KL

I've been thinking more and more about the concept of cousins. The idea that the person closest to you (at least from a genetic sense) is your siblings, your brothers or sisters. So when these siblings have kids, the concept of genetic overlap exists. Maybe obvious, but has been something I've been thinking about more and more. In my head, siblings want to have their kids, continue being part of their siblings kids (ie. cousins) but in reality this may not always happen due to circumstance. More so than when friends, want their kids to be friends with the parents kids. 

On that note, I have cousins that I am close with, and cousins that I am not so close with. I don't think it's a result of any conscious decision, but it is due to circumstance and interactions. So one of my cousins, that I'm not close with is getting married. It makes me wonder if it's ever possible to move from 'not so close' to 'close', but again unless those circumstances change, I'm not sure?

In any case, they are still my cousin. Decided to head to Petaling Jaya for the wedding. Lots of fun, seeing relatives, and so many faces from times when I was kid. I forgot how good Malaysian food is.

Middle Age

I'm probably one of the older folk out of the group of friends here in Hong Kong. Having seen forty years pass by, of which more than a quarter having spent here in Hong Kong - translating to some long friendships here as well as some important milestone birthdays. So with 2024 rolling in we start to see more of the friend hit 40 years old. One such friend decided to head to Sepang, Malaysia to drive Formula Renaults around the old F1 International circuit. The driving experience is organised by Malaysia's only ex-F1 driver, which involved two days of track days, a mammoth amount of time on the simulators, go karts and finally in the formula Renaults. It was genuinely terrified being in these cars, and despite feeling like I was Tom Cruise in Top Gun, the reality of it all was probably more akin to Driving Miss Daisy.

Racing cars is a lot different to driving a car. Pushing the car to the fullest. At the completion of the first few laps I spun out. One of the kids came over and said "You can go a lot faster". What an exhilarating experience!

Wedding

 Frank and Anisa 2022

Covid strikes

The last couple of years have disrupted wedding schedules. As such, we've seen a fair amount of virtual weddings, last minute weddings, postponed weddings and even the forfeit of large wedding ceremonies. With things slowly opening up, our cousin decided (rather last minute) to arrange a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur. It's an excuse for people to get together and the first family trip since Cairns, and first time abroad in a long time.

So this trip, had a handful of challenges. 1) mum's passport had expired and had to request an emergency replacement, which unfortunately due to the lack of customer support proved to be quite a nerve wracking race against time. 2) Charlie needed a passport to travel 3) the flights booked by mum and dad did not include check-in luggage, and 4) everybody except me got covid and missed the wedding.

The first three challenges were resolved and we managed to book a couple of serviced apartments for our trip. It was only on the Sunday morning one week after arriving in Malaysia when dad started having a cough, then a fever. We continue to socialise over Sunday until he takes a RAT which turns up positive, and he is forced into isolation. Unfortunately this did little to spread the virus as one by one, fevers and coughs were being reported. Mom, Rio, Auntie, Charlie. Within 2 days everybody was testing positive. All, except me. 

Paranoid that I may have already caught Covid for a second time, I go into isolation 3 days after arriving into Malaysia. I end up dining alone and potting about the hotel deciding when I should take a PCR to ensure I can attend the wedding. On the Thursday I decide to get a PCR and inadvertently whack my foot against the kitchen counter. The PCR comes back negative, my foot hurts, I get an x-ray, slight fracture, I'm given pain killers.

I attend the wedding. Although it felt weird knowing that everybody was stuck inside the apartment. The final day we have breakfast, by now everybody is feeling better. It feels all very illegal to gather as a group. What an unexpected trip.

Escape to KL

Q4 signifies many things, another year older, another year ending and of course the liquidation of excess annual leave. The rules stipulate, no more than five days annual leave can be carried over to the following year without "exceptional approval" (exceptional approval, means offering a legitimate reason and for the application to be approved by the Head of Human Resources) meaning I have 6 days that will be forfeited unless consumed between now and January. With no strategy in mind; I have haphazardly taken off a slew of random Mondays and Fridays.

I have managed to convince myself that spending 2000 HKD on a flight is still less than what I would spend on a night out in Hong Kong. Delusional, or not, I sneak off to Malaysia for a weekend in Kuala Lumpur to attend a seminar based on Option Trading held by the group Wealth Mentors. The promise of turning "$10K to $2M" appears "to good to be true" or an "outlier case" and the program's high cost would suggest that a majority the organiser's wealth is generated by the greed of the unsuspecting. In any case, the strategies taught are simple and fill the audience with hope and expectation, with enthusiasm fuelled by greed and easy money. The days are long and demanding and  I am skeptical, only time will tell.

The rest of my trip was as expected. Obscene amounts of food, quality family time and TED Talks. Currently Reading: "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion".

Malaysia: The Wedding

Year of the Horse

The 2014 Chinese New Year date happens to fall on the weekend. This moon cycle behaviour has a lot of local residents upset that their regular five day public holiday has been reduced to 'only' four days. Despite this, Chinese New Year remains one of the most profitable periods for airlines and hotels with customers force to pay inflated rates just to make the most of the public holiday schedule.

The average cost of flight from HK to KL booked 6 weeks in advance of the departure date is priced at approximately 2,000 HKD. I paid, nearly double that with a budget airline. In actual fact, the cost to fly from Sydney to KL during that same period with the same carrier is cheaper than flying from HK to KL. Despite the inflated price, I was looking forward to catching up with family and getting away for Hong Kong. It was also my first trip since being off crutches and very excited to test out the ankle abroad.

