Traveling with baby tips

If you had been reading my previous posts, you would have known I brought my 12 month old for his first overseas trip to Penang!

We were really excited to bring him along but were a little apprehensive about having to care for him away from the comfort of home for days!

We were mainly concerned about his comfort during the plane trip as well as his meals while overseas. Thank God we thought through everything and our preparations paid off handsomely - the trip was a really enjoyable one for us and Julien.

So here are some tips I thought I can share with you parents who are bringing your little ones overseas for the first time as well.

On the plane…

Though it was a short 1h+ plane trip, we were wondering how Julien would react to the plane setting off and landing. We heard the changes in pressure could be very disturbing for a child and one solution would be to get the child to swallow his saliva.

We prepared quite alot of ‘ammunition’ for the plane trip.

First, we brought 2 milk bottles filled with 100 ml of hot water each (the amount of 100ml per bottle is due to the restriction the airlines have for the amount of liquids allowed on board the plane). I kept the water warm in a baby bottle carrier. I also brought along 2 portions of milk powder.

I intended to feed him 1 bottle of milk when the plane sets off and then with the other bottle of milk when the plane lands.

Note: Don’t worry if the water turns cold because you could request for warm water from the stewardess.

But if your child is as hungry as mine, you would know he can polish off 100 ml of milk in no time. So, I brought along snacks like…

These should be able to last throughout the period that the plane is setting off and landing.

After the first plane trip, I concluded that the Apple & Mango Rice Pudding worked the best. It was smooth, tasty and lasted the longest! These are available in packs of 4 at Cold Storage.

Julien was indeed very well-behaved and happy throughout the journey to and fro… We were so proud and happy for him!

Meals during the holiday…

Julien usually takes 4-5 meals a day. 2 servings of milk mixed with brown rice cereal, 2 servings of porridge and 1 additional serving of milk or cereal if necessary.

For this trip, we brought packets of rice cereal (I got them free from my gynae clinic), a tin of milk powder, lots of Heinz canned baby food and some packets of organic food.

These were what we brought over to Penang for his meals…

1. Portable Pigeon Sterilizer which we borrowed from our friend.

The other alternative we had was to sterilize his bottles with sterilizing tablets from Pigeon.

2. Avent Food Warmer and Avent Cups

Very useful to warm up the various bottles of Heinz canned food. We poured the canned food into the Avent cups, placed it inside the warmer before feeding Julien. Trust me, if cold food tastes yucky to you, I can bet it taste likewise for the kiddos too!

Note: We fed him the canned food in the morning while we were still at the hotel since they require more preparation. On some of the days that we were rushing to get out of the hotel, we will keep the heated food in the Avent cups and keep them in the baby bottle carrier to keep warm. We will feed him as soon as we can since the carrier can’t keep the warmth in for too long.

3. Bowl/plate for the organic foods

We found a few packets of organic foods that were really easy to prepare even while on the go. Found them at Cold Storage as well.

Just soak the entire packet into hot water for a few minutes (I brought a bowl for this and covered it with the feeding plate to keep it warm)…. And wella! It’s ready for eating.

Easy to prepare, easy to feed.

4. Hot water flask and milk powder container

Remember to bring this with you! Useful to bring hot water around for heating the food, preparing the milk etc.

I guess no need to explain for the milk powder container.

5. Feeding spoons, wet tissues, plastic bags

For each day that I went out, I brought 2 feeding spoons. 1 for preparing the milk, another for feeding baby foods. You could of course bring 1 spoon and wash it after each feed. But for me, I thought it’s more convenient to bring more than 1 spoon out just in case.

I also brought a pack of plastic bags to keep the dirty cutlery in my bag or for easy disposal of rubbish like dirty tissues.

And do bring lots of wet tissues for cleaning up after meals. It can be a messy affair to feed the baby as you know!

The list above should not be exhaustive… And it’s a list that we thought of and had worked wonderfully for us. No guarantee for your child though we hope it can help in your planning of a wonderful holiday with your family! Enjoy!

Food of Penang (Part 2) and Fruit Farm

Here’s part 2 of the food of Penang. There’s just too much to eat within the limited number of days we had there!

Our driver shared with us of a well-known local place selling dim sum. And so we skipped our Hard Rock brekkie on one of the days to try the dim sum.

This place is as big as a typical hawker centre except that most of the stalls sold dim sum. The concept here is such that you order your food at the stalls,  bring the food to your table and pay only at the end of your meal.

Ingenious! People just take and take and take the food without knowing how much they are spending…. At least this applied to us!

Just look at some of the food we’ve got after 10 minutes!

There were food other than dim sum as well…

We still had quite a number of plates untouched when we were finished and all stuffed. And when the bill came, we were SHOCKED! At how cheap it was. It worked out to be about $5+ per pax!!! Amazing…..

Honestly as a whole, the dim sum is not fantastic but it’s very decent fare for the kind of price you pay. Some of the food that I really liked there: Wanton dumplings (see the picture above), egg tarts, mango & honeydew sago.

