My house is a war zone

After staying in my Taman Midah house for close to 17 years now, it was time to invest in some renovations. Some things were falling apart and needed to be replaced. Some things had to be upgraded. Elaine's aunt and mum says my garden is a jungle (no no , that's not my garden, though I wish it is). I guess that's to be expected since my mum was the active gardener until her knees gave out on her.

House reno
First thing to be changed was windows. The kitchen and both back rooms upstairs had louvred windows and over the years, the mechanism to close the windows had jammed or were very sticky. I had the same contractor who renovated my Denai Alam house to do this job. I had 3 sets of windows changed to sliding aluminum windows. That was completed in about 2 days, including careful dismantling of the old window and frame and putting in the new windows and security grills.

Then I had them remove my bathtub (which was not used for the past decade or more) and remodeled my bathroom (tiles, new shower points and a partition between the shower area and the W.C.)

The biggest piece of work was to tile up my car porch. Here is the in progress and after of the job.Garden cleanup
Grace and Esther spent a couple of days in my garden. Between trimming, cutting, re-potting and throwing (the most labor intensive part of the whole exercise) out unwanted plants and greenery, the garden was quickly transformed.

The bees which had been spending a peaceful time in my garden decided to vacate their hive before the start of the garden resoration. And I think the birds and shrews very quickly realized this and had a go at the hive for honey.

The bougainvillea were the most dangerous as they had large thorns and I managed to get stabbed and sliced by a thorn which caused my thumb to bleed for almost the whole day. Had to dressed and re-dressed my wound 3 times just in the afternoon alone to get the bleeding to stop.

All 3 of us were scratched and insect bitten all over. But the end result was sure worth it.

Thanks Esther and Grace. We still have a bit more to complete.

Denai Alam house has been leased!!

My house in Denai Alam has been let out (finally). Newly wed Tengku Ahmad Masirin and his wife took it close to my expected terms. At least the 10% pay cut my employer has implemented is partially mitigated.

Tengku Ahmad claims that when his status changed from that of single to married, he had to vacate his residence at the Palace. ( A Tengku in Malaysia is a prince or princeling).Not sure how true it is that he had to vacate his palace residence. He also claims to be the director of at least 2 companies.All I know is that he is a good paymaster (so far). He has paid his rent up to and including Feb 2009.

At least my retirement plans for steady income stream is still on track despite the economic downturn.

BBQ for any and all occasions

Christmas is around the corner. Toong (Winter Solstice) is the next day. And the Chinese celebrates that with Tong Yuen (a sweet drink with colored flour balls). As in the past, I would use this as an excuse to have a BBQ at home and invite some friends over to share in this. What is a BBQ if you don't have a crowd to share and enjoy the food?

For this year, I thought I will invite a different group of friends for the BBQ. Of course the regulars must come - if for nothing else, the regulars are the ones with kids and kids just love to burn something.As the invitations started going out, my wife was getting worried. Just how many people are you inviting? er... 20... wait a minute... it's 25 now. Uhm.... 30? We had to cap it at 35 as more than that meant a few of the guests would be standing around with no seats . no standing place at the BBQ pits and so on.

As usual, I do all the marketing for the BBQ stuff - chicken, Beef, Lamb, vege, etc. I had them cleaned and marinated by early morning. This year, I told the guests it was a BBQ pot luck, so some of them chipped in with Salad (Yee Ling), Fruits (Cindy), Fritters looking like mini Yew Char Kuei(Val), Mee Hoon and Rendang(V and M), cake (Siew Mei) and after a while - I lost track as the guests were all over the place.

My neighbor 2 doors away was having the Malay wedding ceremony at the same time and so the streets around my house turned into one big parking lot!.

Almost everything was ready by 4pm and my wife said - let's test out the Korean/Japanese BBQ set first as this was the first time we were using it. For this BBQ, I had 2 regular pits and one electric one. Sure!! Why not? Switched on the electric BBQ thingy , popped some Moo on it and tried a few different heat settings. My my my, it cooked fast and tasted good. In fact, it tasted so good that Yoke Lang just could not stop (actually none of us did) and so the testing phase became a full blown BBQ with the 14 of us who were already there. Half the plate of Moo (beef lah) was polished off. We also finished off 2 bunches of lettuce. Used that to wrap the BBQ meat before munching on it. Delicious!!!.

