AFTER THE MANGO SEASON ...

Durian lovers will venture to wherever these lovely spiky fruits can be found

There is no other way to get the best taste except with the 

finale of finger-licking good.

If opening the fruit is an issue...just get the seller to do it for you.

Other fruits are coming soon....rambutans, cempedak, mangosteens...

Still green...maybe in 3 to 4 weeks time...

9-10 June 2015 Hatyai Trip

at 33 Buffet Restaurant, for lunch at Lee Garden Plaza. Food is nothing to shout about. But we really filled up our empty tummies after a long train journey from Alor Star. 

We set off at 7.56 am sharp, which was such  a surprise considering we were taking the KTM. Arriving at Padang Besar Railway Station after an-hour of comfortable train ride and after clearing both immigration without hassle, we had to wait almost 2 hours for the Thai  train engine to arrive to take the KTM coaches into Hatyai. KTM engines are not allowed into Thailand. We arrived at 12+ after an hour's journey.

at our hotel

outside the hotel

We had delicious herbal beef koey-teow for dinner. The bowl with the egg is pork noodle soup - also very tasty. There was concentrated markisa juice in the small round bottles and mango juice for drinks.

The next morning we had dim sum of course!

Waiting to checkout the next day.

The 2D1N trip went well except for the Hatyai-Padang Besar portion of our return train journey. We were scammed and had no train seats for the one-hour journey. We were not the only ones. There were about 20+ people who were also in the same boat. We had to stand ALL the way. I believe this scam is run by KTM northern station staff working in cahoots with their Hatyai counterparts. So travellers BEWARE. There is no such thing as "free-seating" on the KTM Hatyai-Padang Besar train coaches.

Revisiting SYLVANITE

Having some time to spare
for blogging once again. I'm going to start again by focusing on myblogspot namesake... SYLVANITE
1. Sylvanite is a mineral

2. Sylvanite was first found in Transylvania (modern day Romania)

3. Sylvanite is silver gold tellurium

4.  Sylvanite are beautiful prisms and crystals

5.  Sylvanite was a gold mining camp in Hidalgo, New Mexico

6.  Sylvanite is a small town in Montana -population 108 in 2014

7. Sylvanite is a modern cabin at Mountain sky Lodge, Nevada

8.  Sylvanite is used in glass tile

9.  Sylvanite School - rural school in Troy, Montana - closed

The last 12 months

Has it really been 12 months since I last posted a blog? Time and tide really waits for no man...or woman. How time flies... Time lost can never be regained...ALL these sayings... cliche-ick but so..ooo true.
One of the nice things about posting on a blog as compared to journalling in a diary is that there are pictures/photos one can look at and reminisce.
I think I'll take a few moments to record some events in the first half of 2012 so that I can revisit in 2013.

I managed to persuade hubby to take a non-working holiday. How can a holiday be a working one you may ask? JC, my hubby, has always blended a camp into his 'holidays' where he will be a camp-officer or a camp-participant. We may be going off somewhere but we will not be doing nothing 'worthwhile' so he says. To my way of thinking being a camp-officer or a camp-participant involves work of one sort or other. So those holidays are what I call 'working holidays'. This year I sort of gave him not much choice...signed up for a 10-day trip to Turkey...arranged everything and presented him with a fait accompli. So we enjoyed our non-working holiday...lodgings, food, transport- all taken care of by others...no talks to give, no talks to attend, no workshops,...no work period for 10 days.
This year also sees my son, JCTC, preparing for PMR. I know this exam is not a BIG deal considering that he will automatically proceed to Form 4 next year. However, I'm still making sure that he takes it seriously and so I make him sit with me 3 to 4 nights a week for reading-revising-and practice. I just think that this is necessary so that it will instill in him the habit of consistent studying in preparation for the number of major exams ahead of him in upper secondary school, pre-uni and university life. I try not to put too much pressure and stress on him but neither do I think he should adopt a too laid-back approach to PMR. I am not demanding straight As from him. However I impress on him that he must set targets and then do as well as he can. We'll wait and see how things turn out.
I had a couple of scares this year as well. My brother LCF and sister-in-law BR both discovered they had cancer within months of each other. After stringent chemo treatments resulting in loss of taste-senses and numbness of extremeties...both are now in remission. It has really been trying times but it has also drawn the different branches of our family closer together as we increased our smses, emails, phone calls and visits to stay in touch with progress reports.

