Allan got pushed…..

into his birthday cake ……

this was in early July, but its only posted now cos I didn’t have time to upload it la…..

 

Don’t look for a connection

Been too busy to blog, so many things happened, so little time, only managed to compress the pics and left them aside. So I’m going to just paste them all here, so don’t look for a connection between the events…..

My neighbours moved & finally took THEIR ugly, unused guardhouse away from outside MY house

More than half a year ago, they left it there and assured me it was temporary, they promised to move it into their HUGE compound once the forklift arrived……well, the forklift sure took its time!

Do you know the BEST place to buy goreng pisang and other goreng stuff? Its so good that the stall was publicized in the local papers

Its at the junction of Jalan Thambypillai and some other road…don’t know the name of the other road, but anyway, you won’t miss it – stall is located directly across the street from the entrance of the YMCA in Brickfields

We finally started our recycling project at home.  If you’re wondering about the bin,got them at IKEA, they are actually stools which you can turn upside down and use as bins too.  Comes in Black, Green and Yellow.

Most people call Allan the “Durian King”, well, you can’t be one if you don’t own your personal Durian Tree, right? Here’s ours – we have two – in our office compound.  You can see the tip of the trees as you pass the Elevated Highway at the JLTII/Gombak exit.

And here are our precious Durians

Guess what this is?

Its our new inflatable ball, for a person to go inside and roll around on the water or grass. Tons of fun!

P Driver

Met this guy some time back and forgot to blog about it.  I like him, he’s REALLY proud to be a “P” Driver, look at how many stickers he’s put on his car.

Funny Toons

 Have a break, get some laughs, lighten up

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muhibbah

There’s a lot of talk about racial integration and there are a lot of ideas, like National Service.  Frankly, I think that if the schools cannot succeed in 12 years to bring a child to value national integration and to respect people of other races, I don’t see how 3 months at National Service can make a difference.  I just think that our dear teachers have the privilege to instill this, especially at the primary school level. I remember the days when our teachers would go all out to help students, no matter what race they were from.  I know there are still teachers who are so committed, but with due respect to the teaching profession, I must say with regret that there are teachers out there who makes things worse by being bias to students of another race. I have heard so many bad stories.

I saw this group of people together at a shop having their lunch. It occurred to me that there were 2 Malays, 1 Chinese, 1 Indian and 1 Thai in the group. True Muhibbah

Do your bit to help racial integration. Have lunch with your friends and colleagues of different races.  I have lunch once a month with my ex-neighbours, a Malay and a Chinese. We’ve been doing this for 5 years. 

Lets keep the Malaysia Muhibbah spirit flying high!

Another 2 birthday cakes?

Remember my post about Allan’s birthday cakes not too long ago? Yeah, well looks like this year he has a record of 5, YES, 5 birthday cakes!

Cake no 4 is a banana chocolate cake and no 5 here is a cheese cake, both from Secret Recipe and both from Eng Sing. Thanks

Actually, our care group wanted to have a get together and so we took advantage of Allan’s birthday as an excuse to have a pot luck dinner.  So what kind of food did we have? 

By the time the 4th dish arrived, we realised the theme for the night would be “How many ways can you cook chicken?”

We had Curry Chicken, White Ginger Chicken, Dark Sauce Ginger Chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken (YES, Su Ann, we had KFC!!!!), and, (thank goodness) some noodles, vegetables and white rice.

Julia also has her birthday in July but was too shy about celebrating it.  Eng Sing went ahead to get two cakes anyway, and Allan decided that both he and Julia should blow the lighted candle……. from opposite ends of the table! That’s him, getting ready …….

They managed it!

3 days and a wedding

(All pics taken by Anna and Andy)

Most Chinese normally have a wedding ceremony and a wedding dinner; sometimes it can be held on 2 separate days.  Whether this is going to happen or not depends very much on the religious beliefs of the couple and their family.  The Christians and Muslims will not bother about the auspiciousness of the dates and times, but there are plenty of others who feel its important to consult the Feng Shui guy who dictates when they can or cannot get married, move house, start work after the Chinese New year and so on.  In Malaysia, there will be an additional day to the whole marriage thing because the couple also needs to go to the Civil Registry to register their marriage. Thus the title for this wedding we attended……… yeah, it took 3 days to get properly hitched

Day One was at the Civil Registry for Ryan and Antra, Allan’s nephew and brand new niece-in-law.  Didn’t get any pictures of that event.

 

Although they were officially married by law, the bride still did not stay with her husband yet until this very important wedding ceremony is conducted.  Day Two is when the groom goes over to the bride’s house to “marry her over” and brings her to his home as his wife.

 

This is Day 3, when the wedding dinner is held for family, relatives and friends.  Woe betide if you forget to invite the 6th aunty or the faraway ‘third cousin twice removed’. Long lasting family feuds can arise from this lack of “face-gving”. Notice what she is wearing now and ……….

later……

its a normal practice for the bride to change her outfit at least once during the night.

Did I mention that it’s also a time for the family and close relatives to take the opportunity to go shopping for new clothes and splash on their hair, shoes……..?

                

  

But you know what? A family wedding is always exciting and FUN … cheers

Tequila, Sekapur Sirih and Susan’s March

This is such an enjoyable song.  I had to really tap my feet very gently because I was recording, but it was so difficult, I mean, hey, you can’t sit for these kind of songs, you just have to tap your feet and …… arrhhh!

This one was performed entirely by the Hale St Mary School Band

Not sure of the name of this other song, but Andy says its “Susan’s March”.  I really like the drums and percussion.

Somehow, I can’t seem to get this video added, but you can listen to it here

and kudos to the 2 orchestras for doing well for another local favourite, Sekapur Sirih which you can watch here

Music for your ears

We went to a charity concert organised by the Rotary Club of Ampang.  The musical groups (I noticed they had 3 groups comprising the wind, brass and jazz bands which performed separately for most of the songs, except for these 2) of Hale St Mary’s School, from Perth, Australia came and performed.  Two of the songs were performed together with the team from Sri Cempaka School, Cheras.  I really like the arrangements of our local favourites, Rasa Sayang and Chan Mali Chan.

The first song is Rasa Sayang.

The second video, with the song, Chan Mali Chan is even better.  

Calvin, Calvin, Calvin

Here’s Calvin again……………

(all pics taken by Anna)

 

 

He’s 5 this year.  I went to his house a few days back and he had this Rubik’s Cube.  Holding it in one hand, he asked his mum, “what colour?”

Jeane replied “Blue” and he went on to twist and turn the cube and in less than a minute, produced a perfect blue wall on one side of the cube.

I asked him if anyone taught him and he said, “No I just play with it” [sic]

I tested him several times to see if he used a method like the one I use, i.e., to start by choosing a panel with the intended colour on the center tile, but he doesn’t, he just starts twisting and eventually gets it right.  So smart la

He’s just so active.  In the one hour or so that I was there, he played golf (yeah, he hit the ball, it went whoosh, and you see the ball and a lot of grass flying off!), took out a rolled up mat, and played hop scotch on it, rode his bicycle out into the garden and into the house, climbed the grill and even took a piece of rag and cleaned windows……… thinking back, I really had it easy because all of our 4 children slept for 3 to 4 hours after lunch every day. But then again, Calvin might just become the next Tiger Woods or Einstein?