Week 3 In Asia

Erawan Shrine

Monday Feb 16 we are on our own again today. We caught a BTS Sky Train to the 4 Face Buddha @ Erawan Shrine (Chitlom Station) as SM wanted to visit. As usual there were maybe 50 devotees at the Shrine paying their respect. As today was Monday and it was the day of the week when the King of Thailand was born many Thais pay their respect and revelry to their deity-like King wearing yellow shirts. Yellow is the colour of royalty. We later made our way to The Platinum Fashion Mall on Petchaburi Rd, about 15 minutes down the road from the Shrine (take a right turn at the next traffic junction). The mall has 5 storeys and 1300 shops! There were not a lot of stuff that we wanted because the quality or the designs was not what we were after but SM bought some T shirts she liked.

We tracked back to Siam Square and ducked into Siam Center for some window shopping and a quick lunch. Food Courts are BIG in the shopping malls. There are always plenty of choices but we always settled for Thai food. Who doesn't love Thai!? Then we wanted to have coffee and I found the UCC Coffee Shop that served very good Japanese coffee and chocolate cakes. I also took the opportunity to use their free Internet service to check on my mails! What a wonderful service they provide to their customers!

We Found Moss Burger (Rice Burger) @ Siam Paragon Food Court. The Last Time We Have Had a Moss Burger Was In Singapore Many Years Ago

Thai Omelet On Rice At Baht 50

Thai Fried Rice (Kao Pad) At Baht 50

More shopping ensued till we dropped dead at night. But in between we managed to have some sessions of foot massage and medicure/pedicure for SM at "Grace" near our hotel (Citadines Sukhumvit) on Soi 11. Wonderful service today at Grace and all at very reasonable rates: Baht 400 for my foot massage of 2 hours, Baht 200 for SM's 1 hour foot massage, and Baht 400 for her medicure/pedicure. A total of Baht 1000 or A$ 40! The massages in Thailand are always good and very reasonable. It is one of the big draw cards for tourists, apart from the shopping of course.

Crocs And Lots Of Crocs

Tuesday Feb 17 we wanted to squeeze in some last minute shopping. We were at Robinsons Sukhumvit Soi 19 by 10am. I always find this department store has the wide range of goods I want and always at some larger discounts than other stores. I managed to buy myself a pair of Hitec hiking shoes, SM bought herself 2 pairs of Crocs, and a pair of Clarks. All fantastic and burned a small hole in my pocket. The fact was we were on a holiday mood and bought stuff that we wanted to buy ordinarily but did not feel the urge to do so. Then Mol and Tuk came to pick us up at Citadines at 1pm right on time to send us to the airport. We even managed to squeeze in a nice lunch at a lake near the airport for Baht 905.

The flight back to KL was a non event. Slept a bit on the flight as we were tired. Tomorrow would be another day! Bangkok, we would go back there again and again!

Mol, SM And Friend

Tuk, SM And Friend

Spicy Red Thai Curry

Tom Yum Kung, Fluffy Thai Omelet And Pad Thai

Kamol promised To Send SM The Recipe For the Omelet

Wednesday Feb 18 we got up late today because we were buggered! We managed to do some laundry and ironing and had just bikkies and coffee for breakfast! Truth was we were "fed up" with hawker center food and wanted a change! SM had a lunch appointment in KL so I sent her to the LRT station. I had a lunch appointment with friends Edwin and Ricky @ Holiday Inn Glenmarie for Japanese. Lunch was ok but I was more glad to catch up with the guys. They talked about visiting us in Melbourne sometime in November this year with their families. And talked about buying an apartment for the kids when they go to school there. These guys have done well for themselves and have remained good friends with us for almost 10 years. Good on you guys and I wish you both success.

Tonight I have scheduled a dinner with Captain Mitch and Captain David Low @ Seri Petaling. David works as a First Officer flying Airbus A320 for Air Asia. The dinner was so so but the conversations were flowing. David was sharing his experiences flying for his company for the last 6 months. Prior to joining AA he was a co-pilot at Fire Fly. David is rated on Fokker and Airbus A320/A330. One of his hairiest moments was landing in a windy condition, a direct cross wind of some 17 kts (32 KPH) and he was rated only for 15 kts. Anyway there was of course no issue and he landed well. What David said was he would follow the final approach on an Airbus to 30 ft then at 20 ft he would hold the joy stick control back a little bit for feedback and then chop power to land. Once the main wheels touch the spoilers would deploy automatically. It sounded like a lot of fun and I was sure he was just simplifying the process to make it easy for me to digest! David is a very competent pilot and Mitch looks up to him as a friends and fellow pilot.

Corporate Pilot Capt Mitch, Air Asia Pilot David Low, Private Pilot Capt Chen

Me and Mitch's Partner Having a Yarn

I went to the internet center to check some rates for hotels in Penang. I am going to be in Ipoh on Friday and Saturday staying at Kee Mun's house. Then we will drive up to Penang and stay the night at a hotel and head back to Ipoh on Monday. I plan to visit one of my uncles in Ipoh and another uncle and cousins in Penang. So maybe staying at the Berjaya Georgetown or The Gurney.

