Another power-packed post!

Last Friday, went to gym for the whole morning, and it was incessant raining. Couldn't get my swim. Was half-sour, but brightened up after having lunch with Jie.

That's her in front of her Prawn Fried Rice.

That's 1x 小龙包 2x 菜肉饺, my complete meal.

Like I always say, I'm a dumpling freak. Back in tw, there was once I was on duty, and a whole bunch of camp mates bought me lots of dumplings, with more on the way. It's a tradition to buy overwhelming amounts of food, which usually ends up in the victim failing to finish, and the penalty is a swim in the camp fish pond.

There they were, 5 or so of them camp mates, watching me take each dumpling in a single mouthful. End result was a 180, and they were utterly defeated cos they even made repeated trips to get more dumplings. I just finished them all.

Well it's about time I kicked this habit, cos I read in a book that any craving is psychologically rooted. If I cannot take control of my own senseless craving, there would be many more things that I will not be able to accomplish. So this is the first step.

After that was a gr8 cookout session at Sheen's place. Except that Wanz did almost every single thing. Me helped sheen with the mashed potatoes... and Jon yesh u are absolutely right. E mash potato had milk, cheese and butter added into it. So it's super heavy. Then there was Wanz' salad which was damn nice and reminiscent of Jonny's. The only unhealthy ingredients was Mayo and the Bacon added later. Then there was also Wanz' Mango Pudding which EVERYONE OF US FORGOT ABOUT... diaoz.... Finally there was also Neo's ee mee olio: Aglio with Angel Hair pasta. No, it's not a new recipe, it was a mistake with the pasta type. The final dish was Wanz' teriyaki wings. All the food was nice of course, even though mostly unhealthy. The teriyaki sauce was mixed with the last chunk of angel hair to make TERIYAKI EE MEE!!! i didn't try it but i guess it was another deliciously sinful creation. =)

After that was mj, and a night without sleep as I went home to accompany Jie for a few hours before she flew off to Phuket. Will be picking her up from airport tonight. 3 days 2 nights. But it wasn't too lonely cos I was going to M'sia to visit my Grandpa for Father's Day.

Set off at 7am, and had breakfast at 1030am at Ulu Tiram. Bak Kut Teh in some hutty villagey eatery. Wasn't that great considering the que. But that's what my aunt and uncle are like. Always going to the cheap and famous places to que, sometimes the food is nice, sometimes it isn't; but I won't go to these places were it up to me, cos the average human spends 1/3 of his whole life waiting. Waiting just isn't for me, cos time doesn't come back. I'd rather spend more money to enjoy my food sooner, cos money can be earned back but time can't.

The Bak Kut Teh place.

As we reached my grandpa's place, glad to see that he's fine. No longer limping, courtesy of multiple inputs of love and care. My 2 aunts bought her calcium supplements from GNC and muscle strengthening milk powder respectively; all these come at a considerable price of course. And the maid has stopped cooking curry for my grandpa, which has coconut milk and affects his condition. So it's good that he's loooking pretty healthy.

Now, an episode that made me realise I am too unretaliative for my own good. There was my aunt and uncle claiming that this particular hairdresser is cheap and good. In their own words, like David Gan, and friends always ask my uncle where he gets his haircut. Despite the contradictory notions of "cheap" and "good", I yielded cos they were my relatives.

Result is a disaster hairdo by an old uncle. And my aunt and uncle are still saying how nice it is, perhaps to defend? I don't know. I didn't really care cos I was gonna fix it back in sg anyway. But my grandpa was quite shocked at the disastrous hairdo. So the next day I fixed it at another trendy unisex salon.

Anyway something good did turn out of the visit to the old hairdresser. I recognised both the hairdressers as they did my hair since I was 4. Had a very nice conversation with the uncle who cut my hair. It was like reminiscing good old times, speaking of how a small fishing village grew into a town because of Tioman Island (Mersing is the nearest dock to Tioman, so almost anyone who wants to get there needs to pass by Mersing). He said 20 years have passed in the blink of an eye. From the 80s he started the shop, now his hair is turning grey and he's already an old friend of my grandpa, and we, the kids, are already working. The soothing gush of nostalgia warmed my heart, and it was worth the hairwreck.

