It's Raya Cards Time

I must confess that I have been slacking this year. I usually get my Raya Cards sorted out by the end of the first Ramadhan weekend. This time around, it was coming up to the third, and I only just begun writing them.

The cards from Sunflower were gorgeous as usual. So, I spent the best part of the morning writing up them cards, while emailing some of my cousins for their updated addresses. Finally got the 50 or so cards written up. That warm and fuzzy feeling came back in the pit of my stomach right after.

Now, I would have to drag myself to the Post Office.

Update on Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 5:53PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

Posted the cards, and the stamps cost 50 sen each! They better send the cards across in at least a Mercedes ..... 

Royal Penang Hotel

All in all, the stay at Royal Penang Hotel during our Penang trip was a pleasant one. This was the second time we been to the place, the first some three years back, when the hotel was known as Dorsett Penang. It was not a bad hotel back then, when my sister Julia and her family also came along during the stay, and Irfan was dipped under water during one of the swim. He was traumatised then and for the following year and a half, refused to enter a swimming pool. He was only two then. He got over it now.

Same as the last time, we had the apartment suite, which was huge. And we also had the partition door to the next room opened, for our maid to stay. This time around, my parents used the next room. And my sister was not with us for this trip. The suite consisted of three separate areas, the living room with a lounge and dining area, plus a small kitchenette with sink, a microwave oven and a full size refrigerator. The second area, the biggest was the bedroom, with a king-sized bed, sofa, another TV and a small study table. The last was the dressing area, with a walk-in closet and the bathroom. There was also a balcony there but the door was locked for security reason. Basically, the room was huge. And with the next room was also opened up, the boys kept running from one end to another.

The main bedroomThe whole length of the room, going into my parents room next door. Irfan was running from one end to the next.The main living area, with a dining table to seat four, and the main lounge.The balcony from the dressing areaWe were there for a three nights. Certainly, room-wise, there was nothing to complain about. Very comfortable and spacious. The only problem we had was the cleaners were a bit slow to clean our room. In fact, we had to call housekeeping on our second day to get the cleaners in. Another issue was the limited parking space that they provide. Although it was free and covered, I counted that there were at most 40 slots. In a 20-storey hotel, I thought that they should provide more.

Food was just average. Breakfast was just OK, nothing special to mention. It was enough for us, although they charged Idlan at children's rate. Apparently, the suite only comes with a couple of breakfast vouchers.

The cute kitchenette with the fridge and microwave oven.And Irfan was still at it .....the pool on the fourth floorNext, the swimming pool. It was pretty basic. There was no life-guard and no drinks served by the pool. The gym located on the same floor was closed for renovation. Surprisingly, there was no spa at the hotel.

The hotel offered discount for government servants, an all it took was for me to show my UM identification card. We got something like 20% off, which made a lot of difference. We hardly sampled any of the hotel meals as this being Penang, there were plenty of food everywhere, not to mention a KFC outlet located right across the street from the hotel. The hotel also has a connecting bridge to Penang Plaza right next door for food and shopping. The TV offered all the terrestrial channels plus Disney, one movie and one sports channel. Our suite had a DVD player should we fancy watching something.

The strategic location of the hotel, being right smack in the middle of Georgetown made it definitely worth considering again when we come back. Our usual place to stay was along Gurney Drive, but this time around, with the change of management, we decided to give this place another go. Compared to when it used to be called Dorsett, there had been hardly any change. Should you want to find out more about the hotel, please click here. And more stories about this trip here.

Giving it the boot?!

Well, the good news of the technician coming over was tempered by the fact that apparently there was nothing that he could do, and I, yes, the customer not him, had to call Astro again to tell them that the box was faulty and need replacing.

When I called - I mean pressed the combination of 2,4 and 3 after calling the number to answer the pre-recorded question - the lady on customer support asked me exactly what my wife was told, and after a few minutes explaining, I suggested that she should just contact the technician directly as I have his mobile number with me. On second thought, maybe not. They might just mess things up further.

So, another promise of "everything would be sorted out within 48 hours", until I reminded her that the first call came through last week. According to her, there was no record that I called them yesterday! Sigh! Now they had a bad database system to add to their list of inadequacies.

At least it was Wednesday today. At least they had a couple of days to sort the mess out before the weekend. What I could not understand was, it should have been the technician contacting Astro directly about the replacement. There would be no need for us to be the messenger to explain what had transpired. Why should I waste my time making the phone call. I did not mind making it, but it just reflected how much they value their customers. "Don't bother sorting their problem, they would just call back if they need anything!"

Bring the Pasar Back!

Talking about renovations, when I was walking from the Menara Utama to Menara Timur yesterday, I realised that the main corridor linking the two were closed. There was a big sign blocking the way. It used to be main walkway for patient transfer. It turned out that there was a some renovation work going on at Pasar Siti Khadijah, a foyer at Menara Timur.

It was called a pasar - meaning market - because back when I first joined UMMC, once a month, usually after payday, there were stalls being erected there, selling clothes, foodstuffs, gifts and I used to enjoy going there to buy some pickles. I knew the nurses like the market, and so were the patients. I used to buy pickles and snacks for the nurses back then. Unfortunately, the market stopped operating three years back. Not sure why, but it was a crying shame.

So far I have seen that they have put on a coat of paintAt the moment, the foyer were used for indoor sports, patient gathering and assembly points. I'd say, bring the pasar back!

B'yond needs fixing

Last Wednesday, I was surprised to see that my Astro Byond box just suddenly went dead. It had been having problem since we got it installed in April. Every so often, it just frozen, with a loud whirring fan-like sound emanating from the back. A quick search on the web forum confirmed that it was a common problem, as part of the lack of quality control in Astro in general.

But we coped with it, as occasionally it only hanged once in an hour. The week before it went dead, it was freezing a lot more often.

I got on the case straight away when it went dead. And as soon, I realised the reason behind why I did not call them any sooner.

"Welcome to ASTRO. Press 1 for English, press 2 for Malay, press 3 for Iban etc ….". It was really annoying. And that was not the first menu. It went on and on until you were finally connected to a customer service personnel, who then asked you again why you called them in the first place. Did they not get the summary of what keys I had pressed earlier?

And the problem did not end there. I was promised a technician would attend to the problem at home within 48 hours. It was Tuesday today. To be fair, I was contacted by a technician asking for the directions to get to my house. That was last Tuesday morning, while I was at Gleneagles with Dad.

So, not only that they provided substandard hardware, the had a botched customer service personnel protocol and they even messed up on the technician front as well. So, I had to call them again. Went through the mundane menu before getting a live person on the other end. I was again promised service within the next 24 hours ....

I was just trying to figure out what would be the next mess they would create? No replacement parts maybe, while at the same time refusing to provide a new set top unit? I could sense that one coming …..