The War of Wellness Day.

Ever had that feeling that when you are in a fair and there are sales people around, especially the ones that want you to sign up for  credit card, it becomes more of a war zone than a fair?

You have to have skills to say no and the skill to drift and zoom through the spaces between these sales warriors before you can breathe the normal, credit-less air again.

The M threw their annual Wellness Day again and invited a gazillion booths of people selling milk, yogurt and a bunch of healthy foodstuff. Didn’t join the walkathon this year, didn’t have the heart for it I guess, or maybe it was the PINK of the tee shirt that kind of made me skip leg day.

Still, in support of the Wellness Day, I went down to the fairgrounds to get Diplodocus some headsets (to make her ears more healthy?) and some yogurt drinks. And that’s when I saw them.

The warriors.

All cloaked in their red Insurance team tee shirts.Holding their swords and knifes up in the air ready to strike us down.

Ok it was just clipboards and pens but it might as well have been.

Anna and I stood in the corner, looking for the easiest route out. I looked left and saw Sabby and her friends talking animatedly. She is a loud person and the mousey warrior was on her left, squeaking ‘miss?’miss?’ . As she was running out of topics with her friends, I could see her eyes darting to the ceiling instead, I guess anything is more interesting than having to speak to the mouse-warrior. In defeat, he squandered away, back to his hole-booth. Hah! Take that mouse man!

Mr cute WS  was stuck in a another corner. He looked like a well concentrated race horse and he hurried between the line of warriors, constantly repeating NO NO NO NO … until he was out of the door. It was amazing. I have never seen anyone look at the exit door with such determination.

It was then that Anna and I decided to make our move. As I scurried on behind my human shield(thank you Mrs Koch) the warriors tried to get her to sign up for some hospitalization card. Repeating that she has such a card from Poland , the warriors gave up and finally, we pushed the door and saw the light of the day.

Barely breathing the first sigh of relief, we noticed WS trapped in a sea of red warriors right outside the door, as they were just about to start their warrior cry.

Well. Here we go again.

The Late Lunchtime

Due to one maternity and one bereavement leave, I have been down from 4 lunch buddies to 2.

And then yesterday I had to open my un-cursed mouth and told Siew ling that her car seems to be in a great condition despite it being 8 years old. I have no idea what emotionalness got into the car and it took offence against my words and the very same day, the car decided to bust its accelerator cable and hence, with curses from Siew Ling to my dear self, it ended up being only me and Liana in office looking for food in the godforsaken Twilight –zoned CBJ.

Though I am glad to have arranged the lunch for Mr LG and Diplodocus some 30 kms away with the power of the OC, I couldn’t arrange to meet Liana’s time(thank you financial close calendars) and that is how I ended up having spaghetti with KC Vios and Big-Z late in the evening. Note for CBJ folks eating out at Tokio Café: they don’t serve at Padi House even though they are a sister company. No idea why. I buggered and buggered them,  I think to the point that that my waiter pretended not to speak English, but they wouldn’t give me an answer.

In the spirit on continuation of having discussions with strangers, which I started with Mr LG yesterday, it’s probably the other reason that prompted me to go out with these 2 macho souls.

Though I have known both men for some time, we weren’t always friends. In fact I think there was a time when KC Vios was pretty cold towards Big-Z and his team. But then the Plats of the organization moved  and the M decided to bring the 2 departments together and that’s how we ended up working together. In a very short time, the 2 of them became almost inseparable.

So coming back to lunch today. Eating out with the ladies can  be very different from being with just the boys. Though for some reason, they seem to have adopted me to their circle of Dudes and appreciatively shared their views on the anatomy of the ladies walking by. Don’t get me wrong, beauty is definitely to be admired..but from one straight woman’s point of view, I honestly am not intrigued by a lady’s sway nor her other ‘parts’.  Show me the hunk making the Nasi biryani at Neo CBJ and you got me at ‘welcome”

But what I considered more interesting is how different these 2 men are and yet are so close friends. KC Vios is much younger, here at his first job and doesn’t think that anything is more important than money. Hot blooded and unique in his fashion, his opinions are of fresh young eyes. Big-Z  on the other hand is a little more matured, married and loves songs that are probably sang by Big Tasty. He is more patient and cool and is simply crazy and fun. I guess friendship can always be made even in the most ying-and-yang of situations. Hmm.

I guess it works better if you have something in common. In this case, that thing has a beating heart and a job at the Org. And a name. Ms Emily. The prettiest girl they have ever(in their working lives) laid eyes on. The most sophisticated, and elegant woman both men have ever met. They would do anything to have a HELLO from her. Pretend to fall, pretend to visit a nonexistent friend around her cube, pretend to care about the weather outside her window, pretend to..well, you get the idea

But I got to admit, this office would be a much slower and boring place without the chitter chatter of KC Vios and Big-Z.

