The Passing of a Generation

My step grandma, the mother of my stepmom passed away in Butterworth early this month. She was 88. She had been suffering from cancer, since it relapsed about Feb last year. Now there’s no more suffering, and she can join grandpa again. RIP.

Things can change pretty fast in this world. Just last year on New Year’s Day 2015, we celebrated step grandpa’s birthday with the whole family, in Penang, in one of our cousin’s café. Four generations in the gathering, what a blessing! (See this post for a picture of it). Two months or so later, grandpa suddenly had a heart attack and left us. The saddest thing at that time was that grandma was in Penang for a doctor’s consultation. She had some problems and had to be at the hospital in Penang (it later turned out to be due to the relapse of her cancer). By the time she reached Butterworth, grandpa was already gone, and she wasn’t able to be with him at that crucial time. She was devastated, having spent most of their lives together. Since then, she’s gotten weaker and weaker, and her body was so weak that the doctors couldn’t administer the needed cancer therapy on her. The past few months before she passed away, my parents told me that it’s like she’s lost her will to live.

Now, she needn’t have to suffer or struggle anymore. Bye-bye grandma. Bye-bye grandpa. Although I might not have known you very well, and you wouldn’t have known me well I guess, (I met them for the first time when I was in my late teens. I and my siblings didn’t stay in Butterworth, and would only meet the grandparents when we visited our parents on our holidays from school or work), I am greatly indebted to you for accepting us as your grandchildren, and for helping my dad finance us to further our studies overseas. May God bless your souls. May both of you be at peace now.

Here’re a couple of pictures of our family gathering with the grannies last New Year in Penang, Malaysia




Grandpa’s Birthday / New Year’s Day, 2015

Here’s a link to another picture in an earlier post.

What’s So Great about the Palace?

Since, we’re talking Abu Dhabi, I might as well throw these in – pictures of the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi (the sprawling brown buildings in front). Here's a view of the hotel from the beach.

I don’t think I’ll be visiting this place personally, so what the heck, I’ll just put in some photos of it that were taken during Anu’s visit in 2009 with some of our work colleagues. It’s not like I didn’t try to visit, hell, I tried 3 friggin times!!! And failed, all 3 times! The first try was on our first visit to Abu Dhabi in 2008 – it was a weekend, and we were told that we could only visit on a weekday! Second try was when Kim visited in 2013 – we drove up to the gate, and the guard told us we were dressed too casually! (What? I thought my bermuda shorts were pretty decent, and our flip-flops (Kim and I) weren’t too bad looking). Third try was with Dad, Mom and Hazel on a Saturday in December 2013 – was told again that this was a weekend, …and I thought weekends were Fridays only, shit! I give up! What’s so great about the place anyway? It’s just a hotel like any other hotel right?

OK, OK, OK, call it a case of sour grapes… but I’m still NOT gonna visit, unless… Unless I have to again bring someone for a tour of Abu Dhabi, I think.




The fountain at the Emirates Palace Hotel


The gold coloured interior of the hotel


Anu, at the Emirates Palace Hotel, 2009

One Night in Abu Dhabi

At Al Fanar Restaurant, Abu Dhabi, waiting for food. Al Fanar is a restaurant specializing in Emirati food. Unfortunately for us, the only food still available was some gravy / curry-type dishes and rice dishes. No more friggin grilled stuff (what d’ya expect when you visit at ...err 10.20pm? 10 minutes before closing time?)

Decided to take the easy way out (again) and post photos of a mini family gathering with Kim’s family in Abu Dhabi. This is a follow up to our one night meet up in Munich earlier (see this post). Kim and family had an overnight stopover in Abu Dhabi, on their way back to New Zealand, from their trip to Germany. Somehow or other, our meet ups always end up like one night stands!! Not good, definitely not good, will have to make an effort to meet longer the next time.


Our group photo at Al Fanar – no legs thanks to waiter photographer at the restaurant, and grainy quality thanks to our good ol’ phone cameras


It’s way past Jared’s bedtime according to Kim (but how do you keep a schedule, when you’re flying across err… 10 time zones?!!)


