Monday, August 29, 2005

At the beach & meeting the monkeys

We spent the morning at the beach after breakfast. Zara had been to the beach at Kuantan before, but she was probably too young to know how to appreciate it (by touching the sand, kicking waves, walking on the shore). This time, I put her on a towel, and tried to build some sand castle (more like sand blocks) near her for her to topple.

She was very curious about the sand, first time touching it. After examining it a bit by feeling the texture and looking at it, she put some into the mouth to taste. Ugh! I was too slow to stop her, and it was quite hard to try to dig out whatever that she has already placed in her mouth. Luckily, the amount was as much as her thumb and index finger (pincer grip) could hold, so it wasn't that much actually. She didn't like crawling on the sand, I think the sand was a bit too abrasive for her knees, so after venturing out of the towel for a while, she crawled back in.

We then spent some time walking along the shoreline, some how Zara was a bit weary every time the waves licked her feet, and she tried to walk away from it. I tried to get rid of her fear by asking her to kick the wave every time it's approaching or make it sound like fun stepping on waves, and after a while, she started feeling more comfortable.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Komtar, because it was raining cats & dogs the whole time.

In the evening, we were lucky that the sky had cleared, so we could bring Zara to the Botanical Garden just as we planned.

We walked the loop, meeting some monkeys on the way. She was enjoying herself, excited over the monkeys, and the bouncing in the baby sling when daddy did a slow jog.

The botanical garden is just such a great place to go, and I must say, it is so well kept. Compared to our Lake Gardens in KL, this is heavenly.