Sister Hong - Loved By All

Now we have arrived back in Melaka, I want to talk for a while about our family here in Malaysia, actually focusing on one family member in particular.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, while in Melaka we are staying in Brother Ming's house, right next door to Sister Hong.  Back in Post 10, Remembering and Night Market I talked a bit about her family as we visited the final resting place of her husband and one of her daughters, Ah Yong.

I found Sister Hong to be an amazing woman, loving and compassionate, always caring for those around her, including yours truly.  She had six children, three boys and three girls, with the two older girls both contracting polio in infancy.  The youngest of the two, Ah Yong, passed away in the spring at age 42.  The older, Ah Kim, is now approaching 50.  Sister Hong has looked after them both, for their entire lives.  Ah Yong was able to be in a wheelchair and thus be to a degree mobile, but not so Ah Kim who has little mobility and is limited to a modified lawn chair during the day.  Pictured is Sister Hong, Ah Kim and Kim.  Ah Kim's joy is her computer and she stays in touch with friends and family via Facebook.

Sister Hong's other daughter currently lives in Ming's house next door with her daughter, while one of her sons, along with his wife (at the time of our visit pregnant with her third child) and two children, resides in Hong's house.  Kim's daughter Cynthia is also a frequent visitor at the house.  Her other two sons visit quite frequently with their families, one living in Melaka and the other in Johor Bahru.  Kim's other daughter Jaclyn, and family, visits when they can from Johor Bahru as well.

Sister Hong is the mainstay of all these family members, functioning as mother, aunt and grandmother, loving them all.  And she checks in with one other, Auntie Ming (Kim and Hong's aunt), who lives in downtown Old Melaka.

Sister Hong's command of English was only slightly better than my command of Mandarin or Malay, however we took to each other immediately and generally had no issue communicating, and she seemed to make sure that I never had a chance to even think of being hungry while in her house.  It was quite delightful.

I wanted to share with you what a great sister she is.

Along with our daughters and grandchildren, Sister Hong is another reason that future trips to Malaysia are not an option, but a requirement.

Okay, back to Malaysian Adventure in the next post.

Back To Johor Bahru - Being A Grandfather

After our time in Singapore, it was back to Johor Bahru for a few days of family time.  As one of my Kiwanis friends likes to say, "hanging with the grand-babies", four of them, ranging in age from 2 to 13.

Much of this time was simply spending time with the kids, camera put aside, just being grandparents.  

I believe I mentioned this before, but this was an amazing experience for me, this "being a grandfather" thing.  Although Kim and I had been married for fourteen years, and she had been a grandmother for thirteen of them, this was my first meeting and interaction with her daughter Jaclyn and her children.  Kim had been there when Valen, the oldest, was born, and had visited several times and met all but the youngest, Vinc.  For me, I arrived in JB just a few short days ago, and within an hour was being called Grandfather.  Probably a good thing that the kids didn't know about someone being putty in their hands, because that's what I was for the first while as I got used to it.  Now I quite like it, I talk with them on Facebook and can't wait to see them again.

Now I know that folks are familiar with being able to order food and have it delivered, like calling up and having pizza brought to your door.  And I know that many people like satay, or "meat on a stick" as some describe it.  

Well, at daughter Jaclyn's house, we did even better than putting these two things together.  We called up and had a chap come over and prepare satay right in front of the house.  It was very inexpensive and we enjoyed a grand meal of chicken satay when he was done.  As you can tell from the photos, not only did he cook some tasty satay, he provided a great show for the hungry spectators as well.

Some of you may recall a TV show with Art Linkletter called "Kid's Say The Darndest Things".  Well it seems that our grand kids in JB and our grand nieces and nephews in Melaka had a common thought regarding yours truly.  They said that I bore a distinct resemblance to that gentleman of KFC fame, Colonel Harland Sanders.  Now I don't see it myself, however I guess a white guy with a white/grey beard is what did it.  So I thought I would have a bit of fun with this.

So... we took the JB extended family, including Kim's brother, his wife and kids, to - you guessed it - KFC, for lunch.  I should mention that, in all our time in Asia, Kim and I went to a Western style eatery twice, this being one of those time (we also tried burgers in Singapore, which we did not enjoy).  The food at KFC was quite good and very little different from back home.  After the meal I then asked everyone how they had enjoyed "my chicken", receiving a very positive response.