So cheers to you guys!

P.S Inthira- Big-Z misses all the fights you guys have..and Congratulations on the cutest cutest cutest baby boy~

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~ George Bernard Shaw~

In view of my recent inactivity here, let me first say I was in no form ignoring my readers..it has just simply been a time when its almost impossible to even find the time to finish my Moonstone novel, so much so, that I almost downloaded the movie version instead (gasp!)

And due to the strenous and stressfull and time consuming work I have had, I did indeed ignore a couple of other things. I ignored visiting some good friends(sorry Geets! I owe you tequila shots, big time!) and I ignored my HBO classes. Socialism is something I told myself to never forsake, since I knew someone once who would ignore my messages, only to contact me days later after I had finished running through the obituary column looking for his name. Hence my apologies to whomever I had to cancel out on..

So I made this list..10 things which I think are pretty easy and probably should be ignored and 10 things I think are hard to ignore, lets see:

Ignorable stuff

1. The consistent nag of someone who you don’t want to hear.
2. The sampah on the streets that have become such a norm for city living.
3. The email marked URGENT but it really isnt.
4. The ringing of the telephone, though that’s debatable looking at the number of people who would rather look at their phones than the people sitting across them
5. The people sitting across you
6. The bills
7. The vaccum cleaner running when you are sleeping in on a Saturday
8.  The No-U Turn sign- when the road is empty laaa-
9. The Brain, before you bungee jump
10. Sales people

And my list of things least likely to be ignored:

1. The cute guy crossing the street
2. Johny Depp
3. Backstreet Boys songs
4. The smell of the food cooking in the kitchen
5. Lego on the floor
6. The cat meow-ing at 2am
7. The cute handbag crossing the street
8. Cupcakes
9.  The coffee machine in the morning
10. Freebies..come on, we simply sign up for credit cards because of the freebies, otherwise we ignore the sales people completely

But these are mostly material things and one thing we probably should not ignore is people we barely know. Strangers even. As a Mr SS recently mentioned that the highest form of  ignorance is to reject something before you had the chance to get to know it. (And boy. Am I glad for having taking that advice.)

Unless they are sales people, of course. Then sorry, you are in the wrong bucket my friend..

JJ

Law of Change

With the world cup just over, and as the excitement simmers down, we can only start looking forward to the next round of world champions in 4 years time.

I remember chatting about this with a close friend of mine, of where we were and what we were doing 4 years ago.As days go by one by one, we hardly realize just how much has moved and changed in that little space of time.

Most of us has moved from a time when we were all working in the same O&G. 4 years ago, we all thought we would grow at the same firm, but as global views change(nice way to put it), it would seem that now everyone is in a different line.

And personally, there have a been a couple of major changes. One man, my partner in movies and the most honest friend anyone can wish for,  had decided to venture on his own. Though it didn’t turn as expected, he is now, I’m happy  to say, a man happily engaged to a wonderful girl.

My dear friend Yoda and Geets has both had babies and CHEERS women! To many many more tiny tots!

Someone almost got married. Someone did get married. Someone got a divorce. Lets not dwell on them.

Someone I thought I would never speak to again is now a good friend. That was a shocker. Ka-pow.

And me myself, I had lost a battle when I did not know I was even at war. But the loss has been a wonderful one, for without it, I would not have done all the other colorful things I did(ehem intended).

With the ever crazy bunch- Diplodocus, SIL, and Deviljoe, we have travelled to places we never thought we would set foot in. Adventures within adventures. The Inception of Travel. Good title for a new book.

p.s this is written with the thought of many lives lost in the recent plane crash. 4 years ago, you would have had the same dreams and travelled down those paths too. Rest In Peace.

5 years and counting

When I was a 5 year old kid..gazillions of years ago..i was living with my grandparents in the hills. It was a good time, playing chase under and around cows, climbing trees(though I wasn’t allowed to) and eating ice cream in the cold. It was also the year I got my most treasured bear- Wise Old. He is still with me till today, though honestly, he could use fresh stuffing.

Times change and people evolve. Kids today have a different turn on their lives. For example Mr Tiny has weekends where he is so busy, he barely has the time to play hide-and-seek. Just a couple of weeks ago, we went out to watch HowToTrainYourDragon 2 with him and he stayed with us overnight. Though too young now, but If he had a twitter account, this would probably be his timeline:

Saturday

10.00 Think I shall wear the blue tee today for my class. Lets go counting!  #Ilevel #Saturdaymorningroutine

12.00 McD for lunch, didn’t spill my milo #score!

1.30 Papa decided we head to mid valley to check out the mighty #transformers #dinobot. He is my hero

4.00 Off to Puchong for #HowToTrainYourDragon2 with the #minions.

7.00 The movie could have been better, like #Frozen. But the cinema is empty, so running around is cool.#cinema #empty

7.30 This place aint so bad, got lots of place to run. Cmon #minions, catch me #playplayplay #screammyheadoff

7.45 Dinner at Wong Kok #orangejuice #mee #scareyourparents

9.30 Off to Bapu House, yeay! #Serdang #grandparentshome #slowdriversontheroad

11.00 #ilovemytoys #dinotoys before bedtime. Grandma always tells great stories.

