There and Back Again

The River Anduin, Middle Earth… Only in our imagination. This was the place, (OK, near the place) that they filmed the Pillars of Kings scene in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy

Here’s my final post of our New Zealand trip from 2018. At last, finishing posting all that I wanted to post of NZ. See ya, NZ, till we meet again.

Dad, Hazel, Jason and family are flying to NZ tomorrow, to visit Kim and family! How nice! This would be Jason’s, Fang’s and Stacey’s first visit to NZ! As for Dad & Hazel, they’ve been there umpteen times! Hope the weather is good and that they enjoy the trip.

Back to my post, here goes.

Continuing from where I left off in my last NZ post. Our last day on the South Island of NZ was spent sightseeing in Cromwell and Arrowtown, before we headed off to Queenstown Airport to return the campervan and take the flight back to Auckland. In between Cromwell and Arrowtown, is the great Anduin River of Middle Earth (from the LOTR movie trilogy). Nah, it’s actually the Kawarau River, which was used to film the Pillars of Kings scene, where the heroes rowed passed the two ginormous statues of kings with arms extended, flanking the river.


Kawarau River, all sunny and clear, not like the gloomy & foreboding river in the movie that the Fellowship of the Ring rowed in… It’d be awesome if they’d really created the Argonath (aka the Pillars of Kings), wouldn’t it?


Hey, are those the hobbits in the river?? Nah, they’re white-water rafters… The Kawarau Gorge is an adventure sports location


Can’t open our eyes! The sun’s too bright – Kawarau River, Otago, NZ – Dec 2018


Hey, what’s going on? Did someone jump??!?


There he is! Oh, it’s a friggin bungy jump! What did I just tell you about adventure sports??


The Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge, is the birthplace of bungy jumps. That’s because this was the first ever commercial bungy jumping site in the world! This suspension bridge used to be an important access to the Otago goldfields during the gold mining days. Now, it’s just a place for people to jump themselves bonkers!


AJ Hackett was the entrepreneur who set up the world’s first commercial bungy jumping site here, and made this crazy sport famous around the world


Inside the AJ Hackett Kawarau Bungy Centre. See, how it’s cramped with people! Nope, not gonna do something crazy like that!


Just came here for a little sightseeing. Let’s go, we have a plane to catch!


Queenstown, here we come! The Remarkables Mountain Range, Queenstown (view from Riverside Road, next to the airport)


That’s our plane. Time to go! Queenstown Airport, New Zealand, New Year’s Eve, 2018. Bye, till we meet again! See ya, when we see ya!

The Chinese Navratri

Anu praying to the Nine Emperor Gods, Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia… The nice thing about Hindus, is that they’d pray to any god, ...serene or scary-looking. To them, gods are gods. The more, the merrier. Om Namah Shivay…

Here goes. It’s Durga Puja this weekend, Anu’s (and eastern India’s) biggest festival. All over eastern and north-eastern India, there’ll be ‘pandals’ (make-shift pavilions) erected, with the goddess Durga as the centre-piece, stepping on, or killing a buffalo-demon. Elsewhere in India (northern India, mainly), it’s celebrated as Dussehra, which culminates in the burning of a huge effigy of Ravana (the main villain in the Ramayana story). They’re basically all celebrating the triumph of good over evil. The nine days leading to these big celebrations is Navratri (meaning “nine nights”, duh), which have rituals, prayers, and such, related to each day, depending on which tradition you’re following.

But interestingly, Navratri isn’t venerated only by the Hindus. The Taoists in South East Asia, have their own celebrations, which coincide with Navratri. It’s the Festival of the Nine Emperor Gods. It’s a mystical Taoist festival celebrated mainly by the overseas Chinese in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, featuring road processions, trances, cheek-piercing, tongue piercing, fire-walking, and all sorts of self-mutilation, no joke. Now you know why it’s not popular in China. (D’ya think those communists there will be OK with all that gory, supernatural stuff? They just don’t know how to have fun, haha!) By the way, this was my favourite festival when I was a kid growing up in Ipoh! My mom would take me and my younger brother to town, to the upper story of a shop house (near where mom works), next to a busy junction where the procession would pass through. We’d see men with long spears pierced through their cheeks, rocking god chariots carried by crazed men (who were apparently in a trance) guided by a spirit guide carrying a reed hand fan, and stuff like that. Cool, huh?