Our last full day in JB wrapped up with a shopping trip to one of the local malls.  The anchor store on this mall was Aeon, which is a huge conglomerate, with stores and malls throughout Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Viet Nam.  In addition to the fooderies and food courts in the malls, their department store has its own food court as well.  I have included a shot of this particular mall interior on the left.  As well, on the right, what evening of shopping would be complete without an ice cream.

The next day we prepared to head back to Melaka after about ten days in JB and Singapore.  Two of the kids were off to school, then the rest of the family readied to drive us to the bus depot, but not before stopping for dim sum.  Kim and Vinc lead the way, then we had a fine meal to start the day.  

After a wonderful visit to Johor Bahru with both family family and Kiwanis family, we hopped on the bus for the ride back to Melaka and further Malaysian Adventures.  As usual, I enjoyed the scenery during the trip, always finding something different to see.

Hope you are enjoying sharing our travels, as I am enjoying recalling them thru this blog with you.  See you back in Melaka.

Singapore - Not Racing Though

The next few days in Johor Bahru were split by a couple of days in Singapore.  Threrefore this blog post will be about our time in Singapore and the next about the remainder of our visit to JB.

With son-in-law Kent's help we were able to arrange transport directly from their house in JB to our hotel in Singapore as well as the return trip.  And for a very reasonable expense as well.  Bonus!

We stayed at the Hotel 81 Chinatown.  We quite enjoyed our time there as the location was excellent, right on the dividing line between Chinatown and downtown Singapore, making for outstanding walkabout opportunities.  The hotel room can be best described as petite, very petite.  Let's just say that Kim found it small.  Imagine a queen sized bed, add about 10 inches to the width and 20 inches to the length - that's the size of the room.  The bathroom was about the same size as the entrance-way.  The air conditioning was so efficient that it was necessary to have the hotel turn it off for a while a couple of times (it was controlled from the front desk).  None the less, we liked the hotel, the staff were very pleasant and accommodating, so we would stay there again.

Generally speaking, Singapore is a very clean city and we noticed that right away.  Another thing that stood out was that the traffic seemed to be more orderly, the vehicles were bigger and more expensive.  We spent a good deal of our time in the Chinatown area and the people were wall to wall.  Seems we were there at the peak of the Moon Cake Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival held on the 15th day of the 8th Lunar month), which is the biggest Chinese festival after Chinese New Year.  The Chinatown streets were decorated and lit up at night and the night market was in full swing the two nights we were there.

I think that it would be safe to say that Singapore is a multicultural city state.  We visited Buddhist temples, a Hindu temple, a mosque and walked along Synagogue Street.  

During our time in Singapore we saw far more interesting buildings than I can possibly include photos of here.  Everywhere there is evidence of great imagination by architects and builders.  I can only imagine what it would be like to live or work in some of them.  There were many with greenery included in the design, I have shown but a couple to the left and right.  There are many more.

We were in Singapore just prior to the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, and as such were not able to go to a couple places we would have liked to as there were road closures to set up the race circuit.  As an avid race fan, I would have liked to watch the race, however our budget did not feel that to be a reasonable idea.  As many of you may be able to identify, large events create a wee change in the economy.  For instance, our fairly reasonably priced accommodations would have doubled in price should we have stayed another night.  As we took a tour bus on our second day I was able to get a few photos of the track setup and then after returning to Johor Bahru was able to watch the race on television as it was held only about fifty kilometres away.

This was actually the first part of our current travels that it was just the two of us, with no family or friends, so we did a tremendous amount of walking around while we were here, total time was two nights and the better part of three days.  During this time I calculated that our sandals got over twenty-five kilometres of wear.  The weather was fantastic with no clouds and daytime temperatures ranging in the low to mid 30s Celsius.

In order to keep our strength up for all the walking, of course we had to have great food.  So for example, we started one day with Dim Sum and finished it off with spicy snails, chicken, spicy green beans and fresh baked buns.  Considering that one meal was about 7:30am and the other around 9:00pm, you can imagine there was a certain amount of food consumed in the interim.

