Say A Little Prayer For Him

It is 8.15 pm and I'm sitting cross legged on the floor near gate 61 at the HKIA. I had thought a couple of days ago that I was done going to the airport. At least untill I go back for raya lah. I have not even sorted out my photos from the previous SG trip which incidentally ended 20th of July. 4 days ago..... and now 4 days later, I'm back at HKIA, waiting for my flight which has been delayed to 10.10pm back to SG.

Why am I heading back to SG so soon? Not for pleasant reasons I'm afraid. My FIL has been warded and the prognosis is grim. Docs say it is not looking too good for him. His bp is low, his pulse is erratic and the worst part of it all is that he's unconscious. It saddens me that I know for a fact that the person he would want holding his hand and sitting by his side is not there. I have watched a couple of shows and documentaries that has ascertained that people in comas can actually hear what is being said to them. They can hear it in their subconscious. I think this particular person should not be thinking of herself and other asses , she should be by my FIL's side and talking to him, comforting him, encouraging him although it might seem futile.

I'm pissed as hell that this particular person is not worried that any breath that my FIL takes might be his last. Why wouldn't she want to be with him? Does she not love him? I mean, seriously, if alam was sick, I'd rather stay home and be by his side than go to work. Oh! wait a minute! I can stay home and take care of him, I'm no longer working! But I digress......

I'm also pissed as hell that the flight has been delayed. The person checking us in was also an ass. Instead of apologising for the fact that the flight was delayed, she very nonchalantly said,' So the flight delay until 10.10 ocrock'... In broken English no less......

I pray that my FIL hangs on till we come. I hope I don't meet this particular person because in my mind, I have a really strong desire to push her. Not a pretty picture. As I've declared, I'm leaving Ms Nice in HK.......

Please say a prayer for my FIL ok?

My State of Darkness

I just don't like to get dark. I just don't. This summer sun has made me very dark. I hate it. I wrote previously that Mr Sun is no friend of mine, now I'll show you...

The lighter patch of skin there is where my watch was. No flash was used to take this picture.You tell me lah, 5 shades darker or not???!!! I can't even bring myself to show you the face. So melengit! I hereby announce that I will only leave the house at night.

Summer Love? Not So Much.

It's summer here in Hong Kong. For the past 3 days, the sun has been shining so very very brightly that I think it needs shades itself. I was prepared that it was going to be hot. I WAS NOT prepared however, that it would scorch. As a result of which, yours truly is now a horrid shade of DARK. My arms are supertanned. The part covered by my watch, is a good FIVE, yes you read FIVE!! shades lighter than my current colouring.

My face, is sunburnt. I don't have the good fortune of turning a healthy red when tanned, I just go straight from brown to black. Well, oklah, not black, just horrid dark. It's terrible. Even now, I can feel heat eminating from my face. What's worse, all this excess heat is making me sick. I'm down with flu, fever, cough, the works. I hate it! Then, as if to rub salt into the wound, the aircon in my bedroom is blowing hot air! I think the coolant's all gone.

Whoever say summer's a great season must really enjoy getting burnt by the sun. I hate it. If I had the moolah, I'll up and go to, say, Aussie or New Zealand to ride out summer.

Mr Sun, you are no friend of mine. I will only be going out at night to ensure minimal darkening process. Autumn, quickly come.....

My First Attempt

I am fooling around with Photoshop in between vacumming and mopping the floors in preparation for my darling girls to come....

First I took this photo... Ya I know, the photo, very boring. Then I tried to photoshop it.... it turned out like this...

So how? I thought it was ok.... Now if only I know how to remove my double chin without ending up looking like I have a damned huge neck!

Tsk! Tsk!

A little knowledge is surely a dangerous thing. Especially when it comes to matters of life and death. Please lah, do homework why don't you? Not everything is as simple as it seems. Don't be a lemming. Just because some lemmings do it, doesn't mean it's good. It's so irritating, minds that never think. Simply make decisions based on what others say. Simply irritating.

It's Back!

