RACONTEUR-ESQUE SCRIBBLINGS

The finish line of 2009 is just slightly visible over the horizon as we all hover towards it in slow motion, nanosecond by nanosecond. And as the particular second that marks the transition from 2009 to 2010 looms nearer, most of us reach a point where we need to take a minute or two, gather our thoughts and reflect upon the year gone by, and form a sort of closure with the year, like a final handshake or a goodbye hug of sorts. And so we begin the Unfinished Business' traditional journey of analysing and scrutinising the year that was, 2009. It has been an amusing year to say the least (and once again for the lack of a better word - I should probably invest in a thesaurus for 2010 if I ever want to move forward in writing, hahaha) although in last minute desperation last year I had written a letter to 2009 asking her to be nice (why was 2009 female? - I have no idea) and amusing is not too far off. Reflection upon the year the last few days made me realise that despite the nu...

I'm currently plotting a plan to conquer the world, so I can't say much.. but I figured this picture might be able to say the thousand words pictures are supposedly supposed to say... Click to enlarge Note: Picture was taken while walking along the streets of KL.

You could say it all started with an advertisement they put on TV somewhere around after 7pm every day without fail which used to make me and my sister look at each other and exclaim... "we should go!" which we will then forget about until the next day. It was also probably the fact that that particular weekend (along with a few others this month) was a long one and the fact that our cousins (also sisters) were on a short break from the crazy and exciting world of being educated so that they can someday join in the bandwagon of disgruntled working adults. And that is how we ended up at the Leonardo da Vinci: The Genius exhibition at the National Science Centre that Sunday. The exhibition displayed aspects of Leonardo's life and achievements, from reproductions of his notes in 'mirror handwriting', his inventions - some which we were allowed to touch, his drawings of the human anatomy, his works of art (including the much talked about Mona Lisa which has more m...

Note: This is a very delayed post. Twenty years after the rest of the world hogged the cineplex, enjoyed and expressed amusement/bemusement over the movie 2012, my sister, mom and I finally made our way through, and even then had to endure the crowds, smelly feet (or was it the carpeting?) and the general irritation associated with huge crowds. Now, I had heard too many negative remarks about the movie from friends and tried my best to remain objective about it, (which was really difficult as I had watched way too many documentaries about supervolcanoes as well and couldn't help wondering about certain things) which is why I will refrain from doing a review (I must stress once again that my reviews, if ever reviewed by someone else, will probably get a D and then I will be just sad. I know they're lousy, but I'd rather not have anyone tell me that) Instead I will attempt a point form commentary on anything that strikes my fancy. 1. John Cusack looks exactly like his s...

Ideas there were some, Words spill, but not in order, A haiku is born

Before she left, he gave her what she thought was an awkward peace sign which turned out to be him holding a small neatly folded note with his phone number on it. It took a few phone calls for us to decide to check out an intellectually stimulating exhibition in the National Science Centre that Sunday (which I will elaborate on another post - if and only if my blogging mojo remains long enough for that), but for now, the key event is what happened after that. We had foolishly not eaten before heading to the exhibition - circa 11:30 am and as a result were a bunch of famished souls by the time we headed out looking for something to eat. This was already nearing 4 pm (I could be mistaken since I used my watch on my left wrist, and did not look much at it - it's usually on the right wrist... that is when I choose to wear a watch) and we decided to brave the cruel weekend crowds for an extremely late lunch in a restaurant in one of the major shopping malls. So there we were, se...

At first there was a dream, and in the dream there were flowers... I've never been one of those people who were really big on flowers... mainly because I always thought they belonged on their respective stalks, swaying in the wind, while butterflies and bees dropped by for a spot of tea. In fact, in my 29 and 3/4 years of being alive, I've been given flowers exactly five times and all five of those happened to be crammed into about a span of five years from the time I was a first year student right up till graduation day. My final two flowers (2 red roses) were in fact the ones I received during graduation from the few friends whom I consider to be the closest to me... and as shallow and whiny as this may sound, that was the very first time I had felt somewhat downcast at the fact that I was the only person without a bouquet of flowers to take pictures with and couldn't help wondering why my parents didn't think of getting me one. I kind of remember my first flower...

