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Anxious Wait

13 Jun

It was so stressful waiting to hear from M2. I was tired, anxiety was eating at me and the headache was kicking in. The body was going into reserve mode to stay calm. We arrived at six whilst she’s due to arrive at 8.35am. Two and a half hours of anxiety instead of a leisurely paced four-hours wait before the next flight.

Because she flew domestic from Dublin to Amsterdam, M2 arrived at a different terminal. So when we finally heard from her, we quickly made our way over to the designated departing gate. Relief and happiness took over when we finally saw her.

There was a delay for the connecting flight to Portland. Instead of departing at 10.00am local time, it was retimed to 10.20am. Further delays saw us eventually taking off at 10.50am. Another long journey ahead but this time there’s no night for us as the flight was scheduled to arrive before noon. I’m so messed up by now with time, time zones, day and night.

I decided to take a painkiller to suppress the headache and try to sleep it off. With the cabin lights dimmed to simulate night, I decided to sleep but the crying toddler in front of me was just too disturbing. On top of that, there were occasions of a foul whiff coming from the front. Stinky diaper! Eewww…

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In Transit

12 Jun

We arrived at Schiphol Airport at six local time. The flight took 12 hours. I had a restless night, so ended up watching two movies, ate when I was not supposed to and now, I can feel a headache developing. Uh Oh…

Behind the smile lurks a headache developing

We had to go to the Transfer Hall for further security check, going through a body scan and the carry on luggage scans. And of course, I had to remove my Blundstone boots, all part of the process.

As we are sitting here having a coffee and juice, M2 has flown this morning as scheduled. Yay.

Next flight is in three hours’ time, a slight 20 minutes delay from the original 10.00am local time. Maybe I can sleep better on the next leg.

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Long Long Night

12 Jun

It rained and poured like crazy thus we had to leave home a little bit earlier to beat the traffic to get to the airport. What would normally take slightly under an hour took us an hour and a half.

But we had to leave early because sometimes when the timing is off by a mere five minutes, the consequences are very stressful. In this case, anticipating the traffic heading towards the airport.

But luckily we managed to arrive early despite a 45-minute crawl at one stretch on the highway. Oh well, we didn’t mind. Better early than late. We waited for an hour before the counters opened for check-in. And within a short time, we were checked in and all set!

We then went to the Premium Lounge to have a light dinner and a nice cold Carlsberg, chilling for an hour before heading to the gate. Everything was smooth sailing.

However, departure was slightly delayed because the runway was congested and we took off at 11.48pm, a 28-minute delay. We are finally on our way.

Within a short while, dinner was served! My goodness, talk about a midnight snack, it was a hearty Briyani Chicken rice. I ate whatever I could, which was not much, and tried to sleep. Not easy though.

Throughout the long long night, it was very uncomfortable. The seats were very narrow. I turned left, I turned right and couldn’t find a comfortable position. Needless to say, I hardly slept and we have another ten plus hours journey to go after the transit.

I dozed in and out of sleep. Somehow time went by pretty fast and soon, day was breaking and I couldn’t sleep anymore. My watch showed 7.45am, KL’s local time. And the first thing that came to my mind was my Candy Crush Soda! Hah! Still can’t let go.

The phone and the iPad could register Day 1024 because both are in flight mode and not updated with the time zone that we are in. Heheh… maybe the next leg, I won’t be so lucky.

Next I checked my MiBand2 and I actually only had 40 minutes of deep sleep and five hours and 21 minutes of light sleep. Yeah, I’m tired.

As I am jotting my thoughts now, the screen is showing another 23 minutes to arrival. Yay.

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Be Silly or Be Happy

11 Jun

Today’s the day we leave! But there are worries, silly ones and several of it…

Silly #1: my cocoon is still hanging on the front tree and it’s been seven weeks since the giant caterpillar morphed into it; way overdue from what I checked online to be at this stage. Why is the moth not emerging? Is the constant rain stunting its metamorphosis? Is it even still alive and okay? I dare not climb up the ladder to check because it’s way too high. Whatever it is, looks like we will miss the moth emerging from the cocoon if it does decide to come out during our time away.

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It’s nice in here, I’m not ready for the world

Silly #2: my 1000 and more Days trek on the Daily Bonus for Candy Crush Soda on the retired iPhone5S will be broken because I am not bringing the phone along. And will the iPhone XR and iPad Mini have the trek broken too being in different time zones? I told myself I should stop this obsession but I just can’t shake it off. Silly.

