Windy Afternoon

The plan this afternoon was to join the boys for their swimming class straight from the apartment after work. Usually on a Saturday afternoon, I would gave lunch at work before taking a breather for a couple of hours at the apartment.

Being Ramadan, there was no lunch today. So, in spent the afternoon just watching TV - watching the fascinating documentary I blogged about earlier.

Right after the documentary, the weather just changed. It was raining heavily outside night this moment. Hopefully, then traffic won't be bad as we planned to have our iftar outside this evening.

Alive

A few years back - more like 20 years ago, I remember watching a movie called Alive with my housemates in Sheffield. All of us were Medical Students back then and the subject behind the movie interested us. It was about survival, and what happen if you were to neat another human being.....

Funny then kind of things that interested us back then. Anyhow, it was a real story of survival and it was based on a true tale. A group of rugby players from Uruguay was on the way to Chile when their plane crashed at the top of the Andes Mountains due to what turned out to be pilot's error.

There were no means for escape for the survivors and after the rescue mission were called off, they had to find their way out ton alert the public. And it took them more than a couple of months before they were rescued after a daring trek down the mountain by a couple the fellow survivors.

As their food store depleted, they had to resort to eating the passengers who perished. A lot ethical issues here, but it was a matter of live or death.

Ten days of trekking in such treacherous condition. They were finally rescued after 72 days in the mountains. They were taken out just in time for Christmas 1972.

This afternoon, I watched a documentary on Discovery in what actually happened. And the actual survivors from the flight were interviewed. A group of mountaineers also went to trace the actual route that they took to take them back to civilisation. The survivors also returned to the site, and the story of their lives since the event were also told.

Fascinating stuff.

The Curve in Ramadan

After the jam I endured coming back from Subang, I had to fulfil my promise to the boys to take them out. Anita wanted to go to The Curve, and the children wanted to go to Marche there. So, the decision was easy. Off we went.

For the past few years, this was the main place we went to shop for Raya clothes. A few of the shops there we were very familiar with. And of course, we had to go there for the Raya cards as well. We had tongue that a miss this time around as the boys were hungry. So the shopping had to wait.

The decor there this year was based on the 60s theme around old KL. Specifically Chow Kit and Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. The had shops basically there. A mini bazaar, selling some really expensive stuff that I didn't even bother browsing.

The clothes there mainly came from local boutique and they didn't come cheap. There were also accessories, samping, songkok and all the rest. But the main items seemed to be baju kurung. Plenty of them, for both children and adults. Don't bother asking about the prices. I could cry.

We skipped that and bought some clothes at Metrojaya instead. Got what we went there for.

Unfortunately, The Curve were shut down at ten even during Ramadan. Which was a shame since they could do with opening it until midnight during weekends as I was sure there would be plenty of people who would venture out after Tarawikh at least for food.

That would be an idea.

Here are the entries from the Raya decor from 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Jammed Up NKVE

Friday was the first day I worked this Ramadhan and by the afternoon, I couldn't wait ton get out of the hospital. I was warned that the traffic would be bad. I plugged on, trying the usual NKVE route leaving just after 5 pm.

Bad move. I was stuck right from the toll booth. But in thought it would just be temporary. But the jammed didn't let up, past the Damansara exit and beyond.

Finally in saw what the source was. There was a fatal accident just after the Kota Damansara Exit. A poor soul in a motorcycle - which were almost always the case - hit a lorry and ended up under it.

The emergency service were already on the scene but in doubt that anything could've been done. As a result, both lanes of the NKVE were jammed up as everybody slowed down to have a look. I ended up only reaching home just after 7. A two hour drive in the end. And that was after in promised to take the boys out for dinner after iftar. Ooops! It turned out to be a long day.

Another Turn

It turned out there were two parts to the Melawati Bazaar Ramadan. We went to the first part, and today, we found out that there was another. But did it make any difference? Not really.

The second part was well away from the main road, and seemed to be less crowded. The area was also more specious, but unfortunately it didn't offer anything different to the first part. I still couldn't get my fix of cucur udang or proper air asam boi! Still not as good as past year.

We decided to get our iftar stuff from a restaurant today, after finding some kuih at the bazaar. So, happy iftar all ......