Address: Jalan Anson, Georgetown, 10400 George Town, Penang, Malaysia

Note: It opens in the mornings

FRUIT FARM

Another one of the places of interest we visited in Penang was the Tropical Fruit Farm. It is situated on a hilly terrain and the journey there was a pleasant one. We even passed by a small waterfall area.

You need to pay RM28.00 per entry to the fruit farm. You get a tour around the farm as well as a fruits buffet at the end of the tour.

Sounds good!

Cashew nut.

Some kind of cherry.

Guess what plant is this?

When it’s fully grown, it looks like this.

There were rows of such plants!

Here’s the unripe fruit.

You would probably know by now… Dragon fruit!

Many other tropical fruits…

I must say that our tour guide speaks really good English, is pretty entertaining and shared alot of interesting facts and stories about the fruits.

The scenery here is actually quite beautiful…

The ‘fruits’ in our midst!

Note: Models’ hats were NOT from the farm. They belong to the models. Hee!

Now, the best part….

Fruits and fruit juice buffet after all the walking!

(I was eyeing only the mangoes!)

The visit coupled with the cool weather made it an overall good experience! Check out their website for more information.

Food of Penang (Part 1)

When you think of Penang, you think of famous, cheap, unhealthy, delicious hawker food. We were trying to diet before our trip to save up space for the calories, fats and cholesterol we knew we were about to gain.

Now here are some of the hawker food we tasted during our trip. Drool on!

Enca Cafe @ Batu Ferringhi

This cafe which I heard was opened by a Bangladeshi, is situated diagonally across the road from Hard Rock Hotel, Penang. We just landed and were eager to find something to eat nearby.

This cafe even had a photo album of their food.

They had chinese and western food on their menu but I thought it’s safer to order their specialty!

Garlic and onion naan! We ordered delicious spicy chicken potato curry and healthy dhal (a bean paste) to go with it. Simple but absolutely yummy!

Hubby who is not a fan of North Indian cuisine, ordered pizza. I must say, pizzas are not their forte…

The cafe was not crowded, quite clean, service was good though we had to wait for our food quite abit. North Indian food especially the curries are very good. However, I guess the location of the cafe (opposite many hotels) is one good reason for not selling their food cheap. We visited this cafe twice.

Gerai Makanan & Minuman Long Beach @ 98A, Batu Feringgi, 11100 Penang

This small hawker centre is near Golden Sands Resort Hotel, down the road from our hotel.

As this was our first hawker eat-out at Penang, we ordered with a vengeance…

Or-luak or oyster omelette.

I think SG’s is so much better. We tried this dish at a couple of places in Penang and concluded that we will never order it in Penang again.

Char Kway Teow. Average…

Black Hokkien Mee… You can’t find the same in SG. Nice!

BBQ chicken. Average.

Satay, also average.

The wanton mee in Malaysia is just different from SG’s. The noodles are more ‘Q’ and the sauce is nice in it’s own way.

Delicious pancake from the stall Pancake King.

We were told the food here is definitely not one of the best!

Well, the saving grace is that there’s a long pasar malam outside this hawker centre and we could walk our calories away here!

Ah Leng Char Koay Teow, Khoon Hiang Cafe @ Jalan Dato Keramat, 10150 Penang

It is supposed to be the 2nd best Char Kway Teow in this land according to our driver.

The uncle was cooking up a storm.

And when you come here for the Char Kway Teow, please remember to order it with chilli. It’s not very spicy and definitely more tasty than the non-chilli version.

The dish was tasty and good alright but somehow we prefer the SG version. This is because the SG version is sweeter than the saltish one available here.

And Jas was so happy to be able to get such a huge packet of ice milo for only SGD0.80!

But, Char Kway Teow + Milo = Perfect diet disaster.

Note: Do visit the stall before 2.30pm. It closes by then.

Famous Chendul – Chinatown

We passed by a road side stall at Chinatown with a long snaky queue. We were too full to stomach anything else but managed to snap some photos of this famous chendol stall.

Cheap and looks really good! Must try next time…

A food street @ Magazine Road (near Trader’s Hotel)

Our driver told us this place’s food is better than Gurney Drive’s. Serious?!

We can’t tell for sure cos we skipped Gurney Drive.

It was a really hustling and bustling street with lotsa food stalls.

The shrimp paste tasted like there’s marmite?…

I love the beef noodles. Not too heavy..

Loh bak…Very similar to SG’s version of wuxiang.

Char Kway Teow that turned out to be carrot cake??

Penang Laksa.. Not my kind of food so I didn’t try this.

My hubby loves loves loves their prawn noodles.

Don’t think you can go wrong with wanton mee here in Penang.

My SIL thinks this BBQ stingray is way too fishy… Well, no more space in my stomach for this by then!

All in all, the food here came very shortly after we ordered them and it was indeed our best hawker experience in Penang!

Note: We heard that the tangyuan here is famous. Do try it!

Will share more goodie foodie in Part 2!