A King's feast indeed

Kuching has been abuzz with all manners of activity last week with the Rulers conference being held here and the opening of the new iconic building, the Dewan Undangan Negeri(the legislative assembly).

Got invited for the Royal Feast the other night and the who's who of Malaysia was there. It is not everyday that you meet royal blood and the pomp and pageantry to say the least was awesome. To add, HRH the Queen befits to be our First Lady, such elegance.

While initially expecting a dull affair ,i was though pleasantly surprised and enjoyed every minute of the night as we were serenaded by the inimitable and talented violinist,Idris Sardi , the singers Deja Moss and Bob of the AF fame.

Great night and great company, hail the King,,and Queen .

The Food? I ate some unpronounceable palate of possibly mince chicken in a pasta(???)

Well it has to come with the occasion and why bother if i can still have my own helping of Maggi mee when i got back home from that unforgettable and wonderful occasion.

Passing of a real Malaysian icon

Somehow like most Malaysians, for many years after the golden era of P Ramlee movies, we always give the local production a miss until Yasmin Ahmad came to the scene.

What talent and creativity this lady have... she was still simply awesome and the storytelling in all her productions reflect the sensitivity, dichotomy and anguishes of our Malaysian society.

I was really taken in by what she can deliver to our cinema, Sepet was a great sentimental treat..

and i was looking forward to watch her latest, Talentime and it was with great shock yesterday when i heard the news of her untimely death and it really adds gloom to my weekend.

I felt greater sadness as i read the poem penned by the actress Azean in memory of this great lady;

She was an angel
God sent us
No, he lent us
To be a storyteller
Who spun stories of
Magic,i joy and enchantment
Who we often lose sight of
Her fight was brief
Her leaving was a grief
Just like her movies
The end came too soon
But her wisdom remain
like words to a tune
That we will hold dear
Forever you will be near.
I love you Yasmin
I will miss you always.

i admired her for her intellect and real talent;you can tell here is another Malaysian who only through her sheer talent and genius make us proud to say,"hey she's a Malaysian like me!!" Her obvious authenticity can be seen through her character and her talent was recognised world wide , the film industry will surely have a big gap to fill with her demise.

Al Fatihah.

A tale of 2 Emmas

I watched a good ,realistic kind of love story movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Enmma Thompson,"Last chance Harvey".

Emma Thompson brilliant acting in her portrayal of an ordinary middle aged Londoner grappling with a boring routine life,loveless and possibly "lifeless" somehow caught my eye. Real captivating and a smart woman to beat.

Coincidentally, i happened to read a news article as well that day of how Emma Thompson adopted few years back a boy left stranded and orphaned from the ravages of the Rwandan civil war.

Now here she was a proud mother of that boy graduating from university of Exeter ;now to me that's real cool and possibly typical of this independent,smart free spirited woman. Apparently Emma was a graduate of Cambridge University, wow!! Keep it up Emma ,you may now be 50 but then you still looks great alongside that another great actor Dustin Hoffman in that movie, "Last chance Harvey".

Emma Watson though is old enough to be Emma Thompson 's daughter and she as most young generations aware of is that smart girl,Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series.

I was caught with initial dismay when someone in my face book spreads a story that she has died of a road accident.

What tragedy that's my reaction for Emma Watson as i knew was another real smart girl ,worthy of filling the boots of that free spirited woman, Emma Thompson.

She was also due to be enrolled at Cambridge University ...phew thank goodness the story of her death as i am now aware of is just mere rumours.

Another surprising coincidence that i have also discovered was both Emma's shared the same birthday date. The date 15th April ,wow cool man!!!

15Th April so happens is always a date we the family celebrate every year for it was Diyana's my daughter birthday and incidentally she was born on the same date as Emma Watson , ha ha 15.4.1990.

So here's to the two Emma's..continue your great acting careers respectively and blessed this world with all your good deeds. Now am off to watch the latest Harry Potter movie as i have promised my son Faizul to bring him along for that(been promsiing this for a long while!!!)

Travel sojourns,a perspective

Phew..what a week. i always stop short of sharing my views on my office work ,sometimes i feel like a chameleon.

As i looked back on my career i cant help fathoming what it would have been if i have made different career choice decisions along the course of my life.