Been here since I was 4.

Old Master Q comics, something from our era.

Anyway, that night, my only elder cousin Jiamin brought me up to Endau, half an hour north of Mersing, to stay the night over at my uncle's (mum's brother) place. The main point of the trip was to see my 2 cousins Jiahui and Jiali, whom I haven't seen since Grandma's funeral in Aug 2003. Will talk more about my grandma later in the post.

Since I last saw them, they finished their studies and both sisters went off together to Kuala Lumpur to find work and earn their own keep. Which was why most of the time when I returned to Mersing randomly or at Qing Ming, they weren't around.

It was nice to see them all grown up, pretty and independent.

My uncle owns a medium-sized plot of land, where he's built both shop and home on. The retailing part takes up most of the land; the living area is sthg like a 5-room flat in sg. Land is cheap in malaysia, so it wasn't amazing that he has such a big plot. Anyway the retailing is hardware. Like any typical hardware store you would find in sg, except alot bigger. There's also some stuff a hardware store in singapore won't sell, like wooden aesthetic balcony pillars, large wooden planks for partitioning, bricks of all sorts, etc. etc. It's like a Home Depot, like those u have in US, but no aircon.

We ended up playg MJ from 9pm till 1am, when we went to sleep. They habitually play 3 pax MJ, which is extremely easy to game, even after the minimum is 5 and max is 10 doubles. It's just something new. My uncle and aunt were quite amusing cos they thought I was a freshie. Base was 10 ringgit, and I won 9 in the end, landing them in a certain shock. But it was just nice for my salvaging haircut the following day.

Anyway I popped up early in the morning after exactly 8 hours of sleep; it's becoming habitually encoded into my body clock. Same thing happened today. I went to take a look at my aunt's nice garden, which I took the liberty to take some pictures of.

Nice whatever-that-plant-is

The Garden

Well there were many nice flowers, but many of them are pretty common in sg so I didn't take. There were the cactii flowers and fruits, but they didn't look very pretty so I didn't take either. But the whole garden put together was just plain soothing.

Took a nice pic with my cousins over lunch, which was in celebration of Father's Day.

Behind Left: My only elder cousin Jia Min, who took the liberty to call me 表哥 since I was in JC, to shroud her age in mystery. lol.

Front left: Jiachen, 2nd youngest in the whole extended family and youngest child of my uncle's. Currently in sec3. I think.

Front Mid: Jiahui (Jess, on my friendster), the 2nd in line after Jia Min. Journalist in KL. Hyper-active socialite.

Front Right: Jiali (Reese, also on my friendster), the 3rd after Jiahui. Hairstylist at Toni & Guy in KL. Pretty good with her craft. But leaving Toni & Guy cos they're relocating to an ulu part of KL, far from her place. She's staying with Jiahui in a rented room.

Behind Right: Me with the rescued haircut. The hairwreck was so bad I dare not post the pic.

And that was a great trip to M'sia, nice gatherings with relatives et all.

REWIND!

To 2 Sundays back. Was an outing to Upper Peirce with my uncle and aunt and jie and their son Dominique.

Jie with the upper peirce behind and a nice sunset sky.

The large slope & field and Lower Peirce. It's Sembawang housing area in the background.

Breakwater by the border of Upper Peirce.
The area of land in the background right is actually part of Zoological Gardens & Night Safari.

More of the slope and field.

Me and Jie enjoying the breeze.

Further into the sunset.

Dominique, my youngest cousin, as the trekking guide.

Nice trees at the open grass field, by the border of lower peirce.
Couldn't resist taking a pic even tho it was getting dark.

Now speaking of my cousin Dominique, his name reminds me of a lot of things. His full name is Dominique Luo Zhihao. The english name was chosen together by me and my brother. We thought it's tinge of french flavour would make his name more classy and exquisite. Doesn't matter if he understands; it's a bonus if he does.

