Back To Blogging This Coming May 6, 2015.

My last post on this site was done on Friday, September 13, 2013 with the title of Guilty Feeling. That post wasn't even completed and the sentence wasn't even a complete sentence. That was how bad things were with the bloggers due to the shift to Facebook as the preferred social media. By now a few of our prolific fellow bloggers namely Captain Yusof Ahmad of the blog The Ancient Mariner, Dalilah Tamrin of One Breast Bouncing, Zaharan Razak of Zaharan zveloyak and Zorro of zorro-unmasked has passed on (may their souls rest in peace). Those are that I know. Maybe a few others too had passed on but unknown to me. Some may have gone into obscurity and never appear anywhere on any social media and never made contact with any of our fellow bloggers.
Today I had a surprise call from Kak Teh (Zaharah Othman) of Kak Teh's Choc-a-Bloc Blog on her Facebook page calling for all bloggers to hit the keyboards again beginning on 6th of May 2015. I can't wait for that date and so I am jumping the gun not that because I want to make a head start but to alert other bloggers of that era to do the same on this coming May 6. Some including myself doubt the ability to remember our passwords with some even doubting their ability to recall the names of their blog. Those who claim to have forgotten their passwords were reminded to use the Forgot Your Password button to regain their passwords since they have forgotten about the existence of such a facility.
So with this post, I am kick starting my blogging on Life As I See It...
Happy blogging mates

BBjeff, We Wish You Success

BBJeff who is unknown to me wrote the followings on my blog's comment page under the topic Another Reason To Quit Smoking :
I just turned 36. After 16 years of smoking about 25-30 sticks a day, I've just quit for the first time on 1st Jan 2008.Nicotine patches do help cut the craving by about 70%. For the rest of the 30% I sniff a vicks inhaler and eat sweets to kill the craving.Its been 8 days now ... The side effects of not smoking ... Extreme tiredness esp after lunch, but the nice part is, my stamina to play football has increased visibly while playing football after only one week of quitting.Wish me luck guys.
Monday, January 07, 2008.

When I read those admission by bbjeff, I felt elated that I immediately wrote to my comrades in arm over the stop smoking campaign namely Akmal and Hantu Laut requesting their cooperation to help bbjeff by encouraging him to be strong willed to fight the desire to give up.

Akmal responded by writing this:

Pak Zawi,
Allow me to respond to bbjeff.
bbjeff,
You made the first and second step already; resolution and action. I bet, now you are facing the withdrawal symptoms, which is the frenzy part of quitting smoking. But you see, what you do right now is noble.I'm with you.
Thursday, January 10, 2008

Hantu Laut have yet to respond but I guess he will do so in due course. It may not be due to our effort that bbjeff wanted to stop but nevertheless we are elated that there is somebody out there who has decided to stop and has taken the step to quit as Akmal aptly described it, bbjeff made the first two steps already, resolution and action. Thus far we consider him as on the way to success.

Closer to home, my sister in law's husband, Tuan Haji Hussin Musa has decided to stop too. At the age of 66, Tuan Haji Husin had been smoking for the past 50 years since the age of 16. Though he had reduced his addiction to a pack of 12 sticks of Gudang Garam per day, he couldn't stop it entirely despite the urgings of close family members including his daughter in law who is a doctor and does autopsy at one of the district hospital in Selangor. She had seen too many damaged lungs due to ciggarette related diseases.

After 50 years of smoking ciggarettes Tuan Haji Husin finally decided to quit.

What made him stop abruptly on 1st December 2007?

Dato' Dr. Ashaari Yaakob of IJN had told him matter of factly that he won't do an operation on him unless the patient stop smoking 6 weeks before a bypass is done. Xrays done on his lung on previous preliminary visits to IJN showed his lung to have enlarged lumens, the minute tubes leading to the bronchioles where oxygen is absorbed into the blood. Tuan Haji Husin is due to be warded on 28th Januari 2008 before the by pass will be done on him. He needs to do bypass on two of his blocked veins which is already 100 percent closed leaving only 3 functioning ones.
That did it. He has to stop and stop immediately he did. To tide his craving for ciggarette he is taking some sweets as a temporary measure.

My son Azuan quitted smoking soon after being hospitalised for removal of a blood clot in his brain. Here he is with his uncle Tuan Haji Hussin.

