Steamboat Buffet At "Carry On"

Last month, Wilson's mother AL sent me a short message to ask if I could bring them out this month to celebrate Wilson's birthday. After fixing the dates according to our availabilities, last Saturday afternoon at 4, I drove towards Bukit Baru to visit Saratha while standing by for AL who was on duty at Giant hypermarket at Bukit Beruang.

AL telephoned me to pick her at 6.30pm as she thought she would have finished her day. But after I had stood at the entrance for more than forty minutes, she still did not turn up without notice. I became restless and finally called her to know her whereabouts, only to learn that she had been held up by her work. Thinking of myself who neither needed to work on Saturdays nor at late hours, I felt guilty to be impatient with a mother who had to work hard physically, despite her health conditions, to earn her living and to support her son financially at the care home.

When AL was finally in my car, we went to Bukit Baru again to fetch Wilson, for he was allowed to be taken out by his mother only. Next, we were discussing the venue for dinner. As AL knew Wilson loved to eat prawns, she wanted to treat him a steamboat buffet. The nearest place was supposed to be an open-air restaurant next to the "New Heaven and Earth" food court at Malim. I had been there with Edidav in February 2007 but it was closed down and replaced by a car park.

The other option was "Carry On Barbecue & Steamboat Restaurant" at Melaka Raya which was on the other side of the city. As I had promised to be the driver, my job was to fulfill my passengers' request. AL said she had gone to that restaurant once with Wilson when he was two, three years old. Only then I realized that this restaurant which I had been introduced to by YT's friend two years ago had such a long history.

Not remembering the exact address, we had to rely on the indications of AL's friend to find out our destination. It was near a former shopping complex. The restaurant was on the first floor.

Crowded with customers, the dining room was also filled with steam and smoke. A bright yellow gas tank under each table was the least aesthetic but the most important equipment.

We were given a table close to the buffet which offered a wide variety of meat balls and fish balls. In addition, we could serve by ourselves unlimited prawns, seaweed, dried vermicelli, noodles, mushrooms, vegetables, pieces of watermelon, pineapple, tea or soft drink. Compared to the steamboat dinner at my brother's house, I had five times the choice of food!

On the first round of our servings, I picked one item from each of my selections of processed food and a few prawns. It was a bit strange to see orange and apple green colours on the meat.

AL and Wilson were busier to take chili sauces, fried garlic and onion, margarine, drinks and more dishes for all of us to share.

An employee started the fire for us and poured soup into our pot. While it was being boiled, we placed margarine balls onto the aluminium paper surrounding the hot pot. There were two ways to cook our food: either in water or in oil. We dumped seaweed, mushrooms and vegetables into the soup and grilled the meat and prawns.

AL told me that her whole family loved steamboat. In my family, I knew that Dad, Seng and myself were not great fans of soupy food and fish balls. Besides, I was not hungry as I had eaten two pieces of cake earlier at Saratha's house. However, it was a pleasure to see my two companions enjoying their every mouthful of food.

AL who had spent a lot of energy at work and Wilson who was growing in bigger size were still not satisfied after a few rounds of serving at the buffet. I just had to remain seated since they took more food to cook and kept adding into my plate and bowl. The caring mother patiently removed the small prawn shells for her son who easily swallowed more than half of a small mountain of his favorite seafood.

Teenagers at another table started to sing a birthday song loudly to one of their friends. AL and I also sang the same song to Wilson in a much lower voice. We had not bought any cake because of the abundance of food at the restaurant. One of these days, we would try to organize another gathering to have our desserts together.

Wilson was pleased with this outing. AL was specially happy that she could spend time with Wilson whom she was able to visit only once a week at the care home due to her job. I was also glad to provide them with transport and accommodation.

The sequel of this dinner rich in calories was that all of us felt our bodies so warm in the middle of the night that we shifted from our beds to sleep on the cold tile floor in our respective rooms!

Ten Days' Visitation

I had been cold-hearted with cats for years, until Ivy walked into my life.

Other cats usually intruded my house to rest, to use the garden as their public toilets, to look for fish bones or fat that I had thrown at a particular place for them, or to try to steal food that I had carelessly left uncovered.

This kitten first appeared at the backyard on a Friday and tried to get my attention by mewing. With her innocent eyes, tiny frame and long fluffy tail, she looked too cute to be ignored.

But since I had made up my mind not to keep any pets at home, I prevented her from entering the dining room. But she often successfully found an opportunity to slip into it.

She was seeking a shelter, and most of all, love.

Whenever she saw me at the wet kitchen, she would approach me and passionately rub her head against my feet. Conscious about the hygiene, I felt so irritated to have any physical contact with a street animal that I kicked her off. Sometimes discouraged for awhile, she would soon forget about my unkind act and continue to show her friendship to me. At night, she slept on the slippers on the shoe rack outside.

