Mother and daughter activities.

Not too long ago, my mother and I went to Jalan TAR. She wanted to get a rug and some fabric for curtains and cushions. We parked the car at Semua House and walked to the oldest Indian Muslim restaurant in KL, Bilal.

There we ate some roti and chicken korma. Now recharged, we crossed the road to get to several carpet shops. My mother wants a medium-sized circular rug, but nothing pleased her.

Most of the stock were expensive Persian carpets, soft Belgian runners and rectangular abstract print rugs.

Nearby was SSF Home Deco Mart, a hit among middle-class Malay families who enjoy watching Casa Impian. 5 stories of pure fancy, frilly, contemporary home furnishings.

This shop is spectacular. Everything you need to decorate, upgrade, makeover or transform your house is here. From the redundant [spongy bread decorations] to dust-catchers [fake lily and chrysanthemum] to taste-enhancers [porcelain naked bodies], and many more, can be bought here. Let's check some stuff out.

Crockery and tableware, candles, mobiles, lamps, buckets, teddy bears, wrought iron lawn furniture, posters, vases and all that can make a housewife go crazy. The top floor is where you can find wedding supplies like ribbons, baskets, netting and the like, and suddenly my mood change.

From faintly-glowing chandeliers to bright fluorescent lights. Not too surprising to find the most crowd on this floor.

After more than an hour of scouting around, my mother bought some jars, fake flowers and other accessories. This shop is so fancy that they wrap glassware in printed wrapping paper. I mean, Robinsons use grease paper for wrapping!

A walk down the road and we saw a young man stepping out of a bus with a trolley full of snacks. This young entrepreneur sold us some cekodok pisang and buah melaka. The cekodok was rubbery, but the buah melaka makes up for it, thanks to its wonderful lemak-y dough and pure brown palm sugar. It's an instant hit for me.

Back to the main purpose of this shopping - find fabric. My mother wanted to check out this new fabric superstore called Jakel [you might have heard of it while listening to ads on Hot FM].

Look at how elaborate the store is. It was having a school holiday sale, and families, mainly the ladies, went ballistic over the choice of chiffon, Korean silk, jacquard and even pricey cloths by labels like Valentino, costing RM 300+ per metre.

My mother was running here and there to find a match for this striped orange organza which she had just ordered the sales assistant to give her a swatch. I was eyeing on several brocade fabric that were perfect for making into a skirt, but my sewing skills are limited to re-attaching buttons.

In the end, the only thing we bought were patchwork bedspreads that were a bargain price of RM 89! Other shops will sell these for double the price, or more.

My mother didn't even buy any fabric, which was what this outing was supposed to be all about, because she hasn't made up her mind yet...

Several days earlier, we were shopping for kitchenware at an improvised warehouse in Kelana Jaya, very near to Kompleks Tabung Haji called Super Rubber.

Like how SSF had everything you need to fancy up your home, Super Rubber has everything a kitchen should have. Brooms, plasticware, food preparation utensils, pots, craters and woks, glassware, baskets for your dirty laundry, stools for you to sit on as you manually do your laundry, stoves and clothes hanger..... it just goes on.

This is the real deal, IKEA's for sell outs. Now that I've got myself thinking about the last time I went to IKEA... haven't been there for months! I hope by now my ex-co-workers have forgotten how I looked.

The year is going to end in hours, so expect three more posts being published in less than 24 hours.