We like this Chinese Muslim restaurant on Wan Chai Rd. Since we came here, we've been there many many many times. It has a shiok selection of dishes. Very authentically chinese. We were told it was Shanghainese cuisine. No problem lah, the food is fantastic anyways. Recently, they decided to chnage the menu and make it a Cantonese restaurant. Changes are good right? NO. The food was terrible, they had this dish of fried beehoon, canto style, but it was just like beehoon fried in kunyit. So the tak sedap. We stopped going. Apparently not only us. Many of their customers also stopped coming.

Last weekend, we happened to pass the restaurant and saw that the old menu had returned! Hooray!! So we went in and had the Shangahinese Fried Noodles and the Spring Onion Chicken. So sedap! Yummm.....

We had half a chicken. The restaurant took it to mean quite literally and they even served us with half the chicken's head. It was halved right down the middle!! Things like these really gross me out. My alam dearest took the half head and put it under a bowl so that I would stop getting grossed out. So sweet he is....:-)

The Halfway Mark

It will be 6 months come this 26th since we have taken that leap of faith. Many things have happened since. In fact some things are still happening. Alam and I have adjusted to life here in HK. Though we surely miss comforts of home all the time, things here are not too shabby. Of course we didn't have the luck or luxury of getting a home here that has 9 bedrooms and 4 maids with 2 cars and chauffeurs to boot, but what we have is cosy, to say the least. It's small, which means I don't have much to clean up. My only regret is the small kitchen which means Alam and I can no longer be cooking together, something we love doing. Speaking of cooking, I have been cooking almost everyday. I'm not too bad at it. Alam is still healthy and bouts of diarrhoea have not been caused by my cuisine. For Alam, life is pretty much similar to what it has always been, work work and more work, it's just geography.

I thought now would be a good time to take stock of things. I've had my rest. I've had my catching up on me time. It's time to dust myself off and DO. I've started by housekeeping my blogspot and multiply. Updating the new stuff and deleting the old. Strengthening old re-kindled friendships, which is amazing, and throwing out toxic 'friends'. I'm surprised at how full of shit some 'friends' can be. Alam says I'm naive like that. Talking about re-kindled friendships, I realise that I have friends all over the world. Literally. These friends have made a life for themselves and not too shabbily I might add. There's a doctor in London, a securities specialist in Canada, a Queen's Council in Australia, an editor right here in HK and more... ironically, these people who have travelled the world and are such high flyers are so humble and are NOT a pretentious lot. Unlike what I have been exposed to in my wonderful world of teaching. Sigh.....

Well, As I've said, it's time to DO.

1. Take Cantonese Lessons
We had an electrical failure episode a few nights ago which could have gone so wrong if we were bad at charades or if Alam didn't have Canto speaking colleagues. After that was sorted out, we decided that I HAVE to go learn.

2. Exercise
We have decided that while we are not putting on more weight - thank goodness- we should try to lose the excess weight - and we have plenty! - that we have. So, we will be walking on saturday mornings at Victoria Park. Oh, and I am seriously considering joining a gym.

3. Cook Complex Dishes
I'm going to try to up my cooking game. Not sure how but by God, I'll surely try!

Those are my priorities at the moment. I'll revisit these in say, 3 months and I'll give you an update. In the meantime, I'm gonna go look for matresses. My lovelies are coming to town! Can't wait! Oh, and KL cannot come fast enough! Gah!

Guess Who?

Guess who's coming to town? I'm so excited! I hope all goes well!

Gastronomical Getaway.....Again!

Where almost everything is Halal. Where almost everything is familiar. Where almost everything is still affordable. Where almost everything can be picked up off the streets. Where almost everything cannot be found here. Where our eyes will glaze over in the sheer bliss and satisfaction of great food. We will be there soon. Not soon enough! HK Independance Day, come quick!

Mum's Day

I still remember when I was young, when my siblings and I, armed with $2 each would go in search for our mum's day presents. I reckon at that time our mighty $2 could get us plenty. We'd end up wiyh funny funny gifts for her, once my brother got 3 packets of scouring pads and wrapped it up nicely. Another time I managed to find a bottle of Nescafe that came with a free gift and so felt so accomplished that I had TWO gifts instead of 1. heheh.... We never thought to pool our money to get her a more expensive gift. They were good times.

