Regular visitors are BACK!!

For the past few years, bees have been making hives all over my garden.

This Chinese New Year, they are back with a hive in the front part of the garden - hanging their hive on a bougainvillea branch. And some of them make regular visits to the pail of water in front for a sip. The hot weather must be dehydrating them.

Interesting.

HUKM - Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

My mum was asked to show up in HUKM on 20th Feb 2010 to assess her health condition in preparation for a knee cap replacement. 20th Feb was a Saturday, which was a surprising date as HUKM is a teaching hospital and doctors do not show up normally unless they were on call.

Sure enough, after having been registered and assigned a bed, we just sat and waited as the staff nurse tried to hunt down a doctor to look at my mum. After about 90 minutes, were were told that we would be re-scheduled for 22nd Feb, the following Monday. Sigh!!

First lesson learnt - there are no registrations for patients in the normal lobby on weekends- in fact the doors to the lobby were locked. After walking around a fair bit, the security guard told us that we should register at Accident and Emergency lobby (A&E). Due to the condition of my mum's knees, I got a taxi to transport us from one end of the hospital complex to the A&E lobby.

On 22nd, I drove her to the hospital again and registered her at A&E because we arrived before 7am. She was to go to the Orthopedic ward for cardio vascular and health assessment. They kept her overnight for observations. On 23rd lunch time when I visited her, I was told that she would be discharged later in the day. I told the nurse that I would pick my mum up after work and settle any bills arising.

Discharging a patient at HUKM is an experience - an unpleasant one. I managed to get my quota of exercise for the week in that 90 minutes of getting my mum discharged and back home.

First of all, due to the condition of her knees and the location of the ward (by my estimate it was about 100m from the ward to the front lobby - one way), I went around looking for a wheelchair. After some directions from nurses and security personnel, i managed to locate the counter which loan out wheelchairs. Only problem was that it was 4.59pm when I located that counter and the guy manning it tells me that they are closed! WHAT??!!!! Yes- wheelchair loans are closed at 5pm. Dammit!!

Okay - i take the lift to the 4th floor - traversed the 100m of floor from lift to ward and asked the staff nurse if my mum could be discharged. Sure.... after you settle the invoice for ward stay, medication, lab tests, etc.. Fair enough. However the payment counter is on the GROUND floor!. So I told my mum to get dressed and wait for me on the 4th floor while i go get the invoice settled.

At the payment counter, the woman behind the counter asked if my mum is a citizen. I needed to prove that by showing her identity card. Er... lady, the I/C is with my mum on the 4th floor ward. So she bills me in full instead of 50% less for citizens. Never mind she says, just show her I/C and bill later and she will refund the difference once her citizenship is confirmed.

So i go back up the 4th floor, borrowed a wheelchair from the ward (left my I/C as security) and wheeled my mum down to the payment counter. Got a queue number for refunds and waited to be called. " Sorry sir, refunds are only made till 5pm. Can you come another day?" I swear, if my heart wasn't in a good condition, i may have had a heart attack or stroke at that moment!

Okay, I'll come back another day for the refund. First things first - I need to return the wheelchair. So another 100m to ward 4H and then 100m back to the lobby. The pharmacy was nearby and my mum was prescribed a whole bunch of medication. Sign outside the pharmacy proudly declares that they are opened from 8am to 6.30pm and it was only 5.45pm. Don't you believe it!! Sorry - we are closed. Please go to the pharmacy at A&E. I can feel my blood pressure go up a notch!!

In summary, do NOT try to get a discharge after 4pm. You may end up being hospitalized for stroke, heart attacks or misdiagnosed Rabies or even temporary insanity.

My mum has a new appt one month from now to refill her medication and another in may for further tests. She cannot have her knee operation now due to her asmathic condition. Not suitable for general anaesthetic.

Sigh!

Chinese New Year 2010

Every year, it is the same. I will visit you and you will visit me.

