For the first time since joining the Centre, the International Soft-skills and Leadership (ISoL) camp programme committee invited me to chaperone students for two nights in Songkhla, Thailand. The camp was a joint programme between UniMAP and Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya. I thought we would go as a family […]
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Birthday Dinner in Pauh
I am now a couple of year short of 50 years old. We celebrated at a café that we have never stopped at before in the town of Pauh, between our home and my workplace. It seemed like a nice place to celebrate a birthday. Well, two birthdays, as Ain’s […]
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Ain’s Birthday By The Sea
It was time for Ain’s birthday once more, and this time I suggested we go to Kuala Perlis after I got off work. It was nothing special as we had regular masakan panas for dinner, although Ain did get the epic ABC as seen below. Also below are photos of […]
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Year’s End Vacation 6: Heading Home
The next morning after breakfast, we packed up and said goodbye to the hotel apartment. The strawberries needed to be finished off as it was getting mushy. I can still remember the smell and the taste of the berries. We headed off with both vehicles in a convoy, but we […]
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Year’s End Vacation 5: Evening Exploration
After Atok and Opah rested for the evening, we set off to look for a place that Ain once visited 30 years before: The Boh Tea Plantation. We followed the map up a hill to the north of Brinchang. It was a hillside path which allowed for only one car […]
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Year’s End Vacation 4: Strawberry Picking
Immediately after the tea plantation foray, we headed out towards another type of farm. There were many strawberry farms here. We selected one on the phone map but the horrible traffic jam pushed us towards another direction. The farm we stumbled across while navigating the twisting roads on the hillside […]
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Year’s End Vacation 3: Tea Farm
The next day after breakfast at the hotel, we set out for one of the nearby tea plantations. Following the phone map, we headed south. Ain wanted to see the Boh plantation, but we shall see. Atok and Opah holed up at the visitors’ building of the plantation where there […]
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Year’s End Vacation 2: Arrival
It was two days after we arrived at my hometown… The next day Atok lead the way towards Simpang Pulai with his car. After that, I took the lead en route to Cameron Highlands. Our handheld maps informed us that although it was only about 75 klicks from there to […]
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Year’s End Vacation 1: Sitiawan
After a couple of weeks planning for it and applying for leave, it was time to execute the end-of-year vacation plans. We exited the highway near Selama and proceeded towards Taiping using the Federal roads. There was a convenient new road from Taiping to Changkat Jering. We stopped for lunch […]
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19th Anniversary Dinner
It has been 19 years since Ain and I were wed. Unlike last year when we had to go see a doctor during our anniversary, this year was fairly uneventful. However, it was the first time we celebrated our anniversary at a Middle Eastern restaurant. I had always wanted to […]
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A Seventeen-Year-Old Irfan
Many years have passed since we were blessed with Irfan. He came into our lives and made it much better than it could have been. He still gifts us with this. Today, this young man turned 17. Although we had an earlier birthday celebration with his grandparents the previous week, […]
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Early Irfan Birthday Dinner
Atok and Opah came a week before Irfan’s 17th birthday to celebrate it early. For that purpose, we visited their favourite Thai restaurant in Padang Besar. As usual, Godzilla and the Rubik’s cube came along for the ride. Here are Irfan with his grandparents reviewing the menu beforehand. Here are […]
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Exploring Lata Seri Perigi
After watching Angel Has Fallen at our usual cinema, we headed down south from Alor Setar. I looked up interesting picnic spots on the internet and discovered Lata Seri Perigi, which translates to Beautiful Well Waterfalls. We were not geared for any picnic, so this was just a scouting mission. […]
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Meals for a Party Divided
And so it came to pass when Ain had to travel to KL to tend to Cikma’s surgery and recovery. (Spoilers: The surgery went well and she is recovering nicely.) Irfan and I were unable to come with her as we had work to do that we were unable to […]
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A Two-Day KL Reconnoitre
After the visit to the Translation Institute, Bazli and I split up. He would return north later that evening after the benchmarking, while I had more than a week left to my vacation. First thing the next day, we headed back to Nia’s place from Aiman’s place. Since we were […]
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Not Ain’s Food Truck
En route to Kuala Lumpur for a benchmarking assignment at ITBM, we stopped at the Ulu Bernam highway R&R stop where Ain discovered another eatery (closed, as it was already dark) with her name on it! As an aside, earlier in the day when we had stopped at the Gurun […]
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