Sunday

7.30 Dang this aunties are still sleeping. How do I wake them up? Any ideas?

8.00 decided to go with the ‘jump-on-you’ approach. At ‘least they are awake. Off to breakfast!

10.00 Shimbu needs a shower. I manage to help carry him to the car. #lovepets

11.15 Stupid big black dog at the groomers scared me. #serioustears #dontlovepets

12.00 Drive around town looking for chicken rice. I saw a toystore. Wonder if I can make #minions stop there

12.45 I love #chicken rice!

1.30 so it seems shimbu is ready to go home. No way im gonna go back in that store. #bigblackdog

2.00 yeah, shimbu looks cleaner. I wish I was a guinea pig.

4.00 #minions bought me some cake. Waiting for mama and papa now..wish it wasn’t a school day tomoro.

Well, moved on from Mickey to Lion Dances to Dinosaurs to cars to Lego and now Transformers, it will be interesting to see where Mr Tiny’s interests go next

One thing is for sure, there is nothing that can beat these blessings that come in the smallest form..

Happy 5^th Birthday to our Cheeky Monkey! Chicken rice all around!

A Monday supposition

Monday, 24^th February. 9.35am

I look up to the blue sky, the sun is out, blaring its brightness. I wonder if it would rain today or if we are going to go through another day of heat wave. I sent up a silent prayer for a drizzle.

Monday, 24^th February. 10.00am

Noticed there aren't many people at the Province. Probably a case of the Monday Blues. Seems to be more and more people being affected these days. Reks came by, her new green blouse swishing with each step she takes, she tells me she needs a coffee and something to eat before she could face the day. Another case of the blues, I thought to myself.  I grab my pouch and go down the escalator. Isn't much left at the godforsaken-cafeteria, but hey, when you gotta eat. You gotta eat.

Monday, 24^th February. 10.40am

There is tense in the air as we walk in the Province. Even the AC seems to have slowed to keep pace with our heartbeats. I throw my pouch onto the table, swinging my chair around,  as I screen my counterparts faces. The Minz looks terrified. She starts rambling on about a woman screaming on the other side of the Province. Giggles joins her, confirming her story that they all heard a woman screaming, like she had been possessed. This sounded too weird. Even on my standards.

Monday, 24^th February. 10.42am

I pick up my pen as I move about the clutter of head in the province. Woman 1 claims the scream was a long one. Woman 2 says it was short. Woman 3 says it emitted from the right of the building and Woman 4 says it was from the left. One person thinks it sounded like screeching tyres and another just thought it was the cleaner lady’s trolley grazing along the floor. I marvel at the human mind. The same sound, and yet everyone heard it differently.

Monday, 24^th February. 11.00am

I walk to the WC situated just outside the province. The probable scene of the crime. I stand by the walls for about 5 minutes and let Aunty Jo investigate inside the stalls. She comes out, head shaking. Nothing to report.Someone comes up to me and says they went out the doors when they heard the scream but found no person or persons at the scene.

I gaze out to the rolling clouds, a dead end. Whoever it was, she seems to have disappeared into thin air.

Jesselton Misty Tales Day 2

Day 2

The skies had really opened up the next morning and we were advised against driving up to Kundasang in the weather. As we sat broodily looking out from the lodge pantry, the rain slowly reduced to a light drizzle.

We spotted a chicken rice shop nearby and having has our fill on steamed chicken( funnily we couldn’t find any restaurants that sold Roasted Chicken rice), we happily bertolak to Kundasang to stay closer to the majestic and very shy Mount KK. Along the way, we made a pit stop at the Puh Toh Tze temple in Tuaran, where they have a large statue of Kuan Yin greeting visitors.

We then proceeded to get some snacks and drinks at the Giant along Tuaran. This is very advisable, as Kundasang really doesn’t have much save for a couple of simple stores. Will probably need to drive all the way down to Ranau for a decent drink or a Guardian store..so we decided  to get our stash before heading up

Mummy, how do i get to school, my cycle is stuck on the roof

Dorothy's house landed on a witch..and here?

