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After the death of our mother in May 2012, Kim and I were in Camlachie, Ontario attending her memorial service at Christ Church, the local Anglican church.

During the reception, after the service, we met a number of Mum’s friends, including a fine British gentleman by the name of Tom Flint, who had walked a bit of a distance down the road to say goodbye to his friend Marie.  As Tom was getting on in years he was beginning to feel tired part way through the reception, and I overheard folks wondering who might be available to drive Tom home.  Kim and I immediately volunteered to do so, and looking back, I am so glad that we did.

You see, Tom died this week, and both of us were instantly very sad, and also, we felt blessed that we had experienced part of an afternoon with Tom back on June 8, 2012.

We drove Tom home and were given a tour of his beautiful yard, very well kept, a custom build shed, and a wee pond complete with a running brook.  All done by Tom.  His house would remind one of any number of eclectic homes scattered across Great Britain, looking similar but each one distinct, having a few add-ons here and there.

During a fairly short time our discussions covered a vast number of topics as well as spanning the globe.  It was a time that Kim and I vividly remember and think fondly about.

Thank you Tom, for being our Mum’s friend, and for the memories you gave us that afternoon.

Way back in early 2009 I created my first post to my first blog in WordPress, actually my first blog ever.  Now, close to six years later, I am posting my second time to this blog.  Certainly a leap forward in time.

Well, during this leap, I had created another blog in Blogger, with a number of posts, talking about our trip to Malaysia in the fall of 2013.  That blog started about halfway through our trip after some friends suggested that I blog about what we were doing, what we were seeing and to include some photos as well.  I thought this a reasonable idea so I began, and tried to play catch-up the rest of the time.  The truth be known, at this time, a year later, the blog is still not complete, however I will get it done.

I have just created another one on Blogger as we are off to Malaysia again early next year.  This time the aim will be to stay ahead of the game.

Now back to this blog.  As I have reached seniorhood (one of my “friends” recently posted on Facebook “Happy birthday to Canada’s newest cheque receiver”), it seems that I have become more reflective in some ways, as well as having many memories that I feel I should share before they are lost.  I am not being fatalistic, merely realistic (and quite forgetful at times).

The name of the blog, “Richard’s Ramblings”, is quite appropriate as my posts will range from events today, to things that happened anytime in the last sixty-five years, to even my thoughts about stuff occuring before then.

I don’t yet have a tremendous amount of expertise in blogging so I hope any readers will be patient, however I do hope that you will be entertained as well.

Now we have arrived back in Melaka, I want to talk for a while about our family here in Malaysia, actually focusing on one family member in particular.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, while in Melaka we are staying in Brother Ming’s house, right next door to Sister Hong.  Back in Post 10, Remembering and Night Market I talked a bit about her family as we visited the final resting place of her husband and one of her daughters, Ah Yong.

I found Sister Hong to be an amazing woman, loving and compassionate, always caring for those around her, including yours truly.  She had six children, three boys and three girls, with the two older girls both contracting polio in infancy.  The youngest of the two, Ah Yong, passed away in the spring at age 42.  The older, Ah Kim, is now approaching 50.  Sister Hong has looked after them both, for their entire lives.  Ah Yong was able to be in a wheelchair and thus be to a degree mobile, but not so Ah Kim who has little mobility and is limited to a modified lawn chair during the day.  Pictured is Sister Hong, Ah Kim and Kim.  Ah Kim’s joy is her computer and she stays in touch with friends and family via Facebook.

Sister Hong’s other daughter currently lives in Ming’s house next door with her daughter, while one of her sons, along with his wife (at the time of our visit pregnant with her third child) and two children, resides in Hong’s house.  Kim’s daughter Cynthia is also a frequent visitor at the house.  Her other two sons visit quite frequently with their families, one living in Melaka and the other in Johor Bahru.  Kim’s other daughter Jaclyn, and family, visits when they can from Johor Bahru as well.

Sister Hong is the mainstay of all these family members, functioning as mother, aunt and grandmother, loving them all.  And she checks in with one other, Auntie Ming (Kim and Hong’s aunt), who lives in downtown Old Melaka.

Sister Hong’s command of English was only slightly better than my command of Mandarin or Malay, however we took to each other immediately and generally had no issue communicating, and she seemed to make sure that I never had a chance to even think of being hungry while in her house.  It was quite delightful.

I wanted to share with you what a great sister she is.

Along with our daughters and grandchildren, Sister Hong is another reason that future trips to Malaysia are not an option, but a requirement.

Okay, back to Malaysian Adventure in the next post.

After our time in Singapore, it was back to Johor Bahru for a few days of family time.  As one of my Kiwanis friends likes to say, “hanging with the grand-babies”, four of them, ranging in age from 2 to 13.

Much of this time was simply spending time with the kids, camera put aside, just being grandparents.  

