Photos for Later

It had been a fruitful weekend in all honesty. The meeting in Penang was a success, an I get to meet my family up there in Penang as well. Though my time was rather occupied when I was there.

Then and the drive back to reality. The program did not finish until lunch. I hang around for a bit, finally leaving Gurney Hotel at around 2 pm.

I then drove straight to Sungai Petani to pick my Mum. We only started the journey proper at around 3.30.

The drive down was slower than expected although we still reached KL in good time. The traffic was rather heavy, this being a Sunday afternoon, and Anita joined me at my Mum's place shortly after.

I wanted to watch the Arsenal-United match but felt asleep halfway. Tired I guess. As for the photos? It would have to wait. I have taken Monday and Tuesday off anyhow, although I still had to go to the hospital to sort a couple of things out. I'll start going through the photos later on today.

Day Two

The second day o the meeting was running well. And the lectures I co-chaired just now was memorable, given by two very famous international lecturers. An expert in indolent lymphoma and another in myeloma. One from Germany, and another from Turin.

And the data and the works that they presented and did were definitely world class. And it was a pleasure to have had the honour to chair the symposium.

My talks however would be tomorrow morning. I managed to pass on another portion of my talk to another speaker, allowing me to enjoy listening to more lecture that morning.

We were just listening to the lunch symposium now before a short afternoon break. More talks this afternoon, and I planned to head over to Kepala Batas right free for dinner with my family in Sungai Petani.

Oblivious about Oblivion

I am sometimes guilty when it comes to selecting movies to watch. And Oblivion was definitely one of these movies which I watched for the special effects and the SciFi genre of the movie. So, I went to Gurney Plaza last night to catch one of the shows after dinner. After all, I was a bit bored in the room and fancy a bit of a drive. With low expectations, I bought the ticket.

Yes, the special effect was spectacular, but I wasn't quite prepared for the quality of the storyline. I watched Prometheus last year with high expectations and felt that I got shortchanged.

Oblivion reminded me of one of the recent classic which I watch, a film by Spike Jones called Moon. The theme being isolation seemed to resonate, and the twist which it offered were almost similar.

The scenery, and the sound effects were amazingly atmospheric. Even haunting at times.

This being a Tom Cruise flick would provide some corny storyline to some of the scene, but on the whole, I found the story intriguing. With the low expectations I had entering the cinema, I certainly got my money's worth.

For all you SciFi junky out there, do give Oblivion a go. It was certainly better then the recent GI Joe flick .......

Up in Penang

So, the MSH Scientific Meeting was up and running. And with that, there would be no Haematologist in Subang - and in fact, most of Lembah Kelang for the weekend. Me? Equipped with my 7D and 70-200mm, I was snapping away as the photographer it was almost economic a tradition.

Anyhow, the journey up to Penang last night was smooth. Since Anita had pharyngitis, she decided not to come along. Instead, I brought my Mum along and I had dinner with my Aunt after dropping her there.

I then checked-in at around 9, dumped my bags in the room and had coffee with a few old friends until close to midnight.

I started early this morning although the event proper only started at 9. I must say that the program looked excellent and the talks had been good this far.

Better get back to the lectures then.

Full Day

In all honesty, we had only one full day to spend at Penang and Sungai Petani, and Puan Anita started the day off with some kuih raya shopping kampung style. And she went bananas. Not only that the prices were reasonable, the quality was very good. In fact, she had already started to eat them already and she bought with her one whole box of cookies with her.

She did that while I was with the boys in the hotel room. When she was done, it wartime to travel to Kepala Batas. It was for lunch there and the usual trip to the spice shop. She needs all of them spices for the coming Ramadhan. Lunch was next, and we went to an old neighbor's stall in Permatang Bertam for some home-cooked goodness.

After that was all done, it was almost 2 pm. Time to travel to the island.

First stop, as requested by the boys was to visit my Grandmother's grave. It looked like the gravestones had been made, and I noticed that he stones for my Grandfather were also changed. Then it was to Pahang Road, to visit my auntie. After Zohor prayers, we decided to take a drive to Batu Feringghi. Unfortunately it started raining. So, no beach for the boys ......