We then made a pitstop at the Rumah Terbalik at Tamparuli. We Paid an entrance fee of RM5(for Mycard holders) and got to take some pictures outside the house and were told no photo taking inside the house. To be honest, the story the tour guide gave us of the background of the house made no sense and this visit was not really worth the time. Basically we were walking on the “ceiling”, with fans, lamp and even lizard toys next to our feet. All the furniture is arranged above our head, so it was sort of like we were ghost hovering along the celing like spidermen. Probably would have been cooler if someone got some motion sickness or something and everyone would have gone nuts trying to get out, but it was would have been too confusing, motion sick and all..and then..well you get the point, it just would have made the trip more interesting. But my companions are all made of steel and were happily skipping room to room terbalik-ly.

Rumah Tembikai also got

The road to Kundasang was winding and the rain and fog did not make the journey any easier but lucky for us, Tonti is a great driver and nothing could distract her from the long drive up. We missed the turning to our hotel, not our fault, the Kinabalu Mountain Lodge is situated away from the main road and if you miss the sign, you are pretty much screwed, like we were. GPS doesn’t really work way up here, so it was just us and our instincts, which just made matters worse cause everyone’s instincts was pointing to a different direction. So we drove up the Kinabalu Park which was actually 2km away from our lodge to ask for directions. The lady at the counter asked for entrance fee before realizing we were only asking directions. We then headed down and got lost again and went back to the Park for better instructions and the lady asked for entrance fees again!

This was actually taken at 6.30am on Day 3 when the mist cleared for like half an hour, but this is the view from our room at the lodge

Drive up to the lodge

After getting more accurate directions from the very helpful staff at the Park, we headed onto the road that leads to our lodge. The lodge is situated 1KM off from the main road. It’s a steep drive up to the lodge and can get quite muddy heading up and we had to drive on the lowest gear. It is advisable to get to the lodge before 6pm as it gets dark fairly quickly and there is no lights along the road heading up to the lodge.

The weather was very cold, and were all freezing, except for Deviljoe, whose shorts was still too warm for her. The rooms have no heater nor AC and trust me, none is needed. The bathrooms are shared and dinner is RM8 per pax, prepared upon request by the caretakers. We had brought some instant noodles and the warm soup was more than comforting.

Couldn’t see much of the view, which was all mist anyway, once it got darker and we got down and ready for a cold night

Jesselton Misty Tales Day 1

The land under the breeze.Sabah…what started out as Jesselton town is now known as Kota Kinabalu and this is a place where history runs deep, and can be witnessed by the actions of the people here. Ask anyone and they will tell you their town is Jesselton and you can find many shops still using this name in their business signages.

This is my first trip to Sabah with the diplodocus, Deviljoe and Tonti Chee, to which I must say, the furthest state of Malaysia has proven to be one of the most interesting and beautiful places.

Day 1

We decided to spend our first night at KK Town before heading out to Kundasang the next day. Having our 90 day pass to Sabah and securing our Myvi for the drive around town, we headed to Gaya Street to find our accommodation at the Asian Adventure Lodge.

Part of the Gaya Street decorated for CNY 2014

The view from the Lodge Pantry

It wasn’t very hard to find our hotel, but the parking was a pain in the ass. As the street is pretty much as famous as KL’s Petaling Street,  you can imagine the kind of parking space they had. Most of the shops entrances are actually behind the main street, so if you see a signboard for a restaurant along Gaya, don’t be surprised to find no entrance to the shop.

Though we reached 3 hours later than our check in time, we were a little surprised to find the room not ready. Hungry and excited, we decided to dump our bags at the reception and skipped off to the nearby restaurant Fong Ip for some chow.Whatever you do, do not ask for roti canai or nasi lemak around here. Pretty much sucks.

The shared pantry. Breakfast is provided but is a simple toast and jam

After jalan jalan for a bit, we headed back to the tiny lodge to shower and change. The owner, I found, was a little too talkative and wasn’t too subtle in hiding her political views. So if you decide to stay here, be prepared to hear her many interesting views and life stories + do not book on Agoda as she blatantly informed me that she does not check the bookings made on this site..sigh, no wonder la our room wasn’t ready when we arrived. But she is very helpful in giving ideas on the dos and donts around KK and offers good prices if one is interested on tours. But since we had rented a Myvi, its much cheaper to get around compared to taking tours to the sites.

The temperature dropped to about 21 deg at night and winds can get pretty chilly. It was a cool welcome from the heatwave that is Kuala Lumpur. This first night, we decided to have some local Chinese food and  coconut pudding from Restoran masakan sedap@ Hilltop, Jalan Lintas, Luyang. The pudding is served in the coconut itself and looks like tau foo fa but it’s very cooling and fresh.

The Pudding comes in the coconut, 1 coconut is plenty to be shared by 4 pax

One dish down on my list of to-eats..45 more to go. Some how I have doubt that I can completely try everything that’s on my list..but hey, when on holiday, whats reasonable right?