No regrets putting all things in perspective , this blog though is intended to chronicle initially all my travels (hence the word sojourns) and ordinary things or stories that i would like to share.

Temptations are there as always to share my work experience and happenings at work also notwithstanding views on politics and other more "serious" topics.

What inspires me in my desires to chronicle all my travels?

For a start i am a sucker for travel writing books,my home library is well armoured with many travel books and i never miss buying a book by my favourite travel writers,VS Naipaul and Paul Theroux.

Their perceptive observations as they plodded all over the world and their ability to give insightful and interesting accounts or anecdotes of their journey captivate me most.

Bill Bryson is another of my favourite travel writers....they all share a common bond of travelling simple and always making a point of mingling and interacting with the people of the places they visit.

On TV , the series Globe trekker is a favourite programme of mine and i love the way Ian Wright with his distinctive Northern English accent and unbridled enthusiasm explaining what he observed and experienced.Love you mate!!!

Michael Palin of the Monthy Phyton fame somehow has made a name for himself on TV as well ..his TV series, around the world in 80 days as he attempted to retrace Passepartou(?) tracks in rounding the world within that period while at times hilarious but was also a joy to watch.

His Oxford English accent though adds spice to the episodes reminiscent of a typical bumbling Englishman trying to discover the world in his own myopic view.

Ha..me? what did i do on my travels? Like most Malaysians the first stop is always a market or mall and the usual trinkets always end up in the extra trunk or luggage that we brought along.

However i did experience some interesting encounters.

Attending a Friday prayer in the heartland of the Indonesian Muslim world in Solo was enlightening for its simplicity and sense of earnestness of the congregation.

My discovery that there used to be a Sino-Malay Islamic empire in Cambodia and South Vietnam of the Champa people fascinated me no bounds.

The diligence of the people of Hanoi as they all rushed in their innovative way to embrace the free market world is so easily apparent that you wondered what the country would have achieved by now if not being devastated and stalled in its progress by the senseless wars in the 70s.

The sense of pride in their history that one can observe with the French as they religiously try to preserve their heritage buildings and artifacts makes one wonder that in the modern capacity of development one must take great care not to destroy the heritage that our forefathers left us but also not to conjure "ugly" buildings and infrastructure to be inherited by the future generations.

Ya that's how one should enact their travel ,not only just some mindless shopping and herded like cattle pursuing a tight itinerary as programmed by the tour operators but one must take some time to reflect the nature and beauty of places that one visit and also to interact with the common folks.....for by doing so i have begun to realise that despite our differences in beliefs and way of life a person always have a common bond that spurs each one of us; a common bond of strong desire to build a good life for oneself and the family and learning to respect one's neighbours and friends. To be friends with the people that we meet in our travels i can assure you will unravel this fundamental human trait , enjoy your trip and don't forget to buy a T-shirt!!!

Jakarta ..mis-United

Jakarta, possibly the largest city in South East Asian with its 12 million population. A city that thrives on chaos and amazing "roadside entrepreneurship".

I have been to this place quite frequently.

My recent trip was supposed to coincide with the Manchester United visit and as all know their visit was cancelled.
What a great pity..Rooney for one will love this city..hmmm and when i was there i can sense the feeling of frustration and despondency of the city folks particularly those that have braced themselves for the football game.

The pragmatic ones and those people that i met feared the worst for the country now for it will be a longer while before the world looks up to Indonesia again as a place for business and pleasure.

The Indonesians do not deserve this maniac act for majority of them are hardworking and entrepreneurial lot.
Just take the Blackberry as an example.
Somehow the Indonesians has carved out a niche business sector for all users of Blackberry that spawned from unique downloads, accessories and all other kind of services.

So with some business meetings out of the way ,how did i spend my time this trip around? Well tagging along was the family so the usual routine lah!!
Hopping from one Mega Mall to another.
I though did take some time to savour some coffee at a Dunkin Donut outlet just across the road from JW Marriot where the mindless bombing took place.

Well, Jakarta will always be there despite this setback.
I believe for if anything that i always observed in this amazing but chaotic city is the capacity of its populace to endure not only at times for some the harsh living but also the patience and fortitude to smile as traffic jams, cancelled appointments and overly crowded places become an ordinary fact of life.