Do you have to wait for the doctors at IJN to tell you to stop smoking before you can make yourself strong enough to quit smoking?

Here are some pictures taken from the following sites to show how lungs infected with smoking diseases look like and you can read more at the same sites where the pictures were copied:

http://www.smokinglungs.com/cyber-gallery/

http://www.smokinglungs.com/

Cerebellar Metastasis: This image shows an operative photograph of a craniotomy (circular opening in the scull) through which can be seen an area where a lung cancer metastasis to the cerebellar area of the brain has been surgically removed. This patient is alive and well ten years later.

A diseased lung seen via an endoscope

This image is that of a lobe of the lung resected at surgery containing a large squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.

It will be interesting to see how Akmal will keep the fire of the campaign to help people quit smoking going through his next post on the same subject. Hit it Akmal.

Thai Pubs To Be Smoke-free

The Star of 12th January 2008 reported that Thailand has introduced a new rule to tighten an earlier restrictions which ban smoking in restaurants. Now the non smoking zone is extended to pubs too. Beginning from Feb 17th, 2008 this ban will be in force. Knowing the Thai authorities, they will strictly enforce it. Non smokers will have an easier life breathing in pubs in Thailand compared to in Malaysia where smoking is still allowed.

The Thai Authorities is of the view that smoking is so pernicious that they have a duty to protect their citizen.

Why can't Malaysia take a lesson from the Thais?

A close friend forwarded this to me, I paste it here as the way it came. Hope you will enjoy reading it.

I am PETER STUYVESANT. Come from the city of MARLBORO, whose main business is in Storing Salt (GUDANG GARAM). Said good-bye to my two close comrades, BENSON & HEDGES. I traveled up to the mountains of METHAHORN(Matherhorn?). Through the valleys of MILD SEVEN. Riding on my WHITE HORSE. There, I fell in love with 2 EVEs. One with the daughter of MASTER DUKE. Two with the grand daughter of ROTHMANS. We checked in at the house of DUNHIL. Land booked into room 555 STATE EXPRESS. Put on the aircon to COOL. I laid them onto the bedsheet made of GOLD LEAF. One cried in delight "you are a ROUGH RIDER". The other "As though you are riding on a CAMEL" Spading the SPADE. Huh… not long after, they asked for MORE. No.. Not now.. I KENT.

~source:unknown. Revised Version1.

Original taken from Blogspot: Hok Kawe.

All Roads Lead To Tesco In Kota Bharu, Kelantan

All Roads Lead To Tesco In Kota Bharu, Kelantan.

A few days before the end of 2007, many lamposts along most of the roads in Kota Bharu were adorned with vertical banners with the distinctly blue colours and the words Tesco Kota Bharu, Akan Di Buka and Pandu Cermat Kota Bharu Tesco, Opening Soon, Drive Safley). Some becas (trishaws which we Kelantanese call taxi) were adorned with similar advertisement. The trishaw men was too happy to get a free new top cover as well as a new coat of paint for their trishaw while the Tesco management was happy to get free advertisement. A win win situation for the both of them.

The banner before the opening on 3rd Jan 2008

Work was going on at a frenzied pace around the Tesco building which was located on a piece of reclaimed land very close to The Sultan Yahya Petra bridge connecting Pasir Pekan in the District of Tumpat to Kota Bharu. The land was not truly reclaimed as it had been in existence for as long as I could remember and it was then known as Tanah Raja as it still belongs to the government. All these while this fertile alluvial sand bank was used by the farmers to plant maize, ground nut and whatever crops that can be harvested before the rainy season comes when the whole area will be submerged by the swelling Kelantan River. In other word the farmers had temporary use for the land on Teporary Occupied Land licence (TOL). A company (purported to be from Penang) obtained permission from the State Government to raise the level of the land above the flood level and develop it into a residential and commercial area. The writer is not clear on the condition of tenureship of the reclaimed land and whatever the condition, both the developer and the State Government must have benefited from the development since no financial cost was involved. The only cost was the loss of income to the farmers who had been farming the land before the project was started. The other cost is a social one as the youth who had been using the football pitch on the other side of the bridge was deprived of their playing field without an alternative site being made available to them. So the footballers must now either play footsal in one of the many footsal centers mushrooming around the town or play virtual football on the internet.
Tesco is one of the earlier tenants on this quite a large piece of reclaimed land. Another building is being constructed near it.