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Day 1016 for the iPhone5S and Day 1023 for both the iPad Mini and iPhone XR

Silly #3: will Rooney, official pet number one miss us?

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Should I chew on it or not? Hmm…

Silly worries aside, there are some happy reasons too…

Happy #1: the pineapple in the garden. It’s been more than two years that hubby’s been taking care of it, and thank goodness it decided to ripen on time before we leave. Harvested last Friday, the fruit of labor and love weighed a whopping two kilos! Needless to say, the juicy and home-grown pineapple was thoroughly enjoyed.

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Juiciest pineapple ever!

Happy #2: the constant rain seems to be good for the habanero plant for it has thrived well and we had a bumper harvest. So much chillies! I ate a little on Wednesday night and oh my goodness, almost died from the fiery burn. This batch is super duper spicy.

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The spicy level of the reds win hands down over the greens

Happy #3: we will be meeting up with M2 in Amsterdam! Yes, our baby will fly tomorrow from Ireland to meet us at Schiphol. And she will miss a few days of Summer classes which unfortunately can’t be helped. I feel it’s important for her to attend her only sister’s Commencement ceremony, hence the plan as such.

Happy #4: we will finally be seeing M1. The last time the family unit was complete was when she came back for Christmas in 2017, so that’s like a year and a half since we last saw our firstborn in person. The weekly Skype video sessions do not count. Can’t wait. A 12 hours and 40 minutes flight for the first leg, then a four-hour transit before the second leg of 10 hours and 17 minutes flight (hopefully no delays) before the family will be whole again. Yay!!!

I guess with the happy reasons outweighing the silly ones, I shouldn’t be too silly and just be happy.

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Have Blundstone Will Travel

10 Jun

I am excited that my Blundstone boots, after being fitted with new soles, will finally be put to good use from tomorrow onwards. We are flying over to the US for M1’s Commencement ceremony as she has completed her undergraduate studies.

Initially when I was doing my research for flights, I wanted to fly Eva Air because of the Hello Kitty-themed aircrafts. Heheheh… I know it’s kinda silly for a dinosaur like me but hey, Hello Kitty IS cute.

But I couldn’t find suitable connecting flights to our final destination upon arrival at LAX, SFO or even SEA. The transit options are all too short to clear immigrations. Oh well, forget Hello Kitty then.

So we are going with KLM via Amsterdam’s Airport Schiphol with a four-hour transit before the next leg directly into PDX which works out perfectly. Stay with me for the next two weeks plus for our exciting journey to the Pacific Northwest!

And yesterday I managed to schedule another body massage at the spa, a last minute little indulgence before flying. This time unlike the last time with no choice at all, I had the granny undies or G-string to choose before the session. I took the G-string thinking since I had to strip down to my bones to be worked on, I might as well wear something without hindrance to the new masseur for her to do her job.

And it was a job well done for she worked out the kinks especially on the legs and feet, in time for me to be ready for the trip!

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Visiting Harvard, Part 2

16 Apr

After Saturday’s game at Harvard Golf & Country Club, we played at Darulaman Golf & Country Club the next day as it was closer to the house. That morning’s sunrise wasn’t as vibrant as the previous morning.

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However, it wasn’t like Harvard with no other flights in sight. We were sandwiched between two noisy and irritating flights. The course layout was very tight with some tee boxes of each hole ahead situated in close proximity to the green of the hole before. So what happened ahead or behind basically could be heard clearly and loudly.

Several times the flight in front, at their tee box, group-laughed and whooped loudly when a tee-off launched errantly towards the line of trees at the side (instead of the fairway) whilst I was addressing my ball to putt. Hrmph.

This wasn’t the only antics we had to deal with. The group behind… They too, would group-laugh and whoop loudly too when they missed their putts whilst I was addressing my ball to tee-off. Double hrmph… It’s a whole new experience as you’d never know what you will encounter on the golf course. Those pesky flies yesterday were nothing in comparison.

I wouldn’t mind if the flight behind us drove a bad wayward tee-off, which they did, borrowing our side of the fairway (told you the layout’s tight) as we approached for our second shot but all these noises and disturbances are really quite unnecessary. Perhaps they don’t realize how loud they were. Sigh… golf etiquette shouldn’t just be limited to the flight one is in but for the surrounding too.