Pity Rooney he would love to taste a bit of the Jakarta scene , well there's always fish and chips outlet to fall back to if the spicy food is too much for a scouser's stomach.

United is in town

Manchester United Asia Tour 2009 Squad List

Micheal Owen is coming for his debut against Malaysia. But..Nemanja Vidic name is missing due to injury. Another new signing, Gabriel Obertan also not coming due to injury!!

This Manutd squad will arrive at KLIA, Sepang, Malaysia at around 11am and their training session start at 5.30pm. While Malaysia XI training session will be at 4.30pm.

Great news is…Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney will join the list!

Yes,,, Manchester United is in town...i have been given this funny look by some of my colleagues and friends wondering why i am still here in Kuching and not in KL to watch my beloved team.

Firstly it is a friendly game and once you watch competitive matches in the premier league, such friendly game doesn't give you the oomph.

Last year i did watch the Chelsea Malaysia friendly match in KL ,while i enjoyed some of the football on the pitch the atmosphere was so surreal.

Excuse me above just an excuse if truth be told in my busyness i have forgotten to book early the match tickets ,but wonder where is their next tour stop after KL?

The rainforest ,,a Sarawak do

One of Kuching's (obviously) main attraction each year is its rain forest music festival.I believe this event has been happening for more than a decade and even for someone who doesn't really bother(not my kind of music i presume) am also aware of its immense cult and world appeal.

This year though Diyana has her friends from KL coming over to watch this music festival.
As luck would have it we manage also to get some free tickets from relatives who decide to opt out in fear of the H1N1 flu epidemic(decent folks to be really emulated!)

So there we were the wife and Azri tagging along driving over to Damai fearing a massive traffic jam and a chaotic atmosphere.

Honestly i was pleasantly surprised,the event was well organised,traffic controlled well and i did enjoy some of the music being on show. kudos to the organiser.

The atmosphere of wild partying and drunkenness of the youth being a prominent feature of the festival as imagined by myself and feedback from friends was not really true.

The crowd was well behaved,of course there was a bit of partying going on but then in my youth i have seen worst!!! Enough said

Like any concerned parents though we were always on the look out for Diyana and her friends imagining that they may have behaved beyond a certain acceptable decorum.

No fear , the festival is indeed a great annual event and i promised myself i will be there next year but this time possibly will book early the Damai hotel so that can enjoy the whole 3 days and nights proceeding.

Well, if i do feel tired there is always this Penan house at the cultural village that i can have a respite and rest,

A town like Alice..at last!!!

While the present teenage generation grow up on TV mini series such as ER, Prison Break,The Office, and many others...our generation of the 70s reminisced on great shows as Dallas(who shot JR Ewing/),Little house on the Prairie,Combat, Run for your Life( A cool Ben Gazzara show..) but one particular mini series always stick in mind ever since i watched that show more than 30 years ago.

The TV series in question is .."A town like Alice",it depicts the long march by British women in Japanese captivity.

They were forced to walk from Klang all the way to Kota bahru

.It was a love story of an English woman (played by Helen Morse) who was one of those women in Japanese captivity and an Australian soldier(Bryan Brown) who tried vainly to help them.

I always tried to look out for this old mini series whenever i walked into a video shop.

Thanks to my daughter Sabrina who ordered the the VCR from Amazon and a close friend Nizam who kindly converted the VCR into a DVD format ..i finally had this opportunity again to watch this mini series classic.

Am i disappointed? Well except for the picture quality,what do you expect of a series made more than 30 years ago but the story line still captivates me.

The Mini series proved the fact that a good storyline and fine acting are still the enduring criteria of a great movie or even a classic.

"A town Like Alice" though is not my all time favourite.."Doctor Zhivago" still takes that prize for me, a great movie with a good storyline set in a great Russian setting and of course a powerful acting display by that great actor, Omar Sharif.

See you at the movies as they said ya will have to get around to bring Faizul to watch Transformers 2 and the new Harry Potter movie....what a difference from those old great classics.

My children..my jewels

I was having coffee with a close friend last night who just came back from KL and he remarked and realised that he has reached an "old" age when he had his eldest son in his smart attire going to work for the first time.Excuse me friend you are a year younger than me, so what does this makes me? An old man as well?

