A TRUE STORY

Bunny seems to be having a  time of her life, holidaying in vietnam and cambodia. Would you believe it was not too long ago she would not even dare to dream of such things. In fact going out with her girl friends was forbidden. She married rather young, and doing house chore , cooking and waiting for the man of the house to return from work just to attend to him had become a routine for her. It was after her two children had grown up and as a result of chating with some friends on fb, she began to wise up and deceide, she had to get out of this 'prison'. Yes, she was like a prisoner in her own home.
I had met her through another mutual friends of ours and we became very good friends and as she relate her sad tale to me, I could not believe it when she told me she does not even know how to go into an email account , much less reply a mail. Funny she seems  to do well on Fb. Another thing I learnt was she does not even know how to make a deposit at the Atm machine. Well this was no fault of hers, as over the years, her husband does everything for her and as a result she does not have the confident and lack courage in many ways.  I am glad she has finally come out of her shell, slowly but surely she will fit into the outside world. Oh yes, she now does hiking and even wall climbing and you don't have to guess who has influence her in these areas. ahem!

WALKING IN THE RAIN

I was suppose to take a ride with my wife after work(yes I did find work finally albeit a temporary one)
today. She told me to walk over to her office, which was not too far from my office. When I arrived there she informed my my daughter in law was not ready to leave yet. So I waited a short while turn out  to be half and hour and still no sign of that two ladies, so I called my wife and was informed again, daughter in law still not ready to leave. Don't know what got into me today, so I responsed never mind , I will walk. And walk I did. it was no big deal for me , after all I just walk the Penang hills for almost 10 hours, so walking a couple of km back home was a breeze, until it rain. At first it was just  drizzling, then suddenly it pours and boy did it pours. I was totally drenched. I quicky covered my phones with plastic bag and continue walking home. It's been quite a while since I  walked under the rain. It was fun though.

http://youtu.be/sxgQH9g2okE

SO WHAT IS ALL THIS FUSS?

Today is the 3rd day , post doom's day. Yes,  we did not die, we survived. The fact is the world did not end or else you won't be reading this. It's somewhat funny, you can see almost everyone posting the mayan legend how the world will end on 21st or was it 22nd based on Greenwich time. Yet there is no sense of anxiety. I  suspect many do not actually believe in it, just jumped onto the bandwagon and say their piece. I for one do not believe it, because I had read the most important manual:- Basic information before leaving earth. or B.i.b.l.e. for short. Yes, we christian do not believe the world will end by some kind of disaster or catastrophe.  In fact we believe those be believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be taken up or rapture . Those who don't believe will be left behind and of course those who believe later on will have to pay a terrible price and even their lives . There will be one who is the anti Christ  and there will be a great time of suffering. Sound unbelievable? Well that is all written in the Bible, believe it or not?  Like all stories there will be a happy ending, Jesus will come back again to defeat the enemy and throw him into hell for eternity. What happen to the christians who were taken up? Well according to the Bible, they will come back to rule. Yes, God promised they will take charge of cities accordingly to their abilities of course.
For this reason we are always grateful for what God has done, and Christmas is a time we always remind ourselves the greatest gift God has given to us Himself.

Have a Blessed Christmas everyone!

HAVE NOT DONE THIS FOR A LONG TIME..

After more than 30 years or so, I finally step into Penang again last Friday. What prompted me to visit Penang? Well a hiking friend whom I met at Johor says he was returning to his hometown after quiting his job at Johor and invited two other friends and I to pay him a visit and he will take us to Penang hill for a hike. So we did the necessary arrangement like booking our air tickets. As the day draw nearer I wrote to him, but the was no response , either on his facebook nor my sms messages.  About the same time I got to know another friend who happen to hail from Penang and he extented the invitation to hike at Penang if I happen to visit the island. So I told him I will be there the following week and if he was available. What luck and so I informed the rest of the team member. Later I learnt  from my friend our mutual friend had done a Houdini and won't be back during the time of our visit at Penang.
Anyway what we perceive to be a easy hike turn out to be almost 10 hours hike from Botantic garden to ayer hitam and back. It was very challenging and an eye opener as I did not know Penang has so many tough trails. The last time I had a long hike was many, many years ago about 12 hours hike.
I arrived Penang hours before my friend on Friday afternoon. It was good to meet up with my blogger friend Eugene and his family. My friends arrived late in the night and we had dinner, bought some stuff for our hike the following morning.  After enduring the tough hike on sat, we thought we could have a good night sleep and planned to get up late, but that was not to be. We were rudely awaken by some ill manner and iresponsible guest who talked so loud without any consideration for other guest. All of a sudden I heard my friend got up and shouted to them to keep quite. I did not know the exact time, but I knew it was very early in the morning .  Have you ever had such bad experience before?
Sunday was spent going around town and taking photographs of some interesting places.