Now, we're all grown up and many Many many things have changed. God only knows how Mak felt on that Sunday. Only Farah was with her. My brother was, as usual, not around. I am not in SG, so it's a first for everyone that I was not there to orchestrate the whole Mum's Day Affair. It was very difficult for me. I was really wishing that I was with Mak. Apparently, from reliable source, she was upset that I didn't call her to wish her a happy day, but of course she didn't know that I had ordered a fruit basket and a bunch of flowers to be delivered to her. She was in tears it seems when she got it and called me immediately to say thank you.

It's difficult for everyone. I wish I was celebrating with little people who call me mummy but that's just a dream.

It's probably also difficult for my sayang. He is going through wild emotions with what has happened with his mum. I know it's so hard to have a mother and yet don't seem to have one...

Well...

Mak, thank you for being a wonderful, strong, amazing mum. Thanks for calling and checking up on me when I was sick. Thanks for being my walking recipe book. Thanks for all the advice( although I don't listen to half of it! ). Thanks for being there when I needed you to be. Thanks for understanding that I needed to leave and having the faith that I will never forsake you. Thanks for being my mak. I love you.

My Poison

There's really magic in a nice hot steaming huge mug of caramel machiatto when you're feeling blue. I'm so fortunate that I live so close to 2 Starbucks that when the icky feeling hits, I just head down to one of them shops and get me some coffee loving. As you enter the place, the wonderful and seductive aroma of coffee tickles your nose and when you inhale the aroma, you just get a natural high. Usually armed with a book, I'd get a venti, non-fat, sugar-free caramel machiatto and if lucky, get one of those oversized super duper comfortable sofa, I could spend hours there......

A Little Escapade

It's settled. Alam and I will be visiting the most 'westernised' chinese city in China come Labour Day. Looking forward to a little US time away from Alam's work. A little getaway. Perhaps this is the much needed 'uplift' I need. I dunno, Have been feeling blue these days. I know I have plenty to be thankful for, but it's just human nature to want something they can't have.... Especially so when you are surrounded by people who have it so easy... Sometimes I feel so hypocritical when I smile and tell them how happy I am for them when I secretly want to lash out and yell and ask them, 'WHAT ABOUT ME???!!!??'

I think Alam is just the sweetest person on earth. He's so strong,even if he doesn't realise it. I just don't know what I'll do if he was not my pillar. I know he deserves so much more and for that I'm just so sorry....

Lily Phase - Out

I have gotten all the available colours for the lilies at the friendly florist near home. So today after chucking away the wilted pink lilies, I went to see what was available. I fell in love with these.


I don't know what they are called, but aren't they just lovely? This whole bouquet, I got for HKD$50 which is SGD$9.10. The bouquet is HUGE ok! Seriously. In SG, you'll just get 5 stalks of statice for SGD$10. I just had to excercise PLENTY of restraint. Also, not for the fact that I only have 1 vase now, I would've bought more to put in all the 3 rooms that I have, In fact, would probably put in the powder room as well. So worth it. I so love love love.

Showtime

Since I have not been gainfully employed, I have been catching up on reading, movies and the likes that I have missed due to work commitments. I have come to realise that life is all about trade offs. No work-more readings-got time-can bake! Especially with no kids, I can afford to be indulgent and sit through dvd after dvd after dvd, just getting up when Bang or nature calls. As you can probably imagine, HMV has become somewhat a choice destination for me these days, what more with ORIGINAL dvds costing only hk$99! Some older titles go for even hk$49 which is sg$9!! My contraband dvd cost more than that!

Our last trip to HMV, which incidentally I can walk to from my home, like walking to the mama shop like that, found me and MBB going bonkers. We ended up spending about sg$200 on about 8 dvds, 2 music cds, his United and my Cosmo magazines. Like many things here, this is much cheaper than in sg.

Anyway, the point of this is that I'm now hooked on this.

It a brilliant show with well written script that is delivered with such dry dark humour that will escape you if you are not astute enough. I love it! It's about this suburban lady who was widowed and has turned to dealing pot to ensure she stays in her expensive house and drives her expensive range rover.

The series touches openly on homosexuality, infidelity, sexuality, coping with grief and loss, respect, human dynamics, human facades and drugs too. Of course.

The language is vulgar and dialogue on point. Hence the ban on it in sg. It's so appaling it's brilliant!

