Fifteen Years and a Cake

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSome dates carry a bit of extra weight without ever announcing it loudly, and yesterday was one of those for me. The 26th of September marks two things at once — Dr Ng Soo Chin's birthday, and the anniversary of the day I joined SJMC fifteen years ago, which isn't a coincidence so much as the reason the date matters in the first place. He was the one who brought me there to begin with, and there's something quietly satisfying about a milestone that comes with a person attached to it rather than just a number on a calendar.

It was marked properly, in the low-key way these things ought to be — cake and breakfast together, which is really the correct order of priorities for a morning like that. Fifteen years is long enough that the maths of it catches you slightly off guard when someone says the number out loud, and long enough that gratitude feels like the more honest response than nostalgia.

Rounds finished up after that, and then it was on to the more domestic end of the day — collecting Anita for lunch at KLCC, followed by the specific kind of shopping that comes with a trip on the horizon. Clothes for Cherating, which has a way of making even routine shopping feel a bit more purposeful, everything selected with a beach and some actual downtime in mind rather than just general wardrobe upkeep.

From there across to TRX, for a rather more considered purchase — the Mac Studio, finally collected. Went for the M5 Max in the end, the Ultra still a few months off yet, and there's a particular pragmatism in choosing the thing that exists now over the better thing that doesn't exist yet. Setting it up was refreshingly straightforward, the sort of process Apple has clearly spent a great deal of effort making feel effortless, which is its own quiet achievement even if it's designed never to be noticed.

The evening had one more thing on the agenda — a dinner talk at KL Hilton, which rounded the day off on a rather more formal note than it had started, breakfast cake giving way to a proper evening engagement by the time it was done.

Fifteen years, a new machine, a beach trip inching closer, and a debt of gratitude to someone whose birthday happens to fall on exactly the right day to be remembered alongside it. Not a bad way for a date to earn its significance.

A Holiday That Forgot to Check the Roster

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThere is a particular irony to a public holiday that arrives for everyone except you. The Agong's birthday had emptied the roads and shuttered half the city, yet the ward, as ever, took no notice of the calendar. Patients do not observe royal occasions, and neither, it seems, does the morning round. So while the rest of the country lay in, I made my quiet pilgrimage through the wards, notes in hand, the corridors unusually hushed.

Two of the team had vanished eastward — off to a meeting in China, leaving the rest of us to redistribute the workload with the cheerful resignation of people who know complaining changes nothing. The round went smoothly enough, and by noon I was free, which on a holiday feels less like an achievement and more like an unexpected refund.

Anita and I pointed the car towards Wangsa Maju, drawn back to Alpha Angle for lunch. There is something pleasantly unhurried about returning to a place that once formed the backdrop to ordinary life. When we lived in Gombak, this was where we drifted on idle afternoons, before either of us had the sense to wonder where the years were going. The mall has changed in the small ways malls do — a shopfront here, a new signboard there — but the bones of it remain familiar, and familiarity, on a day off, is its own kind of comfort.

Lunch slid easily into groceries, as these things tend to. One does not set out to buy a trolley's worth of provisions, and yet there I was, examining the relative virtues of one cut of something against another, while Anita made the more decisive calls. We left heavier than we arrived, which is the unspoken contract of any visit to a supermarket.

From there to Mid Valley, on a mission for bedding — a phrase that sounds far grander than the reality, which was the two of us standing before a wall of identical white linen, trying to detect meaningful differences in thread counts neither of us fully understood. We chose something, eventually. We always do.

The final stop was the Apple Store at TRX, where the day's true purpose quietly revealed itself. Anita had her eye on the new MacBook Neo, and after the requisite admiring of the thing in its box, she walked out with the citrus model — a colour that manages to be cheerful without being loud, much like its new owner. There is a small ceremony to collecting a new machine: the heft of it, the promise of a clean slate, the faint suspicion that one's old habits will migrate across regardless.

We came home as the light softened, the boot full, the day quietly accounted for. Not every holiday needs to be remarkable. Some are simply for retracing old steps, buying sensible things, and watching someone you love choose a laptop the colour of marmalade. That, I think, is holiday enough.

Apple Store Singapore

Apple opened their first official South East Asia store in Singapore. Located right at the heart of Orchard Road, the store proved quite tricky to find. Yes, there was the big Apple logo at the front of the building - typically an all-glass facade - but it proved difficult to spot.

Ironically, I had to use Waze to find it.

The main entrance to the storeWhat was there? Nothing special actually. The only item which caught my eyes were a portable printer, connectable via wifi where you could print directly from the phone wirelessly.

It uses heat to print, so there were no need for ink. Unfortunately I didn't have time to explore the device. It uses a disposable cartridge for the prints, which may be tricky to get hold of in KL.

The unmistakeable symbolOn the retail floor. Yes, the staffs were wearing red.They displayed the usual fare but nothing I wouldn't be able to find back home. But what was unique about the store was the upper floor. To get up, you would use the gorgeous stone staircase, at each end of the store. That was where they had an open space, used for events and product discussions. I had to queue to get upstairs and decided to give that a miss.

I ended up coming out of the store without spending a dime. Frankly, there was nothing there which I craved. Maybe next time ...

HK Apple Store

The last Apple Store I went was in London, and it was quite an experience. So, when I arrived in Hong Kong, I was really glad to learn that the local store was only a ten minutes walk away. Two right turns and I was there.

However, the experience was not as grand. Maybe because Apple had become ubiquitous and the local dealers in Malaysia did well in replicating some of the experience. The streamlined catalogue and lack of diversity also helped matters.

The main reason why I was there was to get new straps for the Apple Watch, something which were yet to be available back home. Yup! There were choices alright, from the basic to the ridiculously expensive. I got what I wanted quite easily. Paying for the goods was also quite an experience. You just handed your credit card to your personal "Genius" and he would swipe it on his iPhone-sized device, you sign on the screen and that was it. Even the receipts were emailed to your inbox.

The knock-off merchants come early in these partsApart from that, there was nothing else fancy. The new Apple TV had yet to be released. No iPad Pro of course. Not really anything much else to look at. Nothing that I wouldn't be able to get hold of back home. The price? At least 10% more expensive there than back home. Hence no reason to actually by anything ...

However, the irony there was there were people in small tents right outside the store selling iPhones. I was sure that those were knock-offs but to be honest I wouldn't be able to tell. They were doing it cheap, but not that much cheaper ...

More write-up on the trip here.

Apple Store

As I mentioned earlier, I achieved one of my personal goal, which was to shop at an actual Apple Store. We were not talking about a local dealer a la Machines in KL or the lot, but an actual Apple Retail Store. Since the recent facelift, all the terminals came with an iPad for information of the product, answering all your query. Failing that, you just had to press a button, and one of the genius would come right over.

It was a Friday evening and I entered the store about 30 minutes before closing. The place was full and abuzz. The store I went to was the flagship for London. A two story, very posh outlet just outside Oxford Circus tube station, right along Regent Street, a quarter of the way down to Piccadilly.

Anita wanted me to buy her cases for her iPhone, and wanted it specifically made by Cath Kidston. I got her a couple although I was disappointed that the selection were limited as far as iPhone 4 was concerned. There were a few more to choose from if you have the older generation phones.

The important thing was, I actually visited a retail Apple Store, got the bills, and the carrier bag to go with it. I was content!