From KLIA to Iran; Bye-bye Parents!

Last night, Friday was Fly-day for my parents to take their next great adventure across the Middle-East. Don’t ask me why, but they do this all the time now, since Ayah retired. Maybe because since all the juniors relations and fellow traveling friends are all scattered around the globe, there’s always a trusted fellow to call on their Celcom line.

From the Matta fair to KL International Airport, they hadn’t stopped talking about it... and reminding me of all the stuff that needs to be checked while they’re gone. Stuff like:
1. Feed the fishes.
2. Feed the cats.
3. Take out any dead fish floating.
4. Clean up after the cats if they pee in the house (males!)
5. Make sure the Proton, MyVi and Kenari have petrol.
6. Don’t let big brother Arsenal drive either one of those cars.
7. Water the plants.
8. Send lil bro Genius back to UniMalaya on Sunday afternoon.
9. Go to the Uptown D’Kota free-food party this Sunday to show face to the neighbours and explain where did Mak and Ayah went.

Those sort of things.

So in two cars loaded with luggage, we head off to KLIA that evening for the 11.30pm flight. Of course, this freaking family go on a road trip further than Mutiara Damansara, there’s always all kinds of bumps.

“Where’s the car key?”
“This one? Or this one?”
“Which car does this trolley bag go?”
“Figure it out yourself-lah!”
“Liza, can you ask the maid to make milk for Nabil?”
“Passport! Passport!”
“It’s with me (insert mother’s name), cepat-cepat pakai tudung.”
“Oh... now where’s my tudung?”
“Which car does this bag GO?”
“(insert MySis name), did you call Abang Huzir that you won’t be home tonight?”
“Alamak-, my cellphone tada bateri-ler...”
“Ami nak susu! Ami nak suuuusuuu...!”
“Nabil, get up from the floor. Now.”
“Ami nak McDonald’s?”
“No McDonald! Susu aje.”
“Which CAR does this BAG, GOOOO!?”

In the end, we left at 8.45pm, almost half-an-hour later than scheduled.

The road trip was not done in the break-neck speed Ayah would have preferred. Firstly, the second car was running out of petrol (Mak had to stop at Shell gas station), and then it was raining heavily on the highway.

I was in the same car with BabyNabil and he susddenly developed the fits, crying to his Bibik-Yam (the maid) and didn’t stop until we reached the airport. I betcha my dad was a weeeee close to strangling his only grandson.

Aaaah, the international airport. 10 years later and it still runs like slow clockwork.


There’s a lot of people at the viewing area that night, mostly families looking down at their grown kids; some blazer-wearing students getting ready for the flight overseas.

Actually, we couldn’t have bothered. It turned out that their flight, Iran Air, had been delayed by about an hour and a half, no idea why. A full hour and a half or almost totally nothing to do.

Oh what da hell, this is an airport!

Since Nabil was so fidgety to the point that not even Mak’s delicious tandoori chicken meal we all had earlier could help him.

But as babies need to be fed, we ended up buying McDonald’s Chicken Rice Porriage.


Fidgety in the car, hyperactive in McDonald’s.


The bubur-ayam was very hot, so MySis dump a small amount into a paper cup before BabyNabil scoops them with his spoon.

I guess in the end, he got his McDonald’s after all. *sheeeeeesh...*
And it was a good thing we stuck around for a bit. It turns out that Mak forgot something really important and left it back home in Kt. D’sara.

Naturally.

It was the keys to their luggage. Tips on traveling say that we should lock our luggage and so my parents got the heavy duty ones with a key since they can never remember lock combinations.

Ayah, already armed with Iranian currency, flight tickets and passports, handed the luggage responsibility to Mak. And Mak went Ooops! So it was a very good thing the flight got delayed after all. We called big brother Arsenal up quickly and he was free to drive all the way to KLIA with the forgotten keys.

I’m trying to imagine if they flew to Iran and only then just realized they don’t have the keys to their luggage. Maybe they can ask the hotel staff for help?

“Pardon, this is Room-So-and-so. Can you please bring up a crowbar and maybe some shears?”


We hung around the viewing hall while waiting for Abang Arsenal by watching the big planes park in and airport workers drive their golf-carts around. These glass walls are now smothered in a two-year-old’s chicken rice porriage breath and sticky prints.


I took a moment to take my own picture for the blog. I like these kind of dual-view obscure photography that reflects scenes.