Another Red inn similar to the one we stayed.

this is how it looks inside the inn. (a mixture of old and new)

Peter,our guide for the hike

My two friends from Johor

one of the few boulders which is a common sight here.

I was told there were thousands such steps.

taking a short break

one of the many station, where people rest.

this is how far we covered. photo credit:Peter

                                         

We took the trail beside the drain all the way up to the train station, food court.

                             

Our reward after a tiring hike.

some of the street art found around Penang street/lane

sample of some of the street art on print

YET ANOTHER MEMORABLE WEDDING

Got up early yesterday and started my journey to Kulai, Johor to attend a Malay wedding. I had given my word to my ex staff, I would attend her wedding, so it was a promised I intend to keep. I left Klang at 7.00am after having my breakfast at a shop nearby and reached her house at 11.45 am, after asking for direction from some of the kampung folks there.  She is the baby of the office and is somewhat pampered and I must admit I had a soft spot for her.  By the way she is the second malay girl who calls me Dad, as I always call her nak(short for anak)  .The other girl is another of my pet girl from the old office.

with two of office staff

When she told me she was getting married to the man, I was rather surprise, as that guy was one of the few technician,who came to service our weight bridge. I guess cupid has his ways of getting two people together.

After the bridegroom arrived for the bersanding ceremony and I took a few more shots and asked to be excused as I had another appointment with some friends at Kulai town . Did some wall climbing for two hours before I head for home. It was a long drive home and traffic was at a crawl from the johor till malacca. I thought it was due to the rain, but later saw there was an accident on the other side of the road, and  it is just so typical of malaysian being nosy and causing the jam. Took me 5 hours when it should have been only 3 and half.

HAVE YOU EVER FELT THIS WAY?

It suppose to be a good gathering and meet up with other friends at the Putra challenge park. I had invited a friend who is new to wall climbing. We were suppose to meet up with the rest of the gangs in the afternoon.But she wants to have breakfast together with two other friends who could not make it the last minute. So she picked me up at 8.30am and then went on to pick up another friend before we met up with our two friends to had breakfast. After breakfast we headed for putra jaya. It was around 11.30am or so, after paying the necessary fees we were ready to climb. She did ok for a first timer on the wall climbing. Then one of the friend was tired after two climb and so we switch to another area which was the bouldering wall. This part of the climb does not require safety rope. She did climb for a while then suddenly she felled down and I could not catch her in time and she landed on the mattress which we usually refer to the crash pad. It was only about 4 to 5 feet high , then I heard her saying I have broken my bones. I thought she was joking.Then I saw something swelling outward and I reliase she was telling the truth. Quickly I got the people in charge there to call the ambulance and within half an hour it arrive and she was rush to the hospital at Putra jaya. Waited for a while before her brother in law and husband came. Since it was not know when the doctor could attend to her,  I was requested by her husband to drive back her car to klang while they made arrangement to transfer her back to a private hospital in klang.  Prior to that I had apologized to her for I felt I had indirectly cause her to have this mishap. If I had not invited her then the accident would not had happened. Despite her assurance to me that it was an accident and I was not to blame myself, but somehome I still did not feel easy at all. Last night I did not even had a good sleep, as  I kept on thinking of what had happen. This afternoon I visited her at the hospital. She had been operated on the night before and now recovering. And again she told me not to feel bad about the whole incident. I had told myself maybe I should be more careful whom I invite for any future activity. Have you ever gone through such experience before or something similar?

MAYBE IT'S TIME I PUT AWAY MY HIKING GEARS?

I always tried my level best to keep my word. Once I have promised someone something and when I will honour my word. So yesterday I took some friends to another route at Tabur hill, which not many people know about this trail. Anyway on the eve of this hike I had informed my wife that I would be out hiking. So she started her ranting again how she wished I would stop those outdoors activities and reminded me I was no longer young. Well it'snt that the point? I mean how many more years do I have? If I don't do the things I loved now, when would I be able to do them right?  She mentioned the reason she transfer her gym membership to me was in the hope I would go to the gym instead of the outdoor .
Now before you start thinking what a lucky broke I am to have such a nice wife giving me a gym membership. The only reason she did that  was she could no longer continue due to her health problem.  Standing too long cause her pain in her legs and the work out does not help.  But here I like to qualify myself , I am indeed moved by her "sacrifice". So for the sake of peace in the house I am compelled to give up one of my love.  Well at least I can still workout at the gym and of course occasionally I will still do some rock climbing. I hope she won't ask me to give that up as well.
So adios mountains , don't missed me too much, I will try not to miss you.