Spacious Moments

Happiness is like a butterfly . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:31:00 +0000

Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it the more it would elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. . . by Thoreau

So long, goodbye and thank you so much for the beautiful music and songs, Whitney Houston. RIP.

Whitney Houston's I will always love you

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:45:00 +0000

Thank you Whitney Houston for all the beautiful songs, especially this memorable song "I will lways love you," from the 1992 soundtrack of the movie "the bodyguard." RIP

Uncle is ill

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:23:00 +0000

After a few weeks of not seeing old uncle who helps out at his family's vegetable stall in the wet market, my wife asked his son about him. "Uncle has stopped working due to illness," the son replied.

Old uncle who is in his 70s and has a hunched back is a sprightly person despite his old age. Ever cheerful and courteous he never fail to say thank you to me and my wife whenever we pay for the vegetables. And in return we always thank him for allowing my wife to temporarily store the packed vegetables in his stall until we have finished buying all the groceries.

At his advanced age he should be enjoying his retirement instead of serving customers in the market.

We wish him well and fast recovery from his ailment.

Happiness in daly life is punching the keypads...

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:33:00 +0000

All the labels in the keypads of this Shell station petrol vending machine are completely missing, thus unreadable. However relying on my imagination and instinct I was surprised and extremely delighted to be able to top up the almost empty fuel tank of the Kancil at the first attempt by punching the keypads in the correct sequence.

More importantly it takes so little to find simple happiness in doing mundane stuffs in daily life like punching keypads in the correct sequence

Eating sin food

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:55:00 +0000

Sun 5/2/2012 Melaka

Who could resist the charms of these two friendly chefs?

Ended up at this food court near the Portuguese settlement eating fried chicken wings, fried oyster omelet and Portuguese grilled fish, three greasy sin foods that I normally won't touch even with a 10-foot pole.

Treking in the hills of Tampin

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:06:00 +0000

Aenon Health Farm. 6/2/2012 Tampin, Negeri Sembilan

Tracking up and down the steep hill slopes. The concrete foot steps cast into the hill sides made the climb more comfortable though no less easier due to the undulating terrain.

Rubber trees with live latex oozing from the tree barks, huge granite boulder outcrops, vegetable plots, shrubs, flowers and a fish pond form the natural landscape of the hill side. Though the sun was up and fiery, the lush overhead foliage of the rubber trees provided some cover and relief from the stifling mid-morning heat.

The resident dog who had absolutely no fear of humans accompanied the group in the 40 minute trek. It would playfully trot ahead of the group of about 10 people and then backtracked with its tail wagging as if teasing the climbers who also consisted of senior citizens. Throughout the trek not once did the animal barked at us and most of the time it would respectfully raced on the ground surface along the edge of the concrete steps. The antics of this dog gave some comic relief to the otherwise labourous and arduous climb though the others in the group might not be aware of the show. I was told that the dog was a stray who after wandering into the farm one day decided to stay there for good.

Lost in Jonker Street

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:11:00 +0000

Lost in Jonker Street. 5/2/2012, Melaka.

The lantern lit but eerily empty night scene at one of the many narrow side streets off Jonker Street.

Walking back to the car park after the visit to busy Jonker Street night market our family group almost got lost wandering along the maze of narrow streets until we encountered a kind family group near a mosque who gave us the correct direction to our destination.

Then joining the large group of Muslim men and women who had just emerged from the mosque after their prayers and who were walking along the same direction as us we soon arrived at the bridge beside the Melaka river where we had earlier parked our cars.

Chendol Drive-In

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:07:00 +0000

Chendol Drive-In, Sat 5/2/2012 Melaka

This stall is reputed to sell the best chendol in town. Due to the absence of parking space some customers double-parked by the road side either buying take-aways or to consume the sweet drink right inside their cars; never mind in so doing blocking half the busy street and disrupting the traffic flow.

The Melaka folks seem a tolerant lot because despite double-parking in front of the chendol stall blocking half the street passing motorists didn't blast their horns. This sort of behaviour would be deemed unacceptable in KL roads.

Following the example of the locals we hurriedly gulped down the iced dessert in our cars and then moved on so as not to inconvenient passing motorists.

8 hours to renew our international passports

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:56:00 +0000

Federal Territory Day Public Holiday Wed 1/2/2012. Kajang Immigration Department

I and my wife spent more than 8 hours from 8.30am to 5.00pm at the packed immigration office building in Kajang to renew our expiring international passports.

For the first 4 hours we were standing on our feet waiting in a long queue outside the entrance to get into the processing area for our applications to be checked and accepted. And the second 4 hours were spent sitting down on the benches waiting for the various stages of our applications to be processed. By the time we stood before the checking counter our legs had turned numb and stiff and our knees were hurting from the four hours of standing.

The immigration officers were doing their work professionally though.