His chinese name, Zhihao (志豪), almost can bring a tear to my eye. It was given by my Grandmother, who has passed away. The name given, was a culmination of her emotions, the love of a mother, a grandmother. The name was half from one of my cousins, 毅志, who is now in NTU final year accounting (and doing pretty well too, a 2nd upper easily within reach), and half from me, 谨豪. By combining our names, she hoped for Dominique to take the best parts of the 2 of us and outshine us. It was her way of saying that we two are the grandchildren she loves most. Not that she loves the others less, but loves us more in a sense of pride.

Conversely, she is also my fave grandparent. Since young, she would always cook delicious 算盘子, which is a delicious traditional yam dish (maybe that's why I love yam stuff), would cook the best dishes for the whole family, took care of flowers in her garden, chickens in the front yard, etc. She would always try to give money to me and my brother and prob every other grandchild. Very rarely do we get to keep it. We always tell our mother about it, never an exception, and most of the time it gets returned by our mother. But the thought of pampering us is already more than enough for me to keep for a lifetime.

Sometimes, she would tell us stories of how she and Grandpa met and fell in love amidst the war, hiding in and living off the vast forests that crowd the whole Malaysian Peninsular. I don't recall much, but they were stories of really hard times, and they both survived the ordeal more closely bonded than ever before.

In my delinquent years, I didn't see her very much as I was always in school busy with school and my not-so-right activities. During my whole secondary school life, I hardly saw her more than once a year. But each time, she would say the same... telling me to not be so defiant towards my parents, that I am much better than what I am doing, that I was not born to be a thief or a hooligan. Words that are still warm when I think of them now.

There was also the cancer episode which brought us much closer than before. She was struck with colon cancer when I was 16. After multiple operations, she recuperated partially. As I was entering JC, she was in rehabilitation and stayed with me in my room. She took the lower deck and I took the upper deck. She would always tell me to sleep early, not to play so much computer games, etc.etc. I didn't yield very often, but I never retaliated cos of the kindness in her words; it wasn't a scolding, but more like persuasive advice.

I witnessed her health get better, then deteriorate again. Countless visits to the hospital for checkups, operations, etc., followed by rehabilitations in my house et all. Near the end of a 3-year battle with cancer, she had already been hospitalised in NUH for a couple of months. Knowing that her time is near, she requested to be transferred to her hometown, Mersing, even when knowing full well the facilities are much less appropriate; She just wanted to see old friends to bid them farewell, and to leave in the comfort of the place she has lived in most of her life.

I followed my parents to visit her at the only hospital in Mersing every weekend. The first week, she spoke of seeing long departed people like her mum, her siblings who died in the war, old friends, etc. The second week, she was so weak that she couldn't speak anymore, and only had the strength to open her eyes and shed tears. I remember holding her hands and telling her I would study hard, go to University and do my family proud. And the tears that flowed out of her eyes were warm with love. Two days later, we were informed that she had passed away. Her last waking moment, just 2 hours before her death, was a visit by an old friend who travelled all the way from Pahang to bid her farewell.

The funeral was just like all other funerals. A gloomy aura pervading the area. I hardly shed tears, but those who know me know that I do for truly loved ones. And my grandma was one of them. There I was thinking I would hold back the tears and send her off gracefully. There I was thinking I had to be brave. I saw her peaceful face through the glass panel of the coffin. Held my emotions for a few seconds, felt a cringe in my face, and out they flowed.

I went into the back, trying to cry alone, but Jiahui and Jiali were already crying there, probably thinking the same as I was. We just held each other and cried, and didn't go out until it all subsided. But tears came in wave after wave, until the funeral was over, each time we saw her face in the coffin. Emotions are still so strong that I just uncontrollably shed a tear even while writing this.

Since then, we have come to accept her passing and carry on with life. I went off to TW, and Jiahui and Jiali went off to KL and we're reunited now, 5 years later.

Grandma is still very close to our hearts. Jiefang and I got together on V-Day last year; and in April, during Qing Ming, I brought her to my grandma's 灵位 at 富贵山庄 in Kulai, and I introduced Jiefang to my grandma and asked for her blessings. Jiefang was touched to tears by this act, as it was like bringing her into the extended family, which of course I meant sincerely. Since then, we pay visits to her once in awhile when we are in Malaysia.

And we will continue to.

This post is dedicated to my Late Grandma, 吕焕玲, with love.