So this year, we did something a little different. We still visited - but we went a lot further than normal. We went to visit the Soup family at Sungei Siput - Woh Foong in Cantonese (or Snails River if you translate that literally). And I call them the Soup family because the name Thong in Cantonese means soup!.

Woke up no earlier than usual and set off North towards Ipoh. Took us 2 1/2 hours to get to Woh Foong. Oi Chan was in. Oi Yin, the younger soup sister was in Cameron Highlands doing a bit of bird watching in the jungles. She called back and said she could make it back for lunch. So we waited.

Lunch was another 45 minutes drive to a place called Sauk (turn off from the highway to Kuala Kangsar, in the direction of Lenggong). The place is supposedly famous for seafood (mainly freshwater fish and prawns). As you turn off into Sauk new village, you will see a restaurant located at the corner named the NEW Lau Kai. That is NOT the original. Turn left and go another 20m and you will come to the original - Lau Kai Restaurant.

We started off with a fish paste prepared in 2 styles. Then the soup sisters ordered a prawn in claypot that came with a spicy tasty soup. The soup is NOT made of coconut extract (santan). Instead, fresh milk was used, which made it light and tasty. We also had fish belly in spicy sauce. We noticed the other tables had steamed fish (the whole fish), but there was only 5 of us and Oi Chan reckons we cannot finish a whole fish and eat other dishes at the same time.

She then ordered a claypot farm chicken - actually that's what the Cantonese name translates as (teen kai). It is really FROG (not toad).Must be because it taste like chicken.

And there was also free range fried chicken, a green veg dish to make sure we get enough fibre and a cuttle fish dish in satay sauce. That was the only dish I did not photographed.

And after all that, what else can we say except BUUUUURRRRRRPPPPPP!!!

Next year, maybe we will plan for a trip to the South - Malacca?? Batu Pahat?? Muar?? Kluang?? Any offers?

Shanghai for more than 2 weeks!!

This January trip to Shanghai had essentailly 2 objectives

- get trained as a trainer for one of our support products (RA) and

- to deliver a training on another product because the original trainer could not be re-scheduled.

Because of the train the trainer sessions, I arrived on a Thursday to help the trainer get the class and labs setup. In the end, since most of the setup was network related, there was not much I could help with as only 1 of 2 trainers from Colorado turned up. The other one had to abort at the last minute due to burst water pipes in his house (extreme cold winters does that). Rick had only one hardisk with all the necessary labs installed, so I couldn't help him.

In any case, the training went well, despite many gremlins showing up in the lab. DHCP addresses were supposed to be leased for 7 days, but somehow in the lab, the moment you disconnect, you get a new IP address. Perplexing and challenging!!

There was a GC class running in the next room and both Rick and I were invited to their graduation dinner. Most of those students in the GC class were going to be my students during my last week in Shanghai!

During the first weekend, Mao (aka referred to as Chairman Mao for those who know him) took me to the highest bottle opener in the world - the Shanghai World Financial center (SWFC). You had to pay RMB150 per person to go all the way to the 100th floor to view Pudong and it's surroundings. Unfortunately for us, the day was foggy and you really don't get a good view. In fact, Shanghai seems to be shrouded in perpetual fog during the days I was there. I was the 1,984,201 visitor up to the 100th floor. For sure, SWFC is really high. Even the JinMao building and the Oriental Pearl Tower nearby is looked down on - literally. The picture above is what you can expect if the day was clear! One thing I noticed was that due to the expected high number of foreign tourists who goes up the SWFC, most of the girls manning the lifts and customer areas were young and pleasant on the eyes.

The training i delivered was also challenging as many of the instruments are badly maintained. Damn!!! But I managed to deliver what was required and had the class graduation dinner nearby.

As usual, I get to renew my friendship with many people in the factory. There was Lily, who is the GC trainer, Helen, our training admin in Shanghai and of course my Niang.

I am coming again in March!!