Once I tried to let her follow me to other roads, expecting her to go astray. But she found her way back to my house which offered no warm welcome. I even planned to leave her at Tanjung Bidara. But VC dissuaded me.

I finally gave up my attempts to abandon her. Instead, I let VC to give her some milk which she strangely did not even touch with her tongue. Only later VC explained to me that sick cats were generally not active. This kitten was lack of appetite probably because of her eyes which were always filled with smelly yellow liquid. When it was dry, the cat could hardly open her eyes. Only when she rubbed it away with her front legs, she had a better sight.

I remembered a lovely cat that I had reared when I was small bore the same characteristics. Compassion arouse in my heart and I began to loose my boundaries. One rainy morning, the skinny cat must be feeling very cold that she insisted to squeeze her body into the house and stayed motionless next to the dustbin. This time, I decided not to chase her out. Nevertheless, I still did not allow her to move further inside the house and made sure she was out at night.

After one week of her appearance, I was much more tolerant with her rubbing. We started to call her Ivy. A piece of cloth was specially put on the shoe rack so that she would have more warmth when sleeping on it. The ninth day of her presence, she was watching me under my car while I was cutting grass. I photographed her for the first time.

Ivy was definitely underweight. But she could hardly finish half of any food we placed in front of her. She became so uninterested in eating that even cat food that VC purposely bought for her did not stimulate her appetite. It ended up in the stomachs of other lucky bigger and fatter cats who passed by.

We thought of bringing her to an animals' clinic but we had no idea if there was one nearby. I used to be acquainted with two veterinarian friends. Unfortunately they were no longer in Melaka.

The tenth day of her visit, a Sunday afternoon after I came back from church, I took the initiative to caress her and clean her dirty eyes with tissue paper. She looked fine despite her frail body. I tried to feed her with a hot dog but she just refused to eat. So, I still cut a small piece and left on the shoe rack where I saw her for the last time.

The next morning, she disappeared. The meat was neither there. I optimistically thought she had just gone to neighbours' houses and would come back later. Up to today, there is no sign of her.

It was when I was ready to give my love to Ivy that she left me. Life is like that sometimes, isn't it?

If you see this cat somewhere, please tell her that I wait for her to come back.

Agape Care Centre

As my workload was gradually shifted from the Alor Gajah campus to the city campus, I had been more present in Melaka town since last year. As God was blessing me with few teaching hours, I thought of using my free time to bless others. Carol remembered my offer to help when the non-governmental organization (NGO) she was involved in was looking for Mandarin-speaking volunteers.

A few weeks ago, I was attending an IT course when my cell phone rang. So I went out from the computer room to answer. When I came back, I was all smiles. KC assumed that it must be from a guy. After I told her the call was from a Christian lady who needed my help to look after children, she could not understand why I was so happy about it. To me, the great joy was that God was opening doors for me to serve another community.

During my MLM class two weeks ago, I confirmed with Carol and Diana to give a hand regularly at the care centre. They especially needed someone on Mondays between 5.30pm-7pm. As my classes ended at 4.30pm, it was perfect for both parties. So last Monday afternoon after I had dismissed my class, I took my time to explore the Tengkera area for my destination. Unlike the Calvary Care Home which is a corner house, Agape Care Centre occupies a middle shop unit.

At the office on the first floor, I met three full-time employees: Siew Hong who had contacted me previously to give directions to the location, Mr Pang and Diana. SH led me to the second floor where I saw several children from five to thirteen years old were either in the living room

or in one of the small rooms.

My task was as simple as to keep an eye at them while their parents, all single mothers, were having devotion with a Christian support group on the ground floor.

I had never really handled children of this age besides my nephew and niece. What did they expect a new "teacher" to do with them at that period of time where the learning mood was generally low?

Gathering them to give a group tuition or to tell them Bible stories?

The answer was : I just let them do their own activities as long as they did not fight or quarrel.

To get myself familiar with the children one by one, I replaced the eldest boy Johanan to play "Carrom" with MQ. The objective of the game that I was just initiated to was to shoot disks into the four corner holes of the board. My fingers were already aching after flicking the heavy "striker" for ten minutes!

Later I also tried to talk to MQ's quiet younger sister who was also hanging around alone with her toys.

It was no surprise that I lost to MQ who was a much better player. So we all put back the stuff and stayed in the living room where the two girls had finished watching the movie "Lu Bing Hua" on DVD. They took guitars from above the book rack and started pulling the strings.

I thought of my conversation during lunch earlier with Vince about his failed inspiration to learn playing the guitar. If he were there, he might be determined again to master this musical instrument to lead this girl band...

