Valentine's Day 2009

I was treated to the Manhattan Fish Market meal for Valentine's Day. It was his favourite, and so we came here. He had the normal Baked Herb Fish and I had something different this time - Salmon Cajun. We had Tucan Tiramisu which was the Restaurant's signature dessert. I thought it was just so-so. Probably because it tasted like the Philadelphia's unbaked cheesecake.

Philip's Not-So-Surprised Birthday

Two Wednesdays ago, we celebrated Philip's birthday. It was supposed to be hush-hush, but somehow Philip knew about it.

We had a late dinner at the Curry Leaf Restaurant and John brought a cake with him.

We sung the Happy Birthday song and the cake was cut and eaten by those who were present. (Some 12 of us or so)

Then Eddie brought out another cake, a plainer one, but well, it's the thought that counts right? Poor Philip had to hold the cake while we sang and he had to cut the second cake for all to eat.

And then, Marifa (someone who works in the restaurant) came in with a banana split and a candle. We sang the Birthday song for the 3rd time.

Seriously, I don't recall singing 3 birthday songs for the same person because there were 3... err.. cakes/dessert. What a fortunate guy, this Philip is.

Security is Tight At GH Seremban

Based on previous experiences in GH (General Hospital), outside the visiting hours, one can only visit after 9pm.... that's for night time lah. I'm not sure about morning. The visiting hours for weekdays visits goes like this -

6.30 - 7.30am
12.30 - 2.00pm
4.30 - 7.30pm

and for weekends and public holidays -
12.30 - 7.30pm.


Continuation from my previous post - I'm about to rant, so please bear with me. :)

We went to Mctc's house to collect some personal stuff for his mother, then went to my mom's house for dinner. At slightly after 9pm, we headed back to GH.

We reached the hospital at 9.18pm. We were so surprised to see a long queue at the security counter. We had to get passes to enter the wards and the security personnel (let's call her Z) who was handling the passes was super slow.

For every person who wanted to visit someone in the ward, Z had to radio the security guard on the particular floor to check if the patient really needed an extra hand or if there were other family members around to help so that there wouldn't be any need for this person to visit the patient. Some were allowed but many were denied entrance to the wards.

When it came to our turn I let Mctc explain the situation. The conversation were all spoken in Malay. He told her that his mother was warded at 5pm and he was here to bring her personal stuff to her and I was there to help clean her.

Z radioed the guard (let's call her G) at the 6th floor and ask if there was anybody looking after the patient. G at 6th floor said there was someone there with the patient. When we heard that, Mctc said to her that there was no one there and he just wanted to go up to bring the things up to his mother. Again, she radioed 6th floor and asked G to check properly as the family member down here (meaning Mctc) confirmed that there wasn't anyone looking after his mother. G confirmed again that a family member was looking after her.

Z glared at Mctc and said that he was not allowed to have a pass and asked him to return the next morning at 6.30am. She wanted to write him off, but he tried his case again saying that there really wasn't anyone up there and he just wanted to bring her personal stuff to her and clean her.

Z then spoke to G and said that she would allow only 1 person to go up and immediately we asked Z to allow me to go in too because Mctc would need my help. I voiced out to Z saying that I was there not to visit but to clean Mctc's mother. Z kept insisting that there was someone up there and she only allow 1 person to bring the personal stuff to the patient. I was mad and her, but I told Mctc that if he needed help, call the nurse.

After a few minutes, Mctc called from 6th floor asking me to go to the counter. G was on the line with Z asking her to let me into the wards.

The conversation goes like this :

G : Please allow the girl to go up. There is no one here to look after the patient.

Z : No, I have given permission for only 1 person.

G : Please allow the girl to go up. I repeat, please allow the girl to go up.

Z : No, I won't allow. The son said that he only wanted to bring her personal stuff up and I have given him the pass. She doesn't need to go up.

This went on like a broken record till Z finally said :

Z : She doesn't want to go up. (Dia tak nak)

I was furious and said " I want to go up".

Z immediately looked up at me and said, "You told me just now that you didn't want to go up???" in an angry tone.

I said " Just now I said, I didn't come here for a visit but to help clean the patient".

Z then issued me a pass to the 6th floor.


Phew.....

