 Hello 2024! This is our first blog post since our November 2023 post because of work submissions, plenty of storms, really short days and the Christmas season. Life just happens and that's how we ended up not hanging out for two years with the children's favourite aunt. The pandemic may be something we are eager to forget but so many of the social distancing rules literally tore families apart. Right after the restrictions were lifted, we travelled for 7 whole months and almost immediately moved to the UK. We were overjoyed that she wanted to visit and hang out with a weird bunch for 10 days haha! As we share our story of reconnection and recharging, this 10 day itinerary could work for you too if you'd want to visit the UK with your family. It's a slow, mindful and relaxing trip around England and Wales.   We met in the grandest of settings in Hintze Hall of the Natural History Museum in London. I thought finding each other under the blue whale skeleton named "hope" was really apt for our reunion. We spent a couple of hours exploring the rooms filled with dinosaur skeletons and animal taxidermy. I don't think the children gave their aunt's ears any break with their constant chatter. It was kind of a foreshadowing of the next 10 days. Haha! After a mandatory shop at the museum gift shop, we took a relaxing stroll to Hyde Park's serpentine in the windy, cold and gloomy weather of central London. We braced a sudden drizzle and the noisy geese and made our way towards our yummy rewards.     After clocking more than 10,000 steps we were famished and so after a quick bite at Leon (a local fast-food chain with gluten-free options), we managed to find a space for 5 in the really crowded Italian Bear Chocolate - SOHO (London W1F 9QL). Call in to make a reservation because they are always full. The Italian hot chocolate looked really lush but our in-house chocolate connoisseurs thought its gravy-like texture didn't satisfy their chocoholic tastes. The cake however, did satisfy. It was gooey and fudge-like when served warm. Don't leave it out in room temperature for too long, the chocolate hardens!  After our dinner and dessert, we had our second dessert! Ice creams are great in hot weather but I think they are even better in cold weather! That's exactly what we had at Bilmonte (London W1D 7LW). They serve really really rich chocolate ice-cream (that taste a little like brownie batter) and their famous double pistachio ice-cream!  Long walks, yummy food, lots of desserts and a jet-lagged aunty with two chatter box kiddos wasn't too bad a way to start the trip! We left Sasha for the next 24 hours in London while we headed back to Leicestershire that night. London is a bustling city very much like most major cities in the world. So if you'd like a relaxing time, we highly recommend getting a hotel room at any of the Hilton, Marriott, Sofitel or Holiday Inns at Heathrow airport itself. The Elizabeth Line now connects the airport to central London (Paddington) in less than 30 mins. You get to be away from all the sirens and crowds + lower hotel prices! Suggested relaxing things to do in London: 1. Museums (Natural History, National Portrait Gallery) 2. Parks/Garden (Hyde Park, Kew Gardens) 3. Stroll along the Thames or take the River Bus to see the major landmarks (Canary Wharf to Embankment is quite a good route. You'll even get to sail under the Tower Bridge and London Bridge etc...) 4. Watch a play! 5. Desserts and Cafe hop. After some 400 miles (640km) in 48 hours on the motorways, we were now reunited in Leicestershire where we live. That meant we were all a little knackered from all the travelling. I think the worst mistake we can ever make when going on vacation is planning one that is so exhausting you'll need another vacation after that. We enjoyed a couple of really slow days where we just enjoyed each other's company. The kids bombarded their aunt with card games, board games and video games. Debra hung out in the kitchen with her sister and we enjoyed the simple meals. We've grown to appreciate just recharging with no agenda, just meals and company.  We took a stroll at our local Everards Meadows, blew bubbles and whinged about the gloomy skies. haha! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ACTIVITY WHEN TRAVELLING: Take a stroll in a large local supermarket. Our visits to Tesco (a local supermarket chain) turned out to be surprisingly therapeutic for all of us. I've not come up with an explanation for that...do you have one? Once we felt recharged and ready, we crossed the border over into our favourite place in the world: Wales. Dolgellau, Gwynedd was our mandatory stop and TH Roberts (LL40 1BD) is our compulsory lunch spot. (Gluten free options available!)      After filling our tummies, we picked Cregennan Lakes in Gwynedd and Llandudno's Marine drive as our day's agenda. We spent the time soaking in the countryside, fresh air, strong winds and amazing sunshine. It was a lot quieter when we were out in nature. I guess we can all agree, with views like that, words fail us.        