On a final note, our mango tree is flourishing in blooms this year after the drastic pruning we gave it last year. Our hope is all these blooms will translate into sweet mangoes.

Counting Good days

Life normally passes us by and we do not even notice. Is it July 2011 already? How have all the other days passed so quickly?

I felt a need to write something on my blog today because it is one of those 'good' days worth recording. Well, today is my hubby's 55th birthday. It has been many, many years since his first heart attack and subsequent triple by-pass. I'm thankful that he is in reasonably good health. He still looks forward to his twice a week badminton. Only yeaterday, he climbed our mango tree to prune it after the last fruiting.

So today we celebrated his birthday as a family.

It is just a simple meal, followed by cake and durians. I think my hubby is happy that we can celebrate thus.

Another thing that made this a 'good' day is that some months ago, my microwave-convection oven went bonkers. First the microwave stopped functioning. We were informed that repairing the microwave was not worth it. Best to get a new one since nowadays they don't cost much. The unit we have cost us about 2500RM at that time. So off we went to get a microwave for slightly more than 300RM. The convection function was still running well enough to allow me to do all my bakings. Then about 2 months ago my pizzas refused to cook in the convection oven though all lights were on. I was left with uncooked pizzas. The next day we went off to get a new convection oven. This was a rather big one but nowadays the price of electronic stuff is comparatively so low. We were going to sell the old microwave-convection oven to the recycling-collector. None turned up for some days when usually so many of them would be touring the housing area with their vans and loud-speakers. So, stuck with that bulky unit on the porch, I decided to send it to that Sharp shop at Kompleks Kancut. I was told that they may be able to get the convection function working but if anything is wrong with the microwave megatron it would not be worthwhile to repair the microwave function. Okay, I'll get it done if cost is reasonable. No harm having a stand-by convection oven. If nothing can be done or it's too expensive, I'll just leave it there at the shop and they can do what they like with it. In that way I got that unit off my porch.

To cut a long story short, this morning I received a call from Mr Kang, the Sharp shop-owner, telling me that the microwave, convection, grill and combination functions of my unit are all functioning properly again. The cost? 150RM. Wonderful. Now in my kitchen, I've got my microwave-convection-grill-combi oven, a fairly new microwave oven and a new dual-rack convection oven. Hah...I can run a bakery if I want to.

Today, I still went out to buy the birthday cake for my hubby ! Ironically? That's what 'good' days are all about. I can bake a cake if I want to ... but I don't have to if I don't want to. The choice is mine.

And that is what I've enjoyed most since retiring from being a government-employed school teacher. I have the freedom to choose what I want to do with my time.

Such an event-filled year

2010 is coming to a close in a few more weeks. In all it will be to me a year to remember. My son Jonathan entered Secondary school. Like parents all over the country/world, we vacilated about where to enrol him. Finally we enrolled him in the same school where his father was teaching. We decided that though school does contribute a part to his character development, we the parents have the greater influence and responsibility in his overall development , be it his character or his education. I'm glad to see him happily settled in his school. Having a very laid-back personality his school also suits him. I doubt he'll enjoy a classroom filled with competitive bookworms. Well, I finally went to USA this year and visited my aunty in michigan as well. The short trip to Cambodia with my family and TCF was also an interesting break. So was the 6-day prayer exposure trip to Korea. After a long draught this year is also a year of weddings of the church youths who have all grown up - Emily, Kin Onn, Kin Hup. And a fiftieth wedding anniversary in December! Next year we'll see some more weddings... This is a year of great distress for many good friends who were affected by the terrible floods. Thankfully, though there was loss of property-some irreplacable I'm sure, there was no loss of lives among those we know. A few friends returned home to the Lord. They'll be missed. Next year...what will it bring ?

This new year

Well we are now in 2010. I'm enjoying settling down into retirement. I'm relaxed. Not in the slightest bit harassed. This is when a being a retired civil servant has its benefits. Having a monthly income despite not holding a salaried position is such an unbelievable blessing. It gives one a great deal more freedom to do what one wants, when one wants. No computer-generated timetable to abide by. Of course one has other responsibilities.