Temples that host the Nine Emperor Gods Festivals in Malaysia and Singapore are usually named “Tow Boo Keong.” And for some reason not known to me, there’re TWO of ‘em in Butterworth town itself, not far from one another. (If you do know why there’s 2, lemme know, OK?) Anyway, here’re the photos. Of both of ‘em! Happy Festival! Happy Durga Puja! Happy Dussehra! Happy Dashain!


Tow Boo Keong Temple, Butterworth, Malaysia, on a quiet day. It was July 2022. The Nine Emperor Gods Festival usually takes place in October, on the first nine days of the ninth month of the Chinese calendar…


Mommy and kids, at the Tow Boo Keong Temple. Wow, there sure are a lot of lanterns. Can we have one or two, to take home??


Tow Boo Keong in Chinese pinyin is Dòu Mǔ Gōng, the palace of Doumu, the mother of the nine emperor gods. Yeah, they have a mother, like you and me! What about that scary dragon (middle, bottom), with the golden card (with our surname embossed on it?) Don’t ask me man, I have no idea! Can you spot Doumu? Through the doorway immediately above the scary dragon?


The idol of Doumu, up close. Doumu is the mother of the Big Dipper constellation of stars. And so, the nine emperor gods are actually the stars that make up the Big Dipper, seven visible stars and two invisible one (or so, sez Google)


A pagoda in the Tow Boo Keong temple


One last photo, before we move on to the second Nine Emperor Gods Temple nearby


The Nine Emperor Gods Temple, Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia


The sign in Chinese on the temple reads Dòu Mǔ Gōng 斗母宫 (in small) and a large Yù Zhǐ 玉旨 (Jade Edict) in large


No, you don’t wanna mess with me!


The Nine Star Lords of Chinese Mythology. Move over, Guardians of the Galaxy… We are nine, with a scary dragon as companion, a horde of deities and an all-powerful mother! Beat that!


The dragon pillar and the pond of carps! (Don’t ask me what they symbolize). But the kids love feeding the koi, as kids do. (Maybe, that’s what it’s for… some income from the fish food… but again, I don’t think so, because how much money would they make from some measly fish food?) (Do they eat the carps? I don’t think so either. The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is a vegetarian festival, no meat for nine days for devotees. See, I told you, it’s like the Hindu Navratri!)




Night time at the Temple of the Nine Emperor Gods, Butterworth, Malaysia, July 2022


Mommy and kids paying one last respect to the Goddess Doumu before we go…

See ya! Happy celebrations everyone! Be happy, stay safe, stay kind, stay hopeful. God bless!

In the Old Prospecting Days

A cowboy town in New Zealand?? Yup, this is Cromwell. More precisely, this is its Heritage Precinct, in Otago, South Island, NZ.

The family’s reunion in New Zealand is fast approaching. Dad, Hazel, and finally, Jason and family are gonna visit Kim in Auckland in the middle of this month, and then, they’re gonna head out on a hectic, all-out NZ excursion, covering the North as well as the South Islands. Jason’s hired a campervan. No, make that a Motorhome! It’s the larger, nicer version, of a campervan, with built-in toilet, shower, kitchen, and what have you, not like the little Jucy campervan we rented in 2018.

Alas. We’re not gonna be there. So, here’s to remembering our own New Zealand trip, a continuation of my posts of our South Island trip in 2018. This is gonna be my last NZ post.. Wait, make that the second-last (I realized I’ve still got a lot of photos left to post, heehee). Till we visit again. Here goes!