Now it is open, says this signboard.


We thought the opening was to be on 1st January 2008 to usher in the New Yaer but I guess things were not ready by then and so 3rd Januari was later announced as the opening day of Tesco Kota Bharu.
It was while servicing my car at Toyota Service in Jalan Kuala Krai that I came to know of the opening of Tesco Kota Bharu from the cleaners at the center. Having the whole day free while they work on my car airconditioner, I decided to walk to the new supermarket which in the words of the cleaners was within walking distance from the service center. Yes to them a 3 kilometer walk is indeed was within a walking distance. Kota Bharu doesn't have city taxis like those in other towns. What we have here is the 'kereta sewa' which plies between two destinations and can be shared among 4 other passengers. The only taxi that we have are the becas whose number are fast dwindling in numbers. When all the present crop of old 'beca' peddlars are gone, there wont be anymore becas in Kota Bharu. On the day that I walked the 3 kilometers to Tesco, not a single beca cross my path. The one that I finally saw was the one coming out from the Tesco area with the Tesco advert prominently dispalyed on its canopy top. The pedaller couldn't bear it anymore and had to take his pee break among the unused plastic road dividers by the road side. He was oblivious to the passing traffic and only faced away from my prying camera lens. Out of respect for the elderly trishaw pedaller, I steered him clear from my camera lens. I know he had suffered enough from trying to contain his urgent need to empty his bladder. Couldn't bear the thought him shown all over the internet world attending to natures call. Either he couldn't find the washroom while at Tesco or he couldn't pee into the super clean bowl at the washroom. Many people are so used to a dirty toilet that the sight of a clean one can put them off from using what they were supposed to use.




The owner of this trishaw had to empty his bladder barely hidden between these unused plastic road dividers.





This is probably the winner of the trishaw decorating competition organized by the Tesco Management



Kelantan Koridor Depu. Do you know the meaning of depu? I am still vague myself.

The turning into the road leading to Tesco from Jalan Kampung Sireh was well manned by uniformed perssonnel with the word RELA clearly displayed on their vests. These job seems to be the perfect job for them as against the much controversial enforcement duty over 'Pendatang Asing Tanpa Izin' (PATI) that was becoming a part of their duty lately and carried carried with so much zest that sometimes accused of an abuse of power.

RELA members manning the road junction leading to Tesco KB.


This expatriate rides the buggy to his car which must have been parked away from the supermarket.

Astro was there too. Was there a direct telecast?



The covered car park must be full by now.

No place for the motorbikes under the covered parking area.

While walking to the new supermarket, I saw a golf buggy coming out with an expatriate as passenger. He must be representing the British Company that owns Tesco at the opening ceremony.

Further nearer to the Tesco building I met a group of four Bangladeshi walking away and they were in a uniformed T Shirt and I guessed right when they smiled at me and gave me the peace sign when I mentioned the word "Bangla?" at them. There must be a shortage of workers from among the locals as to deem it necessary to import workers from the land of too many people. The local youth must have preferred doing the same work in fashionable 'Kay El' compared to rural 'Kay Bee'.

These Bangladeshis gave me the peace sign after being photographed.


These are the jobs for the Bangladeshis.

Just like any other hypermarkets, Tesco KB requires anchor tenants like KFC to provide the fast food, Nagoya Textiles to sell textiles and various others. Other tenants are Nasi Ayam, Watson, Ogawa etc.

The Colonel will provide finger lickin good fried chickens.

Other facilities provided are a spacious and still clean food court. Unfortunately on my second visit today, we were bothered by flies which seemed to be everywhere despite the place being airconditioned. During my first visit on the opening day the place was free of flies. Today I had delicious laksa Penang.





The washroom is still immaculately clean and provided free of charge.

Tesco KB has two levels of covered parking and an open parking area. All are free. Only those with personal conveyance can reach this outlet as walking the way I did isn't feasible even on a cool cloudy day. There is also the free loyalty card membership being doled out. Frequent customers holding the card will collect points to be exchanged later with gifts when sufficient points are collected.

The covered car park

The main entrance on opening day.

Signing for free loyalty cards.


RTM Kelantan was there too to provide a direct broadcast via a mini studio.