Bye Mak! Bye Ayah! See you guys in two weeks. Just remember that I want cheese and chocolates for souvenirs.
*hahahaha!*


We exchange salam and pray for a safe journey.

My Previous 24 Hours

Unlike a few lucky PC-hogs, I don’t often have the chance to hang around in cyberspace as often as I wanted to. Not only would sitting in the LCD-illuminated corner of the bedroom enables me to grow mushrooms in my ear (fungus infection actually, had it before), my ability to communicate with flesh-and-blood people without the aid of a spellchecker or C-programming stipulations would rust and shrivel to awkwardness.

I still want to be a PC-hog though.

But I have a second great love that must be appeased so with the aid of a Kenari car, dual parental units, a Down-Syndrome aunt and a midget under 3 years of age, I was in Ikano Power Centre yesterday for its book fair.

Mak only dragged me along because given the choice, she would rather just take my Popular Discount Card and be done with it. Well you can’t have your 500 tarts and pastries recipes and Popular card too (and I’m not leaving until I get my own paperback).

Popular store book fair will be going on until 9th March, me thinks. I didn’t ask anybody, I just read the big schedule board of events.

After that, the rest of the day was pretty okay. I don’t want to go into wordy detail about my yesterday (as I strayed to do) mainly because today’s February 29 is more than a specially once-in-four-years day.

It’s also my homework deadline (eeep!).

So I’m just going to throw out the photos I’ve taken with my Sony Ericsson about the last 24 hours in sequential order.

7.11am: In the shoplots area next to some big ol’ apartment complex.

I was shaken awake from a very nice dream about me falling asleep and dreaming about me falling asleep and dreaming about falling asleep ... well, you get the idea. But I had to wake up and take the car to the new 7Eleven store because someBABY abhor brown-grain bread and demands white bread.

Anyway, took the opportunity to snap a pretty interesting reverse perspective photo. The mirror reflects what’s behind me but the line of perception looks as if the side view mirror is just a frame instead of a mirror. Lucky shot, me thinks.


9am: At home...

Along the way back from the shoplots area, I’ve learned something today. When you park next to a 24-hour mamak restaurant that always serves yesterday’s rice to a flock of too-heavy-to-fly-anywhere-else fat pigeons, always, ALWAYS make sure that you’re not parking under a freaking tree.

And I already have enough trouble with crows at school. *gerrrrrrram-nya!*


11:30am: An Ikano trip.

From the back, you can tell that they’re both related. This is the 1st-generation male parental unit with the 3rd-generation infantile unit. The minor can’t be told to stand still and the elder can’t scream too loud to command the minor.

But surprisingly enough (actually, it’s not a really big surprise), minor kid did stop to check the girls in front of him (he stood still long enough for the whole escalator trip; Wow, new record!).


2pm: At home...

No major picture here. Mak just brought home a book of making 500 types of pie recipes, of which 99.9999% will never be made according to exactly instructed by the book. Currently, she’s contemplating a radical approach to apple pies. This will be the last time this forbidden fruit shall be witnessed in its natural state before it condemns under extreme pastry mutations.

Actually, it turned out pretty good. Pie was gone before there was any chance to share photo evidence (burp!).


6pm: At Kelana Jaya. Click photo for 800 by 600 pixel image.

Okay, I said I didn’t go to school yesterday. Well, not completely. I didn’t enter the workstation compound, just needed to drop a package of nicely printed paper about the merits of virtual reality into the IT faculty pigeon box. I had parked in the residential area and it was a pain trying to get back to it, mostly because the damn cars kept making U-turns where they aren’t supposed to be making U-turns and I couldn’t cross to the other side.

In irritation, I photographed a row of organized disobedience. Some of them were kind enough to signal their U-turn before they break the law. Click the photo for a bigger picture.


7pm: At home... Again

Previously I’ve mentioned that there’s a shiny new faculty that had opened at school with their shiny new kitchenware. To complete this illusion of grandeur, there’s also a shiny new café, complete with indoor plants and wooden furniture.

The food, however, is better left to the imagination. This is a lasagne set that costs about RM$4.50. It’s a bargain but then again, you stomach what you paid for. It’s nice but it needs Ajinomoto. I’m not going to completely diss my school’s first attempt at the canteen business however. I’m going to try the cheeseburger next, maybe that’ll go down better (with a litre of Coca-Cola maybe).


8pm: At Santai Restaurant in Muatira Damansara...