Cromwell’s a gold prospecting town in the old Otago Gold Rush days… Now it’s known more for its fruits, than gold. Heck, it even has a monument for its fruits! (Nope, didn’t take a photo. What’s so interesting about giant peaches on poles?) It’s known as the “Fruit Bowl of the South” now! Hell, yeah! Sez the lady whose house we stayed in, in Cromwell, on our last night of our South Island trip. Don’t believe me?! Go Google Cromwell, NZ, and you’ll see!


That’s the house we stayed in! No 42, Barry Avenue, Cromwell. On our last night in the South Island. I hadn’t planned this actually; it was a last-minute thing. The original plan was to sleep in the campervan, in a camping ground, somewhere. Anywhere! And then Anu suggested, that since this was our last night, could we have something better? B’coz, we still had to pack up, and stuff like that before we fly off? And she's right! It didn’t help that the only available camping ground near us, had only one berth left, and it was cramped to the brim with people, like the trailer parks that you see in movies! And so, we started our search, but there weren’t many hotels around, and each and everyone that we contacted was full. (It was peak Christmas season!) And then, one of the hotels informed that they knew someone who could let out their rooms for a night, and we got the number of this lady, I still remember her name, Jacinda, just like the name of the then New Zealand Prime Minister! (I’ve never come across a Jacinda in my life before, and two popped out in NZ. It must be a really common Kiwi name!)


And this is the ‘trailer park’ that we nearly stayed in. The Cromwell Holiday Park. I think we paid, and decided otherwise when we saw where we had to park, and they refunded the money. Good on them. I tried checking it out on Google Maps, and it’s completely gone now! I think it’s being redeveloped into a housing area, or something… Bye-bye! (It was at the plot surrounded by Alpha St on its east, and Midlothian Ave on its north…)


Back at the Precinct District. It lies beside the Kawarau River. Cromwell lies at the mouth of the Kawarau River, where it meets the Clutha River


That’s the Kawarau River… which incidentally, is also the river (one of the rivers anyway) used to film the River Anduin in the Lord of the Rings movie… you know the river flanked by the 2 huge statues of kings with their hands extended… the “Pillars of Kings” or “the Gate of Argonath”? That’s on this river, but further upstream. This photo is at the river's mouth…


It sure is windy, huh? Cromwell, Otago, New Zealand


Huh? What’s this? The house of the Illuminati? It’s a Masonic Lodge! Cromwell


Here’s another quaint gold prospecting town, Arrowtown! Near Queenstown, Otago




Anu loves this town, with its white cottages, flowers, trees… This is her idea of a nice town to stay in!


And that’s the Arrowtown church! Let’s see, it’s the St Patrick’s Catholic Church!

That’s all for now, folks! One more NZ post to go after this. See ya!

The People Who Graced Our Lives 2023

Hello people. This is my annual post of the people who graced our lives in the past year. These friends, acquaintances and family (but there weren’t any who visited us in Dubai last year, although you could say that Anny (see photo below) is family, as she’s Anu’s eldest sister’s husband’s sister’s daughter) make our lives so much richer and memorable. Thanks for your time, and for bearing with us. Here’s a toast to all of you. Salud!


A reunion, after 17 long years! Anu and Anny in Dubai – (Orchid Vue Hotel). The both of them arrived in Haulawng, Mizoram, in the beginning of 2006, to work in the project that I was in. At the end of 2006, Anu and I left Mizoram, and we’ve never been back since. Here’s a picture of the girls in 2006.


