Nothing to dream of

A television programme mentioned the problem with the working generation these days. On why they chose to strike out on career instead of marital affairs. What caught my ears is a certain guest, who claimed that the working generation nowadays are trying to balance work, ambition, hobby and relations at the same time. They are filled with drive to achieve and juggle as many as they could. My heart kind of sank slightly. Well, not just slightly. The situation I'm in now, there is not much I could juggle except my own work, my co-worker's work and my boss's wish (read: command). I have no time for hobbies, no social circle for much relation, no ambition to dream of (the more I dream, the more clearly I see that distance getting farther), but I have a lot of work (read: shit). Tomorrow is a public holidays. I would like to dedicate my prayers for a good afterlife to the sheep's whose lives are going to be ended for it.

Bintulu

I can never forget this town. This is a peaceful old town in the state of Sarawak, East Malaysia. I was there the last few days for a site meeting. Though the outcome of the meeting depresses me - and the depression was made worse by my coming back home - I was happy to have lived a few days of slow paced life, walking around with no real aims or purpse (well, I do have some work that needs to be done).

The old Bintulu town (the area Hotel Royal was located) - as the name suggests - was the former city centre of the place. The former Bintulu airport runway is situated no more than 300m from my hotel, and was in the Guinness for being the only airport situated in the heart of a town. Every time I passed the air strip, I was taken over by the rustic charm it exuded.

Life was slowed, not physically, but really, on the whole. Order a meal at a cafe and the eatery will take their time. One morning, I ordered a chicken porridge for breakfast and it never came until after 15 minutes - slow by Singapore standards. But within the 15 minutes, I switched between lazy gazes at the morning traffic (2 meters away from my seat) and the culinary act of the stalkeeper, who attentively watch the fire to my porridge and pinching in the right amount of salt into it. She then scooped a sample of the porridge and tasted it and was satisfied that it was ready to be served, and I was.

The next time I had to visit this place again, I do not know whether this kind of lifestyle will still be an available option to me. But this trip has been a real different experience for me.

Pengerang

I am glad there are some things that is worthy of me saying I am happy about recently. The Robinson sale at Expo, I bought like there is no tomorrow, although the John Little sale is really round the next corner.

The Pengerang cycling trip - though smeared with hiccups - was a pleasant first time. I started the trip with less-than-optimum level of enthusiasm, made worse by the wait for the ferry, one hour, if not more. The cycle to Sungai Rengit was an excellent route lined with simple housing, just-enough-to-feed-the-family vegetables plantations, fishing houses, the sea and everything simple in life. Another disappointment is having to eat the oh-so-famous baby lobster that cost a bomb, yet tasted no better than the crayfish at Tebrau market in JB. I am not even sure they are fresh. Thankfully, we had a good company for lunch. The uncle and auntie (or should I say the hip granny with her husband) chatted us through lunch and repeatedly reminded us to "吃！吃！敢敢吃！吃多一點！我們老人家沒有吃那麼多的！"

We realised that we are running (cycling) late, and decided that there is no way we could catch the next (or was it the last?) ferry back to Singapore on time... unless... we could hire a cab to bring us and our bicycles! And we did, and we suffered the shame when the onlookers look upon our arrival at the jetty.

Better luck next time.

Rubbish theory

I derived a strange theory on a certain monotonous trip on a coach. When the coach climbs to high altitude, the shampoo bottles bloated due to the low atmospheric pressure acting on the contents of the bottle. When I open the bottle in the hotel's bathroom, the shampoo puked out in a sudden burst.

Applying the same theory to the human body, we should experience severe farting and at least one session of good burst while passing motion.

On the way down, the pressure cells acting on the bottle is higher, hence, the soap bottle will be dented. The same pressure is applied on the human body and one travelling downhill will experience tightness physically, explaining for the queasiness.

I'm back..

to reality, which can be so cruel at times. To add insult to the injury, I have to receive a customer call the moment I board the taxi for home.

Talking about the good things of this trip. I am happy to be fortunate enough to celebrate, with the Thais, the birthday of His Majesty the King of Thailand Bhumiphol Adulyadej. Everyone dressed in pink t-shirt, which I later found out from Auntie Jintana that pink is for wishing of good health to the King of Thailand, who has been admitted to the hospital some time back. I wished I had a pink t-shirt, for I too, wanted to send some well wishes to the King...

