Tea time...what a bunch of ladies do.

This was tea yesterday, at a friend's place...nothing fancy but definitely something I cherish. She took the trouble to prepare all these and invited us over to hang out. Yup! Adults need to hang out sometimes too. These are some of the fond memories with friends that I will always appreciate. So what do ladies do when they gather for tea? First, they eat of course!Next, they yak and yak. 8) How to run from this? Everyone has a story, joke, personal stuff to share. And to top it, this is not just the time to feel young at heart but also to act young. 8)
And, also to share stuff made. This lovely etui box was made by Lee Fun. It's a really lovely piece of handicraft, very quaint. When you lift the top off, the pentagon opens up and you can put all your neat sewing stuff on each side. Her take from here.And what else we did...share our latest buy from our shopping excursions. This round it's batik talk.Then, there are the serial buffs who cannot miss their shows. So, as the tv show ran, there were also running commentaries.... What about? Oh, the show, the addiction to such shows, our silliness of going back to it repeatedly even though we know it's a waste of time, of the bond that is built watching it together with our loved ones....the list goes on. So who says watching the serials doesn't have its positive side? 8)And finally, we talked about the plates and cups... found out probably 3 generations of people have dined using this set. It came from England, passed down from father to daughter. They've got these exquisite prints on them. Beautiful!
Turned it around and found this label behind. Did a search and found that Grindley is still around...So who says tea time can be boring??? I gained so much in one afternoon. Add that to good company....one word sums it all - MEMORABLE!

Changing lifestyle..

Changing lifestyle! That's what I see in the coming weeks, if not months. For too long Malaysians have been used to cheap fuel. Owning a car may no longer be an option for many but the existing public transport system is not exactly efficient too.

For families with school going children, sending kids for tuitions, music lessons and all the other activities may start to take a toll on the families' expenses.

Food prices will be going up too, the usual excuse, increase of transportation costs. Everything will go up. There will be less disposable income for many. Soon the unions will also be demanding that salaries be revised. Inflation will definitely be heading northwards. Gomen says 5% but many think it will be higher.

By the August, if the government does allow the petrol pump price to reflect the global price, I wonder whether our economy can absorb that kind of shock. Over the last few months, the increase should have been allowed, albeit incrementally.

For us, I guess we'll have to learn to conserve. Must make it a point to cut down on unnecessary electricity consumption. Trips out must be carefully planned so as to reduce the number of trips made. Changing lifestyle is necessary...to accommodate the price increase soon to hit every sector.

Petrol hike...78sen this round!

Scenes of petrol kiosks from around Alor Star after news broke about the increase in petrol price. 78 sen is a big deal! The government has announced that cars under 2000 cc will be given a rebate of RM625...which is actually not very much. But then again, the price increase in inevitable. All over the world, petrol pump price has gone up. The thing is, this is definitely going to cause another round of increase. And this may fuel inflation. Everything will go spiraling up, that's quite certain.Tomorrow it seems there will be a press conference by TNB. There will be an increase in the electricity tarriff. A lot of people are going to feel the squeeze.
But then again, it is also crazy to expect the petrol prices to continue to be subsidized. As it is, Singaporeans and Thais come over to buy our petrol. Fishermen make a killing just selling their subsidized diesel too. Also, perhaps this is now time to look into our public transportation...in many places they are in near shambles, Alor Star is no exception. Hybrid cars should be encouraged.....right now they are way too expensive. Our government hasn't exactly been promoting them!
We'll just have to learn to cope with this because if the government keeps subsidizing petrol prices, other more important stuff like food and development will suffer. Only thing is, we should not have wasted so much on unwarranted projects....the unnecessary space programme for one. And also, if you take a look around us, there are wastages everywhere. If money could be saved here, I guess we'd be in a better position too.
So, looks like we'll have to brace ourselves for more to come.

On a Tuesday...

Made plans to make sushi the night before...so after getting all the stuff we needed from Giant and Tesco, we got down to business. Lil girl had her chance at it too....but cannot roll yet. So she was given the task of spreading the ingredients onto the rice. Anyway, we had fun chomping down the hand food that was being churned out. Tried with salami and asparagus but didn't go down too well. Asparagus was okay but the salami taste didn't seem to compliment the sushi.
In the evening, after Ling had her usual class with the girls (lil Rainbow and Sze Hui), while I had my nap; supposed to be a 5 minute nap but turned into a 2 hour sleep; we decided to go catch fish again. This time we ventured to the paddy fields at the edge of our taman.