The day definitely felt like it was too short. It wasn't long before we watched the sunset and revelled in some crazy dance music on our ride home. The countryside is like a balm to the soul. We always recommend visiting Wales because it is just so incredibly gorgeous. We've met the warmest, kindest and most helpful people in Wales. I think the perspective and calm of being around our natural environment helps make us better people. What better place to be when taking a break from the hustle? We spent a couple more days having early nights when we felt tired and woke up later when we wanted. The kids started their mornings with games and chats in bed with their aunt. The grownups had evenings watching our favourite shows (and some Rick Astley, haha!) while enjoying a glass of wine. We also took time to explore our shared interests in space at the National Space Centre in Leicester and ancient history at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. It was refreshing to be away from work, be with the people you care about and just enjoy each other.   We spent the last bits of the 10 days in the Cotswolds exploring the treasures within the villages. Stow-on-the-wold's candy store and other small local produce shops were really interesting. Feast your eyes on beautiful architecture and then enjoy all the amazing cheese, wines and candies you'll find in the shops! What we all really enjoyed was The Old Bakery Tea Room (GL54 1BN). They serve the most delicious gluten-free scones and meals. It must have been years since we've had scones that didn't ruin our guts. The cream and jam (or jam and cream) just made our smiles wider.        Just like how a pot of tea always finishes too quickly, the 10 days flew by. We found ourselves at Heathrow again saying our goodbyes this time but our hearts and tummies have been very very full. We'll meet again. 
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 One wrong decision and it could be painful psoriasis, eczema flair ups, debilitating headaches, loose stools, smelly farts, poor gut health, increased irritability, allergic rash and even anaphylaxis. The reality is, it isn't easy feeding a family when ALL of us have food related allergies. We suffer from gluten/wheat intolerance, lactose intolerance, oat allergy, shellfish allergy and onion allergy. It’s crazy! Being the main person in charge of everyone’s daily meals, my biggest concern for this month-long road trip was the accessibility of food that was safe for us. Having your own kitchen in your home base can be difficult enough. Travelling makes food preparation even more challenging. Don't get me wrong, we LOVE travelling. We long for life on the road where we are free. We accept that without the lows/challenges, there isn't the highs and triumphs! Understanding the challenge and preparing for it The fact is, Asian countries are far behind in legislating compulsory allergy warnings and labelling on all restaurant menus. There is also little awareness of the seriousness of food allergies. Supply of gluten-free products are scarce and expensive. A regular loaf of bread can cost just $2.50 but an equivalent loaf of gluten free bread can cost between 400% to 500% more. I made the decision to cook at least one meal a day so as to not overwhelm our systems and end up sick. My 1st hack was to bring 2 bottles of Zyrtec-R allergy solution and a half-used bottle of Lee Kum Kee Gluten-free Soya Sauce. Asian cooks can't live without soya sauce but do you know it contains GLUTEN? Second hack is to deliberately make stops at major supermarkets before checking into our accommodations to stock up on wheat free/gluten free snacks just in case we were not able to find any suitable snacks in the smaller shops (especially when up in the highlands). We found these at really good prices at Jaya Grocer in JB and Cold Storage in KL. They also carried a good selection of GF Barilla Pasta, Bob’s Red Mill products and other GF premixes for cakes and pancakes. Pre-marinated frozen meat varieties we bought were very useful for our meals too!   Breakfast Breakfast so far has been easy to sort out - eggs or corn/rice cereals with fresh milk from the supermarkets for the kids and a big batch of mochi brownies I had baked the day before our trip (lasted about a week). Vincent and I are not big on breakfast, but coffee is an absolute must. It doesn’t help that we are such picky drinkers that we had to lug along our smaller Nespresso machine and all our favourite capsules. No lactose-free milk in the places we shopped at, so it’s long blacks or americanos or BOH tea everyday for me   Lunches and Dinners On days that we don’t eat out, our meals mostly consist of rice/hash, vegetables, fruit, nuts, eggs, tofu, pork and fish. I must say that the best meals were made from the fresh veggies we bought at the Cameron Highlands Pasar Malam. A bunch of completely unassuming vegetables and fruits for all of Rm10. (So fresh that we even found a tiny earthworm at the bottom of the bag the next morning in the fridge!) You can read about our awesome time and see the mind-blowing views here.  