We spent some nice relaxing time at the Gardens By The Bay which has some wonderful different areas.  On the left you can see what they call Supertree Grove, which are essentially vertical gardens up to sixteen stories high.  If you look you can see a walkway, about twenty-two metres up, which joins several of the trees and gives a wonderful view of the gardens as well as the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which can be seen in the background.  On the right, Kim is modeling for us on the walkway.

All in all, we had a great time in Singapore and look forward to going back.  As usual, I have way more photos than I can share here and many will be making their way to a travel album which is being put together.

Until the next post, thanks for traveling with us.

A Quality Family Day

Last night the Governor's Gala, much socializing and then a good night's sleep.  Kim and I awoke refreshed and headed downstairs for breakfast.  It was an amazing buffet style meal, with Malay food, Muslim food, Chinese food and Western food.  Enjoying the meal were folks from all over.  Some Russian aircrew, a couple of families from the Middle East, quite a number of people from Australia.  Spoken languages overheard included English, German, Spanish, Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Korean and so on.  An interesting start to the day.

Following breakfast it was time to pack up, check out and wait in the lobby for Jaclyn, Kent and family to pick us up for the day's activities.  While waiting Kim made the acquaintance of a new, but slightly taller, friend and I managed to find a very comfortable chair.  It was very busy around the hotel entrance and it took a while for Kent to work his way to the front door.  They arrived, and off we went for today's adventures.

After having a brief lunch, Kent pointed the van about an hour out of Johor Bahru to a most interesting place near to Kota Tinggi.  First we chatted with some of the local residents (see left photo), then we arrived at the Tien Hoe Kung Temple which was established in 1884.

The temple, located along the river, was filled with people who had come to pray (as Vince was doing with his grandmother) or meditate.  Valen and father Kent were praying at some of the outdoor stations while Jaclyn spend considerable time trying to keep track of everyone.

From there it was back home for a short amount of R&R before dinner.  Time for Vince to have a much needed nap as he seems to utilize more energy than the Energizer Bunny when awake (it's almost a full time job just to keep up with him).  The other kids figured this was a good time to gang up on grandfather, which, for some reason, received no objections from said grandfather.

Now is was dinner time.  Off we went to Kong Kong Tai Son for a seafood extravaganza on the seashore.  The selection of fresh seafood was amazing and the view from our table at the end of the pier was terrific.

We had seaweed vege soup, kong kong snails from the sea, curry tom yam soup with prawns, butter egg crab, petai sambal squid, steamed bawal emas fish, fresh baked buns.  When all was said and done the table had been transformed from a plethora of delicious delectables to a veritable wasteland of shells and bones.  It was a most enjoyable and satisfying meal.

It was certainly a quality family day to remember.  Back with the next post soon.

Family and Kiwanis

Our second day in Johor Bahru (JB), begins with a serious downpour as seen in the photo to the left.  It wasn't like someone turned on the tap, rather that they had opened the sluice way.  The amazing part was that less than twenty minutes after it stopped there was no water visible anywhere.  The drainage system that I have spoken of is extremely efficient.  As you can see from the photo of grandson Vince, the ground is hardly even wet.

Then we were packing luggage in the van and off to what could be called brunch.  Kim and I were not leaving after just one day, however we did have an engagement for later in the day and would be shifting to a hotel for the night.  Kent took us to a great place to eat and we had a most enjoyable family meal.  Around the table is Kim, Vaness, Valen, Kent, me, Vince, Jaclyn and Vanessa.  At this point I don't think I had really gotten used to the reality of being with our grandchildren.  I certainly like these type of meals, eating is relaxed and conversation is ongoing.  Definitely a good way to get to know family that I have just met.

After some good visiting (and eating), the family dropped Kim and I off at the KSL Resort Hotel in downtown Johor Bahru.  We were staying the night here so that we could attend the Governor's Gala of the Malaysia Kiwanis District Convention.  Turned out that we were not just "attending", but we were to be VIP Guests at the dinner. 