Now, I am back in my work station, thinking about my next trip, not knowing when it will come...

Before I leave

In the final hours before setting off for the land of smiles' city of angels, I got 2 calls from the event planners of a customer. It was irritating. Very irritating. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind, but I do not want to mess up my own holiday mood.

I woke up the usual time this morning and could not get back to sleep again. I hope I can make up for some eye-shut later on the plane. Some inauspicious thought ran through my mind last night when I left in the longing gaze of Rose. Will I be caught in an aircraft accident? Or will I meet with some mishap in the foreign land?

Before I left, I fed Nini-the-cat her favourite pouched fish, patted Rose, Daisy and Ah-Wang, paying particular attention to Rose, the old lady. Topped up the dog's food container. Bought a new pack of Nini's dry food and 3 rows of pouched fish.

What I will worry about? Will Rose be scared dead in another thunderstorm? Will Nini have enough water to drink, lest she drink from the waste water pail? Will there be people feeding Daisy when Ah-Wang finishes her food? Will there be someone opening the gate, asking Ah-Wang to return to the warehouse and not roam outside?

I will return.

Yesterday without picture

It was almost like a one-day holiday yesterday. I came to office, and leave office for Malaysia. I could not have spent more than 1 hour in the office.

At the farm, sector Farmhouse, Sai-Ma has 4 puppies, naughty and bite-ty. One fluffy cow, one Small Lao-da, One black brown, and one fluffy black brown. Hei-ma still has her 2 Ah Blacks (one with white chest hair) and Ah Gold. CheeseProblem has 8 puppies! One of which is a Cow and one is a Chihwahwa.

Over at sector MonitorLizard, the batch of 'Socks' are developing well. Ah Fluff is still as happy with his sister, although he tried some incest moves. Ah Pi is playing fine with them happily. Their latest game is 'going out and coming back from the fence'. There is a new adult dog, Smoker. He tried to smoke into the gang and did that successfully, even ZZ could not tell. Ah Gold and Ah Black went over to sector MonitorLizard to play and Ah Gold got a piercing at his mouth. A fish hook got stuck and he was crying. When we arrived, we quickly disperse the crowd of onlooking dogs and check on his wound. ZZ rushed back to sector Farmhouse with Ah Black and return with a plier. I performed the operation and removed the hook and ZZ send him back to Farmhouse.

At sector Packing area, Orbeen's batch suffered some death. I herded three of the remainders to Farmhouse and feed them. One of them injured the limbs and I had to carry her.

Dinner yesterday was at the farm, and I actually enjoyed it. Supper was at Old Town. Malaysian Immigration jammed. Singapore Immigration moderate. I reached home at 10 30pm. No photos, forgotten to bring along camera.

Genting July 2009

Interior walls of FW Hotel



Spy-vs-spy action at Dinoland



My absolute favourite at the Themepark



Themepark








Caught a ghost



Dinoland



Apple, did you enjoy the trip?

Climb

It was quite a rush decision to climb the hill once more. Seamonkey and I booked the Grassland's promotion for Genting highland. It was quite a bargain for $93 per pax. Mengkwang was the salesman and if there was any reason not to book Grassland again, it has to be him. I shall not elaborate.

The coach was expectedly dusty because of the non-leathered cushion seats. Luckily, they have a pretty strong air-con which I used to form an air curtain to direct the dust to ... a direction. Throughout the journey, it was iPod, National Geo Magazine and stoning, for me.

The weather up there was delightfully cool with showers lasting an hour or so before developing into drizzle. Then the clouds came in throngs, which just make the cool weather cooler.

Some highlights of the trip:

- basketball machines

- 1900 tickets unexpectedly vomited out of a machine and we took it

- met three Thai ladies at the theme park

- Burger King for the first 2 days

- lousy KFC breakfast

- greasy water jug in hotel room

For some reasons, I thoroughly enjoyed walking up and down the slopes, be it from Genting Hotel to First World, or from First World to the Mushroom Farm. Tiring, but satisfying. I guess, I belong to the mountains.

More pictures in a few days time.