Say you think you've got your life sort of figured out, with a tad bit of normalcy (depending on your definition of normal, of course) and all of a sudden one day, while you're back in your usually placid and very normal hometown, you meet a few people, some family members, some strange strangers and realise in a shocking instant that you're suddenly shouldered with the sole responsibility of saving your family and yourself from the evil clutches of a *disgruntled evil spirit. Seriously, what would you do? This movie, titled Arundhati intrigued me from the very beginning for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on. All I knew is that the snippets on TV were exciting enough and I wanted to know what happens, which I did, a few months later courtesy of my colleague who actually took the trouble to borrow it from someone else (another colleague, which actually makes it very embarrassing, but that's another story) on my behalf. I loved how the movie was set...

Sometimes there are just so many things that you want to write about, but when you actually sit down on it (or in my case, lie on a cushion) to sort out your thoughts, everything gets in the way and you're lost for words. Bummer. Anyway, I'll just keep this simple... with the simplest topic ever, music. I've been hearing a few good songs on the way to work, but could never get hold of the titles. Besides, remembering the lyrics at that time does not necessarily mean you can remember it later when you happen to have an internet connection. My sister went to the extent of recording the song on her mobile phone... we figured the words Romeo and Juliet out but couldn't get the song by searching those words. Nevertheless, I just managed to find that one song by searching for songs which had been featured on Scrubs (not exactly the easiest thing to do because I have a bad memory, bad attention span and am not exactly a big Scrubs fan - I just watch it if it's on and I h...

The card almost gave me an almost imperceptible naughty wink as the word Saturday flashed in front of my eyes after two weeks of me seeing the word Sunday emblazoned on it. The good news is I wasn't alone. Sally and I had planned to take a trip down to Seremban this weekend (we both figured it would be a nice drive on a Sunday evening) for Remy's wedding reception dinner after cancelling our plans to Ipoh at the 11th hour last week. I cannot explain how both our eyes fooled us into thinking of Sunday when it was clearly written that the dinner was supposed to be on Saturday. Nevertheless, we both missed it (I took a nap at 8:30 pm last night with the intention of finishing up my report when I got up at 11, but slept all the way through till 8 am and only found this amusing piece of news later in the day today, while Sally was online informing me about it on my FB status update) Ah, well... another tale to add for the amusement of future grandkids, but what on earth do we te...

When it comes to awesome plots, my favourite author is undeniably Neil Gaiman with his unique blend of fantasy and horror, laden with interesting twists, ideas and disturbing characters that may sometimes leave you gaping in awe. Plus, he's wickedly good-looking. I first 'discovered' him while reading Good Omens which I have read three times so far and have been hunting down his books one by one since then, not an incredibly successful task I'm afraid as his graphic novels seem to be missing hereabouts. Can't seem to figure out which of his other books I like best, though... I suppose it must be one of those 'firsts' for me to have read and watched a movie based on the book within one month of each other and this makes it much more fun. Coraline is a story about a little girl who is bored after she moves into her new house with her parents who somehow seem a bit absorbed in their work, leaving her to seek entertainment on her own. She finds a door in her h...

I have finally loaded up the whole Japan diary entry. The last count on Word was 78xx words altogether and yet I feel that it cannot describe fully all the new sights, sounds and tastes I experienced, not to mention the insanity that struck the whole lot of us. It could be that being a process engineer in the paint manufacturing sector can lead to serious damage of brain cells what with the smell of solvents wafting around and all. A few things I forgot to mention in the previous posts includes how open minded the Japanese are... coming from a country where everything is censored (this includes the cleavage you see in pictures of actresses - some of our newspapers blur the cleavage - as if people don't know what it is), and I was incredibly intrigued by the so called dirty magazines on display (despite being a woman myself), and wanted to get one, but didn't. But I do think they underestimate women... JC and I had to put up with several rather sexist remarks, which seemed to ...

October 19, 2009 Training resumes Had a long and tiresome lecture about a (banyak songeh – nearest translation I can come up with is very annoying) customer’s audit form. Their English can be incredibly confusing. Miyoshi is cold, cold and cold. The room is freezing. Went shopping at the supermarket (a 15 minute walk only, this time. We must have been exhausted yesterday) for some sweets. (I’m falling asleep in class) and ended up a while later in CK’s and Kenny’s for some Alaskan crab which CK cooked (steamed over boiling water) on one of those electric stoves they borrowed from our apartment. Why the hell is their place so warm? Tuesday, October 20, 2009 We have a new trainer in today, and a new training lesson, one of particular importance. Just realized that quite a lot of current practice needs to be revised. Now, due to a certain food restriction of mine, the chef at the dormitory has been attempting to turn me into a vegetarian. He served me a fried egg this morning...