Cakes from Secret Recipe are delicious.

The entrance to Tesco supermarket on opening day.

The payment counters.

Look at them coming.


Nagoya Textiles is another major tenant.


Ample playing area for the kids and located just beside the food court.

My former boss En. Alimin Omar and his wife Kak Dah. He is now The Director of Muzeum Kelantan. Hopefully he will bring the muzeum to greater height.

Unfortunately there was no book store in this outlet. All I could find was a news stand which sells magazines and newspapers. I bought the latest bumper issue of PC.com magazine which came in a box with calendars as freebies.

I bought the only available copy of PC.com's bumper issue. This guy is a Nepalese.

Tesco is known to offer lower prices compared to others. My daughter bought two packs of baby diapers at RM32.00 compared to RM37.00 which she bought an hour earlier in Pasir Mas as she ran out of stock before leaving the baby to me to take care off while she and her husband paid the supermarket a visit. Who can resist a 13.5 percent discount? My daughter inlaw Yani would have bought 10 packs to benefit an immediate saving of RM50.00

The price list is displayed at the entrance.

The low prices is a great boon in these times of rising prices. It may also the death knell to those mini markets across the river one of which has already reduced its size to one floor from the previuos two floors. To these mini markets, hard times are definitely ahead of them. Will the local governement allow more of such hypermarkets in Kota Bharu in addition to the present ones already in existence? Beside Tesco, we have Billion Supermarket, KB Mall, Pantai Timor, The Stores (2 outlets), the smaller Maidins and Salams. Parkson used to exsist but closed its door sometimes ago due to lack of patronage. Will the Giants chain of stores come here too?

KB Mall which is located within sight of this Tesco outlet provided you don't suffer from impaired vision and view it from a high enough elevation to look over the end of the Sultan Yahya Bridge.

Don't worry of being out of cash, they will accept credit cards or bank card for Point Of Sale charges or you can withdraw cash from the ATMs.
Stalls at the carpark on the basement carpark

These guys found a perfect spot to advertise for personal loans to those who have expended all their financial resources.
Without much other places or entertainment, shopping places will become the places for people to while away their free time. KB Mall has a bowling alley for them to play a game a two. The choice available now is getting more for the people around Kota Bharu.

I Have A Dream

Awang Goneng (W A Hulaimi) took blogging to a new height by compiling his blogs into a book. The book Growing Up In Trengganu (GUIT) was published by Monsoon Books and so well received that it set some wannabe writers like me who only started blogging as recently as July 2007 dreaming of becoming one. Latest news about his book is that the publishers are going for a reprint.

Dreaming is easy of course but writing isn't. Supposing that you have managed to compile a heap of your blogs which when turned into hard copies do you think it is easy to get somebody to publish it? It maybe easy if you are Awang Goneng who had been been in the print business as a reporter or something for sometimes. Who would know of Zawi? Now lets go one step further and I did manage to get my book published, how would I sell it? Even a well known blogger like Awang Goneng had a tough time initially. Most book stores in the major towns looked in askance when asked for the book called Growing Up In Trengganu by Awang Goneng. They would know of the latest book by Sydney Sheldon but not by Awang Goneng. Thanks to the regular requests by fellow bloggers book stores by the names of Kinokuniya, MPH and Popular in KL are able to identify the name of the book even if you mention the name GUIT.

So far I have only managed to put in a miserly 44 blogs. Compare that to Pak Idrus's 1,000 blogs thus far! Out of the 44 how many will be worthy enough to be put in a book? Could even be none at all. Some of them are just mere ramblings put in just to make sure that a new post be put in once in every 7 to 10 days just to keep it alive. That was the advice given my first guru H J Angus. H J Angus was one of the two bloggers who spurred me on to go beyond the first blog. Rocky was the other one. To the two of them I will be forever feel indebted. Due to sheer ignorance I deleted my first blog thinking that it will go to the archive box. With that goes their two most valuable comments.Without their comments by blog would have remained with just the one and only post as content.

There are other blogs by others though that truly deserve reading by any readers who understand English. These are gems that are true life stories that deserve to be turned into books. Turning them into a book is important in order to reach the other readers who do not have access to the internet due to various reasons. Even those with internet connections don't read blogs sometimes. I was one of them before I started reading Malaysia-today. The few blogs that I know before that put me off from reading them as they tend to be self centred stories about what they do from day to day which was of course boring.