The long processing and waiting time was caused by just too many people either applying for new passports or renewing expired ones. On this day, I believe that there were more than 400 applicants because my number was 1328 and my wife's 1335. This means that there were already more than 300 people in front of us when we joined the long queue at 8.30am. After more than 400 numbers were given out the officers had to bar the late comers from coming in.

The big crowd was due to the public holiday in KL. KL folks and Selangor people like myself who work in KL took advantage of the holiday in KL to renew their expiring passports in the various state immigration offices outside KL.

Lucky stars, a Happy CNY story

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:06:00 +0000

At a gift shop in the Aeon Cheras Selatan Mall during the CNY holidays on Jan 27, 2012.

I noticed my daughter bought a few strips of assorted colour paper at the store.

I knew these strips are used for folding paper stars. Not too long ago I too folded paper stars from strips that I cut out out from white A4 paper, an activity which which gave me many hours of enjoyment.

Nevertheless, I asked her about the paper strips. "It's for making lucky stars," she said with the hint of a smile.

I knew that she wanted to make lucky stars for someone special. Knowing the identity of that special person in her life I conveniently chose not to ask her. That special someone is certainly not me, her dad nor her mom. Later she bought a fancy glass bottle from another shop.

As the threesome, me, wife and daughter continued our stroll along the the aisles of the shopping mall I started to think about folding lucky stars for that special someone in my life too.

I wonder where among the maze of folders in the pc hard drive that I had downloaded and saved that forgotten YouTube video clip on origami star folding. You see, I've already forgotten how to fold paper stars.

The "Viral Factor" movie

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:05:00 +0000

As today the family is still celebrating the CNY holidays, and that we had some free time to ourselves I, my wife and daughter decided to entertain ourselves in the TGV cinema watching a movie. So last night I made an online booking of today's 11.10am morning show of the movie "Viral factor" at TGV Cheras Selatan Cineplex for 3 persons.

Viral factor which was shot mostly in Malaysia and starring two of the big names in Chinese cinema, Jay Chou and Nicholas Tse is an action packed movie with non-stop fighting actions from the start to the finish.

Even my wife who normally sleeps through a movie session stayed wide awake for the whole duration of the screening. The familiar scenes of KL city and the fast-paced actions depicted in the movie got her excited enough to follow the storyline and the plot of the movie. My daughter later told me that her mother kept on asking her the identities and locations of some of the KL scenes depicted in the movie.

One thing unique about this movie is that the dialogs are multi-lingual. You can here the actors and actresses speak an assortment of languages eg English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia and Arabic. Even the Cantonese dialogs have distinctive Hong Kong and Malaysian flavours. Malaysians watching this movie will feel quite at home with the dialog as they are familiar with all the languages spoken, except Arabic.

The sound of silence signaled the end of CNY disruption

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:25:00 +0000

Alas! I hear the beautiful sound of silence. The construction work which has been winding down during the last three days had stopped completely.

For the past three weeks prior to the start of the CNY celebrations my family had to put up with the jarring noises and dust coming from my next-door neighbour who had been busy remodeling his house.

Not a day went by without the peace being disturbed by the the sound of construction activities eg knocking, demolishing, grinding, sawing, hammering, welding, and hacking works. Apart from the noises, we had to clean the floor and the furnishings at least once a day when construction dust, cement and sand particles blown by the wind would invade our home.

While I accepted the situation with equanimity my wife, being less charitable with the situation was quite upset with the noise and dust intrusion. She complained loudly why she had to clean up stuffs left behind by other people.

There is nothing much that can be done about the situation other than to learn to live with it the best way you can. You can't stop the guy from doing renovating work within his property. That is his right as the owner of the property.

As for the sound and dust they are the by-product of construction activity that is hard to control. Sound is easily transmitted through the air and if there is a strong wind blowing in addition to sound the wind carries the dust particles from place to place along its path.

If you stop for one minute to think about the situation his family was worse off than mine because the family had to deal with the inconveniences and disruptions to normal life daily as they had to live in the house while the chaotic renovation work was happening all round them. Just imagine how many times a day the family had to clean up and rearrange the furnishings to make way for the construction work.

While maintaining my equanimity I did what I could to relief my wife's emotional anguish by being available to listen to her woes calmly without being judgmental or critical.

In the end we also received some benefits from the neighbour's house renovation work. He has extended his car porch roof to cover ours and as a result our car porch is now completely sheltered from the rain where before in a heavy downpour some rain carried by the wind would inevitably enter our car porch through the open space under the roof. The new curb that was constructed at the edge of his driveway extension had stopped the rain water runoff from overflowing into our side of the boundary. He had also cut down some branches of the tree so there is more headroom and space to park our second car.

