Happy Holidays!

Wishing my patients and friends Merry Christmas for those celebrate it, and Happy Holidays for those who don't. I noticed this rather festive banner in front of the Palliative Ward and it hit me that tomorrow will be a holiday. 

When I was working in the UK, Xmas was the time when I was definitely on call since I'll be covering my colleagues who were celebrating. The actual Xmas Day was usually quite but the days leading up to it and the days following were usually among the busiest in the year. Relatives would send their parents and oldies to be admitted while they enjoy the festives period and at times it felt really sad that the system has been manipulated somewhat.

The days after Xmas were usually busy for the right reasons as patients tended to stay at home during the Xmas and came to hospital right after. They tended to be more ill by this time. I used to hate this period. Luckily I will be having the weekend off. Will be traveling tomorrow to Kuala Kangsar for a couple of days, having a look at Puan Anita's house there which was just been built. Will blog from there then. Again, Happy Holidays. 

Housekeeping update

In the last couple of weeks , I have been adding shortcuts into a separate tab in my blog. They can accessed from the top menu. The specific new tabs were three in total. They were called 'Food!', 'Slideshows' and 'Shortcuts'. I realised that lately I have been enjoying food more than I should. Some of the joints I visited was really good while other maybe awful. All the restaurant visits blog entries were aggregated in the "Food!" section.

'Slideshows' are basically pictures I have taken on certain theme compiled into either a narrative or just random slideshow. They were all encoded in flash, hence cannot be accessed through iPhone. Loading time may also be an issue if the connections are choppy. The last but not least 'Shortcuts' as the name suggest basically list reviews or blog entries about travels, and reviews. They should be self-explanatory. So, I hope that you can find the blog entry you want straight from those menus and please do come visit later as more links will be added.

Haris

Fraser's Hill - Day 3 - Time to go Home

A couple of nights may be too short if you are into hanging in the hotel and enjoying good living. It might be kind of boring if you were an adventurous type. Certainly if my family were not around, I would have gone out to explore the trails around there.

All packed and ready to goLast look at the garden From what I saw, the trails were very well laid out and mapped. They cater for various skill levels and I am sure that you will find one to suit your skill and time.

I woke up early as usual, quickly put aside my stuffs ready for Anita to pack away. But when I was about to go out for a walk, Anita woke up. After settling the boys, we went out for breakfast.

We had a quick stroll around after that before returning to the room to pack and check out. After saying our goodbyes, we left at around 11.30. My mother-in-law wanted to stop at Puncak Inn to order some 'pau' before starting our journey down.

We took the 12 o'clock slot to drive down to The Gap. The journey down was much faster but my maids actually felt the sickness more than the journey up. We finally arrived in KL at around 2.30pm, straight for lunch at Jusco AU2.

Fraser's Hill - Day 2, Part 2 - Back at Smokehouse after lunch

We were shattered by the time we got back from lunch at Shahzan's Inn. The weather was pretty gloomy by then and it started to drizzle. We headed back to the hotel and after an hour or so, we went out to the garden while waiting for the afternoon tea. While in town earlier, we picked up a set of plastic golf clubs. Before long, Idlan already started swinging.

The garden was well kept with flowers tended on the walls and fringes. They were only accessible by guests. If it was not raining, we could've had our scones out there. With the children occupied, Anita and I took a walk stroll around the compound, walking in mist. How romantic. 

Since it rained earlier, the mist fell down much earlier that evening. Initially we wanted to venture out for dinner, but by 6pm, the visibility was down to about 30 meters with the fog and low cloud. The boys were not in the mood to get into the car anyhow. Again, we had dinner at the resort. That evening, I tried the steak. It was OK, the meat was tender but somewhat undercook. Fresh vegetables and nice gravy took care of that. We had another lovely dinner. As there were hardly any other guest, Henry came over for a chat while serving us.

My boys running around in the garden... and playing with the swing

I was surprised to find out that before he joined the food and beverage line, he was a welder. That was what he did around Keramat 6 years back. He has been with Smokehouse for almost a close to three years now. He used to serve at one of the branch at Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, which has now been closed. He said he remembered my father-in-law who used to entertain his guess there. He also talked about his family back in Myanmar. He used to do office work there and after his parents passed away, he decided to leave for Malaysia.

Settling in by the heaterAfter dinner, we were ushered to the reading room. The boys were with their PSPs. My in-laws watching the ASTRO. Anita and I decided to have some hot chocolate and do some reading. We retired close to 10pm. We had a long drive tomorrow back to KL.

Idlan and Irfan met the Power Rangers

It was Saturday once again and Irfan was due for his Pingu class. I had to do my ward round this morning. I had to leave early, finish the round, then headed back to fetch everyone back to Bangsar. Missing my breakfast, I had my brunch at Delicious in Bangsar Village II. Class finished by 1.30. Time to head for Sungai Wang.

Latte at DeliciousIt started raining heavily on the there, and parking was full. We had to move along and parked at Low Yat, right down to Basement 5. Brought the troops up and had to cross over to Bukit Bintang Plaza. For Christmas, Sungai Wang had a promotion going, with the Power Rangers character appearing during the weekends. There was an appearance at 4 pm. Since we arrived early and got our tickets, we waited along at McDonald's for more snack. We were right in front of the queue by 3.45.

Irfan browsing the toys while waiting for the RangersIdlan waiting patientlyThe Power Rangers appeared right on time. There were only 3 of them though, not the usual 5. It was not the original character, but the spin-off called Jungle Fury. Don't worry, my boys knew all about them, what their real names were and what they do. Daddy was disappointed as the good old pink Power Rangers did not make an appearance.

The stage where the Rangers came on to. Unfortunately I got my hands full with the biys when they came on stage and did not manage to snap.The scarf on their neck made the swans looked kinda .... gay!When the time comes to go up the stage for the photo-op, Irfan had a stage fright. Idlan was fine and went ahead to have his pics taken, all smiling. That cost us RM10, then we waited for about 15 minutes for the photo to be developed. We were all tired at the end, but unfortunately, the rain fell again and we had to wait for the drizzle to stop before crossing back to Low Yat.