Thursday 19 Feb Mitch and David invited me for lunch. Capt Mitch took us to Subang New Village for its special rice wine chicken and sweet and sour pig trotter. Yum. The place was very non plush, in fact even rural, but the food was quite acceptable and quite good. But it was humid! So we "quickly" finished our lunch and made our way to a cooler venue or some cold drinks. We talked and talked, all about airline flying and the life of a professional pilot. We used to do that quite often back in the days when I was learning to fly in 2004. Since I moved to Australia in July 2005 this was the first opportunity we had to catch up on our lives and love for flying. These guys are pros and they are living their lives of their times.

Friday 20 Feb I made my way driving up to Ipoh some 180km from KL to meet Kee Mun. I got there in 2 hours but it took me another 1/2 hour to get from the North-South Highway to his house, negotiating the city traffic. Kee Mun took me to my favourite place for lunch, the Tanjung Rambutan Bus Terminal Nasi Kandar. When I was a kid growing up in Ipoh my mom used to take us kids for Nasi Kandar (a mixture of curries and spices eaten with rice and a selection of goodies such as chicken, prawn, sotong, lady fingers, salted egg etc). at this very restaurant. Needless to say this visit brought back loads of memory for me. The Ipoh folks say that this restaurant add "ganjar" (Opium) to its dishes so that its patrons would keep coming back for more! Such was how good the Nasi Kandar.

Kee Mun took me for a drive around town. We went to most places we used to frequent growing up: Greentown, Fair Park, Ipoh Garden, Canning Garden, Tiger Lane, Thomson Road, Tg Rambutan, Gunung Rapat. I wanted to buy the famous Ipoh Yee Hup Char-broil Hiong Piah ( a type of biscuits) to bring with us to Penang as gifts and so we dropped into Yee Hup the original maker of the Hiong Piah for some shopping.

Cheaply priced Hiong Piah at RM 7 per packet of 10. It's Very Tasty, Sweet, Kind Of Gluey "Biscuit"

Scenery Approaching Ipoh. Picture Taken Along The North-South Highway

Ipoh City Scene. Typical. Traffic, What Else!

Tonight we the Sam Tet Old Boys of Class 1978 (Form 5 S1) met as a large group in Ipoh for the first time since we started the Google Group and Blogging activity. There was pre-dinner drinks at a pub in the Excelsior Hotel at 6pm. Kee Mun and I arrived at 7pm and there were Tali, Boon Chee, Kong Ho, Fook Kheong, Jeffrey Ong, Seng Kian already with beers in their hands. Gradually a few more arrived, Weng Wah, Tong Leong, Chong Hock Choong, Au Chee Keong, Khoo Tuck Ming. Dinner started at 8pm at The Oversea Restaurant opposite the road and it was a time where no guards were up, literally, for all who were present. For details please read stoba1978.blogspot.com.

After dinner and too many whiskey drinks we adjourned to a nearby karaoke and more mayhem took place. Suffice to say some enjoyed more of the KOK that others! The reunion ended with supper at Oon Kee for tauge chicken and Hor Fun at about 1am.

Saturday 21 Feb I visited my only uncle living in Ipoh. Woon Hoy is dad's younger brother and he and my aunt are still around in Ipoh all this while. Most others have gone to live in Melbourne, KL and Singapore. We went to see grandfather's old house which is just across the road from Woon Hoy's. The house is dilapidated and no one has lived in it since a few years back. We are trying to sell the house but it's been difficult to find buyers. There are some sentimental values attached to the house because it was the house my Grandparents and one of the uncles lived. Now that they are gone I feel kind of sad to have to place it on the market but no one would ever live in the house again and so I don't see any point of my hanging on to it anymore.

I also went to see our old house where we lived and grew up. 5 Jalan Brockman, Camay Park conjures up a lot of good memories for me. I lived there till I was 19. All My Siblings Spent Their Early Lives There Too. This trip to Ipoh is a walk down memory lane for me in so many ways. I am glad I have made it here so far because I don't think I will make this kind of trips again. I drove down Jalan Brockman to the end of the street for old time sake and took pictures of WY and KM's old houses. Somehow the street felt a lot shorter and the road a lot narrower than what I thought it was in my mind's eyes. When I was small it felt forever to have to walk from my old house to the end of the street!

Neighbour Kar Ming's Old House. He Lives In The States Now

Neighbour Wai Yin's House. She Lives In KL Now

Sunday 22 Feb I left for Penang driving out of Ipoh at about 8am. I enjoy the car trip as there were sparing traffic and I was by myself and so I could stop for breaks and also enjoy the quiet solitude.

I got to Penang by 10.30am and was able to find my way to Uncle Sim's house. Uncle Sim is mom's younger brother and every time I am back in Malaysia I try to pay him a visit. To cut a long story short we had lunch and dinner together. We were joined by his children (my younger cousins) Kok Choong, Yen Li, and Kok Leong. All were children when I was already in late teens and they used to play with me as I was their big brother. Kok Choong is now a full-fledged architect in his early forties. Kok Leong is a couple of years junior and Yen Li is a couple more years younger than Kok Leong. I enjoyed catching up with them and hoped that they too enjoyed the conversations.

Before going up to Penang from Ipoh I had already decided with Kee Mun that I would not stay over for the night. We think the car trip back to Ipoh on the same day would be manageable. Since Kee Mun would not come up on the same trip with me it would be rather pointless to stay over in Penang for the night. I started driving back to Ipoh at about 7.40pm and managed to get to Kee Mun's house by 10pm +. It's been a long day!