This is a quaint little railway bridge over a small river. You can walk right under it...even as the train passes right on top...and feel your little world shake! 8)
It's quite scenic here. One can really just sit back and enjoy the country side...what's left of it. When our boy was smaller, we used to cycle here at every opportunity. The kids would sometimes follow us on their bicycles....all 5 of them! Once we even saw a 6 foot (I think, cos by the time the head got to the other side of the road, the tail was still touching the opposite side) python slithering across the road. The kampung folks gave a chase, of course. Never knew what happened to it. That was a couple of years ago, when Uncle John was still around!
Trying very hard to catch the fish in the former paddy field...didn't have much success with the bigger fish but they managed to catch quite a few baby fish.
The road under the track is just high enough for a Kancil to go under. This is a shortcut to some of the houses which dot the paddy fields. The other alternative is quite a few kilometers further, jimat petrol.
Some random shots of the surrounding area. This is a quaint little bridge which has been there ever since we moved here. It looks rickety but is actually quite sturdy still.
Saw a little girl playing on her hammock. Looks so idyllic and carefree! Beyond are the fields, green and growing. This is another place which we would cycle, with its narrow laterite roads.
Don't know what this is but thought it was quite unique. It turns even redder when it gets the water. Do not know whether it is a fungus or flower...most certainly not an insect since it didn't move! But quite pretty!
At night, I went for my badminton game. After that, we went out for supper with the Lohs...today is Papa Loh's birthday! The girls got him a cute toy... printed at the side there for those age between 4 to 80!! 8) And tonight too the girls had their first taste of century egg, after which they said it was like a Fear Factor thingy. It was really funny watching them swallow it. Ha! Ha! Lil Rainbow is spending the night at their place....her version of camp since her big bro is attending a camp now, I supposed.

Longkang Fish...

The simple things in life that we can enjoy..and this is one of them, catching fish in the drain and who'd think it be so fun for the big kids as well as the lil one. You would think that they'd shun the idea of 'fishing' in the drain. 8) Anyway, that was what these three did while I watched on. Lil one's big bro is away at camp and her two 'big sisters' have kept her entertained...she's one lucky lil gal.The 'cleaning up' of the catch of the evening...
The catch... all 16 of them. 2 of them ended up in my mini fish pond while the remainder found their home at the girls'. They're going to have to get used to eating processed fish food instead of the usual stuff that they are used to.
While waiting for them to finish cleaning the catch...I noticed these blooming in my garden. Really beautiful, don't you think?

Heaven Computer House..

Processing house before the bytes proceed to heaven???? What of the viruses, worms, bad data, etc??? Do they get transferred elsewhere for their callous lifestyle while in the computer or deleted? And this comes with great rates some more for 10 people... 8)
Saw this on our way home in one of the small towns which we were passing through.

Sitiawan's Swift Inns

A different kind of hotel, where the patrons are little birds; swifts or a distant cousin to the swallows. However, these hotels are not really your regular nice-looking hotels; marked by cheap bricks, poor workmanship, in short not much aesthetics into it. Sitiawan is in the migratory path of these birds and a few years ago, the birds started to migrate and settle in Sitiawan. I think partly it was due to the spate of fires in Indonesia. Anyway, these birds have brought many changes to this once sleepy town. It has changed the town's skyline and brought about a property boom and at the same time lining the pockets of many with wads of cash. After all 1kg of good quality clean bird's nest can fetch about RM1 000.

And the owners go through great lengths to ensure that their investment is secure.At this particular building, the owner has put up plants all around the building with buckets of water surrounding the whole perimeter. When you walk past it, the surrounding area is actually really cool. You can really feel the cooling power of the plants here. I once read some where that one big tree's cooling power is equivalent to 10 units of 1HP air-cons. It is definitely quite true.The foliage is really dense. It probably serves as a deterrent to those who might think of making a quick buck. And who knows what other creatures lurk in there too?
These are the buckets of water outside which I supposed are placed there to help cool the building even more so that the birds are really comfortable inside. The water looked clean when I walked past. But the green algae in the pail probably also indicates that there were times when these pails were not really emptied that regularly.

I've never been inside a building such as the one above but I can imagine that it must be a dark and damp place; cave like environment. The owners fixed up sound systems which play all these recordings of the bird sounds with the hope of enticing these birds to make their home there. Back here in Alor Star there are already building owners doing that....fixing up such sound systems so that their buildings will turn into swift inns. I understand that some of these recordings cost quite a bit!

Though this industry has brought wealth to this town, I wonder whether it is worth it. We know that birds bring diseases. And in Sitiawan, these swift inns are located right in the town. It is unhealthy to have the eateries so near their dwellings. In Kampong Koh, you can actually find eateries on the ground floors while the top floors were dedicated swift inns. Building by-laws seem to have been bypassed. Political leaders and bureaucrats pooh-pooh the worries that have been highlighted. Dengue cases have been on the rise. And these inns probably have a big role in it. What are the authorities going to do to regulate this industry? What if one day, a major health outbreak similar to the avian influenza happens? The town will be a ghost town....but before that there will be many told and untold anguish and heartbreaking tales. Do we want to wait for that day to come? This will indeed be one of man's greatest folly where this town is concerned.