Among the blogs of note is the one by Pi Bani who twists her stories around people involved with HIV and AIDS through no fault of theirs. So Pi Bani can easily turn her story into a book. The problem is how to end her book when the story she is writing about will continue till eternity? It can be turned into a serial I guess. Each book will be very thick indeed.

Next on my dream list is a book by this man who spent his life on a drilling barge in the backwaters of Kalimantan.That is his latest site, the barge can be towed to anywhere in the world though. He used to drill for oil in Sudan before and I often wondered whether a barge was used to drill for oil there as Sudan is neaver near to any seas. The sight of AK47 in the hands of juveniles scared the shit out of him and he left Africa in quite a hurry but lived to write about it. His story of his Palace adventures in Burma (now Myanmar) is another story that keeps playing back in my mind. He was out with his boss with the intention of drilling other holes of pleasures in mind. Later he turned out to be the gallant knight in shining armour when he came to the rescue an Australian lass from her misery from being neglected by the other knights. I would tell all and sundry to buy his book should it ever be published. This story teller extraordinaire goes by the Name of Mat Salo.

Next on my list of authors who can produce books by just compiling their blogs is a journalist working for a mainstream media. In her blog she didn't write about what her employer asked her to write for the assignment. Instead she writes on how she goes about to various parts of the world to cover events that will be sent back home to be printed in the media. I guess you have read her stories in her blogsite as she is non other than Fauziah Ismail.

For a start I have created a new site called Stories From The Blogs which is accessible at http://StoriesFromBlogs.blogspot.com/. I have posted several URLs to the stories by the above writers. From time to time more URLs will be added to the list either by the same writers or from other writers depending on the latest information as to the discovery of new interesting blogs based on seemingly true lifestories (who could really tell huh?).

I would be most grateful if some kind souls out there could scout for more of such gems to be put on the list. In due course when we have ample number of permanent helps, more people will be given the password to operate the site to add to the list and write a brief excerpts to the story to guide readers on the sort of story they like to read.

It is next to impossible for me to search all the blogs and read all the stories written as there are so many of them. Currently no parameters is set other than that it has to be based on truelife stories. No absolute proof needed to be seeked though and it will be taken at face value. Am I infringing on any copyright rules here?

Those who are interested to be involved in the project, please email me at mohdzawi@gmail.com.

Another Memorable Experience Riding A Bus

In my ealier blog I wrote why I will never ride a bus again in KL. Read it here if you havent read it. The reason for it can be found at the end of this blog.

It was easy for me to get out of Amanputra that Sunday morning to get to KLCC as my daughter wasn't going anywhere and there was her hubby's car that they could have used. So the Kelisa was convenient to take me to the bus stop in Putra Perdana which previously I had found to be exactly 1,684 steps away from her home. I used the kancil to get to the Putra Perdana Bus stop less tha 2 km from home. Parking the car I walked towards the 3 rapid KL's busses parked some distance away. I asked the bus driver which bus will be moving out first and he pointed to the bus and told me it will be going out at 8.45 am which was just in 10 minutes time and the one that he is driving will be moving out at 9.05 am. Hey I didn't have to ask him to say "Seven Eleven" to find out that he was a Kelantanese and he gave a friendly smile when I immediately changed my lingo to the Kelantanese dialect. His name was Maizaki. Very rare name among Kelantanese in the same genre of Elviza Michele I thought. I asked Maizaki to join me for breakfast at the Indian Shop nearby which he declined saying that he had had his breakfast. I had a tosai which was pretty good by my non Indian palate.

A Metro Bus is another that ply the Putra Perdana - KL route but stops at Kota Raya Bus stand.

This is how it looked inside a RapidKL bus with Maizaki at the wheel.