Well make me reminisces the joys and pains in raising your children .Well we have the good blessing of having 5 children.

Azri, the eldest is now 22 years old and soon to be in his final year at University Sydney majoring in economics.
Diyana, is now 19 years old just finishing her A levels and waiting to go off to England to do her Chemical Engineering degree.

The twins,Sabrina and Faizul are now 15 years old and son to sit for their Form 3 exams.

The youngest,Amirul is 8 years old and a spoilt brat as expected of the youngest.

Definitely as we aged we saw them growing up so fast that we sometimes we hope that time can stand still and give us the eternal joy of always with them. Life though is never meant and should not meant to be like that, If we do love them we have to set them free and let them conjure their own destiny and trust that with our guidance and love they will turn out to be useful citizens of the society.

Ooh..am not Tiger Woods

Last Sunday i was in Kl participating in our industry association OSFAM annual friendly golf tournament.

I was eager for i can feel now that my game has improved a wee bit and my tee off(the first shot off the tee) is more consistent now.

The tournament was held at Kinrara Golf Club in Puchong . As we started to tee off on a "gunshot" basis i suddenly noticed that my Handicap was shown as zero. For the uninitiated this means that this is deemed as a professional standard Ala Tiger Woods!!
Tiger Woods on par with my golf ? Must be joking our golf is world apart...Tiger Woods will consider his game as a disaster if he only collected pars (in golf speak means playing to the standard number of shots to the hole) i will be in heavenly bliss if i collect even a single par over the 18 holes.

So am sure the organisers made a mistake for my handicap at best to be declared should be 24...

Well i did play reasonably well not "blowing" any hole so while don't expect to be champion at worst will be in the mid position.

You can imagine to my horror that i was declared with a measly score of 8 stable ford points and sure enough when i checked later my handicap was considered by this morons of organisers as zero!!!! i was real livid and angry not sure to whom; either the organisers or my own staff when they register me for the tournament without really indicating my handicap.

This certainly put me in a very bad mood coming to the office today but while after a nice cup of coffee i can just laugh it off!!!

Well am no Tiger Woods for sure and lesson learnt never trust anyone who register you for golf without your own self checking that this has to be done properly with the right handicap stated.
Thank you!!!

Sarawak football in the abyss

Great to be on leave and away from the office for a while,sipping my coffee this morning and browsing the local dailies one article caught my eye..the Sarawak football senior team was thrashed by Trengganu T team(Trengganu second stringers) 7-0. Sadly Sarawak now props the league table second from bottom.
Real sad and for someone who has ventured into that forbidding arena of managing the Sarawak football team last season i really felt emphaty for the present management.

Is there any way out from this abyss of a situation? Honestly i never realised that the state of the football affairs can be this so dismal. Last season when the team was bottom of the Super league, they still can give a good fight .

Despite being no longer in the team football management this season my pessimistic view is that at least they will be mid table. The reasons? Now all teams no longer have the luxury of having foreign imports and i knew for a fact our foreign imports last season were way below the quality that other teams have.

Lessons well learnt and i felt that the core group of local and peninsular players that we had last season can still provide good service to the team this season and i am convinced if that team(minus the foreign imports) was retained we will not be in this "relegated" position.

The 3 top local players (Kallang,Zamri and Shahrol) were sent on a short stint to Hartlepool with the intention that they will form the nucleus of the team and retaining quality and seasoned Peninsular players of last season such as Sunder, Hasnawi and Arsyah Ayob will certainly create the proven stability that any winning team must have.

Whatever the outcome i prayed and hope that the present team will avoid relegation to the FAM league ,this tantamounts to a relegation to the Conference league in the UK, God forbids!!!

Good luck boys and live up to the Ngap sayot spirit!!!

Lara's bum and a story of trees

The first temple that we visited in Siem Reap was Ta Prohm, a temple amidst a jungle and made famous in recent times as a place where the movie, Lara Croft and the .... was filmed and of course we all knew that Angela Joline played that role as Lara Croft!!

Really intrigued to see how the trees intertwined with the ruins and the archaeologists that was given the the task of restoring this ancient temple had really taken great care in preserving these possibly century(ies) old trees as well. Kudos!

