Aunt Fong Ang and husband opens their second laundrette

19th June marks the opening of the second laundrette for my 8th Aunt and her husband. Initially, I had planned to take leave for that day to bring some cousins over for the opening ceremony. But I had to call up to decline the invitation as I also had a meeting in the office in the early afternoon of the same day. My brother Kit, had said he would take time off to go, if I fetched him. So it ended up , none of us were able to accept the invite.

As luck would have it, the office meeting on the 19th was to discuss on a community affair planned for 17th July, for which I had volunteered to be the MC. Coincidentally, I had to be in Germany during that week in July. So I opted out of that office meeting. I also took leave on 19th as Madeline was using my house as base of operations for her wedding party and tea ceremony. There were the canopy contractors coming in to setup the canopies. Madeline had to pick up her bridal gown, etc, etc., etc..

In the end , Madeline and I managed to squeeze out some time to attend the opening ceremony of the laundrette. It is located inside the Platinum Lake condominiums in Taman Danau Kota in Setapak. The opening of the launderette was blessed by their church's Pastor and attended by many of her church members.

Both my Aunt and husband are MBA graduates since more than a decade ago. Somewhere along the way, her husband decided to try his hand at his own business instead of working for corporate and this business came about. My aunt is some kind of HR director in AP for the United Nations. Still have not managed to ask her the exact details.

Apprpriately enough, the door gifts were hangers. Expandable hangers!.

Port Dickson for a holiday? - other attractions

My third update on the vacation in Port Dickson.

So besides swimming (or floating in some cases) in the sea and lazing on the beach, what else can one do in PD? Of course there is the requisite banana boat rides for the young ones. When I looked through my photo archives, I realized that on every visit, without fail, we would end up in the Ostrich farm. You pay the entrance fees, walk by the goats enclosure. Feed the goats grass and any other vegetation you can grab hold of. Disturb the pea brained ostriches. Watch the monkey demonstrate how to pluck coconuts and then have photo op with him (this particular one is named Abu). Then stand on supposedly ostrich eggs (but on closer examination, more likely to be 2 round ostrich egg like stones). Ride the ostrich. Ride the ponies. And finally end up in the cafeteria for a drink and maybe ostrich satay. The Ostrich farm has a somewhat self sustaining farm, with star fruit (carambola) trees abundantly populating the premises.

Next, there was the PD mini zoo. This was the first time we were going there. More of the same - ostriches, monkeys, peacocks/peahens, ponies, donkeys and horses. They also grew many star fruit trees on their premises. What i really liked during my visit was the numerous DURIAN trees. With fruits clustered on every branch. Unfortunately the durians will not be ready for another few weeks.
So near yet so far! Sigh!

Port Dickson for a holiday? Lido Beach

Lido beach - frankly I have no idea what's the name of the beach. But it stretches from Lido Hotel (8th mile) at one end to just before Bayu Beach hotel at the other end. It is a public beach and has bath and toilet facilities around the main area which is populated by a large carpark and numerous little shacks masquerading as shops selling beach activities stuff.

A beach is a beach is a beach. Right? Well, not so. If you go to the Angsana apartments end of the beach, i.e. the end near to Lido hotel, the beach is stony. All 3 of our kids cut their feet on the sharp stones/rocks when we plonked ourselves down there. The mid section is better - very sandy.

I just want to highlight 2 gripes that I have about that beach

First of all, the day trippers have absolutely no sense of civic mindedness. Our first day on the beach was Tuesday - it's the middle of the week, so not as many visitors as one may expect. Beach was relatively clean. By the end of our stay, with the weekend looming, the number of visitors increased dramatically. And the beach was like one big litter bin. We saw families bring their food for a day picnic, eat it on the beach and just dumped the remains in the sand. There was bits and pieces of fried chicken and fruits, along with water bottles, waste papers and so on.

Second major gripe/ observation was that for a public beach, there was no visible bay watch kind of post - until one looked closely. I found 2 very cozy, probably air conditioned watch towers on both ends of the beach. The picture above is the one located at the Lido Hotel end of the beach, The picture above shows the watch tower at the other end (not Lido Hotel) of the beach. The windows were so heavily tinted that you cannot tell if anyone is in there. In any case, the one on the Lido Hotel end was shielded by trees - so it is effectively USELESS. How could a life guard tell if anyone is in distress when nobody on the beach can even tell if there is a watch tower there? Don't believe that - have a look at the first 2 photos again. Can you see the watch towers in those photos? I can't, but they are there. There is a third watch tower in the mid section of the public beach - that was also unmanned.

There was also a life guard office next to Lido Hotel. When I went by, I saw a man dressed in a bush jacket trying to lock the doors - with RUBBER BANDS!!
I am at a loss for words on this one.

Port Dickson for a holiday? Don't use Palm Springs Resort!!

This school holidays from end of May to early June, I brought the family and family friends to the Palm Spring Resort in Port Dickson for a holiday. The other family was Frankie and Yoke Lang with their 2 sons.

Palm Springs Resort is located just opposite the Tiara beach hotel. The entrance and facade looks grand, the apartment is very spacious. We had 3 furnished bedrooms in the apartment together with 4 bathrooms, 2 spacious living rooms (1 unfurnished), a reasonable sized dining area and of course a kitchen. Our biggest gripe - the darn resort was nowhere near the sea. There was no beach front. Who in the world comes to PD and not go to the beach!!

Next gripe - okay, so Tiara beach hotel does not have a beach front either - BUT they have a very large swimming pool that caters from the very young to the senior citizens. Palm Spring boasts of a sand pool, children pool, jacuzzi , reflexology area and even a fitness center. Sand Pool was off limits - water looks like it has had a year's worth of algae growth. Children pool - looks blue and smelled strongly of chlorine.Jacuzzi was not turned on. Reflexology area was just a stony walkabout area. Last but not least, the fitness center was just an all-in-one fitness machines with all the plugs for the weights removed - essentially useless.

So we ended up in the public beach - Lido beach - for the duration of our stay.

I would NOT recommend anyone to go there for a holiday. A business retreat - maybe (grudingly), BUT for sure - NOT for a holiday!!

Malaysian passport - ready in 2 hours!!

I am suppose to be in India this week - the week of 9th June. Just before I went off on my annual leave about a week and the half ago, I submitted my passport to the Indian High Commission to apply for an Indian Visa. On a Thursday evening, I received a call from our travel desk that the passport had been returned because the Indian High Comm could not find a single page to affix the Visa!!

I had already planned to be out of town with my family for school holidays. Darn!!! I had to send an email to our dept admin for help to relay to the India team of my visit cancellation. I had no Visa and had to apply for a new passport. So how could I apply for a passport if i am not in town?

Coming back to work on Monday saw me buried under more than 600 emails. Sifting through all that took all of Monday. So, today, Tuesday, I finally had time to go to the immigration department to apply for a new passport.WOW!!! All it took from handing my application in to getting my hands on the new passport was 2 hours. The immigration department has sure bucked up a lot since the last time I was there. I paid the fees for the new passport at 10.19am and got it at 12.30pm.

I had just approved 5 days leave for one of my new employees in India because it takes him that long (including transportation time to his hometown) to process his passport. Sheesh!!