By the time I returned to the bus stand, the 8.45 bus was gone and I took the ride on Maizaki's almost empty bus and he picked up more passengers along the way and disgorged most of them at IOI mall in Puchong. I observed the place to ensure that I wont miss the landmark of the place when I have to wait for Elviza to pick me up to go to Mee Rebus Tuesday at Kak Ton's Tok Mommy's home. The bus moved on and after slightly more than an hour I reached my first destination of Pasar Seni. There was still the LRT to ride ride on and I was late for my first meeting with Akmal of Wise Up at KLCC. I smsed Akmal about my late arrival at KLCC and since Akmal came via LRT himself he said he will wait for me at the exit to KLCC. It was the first time that I met Akmal, and after a brief 'apa khabar' or something of that kind we walked to the nearest gents as I was at the end of my ability to contain whatever that I was holding up in my bladder. To tell the truth we didn't 'cuddle' up like Akmal said it on the blog on his site. We didn't even hug each other. If he were a girl like the one who sold me the laptop, it may have happened.


Tiffany, the salesgirl who sold the laptop to me.


After being relieved of that burden I was carrying in my bladder then only I managed to size up this young blogger from my own district of Pasir Mas. Akmal in the blogspehere is an older matured person than this 19 year old boy who is even younger than my youngest children. Ask any of the other bloggers who know Akmal via his blog and they will say the same thing of him. Most were surprised after knowing that Akmal is just 19 years old. He even looked the 19 year old that he was.



Yours truly with The Petronas Twin Tower as the backdrop


Akmal had promised to take me to the computer fair in KL Convention Convention next door to the twin tower. Only yesterday he had bought himself a laptop that came with a PCI card that can be used with a phone SIM card to make phone calls and sms at a much cheaper rate using the internet protocol. A common thing you might say, but this one is using your own registerd phone number that the recipient could identify you and call you back with. It was an ASUS weighing in at about 2.8 kg. I was thinking of buying an exactly similar one because I have problem deciding on what to have. All the more so when you are buying at a PC fair where you can be spoilt for choice of laptops in the below RM4,000 range. That is how cheap laptops are nowadays. The same specification could only be had if you have RM10,000 some 5 years ago.

The first stop was the ASUS stall where Akmal bought his laptop. The stall was immediately at the entrance. Akmal must have fallen in love with the ASUS model at first sight. Agreeing that we checked as many brands as possible before I make the final decision to buy my own laptop, we moved on to the next booth selling HP branded laptops after telling the sales person at Asus's stall that we will come back to him afterwards. I told the guy at HP the same thing before stopping at NEC. The NEC brand booth had great looking laptops on display. I would have bought them based on look alone especially those with the superb leather cover on the top casing. We were invited into the booth to have a better discussion on the models that will suit my small budget. I have decided on the set and would have closed the deal then but for the urge to look around more without having to lug a 2 kg weight like Akmal was doing right now with his Asus. After telling them that I would come back later we moved on to the next booth selling Twinheads.

The Twinhead booth displayed a laptop functioning with water being practically poured on its keyborad. Yes, they did just that, let the water from a tap flow on the keyboard. Not that I was impressed with the feat that made me decide that this was the brand that I would have. Its the lightweight and the latest 2 core duo processor and not the older dual core processor. The same processor could cost much more on other brands. The 1.65 kg weight was another plus. Only later that I realized the weight was without the battery. Hahahaha some advertisement. That was quite misleading advertisemnt.

A call to my cousin who had just bought a laptop with about the same specifications confirmed it was a good buy. It was just me not having confidence with my own ability to make a decision. Given the number of possibilities, I guess everybody will face the same problem. The bigger the budget the more difficult to decide as the models available is stupendous. The girl sitting next to Akmal was egging me on to buy as it would be the first sale for their booth and it will be credited to her. We have a special term for such first sale, we call it 'Ghori'. Some Chinese businessman consider the first sale as important as a failure to clinch a deal is tantamount to bad omen and will result in less brisk sale or no sale at all. If you are a hard bargainer as my wife is, you could have got a good price since such believers won't mind to sell at the lowest price just to clinch the first sale of the day. An item may still be sold even at a loss sometimes. The final revealation that buying from them is good when her supervisor reluctantly told me that he lives in Puchong. He thought nobody would even know of Amanputra and how surprise he was when I told him I was from Amanputra too, just a some 10 doors away from him. This is too good to be true as having somebody who knows your computer inside out can come in handy when you have problems with it later.
With all the payment concluded via the credit card, we trudged out to KLCC foodcourt to fill up our now empty stomach. The place was full. Not even a seat for two. We saw a table with the crockery still uncollected. Like a waiter I took all of them to the person who was washing the dishes. He was happy that I did the job for him and I was happy we got a table.