Taking this holiday to Siem Reap; on the way to Kuching airport i noticed "trees treatment" of a different kind!! The graceful and swaying Angsana trees that has arrayed the road to the airport for many years were cut off to make way for a flyover.

Possibly this has to be done in the name of development and modern convenience to the commuters but i cant help feeling a bit disappointed that those 50 year old trees that have grown so gracefully and with its meandering shades had to make way for modernity.

One particular tree that "grows" on the old temple of Ta Prohm really caught my eye, from an angle it looked like one huge BUM stuck on the temple wall !!!

Hmmm..Lara Croft has certainly left its mark!!!

Siem Reap ..anchor the mosque please!!!

Just want to share an interesting sight that intrigued me on a recent trip to Tonle Sap lake ,Siem Reap Cambodia...a floating mosque.

The lake though was a disappointment to me. It was highly polluted and the abject poverty indeed tugged your heart.

As the boat tugged along the channel towards the lake, a various array of activities can be observed along its banks as the village folks with all their houses(or ram shacks rather..) did their daily chores.
I saw besides the mosque, floating churches and schools.
People came to Siem Reap more to visit the Angkor Wat and the remnants of this ancient civilisation and of course this was part of our must see itinerary.

I cant though help noticing the cultural and facial features similarities of the Kampuchea people and the Malays.
Indeed there was a certain ethnic group called Champa that i believed are Muslims, i met one at the halal KFC and he spoke decent Malay!! hmm interesting.

What are my thoughts as i left Siem Reap? While i still marvelled at the remnants of Angkor Wat, the Bayon temple and the "Angela Joline' Lara Croft movie based temple,Ta Phrom...i was left more intrigued and sad on being told of the ravages and devastation that the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot has inflicted on Cambodia during their short regime in 1975 to 1979.

In just 4 years around 2 millions people were tortured and massacred(the right word!) and it may not have gained the notoriety of 'Auswitch" of world war II but the detention and interrogating place called S-21 was a horror place of torture and "cleansing" of almost similar magnitude. A human mind left to its own device as history shows and as recent as during this tragic era of the Pol Pot regime can conjure and undertake the worst form of brutality and unexplained ruthlessness. I believe the present Khmer populace are still living to terms of this legacy of real tragedy and brutality.
The Khmer's being the people who much earlier has spawned a wonderful and rich cultural civilisations as depicted by the remnants of the Angkor Wat certainly did not deserve or expect such a shameful legacy of the killing fields as recent as 1975..... As i left the place though i can sense a sense of optimism of the youth as shown by our tour guide who take up night studies while working during the day.
To Siem Reap...i came only wanting to visit the Angkor Wat but left sensing a more pensive mood and empathy of the sufferings that the people must have endured during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Back to the floating mosque, i had a conversation with the Imam ,he too can speak some rambles of Malay and according to him there are around 80 Muslim families living within the Tonle Sap lake floating villages .
As i sensed the wobbliness of the mosque as boats passed by,.."excuse me, can they anchor the mosque?"
" Angkor(anchor) Wat(what) ?"..ha ha pardon the pun again!!!

French actor, a former "karate expert"

I recently indulged in one of those movies that will never appear in our cinemas( ala transformers2 or terminator salvation) and the only initial reason i bought the DVD was that the film also boasted one of my favourite footballers...hmm Eric Cantona.

The film titled "French Film" was initially slow in its plot but once you were fully absorbed in its intricaties an excellent movie indeed. Well, it is a story of love and Cantona played a role as a French film director Grimandi whose films evolved around the theme of love.

Just imagine the now bearded Cantona extolling all his virtues and seeming knowledge about love,,,dont ask me i preferred seeing him in the red jersey majestically strutting his football skills.

Remember his famous karate kick to a Crystal Palace supporter? Big change indeed, from a karate expert to an actor extolling the virtues of love.."Love must have its beginning...bla bla..
I can only and always remember his famous quote and still cant understand what it means..

“When the seagulls follow a trawler,it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.”

Only a twat can understand that...but who says a twat cant be a genius, continue your sojourn in the acting world Eric and you never knew you may even be given a bit part in a Karate movie with Jet Li and another ex footballer, Vinnie Jones (now that's a real twat!!)