Care Bears stare!!!

On Saturday, I went to have dinner with kak Kathy at Yakin Teguh. It had been a long time since I ate there and since kak Kathy wanted to eat something light, it was our obvious choice. After filling ourselves with fish fillet and cuts of black pepper chicken, we started to head back home when I noticed this shop beside Yakin Teguh.

Now, truth is, I've noticed this shop dari dulu lagi but I never felt the need to venture in it. However, due to the fact that I still haven't bought any graduation gifts for my juniors, I just HAd to go check out what they had.

True enough, they had all sizes and shapes of soft toys with graduation 'hats' (Alamak! What's the better word here?). However, my eyes strayed to these two bears, one was peachy orange and the other was purple. Since I wanted to look for graduation gifts, I took my eyes off these bears and went round the shop but somehow, I ended up at those bears.

I shouted in delight when I noticed what had attracted me to these bears. They were Care Bears! Most of us must be familiar with these bears when we were smaller, right! These colourful bears have been mates with most of us during our childhood, in fact, me, Iwan and Adi had our own Care Bears when we were smaller. Uncle Rahim bought them for us when he had some business in Newcastle and came staying with us. He bought me the Friend Bear while Iwan got Grumpy Bear and Adi got Bedtime Bear.

The bear I was holding was the Friend Bear (I knew her from the two flowers on her tummy) and I knew I had to buy it hahah.. Don't ask me why! But I certainly was thinking of showing it to Izati who somehow had taken over the ownership of my original Friend Bear.

That night, I wasn't suprised when Ramlah recognized the cuddly toy as a Care Bear. We talked a bit about the Care Bears cartoon while Salwa tried to remember it :D The next day, when picking up Salwa, Pojie and Rini from the Desa, even Pojie remembered the Care Bears, telling us he also had a green one.. must be Lucky Bear or something!

When I took Ramlah and Salwa to the same shop (diorang nak cari hadiah konvo gak), I just HAD to buy the other Care Bear on display.. Share Bear, the one with two lollipops on her tummy. I went to ask the shop owner if she had other Care Bears in store but sadly she said no. Still, she suprised me when she talked about being a fan of the Care Bears when she too, was small.

Wow! Suddenly I miss these cartoons. I never failed watching Care Bears on tv and usually when it was aired, me, Iwan and Adi would be clutching our Care Bears in our hands. Even when we outgrew these type of cartoon, our Care Bears were still looked after carefully!

Yesterday when I was looking at these two new Care Bears I own, I suddenly remembered all those cartoons we used to see when smaller and how we loved to have their soft toys (me la..) or action figures (Iwan and Adi).

Lets see..

I had a Rainbow Brite once.. remember Rainbow Brite? She's this girl who wears this colourful dress with red shoes and colourful socks and she's always helping people with the power of her rainbow. Maybe some of you have forgotten her but I assure you, if the cartoon comes back on tv (yeayyy.. right!) you'd recognize her instantly!


I also had a big cuddly My Little Pony which for now, I can't remember her name. But she had a rainbow coloured mane and tail and had 3 tiny umbrellas on each of her side. I wanted to get the unicorn, which I also don't remember her name but since it was way up high on the shelf, I just told Abah I wanted this one. I still have her though she's in Penang. Her hair has turned all messy since my brothers (don't remember which one too) kept trying to play with her colourful hair and once the even tried to cut it off!

What else have I got? Hey.. remember the Get-Along Gang? The tune of the cartoon show is here in my head right now.I loved this cartoon that I'm sure I have a toy moose somewhere. Yup, I can't remember their names but I do remember the moose, since he always seemed to stand out from the rest (raccoon, squirrels bla.. bla..)

Even now, I have this McDonalds collection of the Sesame Street. It was my favourite educational programme, along with Iwan and Adi though we didn't realize how much it helped us. We had more fun participating in the ABCs and 123s and songs without noticing how much we had gained. Recently I went to Megamall and saw these cute Cookie monster, Ernie, Bert bla.. bla.. blaa.. I'm thinking of buying them in the near future, though :P

Iwan once had these Star Wars collectibles. It was displayed in our bedroom and we were not allowed to play with it much, well, it must've cost a fortune. We left it in Newcastle when we came back here. Iwan was very upset though coz he loved his Star Wars.

How about Adi? He was never without his He-Man and Prince Adam action figures. Even when his He-Man or Prince Adam had their arms torn off, he'd still play with them. kononnya He-Man bleh lawan lagi la eventhough takde tangan. Funnily, I seem to remember his Bedtime Bear and He-Man being friends in this play Adi made up!

We had a friend once, Alex. He was the only child so he loved having us over. The boys used to play with his Robotronics while I, the only girl, was usually given the task to arrange his Smurfs. Yup, I also loved Smurfs. Alex had this whole collection of Smurfs and his parents had bought him this toy village for Smurfs. Remember Papa Smurf? Brainy? Then there's this sleepy Smurf (Somehow, all these cartoons MUST have a sleepy one, huh?) And the she-Smurf whatever her name was..

Ooo.. nearly forgot about Ikram. His favourite was his Ninja Turltes action figures. I don't remember if he had the whole set or anything, but these Ninja turtles help him through the night when he was afraid of the dark!

Sometimes my parents would also buy us books based on our heroes. Like He-Man, She-Ra, G-Force, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake (yup, I also had a toy of her too!) and the list goes on. This might be due to the fact that all of us loved reading when we were small. Well, who wouldn't if you had a mother who's doing her Bachelors degree and a father doing PhD. I started reading when I was 2 (according to relatives la..) and Iwan and Adi followed suit when they grew up! I followed my parents footsteps and prefer to buy my siblings books on their birthdays, the most expensive one being the Star Wars 3-in-1 set of books I gave to Ikram when he was in Standard 6.

Well, truth is, when we played together (this excludes the times we'd sit together and share a quiet moment of reading books), we loved LEGO and DUPLO more. Sometimes we'd play board games or card games (favourite will always be Happy Family which teaches us to be polite aside from having fun!) I mean, my parents were more onto these kinda games/toys since its stipulates the brain but then, once in a while, they DO help to indulge us on our individual favourite toys so Mama and Abah, thank you!

I guess, deep down inside, I'm still a fan to all these cartoons and soft toys! And.. I really don't think I'd wanna change that fact :)