We only started the fire for the regular pit at about 5pm. Just so that we have enough ambers to get the BBQ going full swing once the rest of the guests showed up. A slight drizzle caused some concerns but they dried up very fast as the wind blew away the clouds. I had a third pit (electric planned). That was to use my convection oven to do up the lamb chops. There must have been a loose connection in the darn thing. It was coming on very intermittently. So I gave that up and used the regular pits to cook the lamb chops. Worked fine!

Besides eating, drinking and exchanging presents, the kids also had fun playing Monopoly with CREDIT CARDS. That's the world they live in today and most probably grow into. And I also learn (yea old dogs still have to learn) that young girls can be so emotional even at games. Amelie, Siew Mei's youngest caused the game to come to a crashing halt because she had to GO TO JAIL. She was so upset that she just sat there and cried. In the end, we asked Alex to pay for her bail just so that she won't miss a turn. But that kinda spoilt the whole game and the boys in the game started playing on the PSP and gameboy.Everyone else had a good time (I hope) eating and drinking and chit chatting. I think such occasions are great to catch up on what's happening with your friends.

After the guests left around elevenish, we cleaned up as much as possible before calling it a day a little past midnight.

Happy Toong and Merry Xmas and Happy New Year everybody.

How to cope in a financial crisis

End of the year is suppose to bring joy and laughter and fun!! We have Christmas and then in January next year, we have the coming of the year of the Ox and Chinese New Year. It is suppose to be the time for giving and sharing. It is when you look forward to some well deserved rewards for hard work put into the year. You expect pay increments, bonuses, stocks and other non financial rewards.
But this year end turns the year into annus horribilis. The sub prime crisis of the USA has finally landed on the WW shores. Prime banks in the States are collapsing like play cards. Value of my investments has been going down and down and the end is still not in sight.
And my employer now tells me (in Nov) - no merit increment this year. Okay, I can live with that. Then in Dec - 10% pay cut, despite a healthy (so they say) cash flow. The powers that be calls this being pro-active. And the pay cut may last for the whole of 2009.
SO under the circumstances, we will need to think of new strategies to adjust our lifestyles. In Malaysia, there are many ways that one can economize
For FOOD and DRINKS:
- go for meals with friends and "forget" to bring your wallet. Okay this is an old ploy and you may have to reciprocate later or.... gasp... pay back when you get back to the office.
- on weekends, go to the larger shopping malls and "patronize" the supermarkets and hypermarkets. You can get a lot of free food samples. Noodles, biscuit, cereals and drinks. You can actually get a complete and nutritious meal doing this and cover your meal needs for Saturdays and Sundays. You can even feed the family doing this.
- on weekdays, visit McDonalds or KFC. They have a policy of free refills on the soda - Coke, Sprite, etc. Just hang around and pick on families with kids. When the family is done with their food and vacate the table, quickly grab the soft drink cup, confidently walk up to the counter and ask for a refill. I guarantee you that you will not go thirsty and at the same time, you can get your sugar rush.
- And still on McDonalds and other fast food chains. When you are there - order takeaway so tha tthe chilli and tomato sauce are in sachets that you can take away and keep. Then eat in and take the sugar, pepper, and salt sachets. McDonalds also provide grape jelly for breakfast.
- Visit friends. In our Asian culture, you can visit friends unannounced and they would normally entertain you with snacks and drinks. If you time it correctly, they may even invite you to join in their meals. Just make sure your pool of friends is large enough so as not to wear out your welcome too soon.
- ON certain festive occasions like Christmas (coming soon), Chinese New Year(in January), Aidil Fitri, Divali and so on, there are many open houses where the public is invited to visit their so called member of Parliament or Government leaders. You can get fried noodles, curries, satays, fruits and drinks there in almost unlimited amounts. Don't feel guilty - those "leaders" did not pay for these. You and I paid as taxpayers. So use this opportunity to get back some of the taxes you have paid.
- Weddings are a plenty all over town. Just follow the signs, sit down and pretend to be one of the invited guests. Stuff yourselves and then make sure you go and congratulate the bride and groom on their happy occasion.