October 18, 2009 The journey across *half of Honshu I woke up early to pack my remaining stuff and clean up the room I had seeked shelter in for the past two weeks. There was enough hair on the ground to give a doll a head full of hair. It is indeed very difficult cleaning up a room without a broom! My luggage had been couriered on Friday night, so I only had my backpack and a hand carry. This was the time I regretted my decision for lugging my laptop around. We switched trains so many times I have some difficulty remembering them. The best part though was I got to ride the Shinkansen, the ever famous bullet train (shaped like a bullet, interestingly) Somewhere in the middle of the journey, our trainer who was with us beckoned us to a back window, and pointed out Mt Fuji to us, a little speck that disappeared within a minute. I can’t say how incredibly glad I am that we actually went up Mt Fuji instead of relying on getting a peek at it from the train. Upon reaching Nagoya, we t...

Saturday, 17 October, 2009 Over 2000 metres on top of the world. So, it’s supposedly Diwali/Deepavali today, aside from the few texts I received from a few friends (too few indeed, not even from some of the usual suspects - nobody likes me! :(, but then again, I didn't send out any either) and my sister (my parents have yet to learn the fine art of texting) as well as a few of my training buddies (in person), the day was spent in the most unconventional way for what is well known as a traditional holiday with supposedly traditional activities – in my case eating and sleeping (because you would be lacking sleep the few days before as you stay awake to bake cookies and clean the house, etc) We went all the way to Mt Fuji!! As I might have mentioned earlier, the idea of going to Mt Fuji was not very well received by our trainer. He tried to talk us out of it by saying that you could die there, falling off the cliff, and how cold it would be, etc, but we would not budge. He finall...

Monday, 12 October 2009. Back to training The skin is still awful, and I found a whole bunch of hair fall off my comb while combing my hair. Is it the MSG, or the water, or my shampoo? Anyway, training today was pretty dreary because the whole lot was conducted in the classroom. Turns out, the PEs in Japan too are sometimes faced with unsolved mysteries in terms of product problems, so we are not alone. After training, we headed out together for dinner, all the 7 of us because the cafeteria was closed (It was apparently a holiday in Japan which we and the trainers were not involved in!) As CK, JC and I had travelled the streets of Hiratsuka on practically a daily basis, we seemed to lead the way to the place we were supposed to go for dinner. It was hilarious seeing CK being all tour guide-ish, informing our other 4 friends what restaurants there are and what they serve and the price range. Finally, we ended up at a very cozy looking place which served ramen noodles, but the vari...

Sunday, 11 October 2009 Kamakura I looked at my face in the mirror today in shock, not that I don’t look in the mirror every day, but I had on my contact lenses and could clearly see my skin peeling around the left side of my nose. I blame it all on the cool wind (despite the sun shining at your face) Today we visited Kamakura, an ancient place with shrines and temples aplenty. We checked out Engaku Ji, a shrine that houses Buddha. Unlike the last time where we did an Amazing Race type visit, this one was very relaxed and laid back. Personally, I preferred the Amazing Race type. At least I managed to get some background info on all the places I visited, but I shall refrain from complaining. These people sacrificed their weekend to take us around. After the shrine, we took a train to the town, where we had lunch at McDonalds. As weird as it may seem, I welcomed the idea because a)    Their menu is different from ours b)    Change is good c) ...

Saturday, 10 October 2009 Yokohama! From the very beginning of our visit, our trainers had been asking us where we’d want to go for the weekend. Even while back in Malaysia, while busy compiling stuff (work related) to take CK and I had planned that we should check out Mt Fuji and Disneyland (this was CK’s idea. For some unknown reason, Disneyland wasn’t part of my itinerary, me being more interested in the cultural or historical aspect of things but I was cool with it. After all, chances are I might never be able to get to Florida to go to the real one) However, we were soon to find out that Disneyland needs at least two days, and that everything would be in Japanese. And somehow, the Japanese were not too keen on Mt Fuji, stating that we could see it from the Shinkansen when we travel from Hiratsuka to Nagoya. Why would we want to just see Mt Fuji? Going to it would be a better bet, aight? Anyway, we met with the trainers at the train station at 10 am to go to Yokohama. I absolu...