When the adults' devotion was over, I was invited to have dinner with them and the children. Some sisters had prepared porridge and several appetizing accompanying dishes voluntarily so that we could sit together to enjoy the ready meal and continue our fellowship instead of rushing back to cook. That was their loving way to bless others.

We care, because of agape.

Lunch With My Blog Buddy

Last Monday, I asked Vince if he would like to join me for lunch at "Taiwan Mee". The city campus where I had been working was just one road away from the computer company where he had been doing his internship. But the restaurant we went was quite a long walking distance from our meeting point in front of the HSBC. As Vince was in a white shirt and I in black clothes, we were like a zebra crossing busy roads under the hot sun.

I forgot who had introduced this noodles restaurant to me. Vince also knew this place. The business there was always good, especially during the peak lunch hour. When we arrived, it was full. We had to wait at the corridor while watching bowls of noodles served to other tables.

After a short while, the customers of two tables left. So we chose the one near the counter to inhale minimal cooking smell from the stove. The lady boss who spoke Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent was the best advertisement for her Taiwanese noodles.

It was the third time I met Vince.

Last April, he had discovered my blog entry about food courts at Malim. Through his blog, I realized he was sharing a similar profile with me: We were born, grew up in Batu Pahat and now like Melaka where we have been staying for more than five years!

Since then, we became blog partners, linking each other's blog sites. After I learnt he was interested in participating in events, I invited him to Calvary Life Assembly (CLA) which was not far from his place. So, after one month of exchanging information, Vince was no longer virtual. Finally he appeared with his car at Ayer Keroh to follow me to the CLA premises. It was his first experience with a Sunday service at a church. I thought he might be intimidated by the cultural shock and my long hour of sharing at lunch and thus withdraw himself from my social network. On the opposite, he still visited my blog and dropped comments occasionally, though he did not speak much in person.

So now I had one more activity partner in Melaka. One of my activities was to have these mouth-watering pork rib noodles when I was in town. As part-time bloggers, we both took out our cameras to take pictures!

I used to roast pork ribs with oven when I was in France where pork was sold at all the supermarkets. In Melaka, I had not prepared this dish for years due to the inconvenience to get the meat. So, when I went to "Taiwan Mee" I liked to order the pork rib noodles rather than the beef soup noodles which were also very tasty. The pork ribs had been marinated with sauces. The sambal enhanced the flavour of the deep fried meat. We wished there were more pieces in our bowls...

I had a two-hour break between my morning and afternoon classes while Vince had about one hour's lunch break like most other working people who left the restaurant once they had finished eating.

So the blog-buddies-zebra crossed the busy roads again to go back to their respective working places.

Thanks for your company, Vince!

Melaka: Tanjung Bidara III

Later, VC admitted to me that while I was saying the prayer, he was still so worried about the toxin that he felt his body temperature continued to reduce. And he found my prayer long!

We usually took turns to take our showers. I suggested to VC that he went in first while I held our things outside. But he preferred that I entered before him. When I came out, he was at a snack stall nearby. He had gone to look for medical oil and the owners just generously gave him some, told him not to let his body have contact with water and advised him to eat "tapai" (a kind of fermented rice) to warm up his body. Before them, another old man had also recommended VC to drink some beer for the same reason.

I was relieved that VC had not taken his shower earlier. But he still went into the shower rooms to change into dry clothes. There he also showed his stung feet to the keeper. This Malay old man seemed to have a lot of experience with victims of jellyfish stings there. He was already keeping a bottle of vinegar under his desk to pour out a little onto VC's feet. When VC asked him whether he should go to the clinic, the keeper reassured that it was not necessary. This kind man also did not want to make VC pay 50 cents to use the shower rooms. But VC insisted to leave him the money.

So we left Tanjung Bidara with the memory of the jellyfish stings. We thanked God for His healing and the right advice from the right people. Finally we did not consult a doctor. Instead, we happily shared a can of beer and a can of shandy.

And I also thank God that until now, VC had not been transformed into Jellyfishman to follow the steps of Spiderman.

Melaka: Tanjung Bidara II

About five years ago, I followed SL to a swimming pool inside a private house in Malim where she had taken swimming lessons. But I never made up my mind to sign up for the course. So now I was only capable of moving my body from one place to another by stretching my arms and kicking my legs. Knowing my limits, I stayed close to the beach where my feet were still touching the sand. VC, who had grown up near a river and earned swimming skill naturally on his own, was further. He boasted to swim with any styles and float on the water at any positions.

After awhile, VC felt a sharp pain on his arm. I immediately remembered Ps Albert's daughter Sarah had been stung by jellyfish there in early June. But as VC assured me that it might be due to the contact of salty water with an old wound somewhere, we just remained in the water.

