10 Reasons not to go outside

After about a week of rain and snow flurries and overcast skies (luckily it wasn’t too too cold so no snow stuck), Friday was a sunny day. Cold and windy, but the sun was finally out and Vin and I took the afternoon off to go out and spend the afternoon together. Saturday wasn’t a bad day either. But this is what I woke up to this morning and my heart fell. Let’s not be shy about it. Believe me, I don’t make any excuses – I will say it out loud and say it strong. I HATE SNOW! I loathe it. I think that snow is the single most depressing thing in the world, and the one reason that I would think about moving. Here are 10 pictures of the scene I saw when I woke up this morning. The first snow of the season that has any kind […]

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Spider-Pack

Irfan Goes To Kindergarten

Today was Irfan’s first day at school. He was awakened an hour earlier than usual and was thrust under a shower much to his displeasure. But after a warm bottle of milk, he was all psyched up at the notion of going to school and meeting new friends. Among the shadows in the back, Irfan’s dad was hoping he’d learn about how to handle the darker side of humanity, such as jealousy, vengeance, rage and other disagreeable traits stemming from fear and the inability to deal with one’s emotions. And certainly a bunch of 4-6 year olds will teach him how to deal with those. Yes, they will. But getting back to getting ready for school, Irfan really loved his socks and shoes. He couldn’t wait to get into them and fly out the door. Here is Irfan showing off his new uniform and his Spider-Man backpack which I bought […]

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Bahamian Break

Christmas is a time for us to take a break. Get away from real life. Leave work behind and relax. Last year, we flew out to San Francisco and took a road trip up the coast north of San Francisco. This year, since we’d just done the road trip through the South West (it was 2030 driving miles total) so we decided we wanted to just go someplace warm and veg out. So we went to the Bahamas! Wheeeeee! We were away for 8 days, staying at the Paradise Island Harbor Resort [[image:bahama14.jpg:Harbor Resort:center:0]] We arrived in Nassau and took a bus to the Harbor Resort on Paradise Island. The Bahamas is made up of hundreds of islands and Nassau is on New Providence. The bus took us across a bridge to Paradise Island. Here are some pictures of the Harbor Resort on Paradise Island: [[image:bahama11.jpg:Vin catching some rays on […]

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In a galaxy far, far away… Southwestern Road Trip Day 8

After a long hiatus, here’s the final part of the Southwestern Road Trip. Finally! I know! Forgot already. But here’s the last part of the story. Our final morning in Flagstaff dawned bright and early. We were packed up and ready to hit the road to head south to Phoenix. We were planning to be in Phoenix by lunch time to meet up with Vin’s cousin Becky, and the drive would take about 2 hours total. So we decided to meander down to Phoenix by way of Sedona. We ended up hanging out at Red Rock State Park, visited Cathedral Rock (which Becky, Vin and I climbed in a previous visit), and then drove on to Phoenix. [[image:us345.jpg:Flagstaff-Sedona-Phoenix:center:0]] While I was speaking with the manager of the Embassy Suites (they fixed our hot water, but Vin’s and my room never got above 60 F the whole time we were there […]

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Though he liked the land more, it seemed

Irfan Breaks Teluk Batik Surf

Tuesday morning Tok Irfan took us all to Teluk Batik, my old beach stomping ground, for a picnic. Naturally like all my old stomping grounds it doesn’t look a bit like what it used to when the old crew combed the beach for nothing in particular, swimming among the jellyfish spawn and getting painfully sunburned. No more easy access with the car to the edge of the sand. No more wide grassy area just short of the beach. No more walks through the wilderness to the neighbouring Teluk Rubiah (now a golf course instead of a desolate beach). Upon holing up, Irfan immediately went for the water with me in tow, although he was reluctant to jump in immediately. But I held his hand and he waded in cautiously, giggling each time the waves hit him. He didn’t complain at all when I took him out where his legs couldn’t […]

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The training wheels should come off soon

