New Toll Arrangement

The queue at the toll booth on my way to work yesterday was longer than usual. The fact that I had a couple of clinic s that day - the morning at Park City and the afternoon back in Subang - meant that I was in a slight rush in the morning.

It turned out that the NPE - New Pantai Expressway - had gotten rid of cash paying booth. All the road user had to use electronic payment - Touch and Go - to pass through. Those who hasn't, would have to purchase them at some of the lanes. Hence the long queue.

I didn't have any problem since I had always been using the SmarTag. But I was caught in the wait.

The situation got a bit better this morning, probably because everybody had wise update to the fact. The added advantage for such system was the top-up booth were opened 24 hours. Made the job of topping-up the card that much easier.

The Gap

Since a second route was open to drive down Fraser's Hill - via Kuala Lipis Road, there were no longer the need to queue at The Gap, waiting for your turn to drive up the hill. The old route was too narrow, allowing only a single file of traffic to either drive up or down. The route would be opened according to the time of day, meaning you would go out at the hour and then the route would be the opposite and half the hour for those driving down. If you arrived at the wrong time, you would have to wait at The Gap, a settlement about 7 km from the top until your turn was up.

Without the wait, The Gap settlement had disbanded. There were ruins everywhere of what used to be stalls and cafe. The business at the Fraser's Hill town was also affected since those coming down did not have to wait for their turn either, meaning they could just drive down anytime.

We stopped at The Gap on the way up since my Dad wanted to use the toilet. Those were new buildings, but unfortunately, there were no water ..... And there were no other shops there with facilities. In fact, there were no other shops. From my reading, it used to be a thriving community there before ....

Time had certainly moved on and with it, driving up and down the hill was much easier. As I mentioned, it only took me just over a couple of hours to get from Gombak to the hotel. Maybe one day, I would just drive up with Anita for a bit of a drink, then come back the same day ....

Holiday Mode On

So, finally time has come for me to take a bit of respite. The plan was to drive to Fraser's Hill tomorrow, but it looked like I had to make a quick stop at the ward before I set off. And then had to go to the bank for a bit of business. I hope that all that could be sorted out by 11 in the morning.

Anita had done the packing earlier and we planned to take off from Gombak. In fact we were already there tonight to get ready. Our maid would also be flying back for Xmas early tomorrow morning. She would be away for close to a month.

Now that the clothes were packed up, time for me to decide which camera to bring. It looked like the A7R2 with a couple of lenses from the looks of it. And plenty of batteries most definitely. Better have some rest tonight ...

Lose. Draw. Win?

Let's be honest, our draw for the start of the season had been more than generous. Swansea, followed by Sunderland last night with Burnley next. All three considered lesser team, for which dropping points would be criminal.

However, we managed to do hard work of the first couple of matches and it looked like a win against Burnley this weekend would do little to lift the mood.

Van Gaal had a record of starting slowly with his club sides. The same happened when he first took on the Barca and Bayern job. Notoriously slow start. Unfortunately, we started too well during our preseason US tour, lifting our hopes to almost unreasonable level. Time to go back to basics and support the team I guess.

Hopefully, by this time next week, we would've acquired a new number 7 in the form of Di Maria. That should at least give us the extra boost needed at the beginning of the season, and we shall push on from there.

Glory, glory Man United!

Heavy Morning

It had been a long morning. And the main culprit was the traffic. For some reason it was heavy despite good weather. Probably a hang over from the heavy rain yesterday. It took me almost an hour and a half to get to work, and I was caught in another queue on my way to ParkCity. This time it was due to a stalled car along the Federal Highway and the tailback was easily a couple of miles long.

I only arrived at my clinic 45 minutes later. After the clinic, it was Bangsar for a quick stop at the bank as well as some paperwork using the internet at the apartment. Luckily the afternoon traffic was a lot kinder, although it looked as if there would be rain again this afternoon. Heavy clouds outside .....