When I say Legend, I mean The Legend International Water Homes, a new hotel right next to Legend Water Chalet which I was sure was under the same management. I was invited to attend a weekend talk there a couple of weekends back and brought the boys around on tow. We were put up at the Water Homes, on the 7th floor. Puan Anita was initially disappointed as she was hoping to get a chalet rather than an apartment, but her disappointment soon evaporated when she saw the room interior.
The room was huge, the size of probably a flat in KL. We had the main bedroom, which had 2 queens bed, with ample space to walk around. You walk in, through a small kitchenette and then a dressing area and the bathroom. The width of the room alone was around 20 yards. You then exit through a door by the bedroom, into a swimming pool. Yes, an indoor swimming pool - not just an oversized bath - but a proper one, and it was for our unit alone. Amazing!
Behind the pool, there was an outdoor shower in the private courtyard, with plants and a great view of sunset in late evening. What more can you ask? Well a good in-room dining for a start, but more about that. First order of business as soon as we checked-in was to jump into the pool. Wohoo! The boys were super excited. Unfortunately, I can only join them for half an hour as my talk was about to start. They stayed on a bit longer.
We returned to the pool later that afternoon after my talk. All in, goggles on, life buoy on tow, everybody in! The depth was only 4 feet, but it was still too deep for the two of them. I managed to teach them how to peddle with the buoy, making my job babysitting them that much easier. While we were having a dip, Anita ordered room service. The service was prompt, but unfortunately the food was not that good.
Didn't take much to mess the room upI then enjoyed an outdoor shower in the sunset, but while turning the water off, I damaged the tap. Oh dear! A quick phonecall to reception and the plumber was in within 10 minutes and the thing got fixed straight away. That was excellent! I had to go out for dinner that evening, leaving the boys and Puan Anita to again order in. This time, they decided to order Western - the boys had some tomato mozzarella pizza. It turned out that the chef there was more inept at preparing Western food rather than local, so bear that in mind the next time anyone visits the place. I had a barbecue dinner on the 9th floor - which was the rooftop. It was OK, great company, but as the company which invited us started with a show - asking for audience participation, the hall quickly emptied!
Armed and dangerous
Another plus point for the place was free internet. And it was proper internet, not just snail-paced connection. I was downloading at speeds exceeding 100kb/s. Very decent! The TV channels were also very good. They had all the major sports channels as well as movies and Disney’s - I can watch United that evening, but alas I was too tired and fallen asleep. The beds were very comfortable and the lighting in the pool was very soothing at night. We slept well, and woke up late for breakfast.
Breakfast was another surprise. It was very good. They had a decent buffet selection, and the omelet was very well made. They had children in mind with the selection of cereals and tit bits. We spend nearly an hour down there.
All in all, it was a decent resort and we enjoyed the stay. I made a few inquiry and apparently the cost for the room we had was around RM500 which I thought was very reasonable, considering you would have to pay more than that for a smaller room at Avilion, close by. And that room does not have an in-room swimming pool. There were many pluses - free Internet, decent breakfast spread, friendly staff - they actually referred me as Dr Haris after finding out my room number, great maintenance when we called for the plumber, and decent selection of TV channels. It was not often that I get to watch my beloved United playing in the room when I room in a hotel.
As far as the minus goes, they could do with a few extra lifts. The couple of guest lifts doubled as porter lifts as well. I decided on a few occasion to take the stairs rather than using the lifts. The in-door dining could have been better and if you must order, make sure that you order Western.
Would I recommend the hotel to anybody - yes, definitely. In fact we were actually planning to return there at some point and we would not mind paying for the room. It appeals to small family and to be honest, I could have shared the room with my sister and her family if we wanted to as the room were big enough. Carry yourself a couple of sleeping bags and you are done! The hotel is situated to the north of the town centre and was very well sign-posted. You can’t miss it!
Saturday, December 18, 2010 at 8:50AM 
It was raining outside
It looked like it would be raining outside. I just had lunch and was about to leave for Friday Prayers. But with the rain, I may have to give it a rest.
Today would mark the third week that I would be in Kelang teaching my Medical Students. I have another week to go, but it would be the exam week then. So, the students were understandably anxious - Malaysian education system is exam-driven, right from kindergarten to Medical School. We finished our clinical session just now and after another tutorial this afternoon, that would be it for the week. They had another pair of lecturers before me for four weeks, so all together they would have a total 7 weeks of teaching. For the exam next week, I prepared an essay question, as well as organising the clinical examination short cases for each one of them. All 44 of them.
When I first started coming to Kelang back in 2004, there were only 32 students in my class. All of them have graduated, and some of them still kept in touch. It was easy as I enjoy teaching, but 44 students to one lecturer was just way too much. There were too many compromises being made, and in the three weeks I had so far with them, I was sure not all of the students were happy. They had to understand however that I can;t please everyone, not it was my job to please them.
I kept on stressing to the department and the students that my role here in Kelang would be to facilitate teaching. Facilitating does not mean spoon-feeding them with information. As Medicine was such a wide and varied subject, I was not capable, or should be expected to be able to know everything. The pace of the development in Medicine was also very rapid. I read journals just to keep up and it was not easy to stay at the cutting edge of things. But at least the UM Medical Students should be grateful. They have dedicated lecturers who came and taught, them, not only from my department, but from Surgical, Gynaecology and Paediatrics as well. I can name a few other medical schools who struggle to keep up. They may have far too many medical students to cope with and were not able to supervise all of them. Here, at UM, even though we had to struggle at times, we tried our best to keep up and were successful most of the time. But I was not sure how long we can keep up with the 44 to 1 ratio. It was starting to break my back ….. I was worried that we give too much emphasis on quantity rather than quality.
The students complained that they did not have enough teaching. The lecturers complained that it was too much work to do going about teaching these large group. The Management were under pressure to produce more doctors by the powers that be. And I understood that Malaysia needed more doctors in general. The solution here may be very obvious. We need more lecturers. We need more people on the ground. We need to recruit more people. We need to bring the 44:1 ratio down. But there were not too many people to take up the task of being medical lecturers as it took time and commitment to do it well. There were many more easier path to take on to progress in medical career compared to being a lecturer. It was a vicious cycle. But we have to start somewhere and we have to make the job of being a lecturer more attractive.We have to start paying the medical lecturers better salary. Certainly there were move in that direction, but would be enough to make the carrer choice more attractive would it be able to make the career choice more attractive , than say, a chronic MO in Kementerian Kesihatan. I bet some of them were paid more than me doing half the amount of work.
It was raining heavily outside. It looked like that I will be missing my Friday prayers.