Body cleansing after CNY binge eating

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:43:00 +0000

My body has started to rebel against the abuses to my digestive system accumulated over the past 4 days of CNY binge eating. Had to evacuate my bowels twice the first thing in the morning to expel the toxins. Am expecting to go again for more cleansing.

I never enjoy eating 7-course dinners but because of CNY when family members get together for reunion dinner tradition and courtesy dictates that I go along with the feasting. Including drinks,cookies and other CNY tit-bits you tend to eat more than your normal requirement no matter I much you try to restrain yourself.

A memorable CNY moment

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:05:00 +0000

The family has just arrived home, exhausted but happy from a day trip to Ipoh for a CNY family reunion gathering. Then when we were stepping into the car porch we were immediately overwhelmed by a pungent smell. In the darkness some of us had stepped onto dog poo. I imagined that a street dog had come by the house while the family was away and depositing his poo by the gate was his way of wishing the family Gong Xi Fa Cai. What a memorable CNY celebration!

A memorable CNY family gathering in Ipoh

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:30:00 +0000

Annual family CNY reunion dinner in Ipoh Sun Lee How Fook Restaurant. A memorable occasion as you can see the natural smiles and joys reflected in the faces of the family members.

Buying pomelos during CNY visit to Ipoh

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

The family was was selecting Tambun pomelos at one of the row of stalls near Sam Poh Tong Temple in Ipoh. Every CNY we go to this same stall to buy pomelos. The friendly aunty vendor (dressed in bright red) doesn't seem to age with time because she looks the same year after year.

Wishing good health, happiness & prosperity

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:21:00 +0000

How do you reciprocate sms Gong Xi Fa Cai greetings from friends who don't celebrate CNY and at the same time show your deep sensitivity, appreciation and gratitude of their continuous friendship? It seems inappropriate to wish them back Gong Xi Fa Cai because they are non-Chinese. After giving some thoughts I decided to reciprocate all my non-Chinese CNY well-wishers as follows:

TQ for your CNY greetings. Wishing you and your family happiness, good health and prosperity in this year of the Dragon.

Sushi King "Yee Sang"

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:37:00 +0000

Tossing "Yee Sang" at a Sushi King restaurant with family members. As there were only four of us eating we ordered a plate of mini "Yee Sang". Surprisingly the crunchy dish is quite tasty and not as sweet as the local varieties. The local Yee Sang is so sweet that the sauce tends to completely mask the taste of the raw fish.

Simple foods

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:56:00 +0000

Ilike simple meals like this bowl of steaming hot mee hoon or rice vermicelli soup served with bitter gourd slices, meat balls and meat shreds. It is not only tasty, nutritious, non-greasy but also light on the wallet.

Gong Xi Gong Xi

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:47:00 +0000

Wishing all my family members, friends, fellow senseis and students of Aikido, readers of this blog and not forgetting everybody else in the planet Happy New Year of the Water Dragon.

To those who are traveling have a safe journey.

Gong Xi Gong Xi

Full house

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:15:00 +0000

Wednesday 18/1/2012 class. Fullhouse attendance. Had to move the mats from our usual Mezzanine Floor training area to the ground floor lobby.

There were a few students from Taekwondo and Chinese Kick Boxing classes.

Gong Xi Fa Cai INTi Aikido

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Wishing all INTi Aikido Club members Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai. The first INTi Aikido class immediately after the CNY will be held on 30/1/2012.

Dry taps

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:36:00 +0000

Not a single drop of water from the taps. My wife complained that the water supply had stopped since 4.30pm yesterday.

She is upset that she can't wash the laundry. She had to use the water from the water storage tank for cooking and washing the dishes. Let's hope that the water supply will be back before the water storage tank runs out of water, hopefully by 6.30am in the morning before people go to work.

Instead of using the shower I had to bathe using the hose which gets its supply from the water storage tank.

Ludicrous marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:28:00 +0000

Ludicrous marketing, and bordering on the bizarre.

On the label the current price of the canned drink is billed as RM2.59 while the old price is RM2.60. If you do your maths correctly the saving is only 1 sen. Even after buying 10 cans you save only a miserable 10 sen.

Nowadays with the escalating cost of living even 10 sen is useless because you can't buy anything or services with 10 sen. Even a visit to pee at a pay public toilet will cost you at least 20 sen, if not more to be paid to the operator for the use of the facility

Stocking up for CNY

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Ng) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:57:00 +0000

The family is stocking up on groceries ahead of the long festive holidays in about 8 days time. The bulk of the items are canned drinks and mandarin oranges for the CNY celebration.

Most consumers wait until the last week before the CNY to shop because it is during this period that merchants will offer the best price discounts and other buy incentives.

For all these items purchased the family received a RM35.00 cash voucher to be used for more purchases at the store. However there is a time limit on the validity of the voucher. The voucher must be used for store purchases before the end of next week.