Vincent and Matthias are now willing eaters of cucumbers and brinjals because these were so crunchy and tasty! And OH! The strawberries! It’s not exactly peak strawberry season now so the prices were slightly different at 1+1 box for Rm15 OR 2+1 for Rm25 (depending on stalls) but it didn’t really matter to us because every single strawberry in the giant box was a deep ripe red with no bruises whatsoever, complete with bright green sepals and they smelled AMAZING. We only bought a single box (Rm10) because we didn’t want any to go to waste in the event we failed to finish consuming them. I remember telling Vincent earlier today that I’d totally be making strawberry bakes and frosting all the time if we lived here because 1. price, 2. the consistency of colour and taste of every strawberry.  Fresh produce aside, I had other things to adapt to, like cooking in someone else’s kitchen. Up to this point, we’d lived in 3 Airbnb apartments. House #1 The JB apartment that we started our trip with is not worth talking about. It looked the best and most promising prior to arrival, but the kitchen was absolutely unusable and grotesque. Let me just simply put it as the house had a mould problem. We left after a single night. House #2 in Bentong, Genting Highlands surprised us with clean surfaces, sheets and upholstery. It actually smelled clean. The kitchen was equipped with an electrolux oven (which we didn’t use). It came with mugs, plates (no bowls), the usual cutlery (but no teaspoons! We drank coffee with tablespoons haha), a small non-stick frypan (but no spatula) and a medium sized pot. My biggest pet peeve is disgusting dish sponges and while the sponge in this house didn’t come with food residue like the previous house, it had a strange odour to it. Thankfully we managed to solve it with soap and boiling water and basically revived it’s freshness. Grabfood/Foodpanda options here were extremely limited. I think at one point I remember seeing only a single restaurant on it despite having many local zhichar restaurants within a 10min walking radius. We had many simple but satisfying home-cooked meals here which the kids found comfort in. The Electrolux induction cooktop here was an absolute breeze to use. I honestly enjoyed cooking in this place until the day we ran out of pasta/noodles on the last night and I had to cook rice. First ever attempt at cooking rice in a simple pot turned out surprisingly decent (credits to YouTube of course).   House #3 in Brinchang, Cameron Highlands which had a large and new Panasonic rice cooker! You can imagine how excited I was. Rice cookers are essential items in a (mostly GF) Asian home. (We spotted 2 other families carrying their rice cookers into their cars as they checked out from their apartments too!) The kitchen here was half the size of the previous one BUT it came with bowls and teaspoons and a microwave oven! The single ceramic cooktop here was not as great as the induction top, because temperature control was relatively inefficient. Add to that, a stone wokpan that wasn’t nonstick in the middle and we got quite a bit of charred bits on our dishes this time around. We also had to get our own spatula and dish sponges in the end because theirs was mouldy. We aren’t big on diy steamboat meals, or steaming dishes but this kitchen was well-equipped with steamers and steamboat pots. Apparently people in Cameron love a good steamboat meal which explains why you can find restaurants offering them at almost every corner! FoodPanda/Grabfood app offerings are pretty decent here. You’ve got the usual Starbucks, CoffeeBean, Maccas, Marybrown, Dominoes, PizzaHut and some other local restaurants. Delivery fees and food prices are reasonable too. We haven’t had the need to use any food delivery service since the start of the trip but I thought I’d check and have backup plans for meals. Some advice for anyone booking entire apartments on vacation with intent to cook meals:
Mummy needs a holiday too right? Some days we just decide to take small risks and eat out. Some particular cuisines are safer. E.g. Eating Sushis, rice bowls and Korean dishes is relatively safe because they are mainly rice based. But I still had a spell of bad headache from this meal because the soup had onions in them. Sometimes we just indulge and pay the price later on. It's a holiday and we all just want to enjoy really tasty food! Bak kut teh and Hor fun turned out alright with no immediate reactions.       We take risks and try to mitigate them. E.g. Chocolate ice cream doesn't hurt the kids but the gluten from the cone does. So we let them lick/eat the ice cream and not give them the cone. The kids ENJOYED their fish and chips and then had eczema flair ups and became really irritable. Some risks however we don't take. Vincent stays far far away from shellfish because his allergy can kill him.   I’m really looking forward to the next leg of our trip. We are done chasing mountains and we really miss the awesome views, fresh air and cool temperature. Back to the city, we’ll probably be eating out more, especially with greater availability of allergy-friendly and familiar food establishments!
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