…told him that the Animal Zone is not like Zoo Negara where big animals are kept but overall he was happy to see cute animals like marmoset, fox and albino baboon. There were snakes but I dare not take their pictures!

Later, we went for a pony ride and F1 Simulator. He was not allowed on the latter as he was 4 inches short!! But we got to take pictures anyway.

We felt renewed after the visit. I did my laundry, cleaned the house and cooked. Yassin continued with his daily routine, playing Marine Park games as well as filling his drawing pads with animal drawings. I continued with my illustrations.

And also back to figuring out answers to my son’s endless questions. But that is okay as I have 2 things off my list for the week.

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