Now the hotel is part of a huge shopping complex as well.  Kent dropped us off at one of the shopping centre entrances and we embarked on what could very well have been an episode of Amazing Race.  Finding our way through the maze of shops, passageways and floors to the hotel lobby was most assuredly an adventure.  Signage was notable by its absence and directional knowledge of those working in the shopping complex seemed to be in a similar state.  Eventually after a number of ups and downs, along with a few "you can't get there from here", we reached the hotel desk and checked in.  Our room was quite nice with a good view of JB from about a dozen floors up.  Kim came over to the window to admire the view and almost immediately recoiled back into the room.  You see, she is not a great fan of heights and two things kind of threw her off.  The first was that the windows were floor to ceiling and the second was the notice on the window indicating "Warning - Do Not Lean On Glass".  Once past that, we relaxed for a while and then got ready for the dinner.

As previously mentioned, it turned out that Kim and I were VIP Guests at the Governor's Gala.  Although I was attending as Kiwanis Western Canada District Governor this was not expected, however it was a terrific experience.  On the right is the VIP table for the dinner.  Each of us had individual service during the dinner while the remainder of the room had table service.  It took a little getting used to, but we managed.

We had many friends in the room whom we had met over the last few years, either in person or via Facebook, making for a most pleasant evening.  Along with us at the VIP table was fellow Governor Cheng Lian Teh, Past Governor Doris Choo, Past International Trustee Chia-Sing Hwang, International Trustee and District Counselor Warren Mitchell, and Incoming Governor Simpson Tan to name a few.  On the left is a photo with Doris, Lian Teh and Warren, while on the right I was asked to join in a photo with a number of distinguished Malaysia Kiwanians.  All in all it was a wonderful evening recognizing outstanding Kiwanians, learning about Kiwanis Downs Syndrome Foundation, Kiwanis Careheart Centre and other District activities, as well as visiting with friends and meeting new folks.  Terrific job was done by the organizers.

Kim and I would like to express our thanks to Governor Lian Teh and all the Malasysia District Kiwanians for the invitation to the Governor's Gala and for the awesome reception that we received.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to be back with the grandkids.

Family And Travel

The morning begins with meeting new family as Kim and I go to breakfast with Sister Hong, Niece Stephanie and Nephew Ah Kok.  He and his family are down from Johor Bahru for a visit with his mother Hong.

After visiting for a while Kim and I were off to guess where... Johor Bahru, about 2 1/2 hours by bus.  We are on our way to do a couple of things, first and foremost, to visit family.

A few posts ago I had talked about the drainage system here in Malaysia.  As we traveled on the bus I saw numerous examples of the drains to prevent erosion.  I have included a couple of them here.

We arrived at the bus station in Johor Bahru (JB) and it was time to take a taxi for the last portion of our trip.  Our driver was a great chap, long time resident of JB and he had good stories to share with lots of history about the city.  He and Kim kept up a running discussion the whole trip until we arrived at our destination for the day.



We had a welcoming committee when we got to the home of Kim's daughter Jaclyn, husband Kent and children Valen, Vaness, Vanessa and Vince (ranging from ages 12 to 2).  It was pretty special for me as I was meeting all of then for the very first time.  Shortly after, that huge suitcase we had brought suddenly got a whole lot lighter.  Gee, I wonder why that might have been.

The reason that we came on this particular day was that Vaness would be performing in a concert at her school.  So the day I met my step-daughter and my grandchildren was the same day I got to see one of them in her school concert.  It was a day that I shall not soon forget.  When we got to the school (Valen, Vaness and Vanessa all attend here), Valen took me under his wing (so to speak) and showed me around, introducing me to his friends (and it seemed like anyone else who would listen).


This school has so many students that they have classes from 7am to Noon for one group and 1pm to 6pm for another.  Valen and Vaness go in the morning, Vanessa in the afternoon.  Not all schools are like that, however this one is held in high regard and is very popular.  Part of the original school is kept to this day.

There was much festive activity prior to the concert with a Dragon Dance and a Lion Dance, as well as a mini market with food and other items.  There was many parents and students in attendance.

Amongst all the activity, Grannie Kim got to meet with a costumed Vaness prior to the start of the concert.  Then it was time to start wending our way to the concert seating and get ready for the big show.  And big show it was.  There was a large number of performances, displaying both Chinese and Malay culture and history.



As per usual, I have many photos, many of which will make an appearance online later, however I would be terribly amiss if I failed to have one of the performance including Vaness.  Then one of proud Mum, Dad and Grannie (oh and Vince too) with Vaness in the background.

It was a most excellent day.  Tomorrow will be pretty special as well.  See you in the next post.