Flowers of Frasers

The nice cool mountain air and plenty of sunshine and rain certainly made Frasers Hill a heaven for flowers. Even the whole shrubs thrived here.

Around the Smokehouse, there used to be plenty of flowers in the garden. There weren't many this time around and I decided to explore the town for more.

Nice...

Home Comfort

In the last couple of years, I really had cut down on the number of overseas conference I attended. It was due to the combination of lack of sponsorship as well as fear of international travel which played a role.

But with webinar and webcast becoming commonplace, I didn’t really felt left behind or out of date. Last week, one of the Pharmaceutical Company had a talk in Penang and the talk was beamed across on the net live. In the comfort of my home, I was able to enjoy the talk.

Dr Leong asking the questions on the other end ...The only drawback would be there would be no free dinner afterwards and also there was no chance for networking. But that was a small matter. The webcast was clear through the internet - they used GoToMeeting for this one - all in HD.

We also had the chance to ask question or chat if we wanted but the talk was rather long in the end. I am all for this in the future ...

A Sad Monday

I finally made it to my bed at 3 am after a quick stop at McDonald’s on the way home from the hospital. Typical of Sundays, the admissions tended to come during ungodly hours after they had enjoyed their weekends. After going through the admissions, I was peckish and decided for a quick burger on the way home.

The sleep then also wasn’t a particularly good one, being interrupted every half an hour or so. But the call just after 6 am woke me up. My Mum rang to tell me that one of my Aunt took the turn for the worse overnight and was fighting for her life in Intensive Care.

I made plans to visit her later that morning, since I had to sort out my post-call chores. Anita went to pick up my parents after dropping Irfan at school. They plan to go earlier. Then the news broke that she was no longer with us.

My parents and Anita arrived as the body was being cleaned. I couldn’t finish my work in time and by the time I reach the apartment, they were already transporting my Aunt in the hearse heading back to Penang. They plan to lay her to rest later in the afternoon. My parents then drove back to Penang, but I wasn’t able to go at such short notice, especially on the day post-call.

It was only a couple of weeks back that her son - my cousin - got engaged. The wedding was planned next month in Terengganu and Penang. It looked like it would be a sombre affair. Alfatihah ...

The Little Garden

Since the renovation was done, Anita had been keen on getting some greeneries at the balcony. It may be a touch overboard but I felt that it was a nice change. It created some space for me to chill at, and who wouldn’t want that, especially when you were tired after work.

I finally had the chance to take come picture of the flowers since it was Sunday and I had an extra hour at home before heading out to work. We were blessed with gorgeous weather that morning as well.

There was a still one end of the balcony that she cold expand to if she wishes so, but as it stood at the moment, she would start with a small area first. Maybe in the next few month, we may venture to other side. The morning breeze certainly made a lot of difference and I could just spend all morning there ... with a mug of coffee in hand.

I also noticed that Anita loved to keep pitches as decorations. She picked plenty of them up when we were in the UK, and now that she had some pace to put them, they all came out from the boxes. I wonder what would be next ...

Stop at MATIC

“Interpretasi Hitam Putih Jalanan”. That was the title. Enough to intrigue me and on the sunny Saturday afternoon, I decided to go and have a look.

It was a local exhibition on street photography, all in glorious black and white featuring local photographers with a number of international contributors. Well curated and well presented. The venue as MATIC, in a purpose-built room ideal with such exhibition with plenty of natural lights and cool ambiance.

I found some of the featured photos intriguing and at the same time familiar. There were plenty of KL flavours in them and some of the landmarks were easily recognisable. Certainly the theme being black and white, made the photos contrasty and gripping. I always preferred narration and again I struggled to grasp the overall direction of the exhibit. But that does not mean that I did not enjoy what was on show.

I wished that the exhibition was better publicised. I only learned of it from Facebook. There was no dedicated website, and the mention on the MATIC webpage was only nominal. The exhibit will go on until until the end on the month - 30 March 2017 - and it was certainly worth a visit.

Parking was an issue if you were driving. I got duped into paying RM10 as I was told that I was suing a private parking. To encourage local visitors, they could have made the parking cheaper at least. Usually I would’ve parked at KLCC and walked, but with Anita coming along, it was too much of an ask for her to walk across. Again, local authorities conspired to make those who wanted to explore KL that much more challenging ...