They’ve gone a long way since. While we’ve mostly been in Dubai, Anny, her husband and son live in Tanzania. Here’s Anny and her son, Kiann, visiting us, in Jul 2023


Anny and husband, Dipak, at our home. They were in Dubai for the handover of their Dubai apartment, which they purchased for investment. Business-savvy people, huh?! They’ve invited us to visit Tanzania! That will be an awesome adventure! But Africa’s not really Anu’s cup of tea, and it’s expensive! And kinda scary (coz we dunno much about it). Let’s see, hehe


Meet the Agarwals – Bhavna, Umesh and Dyuti, Diwali, 2023. Our normal circle of friends now mainly revolves around our neighbours… Many of the friends whom we’ve been closed to before, have moved away. That’s how it’s like in Dubai, unfortunately


Another neighbour, Abha, KP Singh, and their 2 daughters, at their apartment, Diwali 2023. Here we were, with a visiting couple and their son


Our immediate neighbour, and Anu’s adopted godbrother, Milind Pandhare and his wife Rajeshri, at our home, Diwali, 2023. Diwali’s the time for photos, as most people (I’m talking about Indians, of course) would be dressed up nicely. That explains why most of the photos here are of the Diwali times!


The Pandhare’s kids, Mihir (left) and Aru (right) with Jayden. This is another way we’ve made friends in Dubai in the past. The kids’ friends, and if we meet up for playdates, their parents…


Jayden’s friend from Ukraine, Daniel (I think it’s actually Danylo), but we just called him Daniel. He was a good, well-behaved boy. He was here in our apartment building, staying with his aunt’s family, but only for a few months. Less than half a year, I think. He was learning English at that time, and sometimes we had to communicate with sign language. He’s moved on to Germany, to join his parents there! All the best Daniel!


Jayden’s started to be more social… Bravo! When his elder brother was in Dubai, Jayden didn’t seem to have any friends. Here’s he at school, with Sofian (with glasses), and Jad. Sofian is the son of the school’s principal, by the way.


Jayden, with classmate Yusuf, holding their Junior Duke certificates. Junior Duke is an award scheme that promotes the development of life skills, like cooking, swimming, patching a punctured tyre, managing time, etc… (which basically means, …a whole lot of extra work, for the parents. Sigh…) It was inspired by the Duke of Edinburgh Award


Jayden with his best friend at that time, Hardit (I don’t know whether they’re still best friends, because his friends change all the time…), at Xstrike, an indoor laser tag park, in Al Quoz, Dubai. This was Sofian’s (see photo above) birthday party, the first birthday party I remembered that Jayden attended… (Whereas, Justin had been going to birthday parties since he was in kindergarten…) Thanks Sofian! And Mr Nav Iqbal and missus, for inviting Jayden. (They’re British of Pakistani descent).


Two of his friends/ classmates at our home for Jayden’s birthday last year, Hardit and Omnia. Another friend, Callum would later join this party.


And here’re big brother’s friends, Yiro (left) and Sean Linz (right). Although Justin doesn’t stay here, he seems to be keeping his friendship pretty well. They’d hang out whenever Justin’s back for the holidays – Jun 2023


Moaaz (or is it Moaadh?) (centre) and Yiro (left) at our home when Justin was here again in Dec 2023. Moaadh made the trip all the way from Abu Dhabi where he and his family stay now!


And now for some colleagues, as always. Hmmm… doesn’t seem to have any photos of colleagues last year… Wait, here’s one. Yours truly, with a colleague, Andrew Battershill (left), Project Manager of our company’s NEOM Tunnel Project, and an acquaintance we met, Marcus Pathan, from the Association of Project Management, at the IPMA Global Awards Gala, in Seville, Spain – Sep 2023. The IPMA (International Project Management Association) Global Awards are an annual function organized by the IPMA that celebrates and gives out awards for achievements in Project Management. Our company participated in the awards in 2023, and 2 of our company’s projects were finalists in the category of Large & Mega-Sized Projects. As luck would have it, the awards were held in Spain, and most of my colleagues (who’re Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, etc), including my bosses, needed a Schengen Visa, while yours truly, being a Malaysian, could just fly, haha! (And Schengen Visas, for some inexplicable reason, takes months to apply, here in the UAE!!! Europe should really get its act in order!) And so, there I am, with a British employee of our company, to represent the Company in 2 Projects which we had no involvement in at all! And We WON! Gold & Silver! - Hacienda Azahares, Seville, Spain

That’s it for now. See you!