A Snappy New Year To All

Another Gregorian year is over. There were numerous message replies to it over text messaging, such as the fairly regular “Yep! Happy New Year!” to “I propose a moratorium on New Years for another 50 years”, and the reply to my paraphrasing Agnes Skinner‘s “My bones are half dust” over how the years are treating us all, “You’re lucky. Mine’s part of someone’s grandma’s favourite Sunday dinner china…” You know who you are, regular blog readers. Because of the unsynchronised lunar and solar calendar, this time around Aidiladha was within a day of the New Year. Which usually cause our brood to form up and take group photos in front of Tok & Opah Irfan’s house right by the koi pond. This year’s photo, I wore a songkok on my head about two thousand sizes too small for no particular reason. Irfan fidgeted a lot for the pull of his […]

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The eating of Ain's mi goreng

Irfan Gets Wet at Ulu Langat

Sometime after noon and after Ain made mi goreng, we took a drive to the back end of Ampang, went over the hill and headed for Ulu Langat for a picnic. It would be a perfect day if not for the quadrillions of other visitors clogging up the roads, streets and paths with people and cars. I tried cursing them to transform them into frogs and such, but then I remembered that only worked in story books. After that it took us about 45 minutes to get through about 5 kilometres of road for the trip back. Traffic jams suck. Especially at narrow kampung roads. So without further adieu here are the pictures of the more fun part of the trip. We found a relatively empty spot by the river, Sungai Congkak, where we had to cross a wooden bridge to reach a clear picnic spot. There were a couple […]

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Squirrel squirreling away nuts

Rabies anybody?

While Abah and Mak were visiting with us last year, Abah took an avid interest in the wildlife around here. Here’s a squirrel eating from the container of seeds Vin puts out for the squirrels and the birds. I hope it doesn’t have rabies. 😀

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The red smudge on Irfan's cheek is his mother's lipstick

Irfan Goes To School – After A Fashion

Irfan is now registered as a Standard 1 student at Sekolah Kebangsaan Pandan Indah. He is in fact the 32nd student to be registered at the school for the 2009 intake. There were a few observations that we made about the school when we registered him there today. The school staff seem to prefer Waja as their vehicle of choice. Note to self: Find out why their preference seem to be similar. Is it because of something sinister like a Nyarlathotep cult-like thing that permeates the school? Or is Proton trying very hard to market their cars to teachers? School administration offices appear to look exactly the same anywhere in the country. Same old front desk counter, clerk tables, sofa for visitors and even the cluster of potted plants, which all looks eerily familiar for both Ain and I after twenty years. Apart from the flat screen computer monitors, I […]

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In a galaxy far, far away… Southwestern Road Trip Day 7

After our Grand Canyon outing, we returned to the Embassy Suites hotel in Flagstaff. I forgot to say that not only was Vin’s and my room freezing (the heater was on the fritz), but there was absolutely no hot water. I had taken a VERRRRY cold shower that morning. Luckily the hot water was fixed when we got back, and the heater was sort of working (meaning instead of the room temperature being equal to the freezer temperature, it was about a very cold refrigerator temperature, which coupled with the 20 F night time temperatures (-5 C) did not sit well with us. But at least we didn’t have to wear our winter coats inside our room. Anyway, after good night’s sleep, we got ready for another day of sightseeing. We had breakfast at the complimentary hot breakfast (yayyy scrambled eggs and hash brown potatoes!) before setting off. Basically, we […]

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In a galaxy far, far away… Southwestern Road Trip Day 6

Apologies for the long delay, and finally the continuation of our Southwestern Road Trip. On Day 6, after a cold evening at the Embassy Suites in Flagstaff (Mak and Abah’s room was ok, but our room was freeeeeeezing cold), we went for a day long trip to the Grand Canyon. The Embassy Suites complimentary breakfast was, however, one of the better breakfasts we’d had during our trip! Fresh, made-to-order scrambled eggs, omelets, french toast, etc. What’s not to like? At any rate, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was about an hour north of Flagstaff, so we set off after breakfast for our Grand Canyon outing. [[image:us252.jpg:Route from Flagstaff to Grand Canyon:center:0]] We got pretty excited when we saw signs and we got closer to the Grand Canyon. [[image:us242.jpg:Grand Canyon in IMAX:center:0]] The North Rim of the Grand Canyon was already closed to tourists for the winter, and because […]

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In a galaxy far, far away… Southwestern Road Trip Day 5

