Tag Archives: holiday traffic

Short Excursions, Part 3

11 Jul

The short excursion plan continued over the weekend, but this was a little more than a short drive outstation. We decided to visit hubby’s parents up North.

The weekend was yet another festive holiday, and with Monday being a replacement holiday, traffic would be heavy. So, we left on Friday instead of Saturday, which turned out well for traffic that morning was not too bad.

As always, we detoured to Ipoh for lunch. But this time, we opted for something else instead of the usual Chicken Rice and beansprouts that Ipoh is famed for, and it was a pleasant change. Although our Nasi Ganja portion was not excessive, it was just enough for us. I have to say the coffee was excellent.

Nasi Ganja and iced black coffee
Curry noodles and Nasi Lemak for breakfast

For once, we did not play golf and just savored food that was under our radar previously. We even drove to the north-most state, Perlis, which I have never been to in my whole life. But sadly, there was nothing much to see there.

My first time visiting Perlis
A quick hello and goodbye

The weekend came and passed quickly. All too soon, it was time to return. The drive home was equally pleasant, without traffic jams on the highway. I’m glad we made the trip to see the folks who are well.

Love the green of the padi fields

Twelve Hours Later

26 Jun

Last week, we intended to leave town on Friday morning but there was a hitch. A big hitch. I had mention we will arrive when we arrive but little did I know it would be 12 hours later that we began our journey…

It all started from that last minute publication design project that I was working on. The original deadline of Monday set by the client was not met (not because of me but them). Then it got pushed to Wednesday but the client still could not finalize the editorial. What happened thereafter was just a designer’s nightmare. It’s been a long time since I have been subjected to such a situation.

After being informed that Wednesday night’s handover to me was good to be worked on, a Friday deadline was given and it couldn’t budge. Not even an inch. So I basically had only a day (Thursday) to work on the new stuff. One day to redesign what I had done earlier because there’s so much more information! The design ended up being revamped and expanded from the initial 60-pager to 80-pages. My team helped wherever possible.

And as if the situation wasn’t stressful enough, things were still under edits that Friday morning and more new materials to include came after the redesign was done! Can you believe it? Leaving town that morning was not an option because I don’t think I can leave with a peace of mind if this wasn’t completed properly. Thank goodness we were driving instead of flying.

To cut a long story short, after a flurry of phone calls on Friday morning, the client came over, at 3.00pm and not earlier unfortunately. They sat with me and together, we finalized all the details of the publication. It was 6.00pm when we eventually completed the task in hand. What a day Friday turned out to be!

Twelve hours later (9.00pm) from our intended time of departure, we started our journey. Traffic was heavy at certain stretches but thankfully not bumper to bumper due to the holiday break and took the usual time because of the distance. It was 2.40am when we finally arrived at the grandparents’ home up north.

Today we head back home and hopefully traffic will be kind. All in all, it was a good break despite the unexpected circumstances to the start of it.