Thursday, 8 October 2009 The Typhoon I was awoken at 5 am by a loud sound, but refused to get up until after 6. The sun rises early here, and you tend to wake up with it regardless if your curtains are drawn or not. Looking out of the window, I could see the effect of the ‘tempias’ (can’t find the perfect translation for this in English, sorry) of the typhoon that hit Tokyo. The wind was so strong that you could see trees swaying like crazy. There’s a motorbike parked right beneath my window, and the sheet that supposedly protects it was blowing with the strong winds and looked as though it was about to fly. The walk to the training place was challenging compared to the other days as the wind threatened to blow us away. Surprisingly by noon, the sky was clear once again and we saw the sun. According to our trainer/translator, the sun comes out when the typhoon ends. Later that evening, we headed out to town. ***We took the bus to the train station, which is like the most happening...

Monday, 5 October 2009 Hiratsuka Dorm and Factory Our trainer, M-san who is also co-incidentally the person in charge of us showed us the dorm cafeteria and informed us about breakfast and dinner, which we will be having there throughout our stay. I opted for the bread for breakfast with the side dishes that comes along with every Japanese meal. Realised with horror that even among this bunch, I am indeed the slowest eater. Why do people have to eat so quickly? Doesn’t that take the joy out of eating??? The work place/training centre is about a 7 minute walk away. Anyway, training proceeded after we took our uniforms. Thank goodness the M size fitted me well, although I found the pants a wee bit short when I sit. I could see that space between where my socks end and the pants begin. Hehehe…  A question that remains unanswered is why do they not make women’s pants straight cut? Why does it have to be that horrible A cut which gives the impression of skinny ankles? Is there a co...

If we are meant to learn our lessons from history, it is without question that after every journey I take, be it a holiday or a work related item, my muse stays behind to enjoy itself while I wonder why ideas don't stay with me long enough to transform them into readable posts. I suppose then it was a good idea on my part to become a temporary electronic diarist while I was there so that I could relate the things I saw and did - live. Sunday, 4 Oct 2009 From Narita Airport to Hiratsuka, Japan The touchdown was smooth, and despite the lack of sleep for two days running, I was still pretty upbeat. CK and I hung around the big A waiting area as we were requested to do, wondering where the hell the others were when we saw the other Malaysian from our sister company. We wanted to check out the airport while waiting for the Singaporean and the Indonesian, which we did while the girl from our sister company (who will after this be referred to as JC) offered to keep an eye on our lugg...

Of all the fashion fads of the past that came tumbling into the current era (about 10 years ago till now), nothing was embraced with more love from me than the boot cut jeans and pants. Besides giving the illusion of longer gems, the boot cut balanced certain proportion issues faced by certain women. It was loved by everyone, except perhaps some of the young people of the 70's who remembered the bell bottomed pants from their past with a certain degree of horror as it came in psychedelic colours. For reasons that will be explained in a few days time, I went shopping yesterday. A dreary chore if I may say so myself. It took me about 5 hours to get a few necessary things after scouring practically every other tenant in the mall. Among the stuff I was looking for was a new pair of Levi's seeing that my current pair seems to be hanging at an awkward angle on my hip bone due to all the stretching after almost 3 years of usage and washing. It is still a nice pair, but a new pair wo...

Growing up, I spent about two thirds of the first 12 years of my life in a somewhat quiet coastal town called Port Dickson, then famous for it's pretty much undeveloped but still rather dirty stretch of beaches. It was so close to the sea that according to an old student the primary school that I had studied in was once under attack by a school of swordfish during high tide one day, long before they had reclaimed the land behind the school. Over the past two weeks, my sister and I had discussed the options on going for short one day road trips locally because we have never had the opportunity to travel much in our own country, or anywhere else for that matter when younger (long story), and now with a gps unit at our disposal, getting lost will be a non-issue. Taking advantage of the extended weekend the public holiday in conjunction with Eid provided us, we decided to head over to Tanjung Tuan, a seaside point of interest near the place we once called home on Monday. The journe...