Hehehe, okay, taking photos of a pregnant lady due in May would probabaly not be under the merits of sisterly love but I just wants to show the person who’s been eating most of the mushroom steak MySis ordered. Just confirmed the gender; a little brother for BabyNabil. No name yet but it’ll probably start with the letter ‘N’.

The family tried the Santai Restaurant yesterday, taking all the western stuff. The portions are big, we’re practically stuffed and our bellies were round. But the next time, I’ll go with the black pepper (mushroom was too tame, me thinks).

So some 15 hours after the last photo was taken, here I am, back at school. My next 24 hours (though with or without pictures is yet uncertain) would be
-finishing up that homework report,
-giving Host Café’s cheeseburger a try,
-checking car for anymore essence of avian menace,
-going back to Ikano to sneak-buy that paperback (Ayah hates me reading storybooks; they’re the bane of my CGPA)
-gather every available coins in all the couches in the house.

Now I really, reeeeeeeaally wish I’m a PC-hog.

Lions are Loose in the Kelana Mall!

Okay, I said I’m going to pay attention more to homework instead of blogging but it’s really hard to concerntrate on lines of code when there’s a freaking tum-tum-chang noise just next door to school.

Between 15 minutes later and on my fifth time my error-filled program refused to work (how the hell do I change this Java application into Java applet?!), I decided to call it quits, pack my bags and save this problem for another day (preferably a day when I didn’t forget to bring my textbook).

Like rats to the Pipe Piper’s music, I followed the horde to investigate the not-so-mysterious music of drums and cymbals.

The interior of Kelana Mall is pretty big for such a small place.

Kelana Mall isn’t really a packed place. Most of the store lots are still as closed as sea clams (apt description, I must say) and so any noise within the building is pretty much applified by echoes.

And at this time of the year, where there is drums and cymbals... There’s a troop of lion dancers. A least I think they’re lion dancers. I can never tell the difference between a lion and dragon get-up (sorry me). So I’m going to refer to them as lion dancers because they look so golden (heh...).


A parent pointing out the lions on the second floor to his kid.


Musicians (is that what they’re called?) banging on the drums. They take turns when one of the gets tired - somehow they have to keep the beat going.


Ooo, the lion and his escorts.

So apparently some property development company had just opened a branch in Kelana Mall. Chinese company of course. I think sending for the lion dancers is a form of blessing? Prosperity? Whatever it means, it sure beats the hell of sitting down at the PC Lab and working out programming.

The troop had started on the entrance of the Kelana Mall and worked their vigour right up to the front entrance, ground floor, of the new office building. Then they went up to the second floor and hang around that entrance too.


Both lions display their strength.


What’s this? An citrus offering?


Don’t mind if we help ourselves.

I’ve never seen a lion dance up close before. Oh, I had been present during a few (and once on an opening ceremony my dad MC’d for) but never by myself. So things time without having family members to watch out for (my lil’ bro usually hates the noise), I was able to capture the team in action to its finish.

It was quite noisy was my first impression but I eventually got used to it and managed to stand closer and closer to take shots. Of couse, half of my mind was asking me why the heck am I getting so near to a ceremony that have no affiliation with me, either educational or recreational.

Simply put, I wouldn’t miss a chance to see something different from my norm.


While one lion was busy with the fruits, his buddy chased after innocent bystanders with mandrin oranges.


The oranges and the pamelo had been cut and was served to the branch manager.


The procession concluded when the lion had eaten his veggie-on-a-string.

I must say it was pretty facinating to watch. I was so scared of getting mobbed by the lion that I missed my chance at getting my own mandrin oranges. Damn, it would have been a great picture shot.

I didn’t stick around to see the very end of lion dance; I was there for about half-an-hour at least. When I looked behind me, I wasn’t looking at the lions (which were invited inside the office) but rather, I saw the people watching the dance.

Like me, they too were awed. Who says there’s prejudice amongst races?


The appreciative audience. And these are only on the ground floor!

BabyNabil's Day Out at Ikano Mall

Most people would be sleeping in on a holiday’s Tuesday as I should have been but I was really looking forward to get this piece of Flash programming DIY book from Popular bookstore in Ikano Power Centre. Ayah declared he was free for the hours after helping Genius take care of his apartment rental so we made plans for an excursion.

Then enter MySis and the homicidal two-year-old, BabyNabil.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my one and only nephew and I think he’s smart enough to know of my evil plans to turn into the embarrassing ‘Auntie Liza’ with him in front of his friends when he turns 16 years old.