Shoving some money into Akmal's hand, he was given the task of deciding and buying what food to have for our lunch. I was to look after our precious computers the total price of which could easily pay for the price of an old car. It took him quite a long time to come back with two bowls of laksa sheikh or something and a glass of drink for himself. As for me, I wanted fresh orange juice. It took him another long while and by the time he came back I have swallowed all of my delicious bowl of laksa. That was how I managed to take a photograph of him drooling over his laksa. There wont be such a chance if we were to start eating at the same time.

Akmal drooling over his laksa sheih. I have finished mine by then.


We went down to the surau for our Zohor prayer taking turns to do it so that our valuables were safe. Who knows somebody may want to kill two birds with one stone, praying to God and at the same time steal something. Just to be safe. Most of those doing the prayers were quite young. Only a few of them sported the white colored hairs or at least a mixed one with some whites showing in between the blacks. Non were baldies. How come? Ain't the probability of the older ones meeting their maker is higher than the younger ones like Akmal for instance?

Spacious male prayer room at KLCC. No excuse for you to miss your 'solat'.


We went early to Coffee Club above Kunikuniya Bookstore and had coffee. It was another hour before the others and Awang Goneng with his lovely spouse Kak Teh came for the signing of GUIT.

The Twinheads.

We chit chat among the bloggers and get to know each other more since it was the first time that we met each other. This went on till 6.00 before we break up and headed for home. Akmal and me stopped at the surau again to perform the Asar prayers. Before we reached the surau we saw the Nandos outlet which we failed to locate during our search for our lunch.

It didn't take us long to board the LRT and in no time I was at the Klang Bus stand. Here my nightmare with RapidKL bus begins. No RapidKL 69 was insight. The only one that goes to Putra Perdana near to Amanputra. Bus after bus came. There was a scuffle where I saw a man was manhandled, probably a pickpocket being caught by palin clothes policemen. The bus stands are where the pickpockets are active and there are signs asking bus users to beware of pickpockets. Another man was seen trying to sell bus tickets but was warned by a bus worker not to buy tickets from him. The guy selling the ticket just cooly walk away. It was only at 8.30 PM after a wait of more than an hour's wait that bus 69 came. The many passengers waiting to board jostled each other to rush for limited seats. It was packed tight. Smelly bodies standing so close together with shouts of requests for the aircond to be turned to the highest level of coldness and replied back by the driver that it was already at its maximum level of coldness. More stops to pick up more passengers with some potential unable to board due to the lack of space and the driver insisting that those inside try to move even further inside to enable more passengers to board. No fare was collected as the driver was now bent on helping the people to get home. The jovial driver helped by being a comedian by imating the voices of any ethnic groups to cheer up the half suffocating passengers. In one moment he was bantering in Chienese bazaar Malay, another time in Indian Bazaar Malay and yet another time in impeccable Indonesian lingo. The only language he seemed unable to immitate is the Afrikaan or the Bangladeshi language that make up the many ethnicities of the bus passengers. Only after reaching Puchong were there a noticeable number of reduction of the bus passengers. One seated passenger alighted and I grabbed his seat after more than an hour of standing. My legs were then in a state of cramps. Being able to sit down was bliss. Less passenger means more air to breathe and the aircond was feeling cooler and more comfortable.
We reached Amanputra and an Indonesian lady passenger told the driver the destination she was going. Mimicking an Indonesian accent the driver told her that she was on the wrong bus and that she had to backtrack to Puchong to take another bus to her destination. She was lightly ridiculed for not telling him earlier so that he could had helped her to get to her destination, all done in jest. A lesson well learnt by her that if you dont know your destination, ask the bus driver. He was really helpful and didn't charge her any extra for the extra trip.

I alighted from the bus in a state of shock to find the place where I left my daughter's car was actually a night market where tents were used as shelter for the goods being sold. How on earth am I going to drive out of the sea of tents. Luckily I didnt have to wait long as it was raining and the night market was at its tail end since not many customers would be out by then. By 10.30 PM I was able to drive out of the night market area for my daughter's home less than two kilometers away.

The bus ride gave me an insight of how the ordinary people had to endure daily on their return trip home from work. How lucky I am that I don't have to endure this discomfort daily. This was just a once of a life time experience as I will never ride in a RapidKL bus again, at least not at this hour of the day.