We were not wearing watches. After some time, we decided that in another five minutes we would prepare to go home. VC cheerfully shouted, "swimming!" and swam further. In less that one minute, he suddenly bounced out from the water with a twisted face. Both his feet had been electrified by something.

Actually earlier, we had seen an ambulance on the other side of the jetty. I was wondering if an accident had occurred. Since nobody approached us to give a warning, we were not aware of any danger. Now my intuition told me that it was related to jellyfish attacks.

VC was in a great pain, so we quickly took our things and walked towards the public shower rooms. We asked some ladies who were sitting near the jetty about the ambulance and learned that staff of the nearby clinic had come to give first aid to swimmers stung by jellyfish!

Since both VC and I had no experience with the stings, we sought advice from them.

A grandma said, "It's toxic. Make sure to keep your stomach always warm so that the toxin won't harm it."

A young lady added, "If serious, it might be fatal."

VC almost fainted when he heard that comment.

The grandma stopped her. "Don't frighten them," Then she looked at us. "You'd better go to the clinic to get treatment."

We thanked them and went on to the shower room. Weakened by the scare and worry, VC felt his whole body was in a lower temperature. I held his cold hand and said, "The person we should seek now is Jesus. Let's pray..."

Melaka: Tanjung Bidara I

We were supposed to take the new keys for our offices and shift our things from the temporary storeroom two weekends ago according to the internal email. Friday afternoon, there was still no sign that our block would be ready on time for the new semester which was going to start on Monday.

By Sunday early afternoon, the clerks could not be reached by telephone. In order not to have a wasted trip, I also planned an outing to the beach with VC after our stop in Lendu. So when I was told by the clerks that our doors had not even been fixed, I left the campus and drove towards Masjid Tanah.

I remember my colleague aka former housemate SL told me that when she felt sad, she used to go all the way to Tanjung Bidara alone with her Proton Iswara to weep in front of the sea. Now she has a Kia Spectra which consumes much more petrol, she no longer does that. Having to drive twenty minutes to a place just to shed tears, I would probably cry even more in my car! Only for the sake of my friends and family members, I am willing to take the steering wheel to bring them to the beach. Otherwise, I definitely prefer the forests or mountains.

Tanjung Bidara,

35 km north of Melaka town, is one of the popular beaches. As the weather that day was quite good, it was a little bit crowded,

especially near the jetty.

So we chose the quieter side which was more suitable for fishing,

dating,

or simply having peace of mind.

Before we spent any energy, VC was claiming his snacks. So we ate the fried tomyam meehoon that I had prepared and the bananas that he had bought on the way. Then we just sat on the brownish sand to rest instead of building castles like what we had done the previous times.

At the age of five, I accidentally fell into the drain full of water in front of my house after spitting out chewing gum. My brothers had a hard time to pull me out. Maybe since then, I never truly enjoyed being immersed in the water, whether in a bathtub, a swimming pool or in the sea.

Even when I saw the turquoise water at Pulau Perhentian or the cristal blue water at Pulau Langkawi, I was not excited to jump into it, let alone the unattractive sea colour of Tanjung Bidara.

But sitting there two whole hours would be no fun either. So, ten minutes later I joined VC who was already like a fish in the water.

Japan: Bye-bye! Yuri

My dear Yuri,

While you were still playing with your train,

we had already left with the plane.

Even though you had put on your pants to look for us at the neighbours' house,

we were nowhere to be found.

You might be wondering,

"Where are Ah Ma, Da Bo and Da Da Gu?".

But after a few minutes,

you would forget about us

as long as you had your toys with you.

And you knew we were going to meet again.

So, even though I failed to turn you into a spiderbaby,

which I had successfully done with other children,

I still have the future years ahead to train the smarter you. But I will not have many years left to carry the heavier you...

Japan: Last Dinner At "Murasaki"

For our last dinner in Japan, Emi suggested "Murasaki". She used to hang out with friends at another branch during her university times.

We walked along a corridor

to get to our private dining room.

The place reminded me of a tea house in Batu Pahat where I had spent afternoons chatting with my secondary school mates many years ago.

All the items were displayed on the long menu.

After more than ten days of burdening my stomach with big individual bowls of rice and "ramen", it was just nice to have small portions of snacks to be shared among us.

Next to our room was probably a group of typical Japanese male employees who were gathering after work. Not only we could hear their loud talk, we could also smell the cigarettes. As "Murasaki" also served alcoholic beverages, these guys were also drinking no doubt.

We had not visited many tourist spots but had tried a lot of restaurants. Each restaurant allowed me to know the Japanese culture better.

Our stay in Japan came to and end with this dinner.

Next year, will we gather again somewhere?