We spent the night at the Hampton Inn in Kayenta, Arizona, a very small town that boasted 3 hotels and as many restaurants. Seriously – we thought Sitiawan was small when we were growing up? Kayenta takes the cake. What we in Malaysia used to call a “cowboy town”. The reason that they even had 3 hotels in town was because of their proximity to Monument Valley Tribal Park. Which was our first destination of Day 5! So after the complimentary breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and headed off north towards Monument Valley. [[image:us200.jpg:22 miles from Kayenta to Monument Valley:center:0]] As we drove north to the border (Monument Valley itself is in both Utah and Arizona), we saw interesting rock formations: [[image:us197.jpg:Rock formations:center:0]] [[image:us196.jpg:Red rock formations:center:0]] If you are sitting there thinking “Monument Valley…what’s the big deal?” here’s the big deal. Aside from being a gorgeous geological wonder, […]

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It's Uncle Sree

Early Morning Raid at the PC Fair

Well, to be honest it wasn’t that early in the morning. It was about 10AM. And it wasn’t a raid as it was us moving slowly through the computer exhibition picking out stuff to buy after we, for the first time ever, have the budget to buy computer-related thingamajigs at one of these PC Fairs. There were no tablet PCs sold as far as I can see. Before the PC Fair opened we had a picnic at the KLCC park with the takeaway nasi lemak which we bought at the LRT Corner outdoors restaurant near the Tenth Floor Headquarters. Irfan had little to eat – just some curry puffys and teh ais. He didn’t seem to mind hunger when the super duper playground was within striking (and spitting) distance. And here’s Irfan’s favourite playground in the world, as well as a few other worlds. He calls slides the “Wheeee!” for […]

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In a galaxy far, far away… Southwestern Road Trip Day 4

After a good night’s sleep at the Hampton Inn in Durango and the complimentary breakfast, we headed west from Durango towards Cortez, CO on the US-160. Just 35 miles west of Durango is Mesa Verde National Park, the site of ancient cliff dwellings (back to the Ancestral Puebloans). We would spend half the day at Mesa Verde and head towards Kayenta, Arizona where we planned to spend our next night. [[image:us195.jpg:Route from Durango, Colorado to Kayenta, Arizona – note the meeting of 4 states in the middle of the map:center:0]] Mesa Verde, here we come! I wasn’t sure what to expect but cliff dwellings sounded very interesting. We saw some tepees on the road, inviting us to go into Native American crafts stores along the road: [[image:us155.jpg:Tepees and giant Arrows:center:0]] We saw this huge mesa from far away. Turns out, we had to drive off the main road for about […]

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In a galaxy far, far away… Southwestern Road Trip Day 3

After getting to Taos, New Mexico after dark, we were pretty exhausted from our excessive sight-seeing. We were really glad to find the Hampton Inn in Taos. We spent a quiet night in Taos and bright and early in the morning of Day 3, we headed to Taos Pueblo. Taos Pueblo is a thousand-year-old, still lived in traditional pueblo. Unlike Acoma, it was right by Taos, the city, and we didn’t have to go searching for it for long. We paid our entrance fee into the pueblo, and paid a mere $5 per camera to take pictures of the pueblo. After Acoma Sky City’s $10 per camera, it felt like such a better deal! And they charged a group fee for the 4 of us that was cheaper than the advertized $10 per person rate. Already, I warmed up to Taos Pueblo. 🙂 The day was bright and sunny, clear […]

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In a galaxy far, far away… Southwestern Road Trip Day 2 (Acoma Sky City)

So, after we left El Morro, we went east on the NM 63 until we hit the Interstate I-40 again. And we went on for a short way, and decided we would visit Acoma Pueblo, and then look for some lunch. For your convenience, here’s another look at the map of New Mexico. [[image:us63.jpg:Review Map of New Mexico:center:0]] The plan for the second half of the day was after Acoma Pueblo, we would drive to our next hotel in Taos, New Mexico. So, we got off the I-40 by Acoma and took the road into the pueblo. Acoma Pueblo is also known as Acoma Sky City because this thousand-year-old still lived-in traditional pueblo is situated on the top of a mesa. So the people who lived in the pueblo were able to defend themselves from invaders, from other native american tribes to the Spanish conquistadores. They lived on top of […]

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