Both mother and son loved any and all shopping mall trips, one of the few things MySis and me have in common. So what the heck, let’s bring a five-person joy ride to Ikano. Gives us reason to park in the family parking space too.

Early morning we took our breakfast at the local mamak restaurant.


Ayah forgot to bring his reading glasses. Again.

At breakfast, everybody ordered... almost the same thing; roti kosong, roti telur, roti canai and roti pisang. We didn’t plan on going to any fancy breakfast area in case BabyNabil might order everything on the menu. Restaurants need to feed other customers too, you know.

We then went home to get ready a few pertinent things, such as breakfast take-away for Mak (roti sardin, of course), collecting discount cards and BabyNabil needs his bath.

“Nabil, mandi ye?” (Nabil go take a bath, yes?)
“Tak nak.” (Don’t want.)

My nephew is pretty smart and very vocal. We taught him young to communicate verbally. His pronunciations are bad but he can speak full sentences for as long as 7 words, though you got to listen carefully. He can’t pronounce his own name properly (he calls himself, ‘Ami’).

“Mandi-lah! Nak keluar nanti.” (Go take a bath. We want to go out soon).
“No mandi.” (No bath.)
“Kenapa?” (Why.)
“Tak nak mandi.” (Don’t want bath.)
“Okay, then tak boleh pergi Ikano.” (Alright, then you won’t go to Ikano.)
“Auntie, Ami nak pegi, nak pegi!” (Auntie, Nabil wants to go!)
“Okay, mandi dulu.” (Okay, but bath first).

Silence.

“Tak nak mandi.” (Don’t want bath.)
“Tak nak mandi? Duduk rumah aje. Auntie, PakSu, Atuk dan Mama keluar pergi Ikano” (No bath? Sit at home. Auntie, PakSu, Atuk and Mama will go to Ikano).
“Nak pegi! Nak pegi!” (Iwant to go! I want to go!)
“Kena mandi dulu!” (Bath first!)
“Ami tak nak mandi!” (Nabil don’t want bath!)
“Okay, tinggal rumah, aje.” (Okay, just sit at home.)
“Nak pegi, nak peeeeeeeeeeeegggieeeeee!!”

Stalemate. Thank goodness he’s never got the knack for throwing tantrums. Yet. He doesn’t kick on the floor and scream and shout uselessly but he’s incredibly vocal and specific on what he wants. But he knows with an aunt and a mother against him, he’ll be overruled.

So what did the kid does? Negotiate.

“Okay, tapi Ami mandi babel-babel.” (Okay, but Nabil want a bubble bath.)

Damn pampered brat. He hates showers but likes to play with the shampoo bottle. Even I don’t get a bubble bath. In the end, we threaten to let the big cat have shower with him before he finally conceded.

We didn’t bring a stroller as he’s too big for it now. But enjoys getting carried around. In fact he insists. Even before we left the car park, he insists on being carried. We tried to get him to walk on his own chubby legs but he just lies down on the floor - on the road! - on his back until somebody picks him up.

Heh. Being 2 years old and under 3 feet tall gives him right to make a fool of his folks.

Since MySis is too pregnant to carry BabyNabil, Ayah-the-Atuk is mindful of his arthritis and PakSu-Genius is carrying... baby utility stuff (diaper bag, milk bottle, etc), it looks like I’ll have to be the pack-mule.


Up and down the escalators.


Took a scenic route through the Pet Store. This isn’t a mouse display case, by the way. This was a lizard display case. The mouse, still alive, was probably its lunch. Wherever the lizard was.

All in all, we had fun. BabyNabil had 4 pairs of eyes looking out for him as he ran all over the place like a rat on steroids (3 pairs, when I excused buying textbooks in Popular Book Store and again when we pass by the Bread Story bakery). At the Pet Store, he barks at cats, meows at the mice and bangs bird cages.

There was a large grey parrot which fascinated BabyNabil, mainly because the large parrot wasn’t in a cage. The bird then flapped its wings vigorously and BabyNabil got so scared, he ran straight for his Mama.

Typical.

Not to self; get BabyNabil to go for One Utama’s Exotic Animals Exhibition soon. He’ll be firm friends with the monkeys.


Mm-mmm, I can never resist chocolate. Neither does BabyNabil, which I had to eat it behind his back or else he’ll grab hold of it.



Had lunch at Ikea Restaurant. We always choose the big sofa seats at the entrance of the restaurant because the tables were low enough for BabyNabil.


Going home! You can see that he’s getting damned sleepy.