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Flat, wide and dry

The grounds at Darulaman are hard and dry too just like Harvard. Both games, I found myself using my Cleveland Launcher 5-wood (I removed the Maruman 3-wood) and Cleveland 3-hybrid more than the long irons, and gained much yardage as the ball could bounce and run. Nice.

Despite the disturbances and pace, we managed to finish our game in a little over fours hours; the golf course being a buggy-on-course helped. After lunch, by 1.30pm the weekend escapade was over and we were on our back to KL.

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Visiting Harvard

15 Apr

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Last Friday, hubby decided we should go see his parents back at his hometown up North, so we did. An impromptu escapade of sorts, away from the recent design project stress. The parents are fine and we had an enjoyable weekend. We played two rounds of golf.

Saturday morning, we checked out Harvard Golf & Country Club, the lesser known name from its counterpart of a more famous establishment, about a 30-minutes drive from the house. The morning sunrise was spectacular with the drive pleasant and unhurried.

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We had the golf course all to ourselves and what an outing it was.

The sprinklers welcomed us when we walked to the tee box, the birds chirped and serenaded us as our gallery and pesky flies buzzed at my ears like hecklers. Interesting. The best part, no other golfing human in sight. Our little private playground.

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Flat and dry

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Dry and flat

How was the condition of the place? It wasn’t the best due to the dry weather. The grounds were parched and hard, so the fairways and greens were hardly fair and green but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Even a bad topped shot was a good shot as the ball ran and bounced to gain yardage. And there were several instances this occurred because the ground was flat and dry and just so hard. If we had attempted to take divot with our shots, there’s bound to be injury or recurrence of old injuries. We finished the game in slightly under four hours.

All in all, I think we would give Harvard Golf & Country Club another chance and come back to play again.

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900 Days

8 Feb

In the midst of celebrating and enjoying Chinese New Year, I was obsessing to achieve my milestone for Candy Crush Soda! The last four days, without fail I synced my iPad Mini to my iPhone5S, using the Personal Hotspot setting for connection to get the Daily Bonus. If this isn’t being obsessive, I don’t know what is.

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Today I hit Day 900! I am trying to convince myself once I hit the thousand mark, I will stop. I think.

I don’t know…

Yesterday our journey home took six hours, which was not too bad considering I was prepared for a ten-hour drive, unsure of the traffic condition before we started. After three hours on the road, there was a stretch that took longer than necessary but thankfully, the drive home was quite stress-free.

We packed lunch to eat in the car so we don’t have to stop and only did one stop for a toilet break.

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You see nothing but paddy fields in the first stretch of the journey

After a good night’s rest, we are back to work today, otherwise the holiday long break is too long and work will pile up come Monday. Better to clear some now and so that the weekend is more enjoyable with gastronomic gatherings with friends and family. And of course, continue on with the next pursuit for the 1000 Days milestone.

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A Tradition of Sorts

7 Feb

We played two rounds of golf this trip. On Monday, we had our golf game and it’s becoming a tradition of sorts to play golf whenever we are back in hubby’s hometown for the Reunion Dinner.

The obligatory selfie before tee off!

My game is improving but I can also feel the pain in the left wrist upon impact in certain situations. The fairways of this golf course are very hard and dry, so I had to constantly adjust to avoid injuring myself again.

Then after the family obligations for the First Day, we played another round on the Second Day of Chinese New Year. This time, I had an even better score, having played on Monday and understanding the course conditions better. We had the golf course all to ourselves and in four hours, completed our leisurely paced game. Enjoyable morning.

Darulaman Golf Club

The Second Day ended with more family time and food, with lunch at the Aunt’s and dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Burp!

Home-cooked spread! So so good.

We head home today, bracing for a long journey ahead. I hope it won’t be a ten-hours drive. We shall see.

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Before the Reunion Dinner 2019

4 Feb

Last Thursday was our last day at work because Friday was a public holiday. And we left town only on Sunday morning, clocking the drive 15 minutes shy of six-hours. I would say this was not too bad despite a crawl along a stretch that lasted 20 minutes and we even had a quick half-hour lunch stop.

The horrid crawl

A flavorful Nasi Kerabu at the Agromall

And this morning, we actually managed to play a round of golf before the Reunion Dinner tonight.

For us, this year’s Reunion Dinner is simply just another dinner with the family. Both our girls are not here for the first time and it feels funny without them. This is something we both have to get used to. Who knows? Maybe M1 will be back for the next Dinner? But M2 certainly won’t for the next few years… Sniffle.

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