And you now how long it took for me to get that pass to attend to Mctc's mother? Let's see, I was there at 9.18pm. When I finally reached the 6th floor, I immediately checked my watch. It was 10.05pm . More than 45 minutes!!!!

I think something ought to be done with the current system. It used to be better.

To the Hospital Again

Another round of visiting the hospital again.

Mctc's mom was admitted to the hospital on Sunday, 15th of February. She complained of stomach pains and she didn't fell good at all. It sounded critical because usually she doesn't complain at all.

So we took her to the hospital (it was about 3.10pm at that time), and after the routine tests and questions, we were told that she had to be warded. In my heart I was like "Whaaaaaat? She was here 3 weeks ago."

It was almost 5pm when they wheeled her to the ward. After another series of checking and testing, the nurse asked us to change her into the clothes provided by the hospital. At the same time we changed her diapers too, but didn't do any cleaning because we didn't have any towels or wipes with us.

We left at 6.30pm, intending to come back later at night to clean her before she sleeps.

to be continued in the next post...

Nin Ko

This thing doesn't appear very often in my mother's house. I asked my mom, why is it so popular, why is everyone buying this and giving it as gifts during Chinese New Year? She said there's a Chinese belief whereby one of the gods will come down to earth to check on mankind and in order to stop him from reporting bad things, the people will give the god this sticky thingy (or make it into a cake or something) so that he cannot open his mouth and give bad reports to his superiors.

This means that he will not be able to give good reports too... No wonder, life is so bleak sometimes for the Chinese.

Contentment

What is contentment?

This is a question put forth to us by our cell leader last Friday.

That's a big question.

One answered "being satisfied"

Another had a longer answer. Whatever the circumstances, whatever situation or problems you are going through, whether good or bad, if you can live with it and be satisfied, that is contentment.

Then the cell leader looked at me expectantly and after a few seconds of silence from me, she said "Eunice, I think you are a very contented person." In my heart I said, "Whaaaaat?" Aloud I said "No, I don't think I am".

Now, when I have more time to think whether I am contented or not, well as long as I don't think about myself and compare with others, I am fine. I guess I'll have to live with whatever I have , whatever I'm going through and find peace within myself. :)

Jeram Toi

On Tuesday morning, Dan smsed Mctc asking if there were any plans lined up for them that afternoon. Mctc was feeling sick so we did one thing at a time. We agreed to take them out for lunch. Since they love Malaysian food so much and could take spicy dishes, we thought Curry Leaf would be a good choice.

So after lunch, we took them to Jeram Toi. Not very far from Seremban, probably about 30 minutes drive from err... the police station or bomba (fire brigade) in Rahang.

First sight - Wasn't that impressive because there wasn't much rain for the past few weeks.

The waterfalls (there should be 7 waterfalls but we saw only 3, mainly because we didn't explore deeper into the jungle) lead to this big man-made pool and which leads to this -

.... a knee-deep pool for children with slides (the red thingy) to double their fun.

You can take the stairs and walk up to a certain height.. or you can....

... climb up the slippery rocks like what some crazy Americans did a few years ago. (No offense Keith, you guys are simply amazing!) :)

As we walked up the stairs (yup, we went up the civilized way), we saw another waterfall. What a beautiful sight.

View from the top of the stairs.

View of the bottom taken from mid point. You can see the big man-made pool from there.


View of the 1st waterfall.


A video clip of Jeram Toi.

Exciting...

Entrance to Jeram Toi.

This girl and her brother were so excited to see us (well, maybe they were more excited to see Dan and Patty) and kept wanting us to take pictures of them.

We were there for about an hour just enjoying the cool air and good shade by the surrounding trees. It was a perfect place to read, swim, have a family picnic or even bring your date here for some... hehe.
If I were staying around this area, I would spend most of my free time here.

After that we took Dan and Patty back to Seremban intending to leave them at the KTM station so that they could take the train to KL to meet another group of friends. They said it was still too early and so we took them to Top Curry House to have a drink. Then we took them to church to get their plane tickets printed because apparently, they have not printed their e-ticket for the next day to Indonesia.

It was about 6pm when we finally said our goodbyes at the KTM station. We hope to see them again sometime... next year. :)