Shanghaied in Jan 2010

It's winter.... and not really a good time to be travelling in the Northern hemisphere! Just had about 2 weeks in London and Paris with relatively mild weather (except for 2 days of snow). So when I was monitoring the weather in Shanghai before my travels, i was getting a little bit concerned as the average temperatures was a few degrees below what we had experienced in Europe. On the morning that I landed n Pudong, it was -5 deg C!! Bloody negative 5 degrees C!! Oh oh... Looks like I am in for a cold stay.

(I was staying at the Holiday Inn Express, JinQiao - pretty economical)

But it sure looks like wherever I travel, I bring the sun with me. When I was in Shanghai a few months ago, the whole week I was here, the weather was warmer than expected. When I left, it turned cold again. Same thing in London and Paris. Heh heh heh. So today, Saturday, I was going around Shanghai with just a short sleeved tee, a sweater over that and a jacket just in case.

I promised EC to check out Longchamps prices to see if it is worthwhile to buy from Shanghai.

(The station at Jufeng Road)

So I took the metro (Shanghai rail transit) from Jufeng Road station (line no.6) to East Nanjing Road station (line no.2). Surfing the net, it shows that there is an outlet for Longchamps at West Nanjing Road. I forgot to check the address - it was at 1618, West Nanjing Road!!

So in my leisurely walk from East Nanjing Road to 1618, West Nanjing Road, I almost cramped up my legs!

(a new shop opening on Nanjing Zhong Lu)

Which idiot in Shanghai go and restart the numbers when you cross from East Nanjing Road to Central Nanjing Road to West Nanjing Road?

(A L'Oreal promotion booth outside one of the bigger shopping complexes)

I did not realize this until I crossed the street from Central Nanjing road to West Nanjing Road and saw that the addresses restarted from 2!! Shit!! That walk was longer than our walk from Crowne Plaza in Republique place to Notre Dame in Paris. And that was a pretty long walk too.

The walk was educational to some extent as I normally associated only Central Nanjing Road (Nanjing Zhong Lu) as the shopping area.

(There is a Madame Tussaud's near the beginning of West Nanjing Road!)

That's sort of like Orchard Road on a smaller length.

(Many trees are fully wrapped in gold foil!!?? Why??)

I did not realize that Nanjing Road stretched so far. I have travelled and visited places on West Nanjing Road many times without realizing where I was previously.

The whole stretch of Nanjing Road from East to West is much longer than Oxford Street in London and

(This Marks & Spencer outlet is bigger than any M&S in Malaysia)

have almost all the branded names setup along the way. If you want an idea how affluent the Chinese have become in general and Shanghainese in particular, you can more or less tell from the kind of showrooms that you can see. For example, I saw this Ferrari/ Maserati showroom across from the Porche and Mercedes showroom. This is on the ground floor of the J W Marriot hotel.

You have LV and Prada in one of the up market malls.

(and you do get garish decoration - for Xmas??)

And when I reached my destination - Shanghai Jiuguang Dept Store - it was like deja vu!! The layout was very similar to that of Galleries LaFayette in Paris where we bought a bunch of LongChamps. EC even remembers that there was a Tiffany & Co at the entrance. Trust that girl to know where all the expen$ive places are. Despite a 30% discount, the prices are still higher than in Paris. As the sales lady told me - imported mah..

Just outside, stalls have been setup to sell Chinese New Year delicacies.

(Seems like the shopping mall has a similarly idea as mine. First dress up the Xmas tree for Christmas, then redecorate it for Chinese New Year)!!

I am still wondering if this is a waxed pig or a waxed dog?? Looks about the same size.

Luckily next to the LongChamps store was the JingAn Temple Station (line no.2) so I did not have to retrace my steps to the next Metro station.

On the way back to the hotel, I saw this peddler selling a local vegetable/meat burger. I wasn't hungry, so I did not try this. But his customers look like they like it quite a bit.

Oh!! Anyone hasn't seen the limited edition LongChamp Le Pileage?? It has the Eiffel Tower on the side!!