The best part was that I got to see my parents and close relatives in Kuala Lumpur, it had been a while since I had seen them all together! I constantly harp on about the magnitude of our family festive gatherings. The two major calendar events for our family are Christmas and Chinese New Year and it has been a while since I've attended either. The sheer volume of food and consumption is quite shameful and both events can be best described as 'excessive' and 'gluttonous'.

If I could describe a typical day it would read as follows. Wake up. Breakfast. Read, chat. Sleep. Lunch. Read, chat. Sleep. Dinner. Read, chat. Supper (optional). Sleep. Trip highlights include: Eating, garish tattoos, food poisoning, mee rebus, resuscitated creme caramel and Nasi Lemak.

Currently reading: "Switch" by Dan and Chip Heath.

Malaysian Islands

The end is in sight. The contract has been signed, the background checks are taking place and my visa is being processed. All that remains is for me to enjoy the last few moments of unemployment. It's been a love, hate relationship over the last six months. Relief, guilt and anxiety the most recent of emotions that overwhelm me; it has been a love/hate relationship. I look back at the list of achievements over the last six months. Dabbling in cooking, ukulele, Cantonese and yoga, but nothing concrete and nothing that I can take away. It's always the case, you expect this much, you demand that much and you might achieve more, or less. With my remaining time, I decided to check off something on my bucket list. Open Water Diving Qualification. So that's what I did, I went diving.

With a bias and the longing to be in Malaysia it was decided that the islands of the Perhentian and Redang would be an appropriate location to submerge into the underwater adventure. Our dive instructor was Jon from the Perhentian Quiver Diving team (Thoroughly recommend these guys for any Open Water Training or even for a cold drink). We stayed at Senja Bay, which wasn't exactly what we expected (Think, piss weak air conditioning, mosquitoes and frogs inside the room). After meeting other Kecil Island patrons, this appeared to be the standard in terms of mid-range accommodation. 

Back to the diving! It was a good mix of theory, closed water and open water sessions. Each morning started with a breakfast buffet, morning theory, the occasional roti, mid-morning confined water skills, lunch by the beach, afternoon theory and an open water dive. Evenings were a relaxing combination of BBQ seafood, the 8:00 pm movie, light banter before lights out by 12. After 3.5 days we were qualified to dive down to 18 metres, Beginner's PADI Open Water.

Given that the last 6 weeks in Hong Kong had been gray, wet and humid the weather gods had treated us well in the Perhentian. In fact, it had been nothing short of spectacular, blue skies with wisps of cloud drapped over a moderately temperate island. As expected, out time here flew by and after starting the advanced module we were soon on a 50 minute speed boat racing towards our next destination, the Redang Islands. Here we dived, ate relaxed, and explored. That, in a nutshell is what about all we did! 

We arrived back in Kuala Lumpur one week later feeling like a blob of golden goo. Tanned from the gentle sun and relaxed from the lack of worries. Our final night was spent gorging ourselves on Malaysian delicacies and street cuisine all while the Malaysian public awaited the election. I'm too old to be working ...

Last stop: Phnom Penh

We were all slightly dubious about the estimated travel time between Siem Reap and Phnom. 'Around 6 hours' we were told. Around? Was this determined by the traffic? Dependent on the weather? None of the above, it was invariably down to the number of people climbing on and off along the way.

To our surprise the bus we had boarded was rammed with Cambodians and not the expected clientele of backpackers and tourists. Every now and then the bus would pull to the side and grind to a halt. Somebody might get on, somebody might get off. This explains why we were only given an "approximate" trip time. The drive itself was very enjoyable - the scenery was exceptional and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride through the countryside. Our bus finally arrived in Phnom Penh at 9 pm on Friday 5th.

Earlier that morning I had learnt that my Hong Kong Visa had finally been approved! As expected, this news disappointed me as I was secretly hoping that I could spend more time travelling abroad. I needed to be back in Hong Kong on the Monday to start work on the Tuesday. With a definite end point to this trip I braced myself for my final weekend on the road. Also after 2 weeks of glorious weather ominous clouds rolled into Phnom Penh and the heavens opened. Symbolic perhaps?

Phnom Penh Itinerary

Spent one evening around Sisowath Quay aka 'The riverside'. Plenty of pubs and restaurants although it didn't strike me as anything terribly exciting, again definitely geared towards tourists. While wandering the streets we saw a pretty brutal fight involving a couple of Antipodeans. For our only full day in Phnom Penh we hired Cheng a Taxi Driver for 40 USD who would drive us around to the various sites in town.

Tuol Sleng, the Genocide museum.

Choeung Ek, the Killing Fields.

Psah Thmay, Central Markets.

The National Museum of Cambodia and the Royal Palace as well as a sneaky meal of KFC

(The food is starting to get repetitive).

For an additional 20 USD Cheng was kind enough to entertain us in the evening. We were treated to a nice local restaurant, as well as a live Variety Show, complete with Cambodian Boy Bands and on stage dramas with transvestite lead actors and Platinum the local club scene. The end of the night we gave him an extra 10 USD so that he could find a place to stay the night instead of heading back to his village.

We left Cambodia the following morning with majority of the party heading back to Kuala Lumpur. It was at KL where I left them and headed back to Hong Kong. What an extremely fast two weeks. Hong Kong. Go!