I am sure there are many more ways to economize - but these are the major ones that are easily doable in Kuala Lumpur.

Now, if you still go hungry most of the time or is spending a large amount of money on food, then I cannot help you.

Singapore - just before Christmas 2008

The third term school holidays in Malaysia last about 7 weeks starting in early November and ending the first Sunday of January the next year. This year, I had not planned ahead for the holidays as there was a load of performance reviews and project reviews happening in November. So I kind of played it by ear to see when the family could get a holiday. I wanted to go Hong Kong and HK Disney land, but left it too late - full flights and hotels are not my cup of tea.

Marriot Vacation Club in Singapore offered an offer of S$289 (or was it S$298 - don't matter) for a 2 nights 3 days stay at the Singapore Marriot located at the corner of Orchard and Scotts road. There was a caveat - my wife and I had to sit through 90 minutes of hard sell on the vacation club. My family took the bus - Aeroline - from KL to Singapore. Quite comfortable. I believed that the hard sell from Marriot Vacation Club won't work on us, so we went ahead to book the Marriot for a Friday checkin and a Sunday checkout. We wore out the sales person in 50 minutes and were allowed to go on our way. Whoopee!!

Since Nov 1, Christmas decor was already being placed along Orchard Road and other tourist traps. So by the time we arrives, the decor was in full swing. Orchard Road was the centerpiece with the theme - the Sweets family - a family of candies and sweets. The Tourism Board of Singapore even provided free bus tours to see the Xmas lights of Orchard road- running every 15 minutes from just before Centerpoint Mall.

The shopping complexes had very innovative Xmas trees setup all over the place. They ranged from the traditional bling blings to recycled materials and even one which was composed solely of one product - Coke! They even had cute animal shaped bushes all over the place. The ones I really liked were the ones found just outside the Tang's.

We spent the first day just walking the whole stretch of Orchard from Marriot Hotel to Centerpoint and back. Alex was pooped by the time we got back. Still, we managed to take the tour of the Christmas lights before calling it a day.

Next day, we moved over to Suntec City, got ourselves the tickets for the Wacky Duck ride, the Singapore Flyer (looking very much like the London Eye) and that gave us free access to the hop on hop off Hippo bus tours and Hippo river cruise. The Wacky Duck ride goes from Suntec to the Singapore river a short distance away and then sails to where the Merlion is. They say Singapore is a fine city and certainly the view along the way was great. You see the Singapore Flyer from a different perspective, the Floating platform (with the colored seats) where the end of the year event is being planned. There were also various sized white balls, balloons which we were told were wishing balls. Write a wish on the ball and come New Year, your dreams will hopefully come true.

Singapore is also known as a fine city because you will be fined for a variety of offences like littering, spitting, smoking, etc. Wonder how much fine the Merlion has accumulated for spitting??

After the Wacky Duck, it was a quick hop onto one of the Hippo buses and next stop was the Singapore Flyer. About 30 minutes of slowly rotating up to the 165m height and back down again. You could see parts of the Singapore F1 night race tracks from way up there. Afterall, the VIP stands were just next to the Flyer. You could also see the Marina Barrage that dammed up the Singapore river and hopefully in a few years time, the water in the man made lake will become crystal clear along. The Marina Barrage is suppose to provide drinking water to Singapore in years to come. They had New Water and now Newer Water. That would be quite a sight for when the Integrated Resorts is ready (next year). The one build by the Sands of Vegas is littered with towering cranes now.

After the Flyer, next stop - Hippo Cruise down the Singapore river. This trip starts off at Clark Quay and reaches the Merlion before turning back to Clark Quay. You get a history lessons of the various bridges that spans the river along the way. You will also hear brave souls who regret going on the reverse bungee at Clark Quay - screaming their lungs out as they get bungee up and down. And of course you also see buildings that seems to be built just on top of the water.

And of course, the young man came closed to total poop out.

Last day was raining since early morning. So we spent time in Takashimaya and Wisma Atria (mainly inside Kinokuniya the bookshop). And then we checked out, moved over to Vivo City for more window shopping and finally back to home sweet home!!

ZZZzzzzzz.