The last episode of season one ended up with the main character, Nancy ( the pot dealer ) meeting the dad of her son's friend and liking him a lot. As she sees it, he's the only sane one amongst all her plastic surgery endorsing, weed smoking and money is everything friends. BUT, as it turns out, he's a DEA agent! How's that for irony?! For the uninitiated, DEA is Drug Enforcement Administration, like our CNB like that lah.

Well, I'm off to get season 2 y'all!

The Sun has Come Out

It has been so cold that when the sun came out last weekend, I was happily basking in the glorious heat. I felt like a cat... hehe... When we first came out here, we were happy to be feeling all the cold but as it eventually got colder, I began missing the sun. So, when the sun came out and beamed into my bedroom, I was just happy to just lay there.

The forecast says that for the next 5 days temperature will range from 18 to 11 degrees but sadly, it has been 13 the whole day today.....

I hope the sun stays, please don't take my sunshine away.

Fresh Seafood

The seafood here is very fresh and quite affordable. It's so fresh that fish and prawns are still flipping and flickering as they display it for you. The crabs and crayfish are still trying to climb out of the baskets they are put in. Actually, the longer I stood there and looked at this futile seafood escape, I felt quite sorry for them and momentarily considered going vegetarian.

So I walked the feeling off. We had gone to the market that morning looking to buy prawns. I was going to cook nasi lemak and prawn sambal. After getting my pack of flickering prawns, I was thinking, how on earth was I going to cook the prawns while they are still alive and kicking and all?? MBB assured me that by the time we get home, they'd be goners anyway. Oklah, or so I thought....

After putting away all the barang barang I had gotten at the market, I started on the prawns. I pored them all out into a big bowl to de-shell them. As i picked one up and was about to pluck it's head off, it's little feet started moving!! Then some of the ones in the big bowl also started to move the long strand on their heads. Oh, I wanted to die......

I yelled for MBB to put the prawns back into the freezer. He just smiled and gave me a very amused look. So no nasi lemak and prawn sambal till the prawns are good and dead!

No Rain

That song by Blind Melons comes to mind. I need a favour. Please let there be no rain today and tomorrow. Please let there be some sun today and tomorrow. Please let there be peace today and tomorrow. Please let us have today and tomorrow. Thank you, much is appreciated.

Needs

I need to go plant shopping. I also need to find a pretty throw to well, throw on my sofa. It's a leather couch, so it gets cold.

Anyone??

On a Happier Note

Happy Birthday To Me!!!!

May all my dreams and wishes come true....
Amin...

Something Not So Nice

I know I get upset and angry quite easily and when I get angry, my mean streak shows. As I welcomed the new year in a different country, a different world, I made a pact with myself to try to substantially reduce this horrid streak of mine. My arguement was that I was in a different place, emotionally, geographically so why not right?

I also found myself in a better place in my faith. That and the fact that it was freezing calmed me down somewhat. I was less agitated and my temper was sweeter. I was more tolerant, more patient, more forgiving in almost every aspect of my life. This, I'm glad to announce has been going on up till 2 days ago.

2 days ago I received a call from a friend, telling me of a situation that has arisen back home. As the story unfolded, I felt a lot of hatred and disgust and loathe for this person. I mean, how jantan are you that you choose to attack me when I'm not even in the same country?? How man are you to criticize me when you were so busy trying to suck up to me when you perceived that I had power?? Do you realise that you are doing to this friend exactly what you did to me last year when the other man left??

Let me tell you this. Why are you so afraid to have me back? Why are you trying so hard to make me look bad? Whatever your reasons, and I know you have plenty, well, excuses more like it, I DO NOT CARE. Practice what you preach. Take up the challenge. May the kids benefit while you're at it. Don't just be all talk lah. But I know that that is all you are. TALK.

Let me just tell you. It is the likes of you that give Malay men a bad name. You hide behind the religion. You hide behind you supposedly dignified exterior. I think my landlord's dog has more dignity than you lah.

I am trying to wipe out hate and revenge from my heart because it makes me a small person and impedes me from moving on with my life and I have been successful up to 2 days ago.Today, I am willing to sacrifice my resolution. Just for you. I will move on with my life, I know. But as surely as the sun will rise, I am sure that I HATE YOU.