A tree in the restaurant! (It’s fake by the way)


A lock-up cell for the children, while the adults eat. All restaurants should have facilities like this. Kidding, it’s a sitting room for eating on the floor, Arabic-style. We wanted a room like that, but they’re not available as the restaurant’s about to close for the night


Outside the restaurant – try spotting these – two men, two babies, and two goats

Happy New Year, with Homework

Happy New Year 2016!!

I’m back! Guess what we did on New Year’s Day. Clean the house (we were away for a week, so the home’s a mess, plus there’re dead cockroaches all over the place, thanks to our homemade cockroach bait that we placed all over the house just before we flew off – it worked!!) Buy groceries (yeah, back to reality, have to stock up for our boring routine lives again). And sit with Justin to make sure he finishes his homework! The homework part took most of the day. Yeah, that’s life nowadays. Your kid’s homework, is also your work now. Don’t ever remember my parents grilling me on homework! So this is new age parenting huh? Being a parent, means responsibilities I guess, if only it could be more interesting…

Anyway, here’re some photos of homework and school. Yeah, I have a whole load of photos of Justin’s school-related stuff. That’s what our lives revolve around nowadays. Don’t even want to imagine the time when Jayden starts schooling!!!


Justin doing his online homework on my laptop. (He’s friggin Standard 1, and has computer homework!) He also has to bring an iPad to school, part of the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Programme that’s being implemented in the international schools here! …Oh, that Malay costume? It’s something his grandparents sent from Malaysia. We let him try it out in preparation for International Day, where all the kids have to wear something to reflect their home country.


Justin at Foundation 2 (FS2) aka Kindergarten


With his FS2 Teacher’s Assistant, Ms Jocelyn. (His class teacher can be seen in this earlier post)


With his classmate Miriam at FS2 (Miriam’s father turned out to be the owner of the apartment we finally chose and bought – and I didn’t know until we were at the land office to sign the transfer papers despite meeting a couple of times. We started chatting while waiting for the land office to prepare the papers and then it dawned on me. We even went to Miriam’s 5th birthday party at Mirdif Park a few months back! Talk about being in a small world!)


An assignment on Italy in FS2. Each class picked a separate country to work on. We had to make something reflecting Italy. He loves Sports Cars, so we ended up making a Lamborghini out of a Nescafe box.


More Italy! At the end of the assignment he (and I) could sing an Italian children’s song!!! – Il Coccodrillo Come Fa. So, it does bring benefits after all.

That’s not all. I’ve had to relearn the Solar System. I know all the planets plus their special characteristics now. (And what the heck, Pluto is no longer a planet!!) I’ve relearnt dinosaurs (I can name most of the common dinosaurs again). I used to know them but it’s been more than 35 friggin years since I was last interested in them. (Do you know that Brontosaurus is no longer a proper dinosaur name now? They should rightly be called Apatosaurus! But personally I prefer Brontosaurus – what sort of name is Apatosaurus??). I’ve also relearnt fairy tales – oh yeah, I know my Cinderella, and Rapunzel, and Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel – you name them! And we’ve been catching up on old Disney cartoons!


Justin’s drawing of flags – this was during a school programme supporting some humanitarian effort in Ghana. The kids were told to wear Ghanaian colours or clothes in support of the school. How on earth in Dubai would you find some Ghanaian clothes??! We finally bought a yellow cap and drew a Ghana flag on it


Waking Justin up in the morning for school is sometimes a challenge


The start of his Year 1 (Standard 1) at Royal Dubai School. The names and nationalities of his classmates are stuck on the wall behind


Justin’s Year 1 classroom


Justin at an introduction to musical instruments, a school related event – no, please not the drums. Pick a piano, or violin or heck, even a trumpet, that’d be ok


We had a family outing to the Dubai Musuem to help him with his 'Dubai in the Past' topic at Year 1 (yeah, we have to have family outings for the kids now, part of parenthood I guess…)


Justin and his science project – testing whether plants grow better with water or soda. Never would’ve guessed it’d be soda!!! His mom had to remind him daily to water them and to write down the observations!

Here’s a link to Justin’s Year 1 Class blog for those who want to see more of what happens at the international schools here in Dubai.

Hope your New Year is as ‘interesting’ as ours…