I believe I mentioned this before, but this was an amazing experience for me, this “being a grandfather” thing.  Although Kim and I had been married for fourteen years, and she had been a grandmother for thirteen of them, this was my first meeting and interaction with her daughter Jaclyn and her children.  Kim had been there when Valen, the oldest, was born, and had visited several times and met all but the youngest, Vinc.  For me, I arrived in JB just a few short days ago, and within an hour was being called Grandfather.  Probably a good thing that the kids didn’t know about someone being putty in their hands, because that’s what I was for the first while as I got used to it.  Now I quite like it, I talk with them on Facebook and can’t wait to see them again.

Now I know that folks are familiar with being able to order food and have it delivered, like calling up and having pizza brought to your door.  And I know that many people like satay, or “meat on a stick” as some describe it.  

Well, at daughter Jaclyn’s house, we did even better than putting these two things together.  We called up and had a chap come over and prepare satay right in front of the house.  It was very inexpensive and we enjoyed a grand meal of chicken satay when he was done.  As you can tell from the photos, not only did he cook some tasty satay, he provided a great show for the hungry spectators as well.

Some of you may recall a TV show with Art Linkletter called “Kid’s Say The Darndest Things”.  Well it seems that our grand kids in JB and our grand nieces and nephews in Melaka had a common thought regarding yours truly.  They said that I bore a distinct resemblance to that gentleman of KFC fame, Colonel Harland Sanders.  Now I don’t see it myself, however I guess a white guy with a white/grey beard is what did it.  So I thought I would have a bit of fun with this.

So… we took the JB extended family, including Kim’s brother, his wife and kids, to – you guessed it – KFC, for lunch.  I should mention that, in all our time in Asia, Kim and I went to a Western style eatery twice, this being one of those time (we also tried burgers in Singapore, which we did not enjoy).  The food at KFC was quite good and very little different from back home.  After the meal I then asked everyone how they had enjoyed “my chicken”, receiving a very positive response.

Our last full day in JB wrapped up with a shopping trip to one of the local malls.  The anchor store on this mall was Aeon, which is a huge conglomerate, with stores and malls throughout Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Viet Nam.  In addition to the fooderies and food courts in the malls, their department store has its own food court as well.  I have included a shot of this particular mall interior on the left.  As well, on the right, what evening of shopping would be complete without an ice cream.

The next day we prepared to head back to Melaka after about ten days in JB and Singapore.  Two of the kids were off to school, then the rest of the family readied to drive us to the bus depot, but not before stopping for dim sum.  Kim and Vinc lead the way, then we had a fine meal to start the day.  

After a wonderful visit to Johor Bahru with both family family and Kiwanis family, we hopped on the bus for the ride back to Melaka and further Malaysian Adventures.  As usual, I enjoyed the scenery during the trip, always finding something different to see.

Hope you are enjoying sharing our travels, as I am enjoying recalling them thru this blog with you.  See you back in Melaka.

The next few days in Johor Bahru were split by a couple of days in Singapore.  Threrefore this blog post will be about our time in Singapore and the next about the remainder of our visit to JB.

With son-in-law Kent’s help we were able to arrange transport directly from their house in JB to our hotel in Singapore as well as the return trip.  And for a very reasonable expense as well.  Bonus!

We stayed at the Hotel 81 Chinatown.  We quite enjoyed our time there as the location was excellent, right on the dividing line between Chinatown and downtown Singapore, making for outstanding walkabout opportunities.  The hotel room can be best described as petite, very petite.  Let’s just say that Kim found it small.  Imagine a queen sized bed, add about 10 inches to the width and 20 inches to the length – that’s the size of the room.  The bathroom was about the same size as the entrance-way.  The air conditioning was so efficient that it was necessary to have the hotel turn it off for a while a couple of times (it was controlled from the front desk).  None the less, we liked the hotel, the staff were very pleasant and accommodating, so we would stay there again.

Generally speaking, Singapore is a very clean city and we noticed that right away.  Another thing that stood out was that the traffic seemed to be more orderly, the vehicles were bigger and more expensive.  We spent a good deal of our time in the Chinatown area and the people were wall to wall.  Seems we were there at the peak of the Moon Cake Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival held on the 15th day of the 8th Lunar month), which is the biggest Chinese festival after Chinese New Year.  The Chinatown streets were decorated and lit up at night and the night market was in full swing the two nights we were there.

I think that it would be safe to say that Singapore is a multicultural city state.  We visited Buddhist temples, a Hindu temple, a mosque and walked along Synagogue Street.  

During our time in Singapore we saw far more interesting buildings than I can possibly include photos of here.  Everywhere there is evidence of great imagination by architects and builders.  I can only imagine what it would be like to live or work in some of them.  There were many with greenery included in the design, I have shown but a couple to the left and right.  There are many more.

We were in Singapore just prior to the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, and as such were not able to go to a couple places we would have liked to as there were road closures to set up the race circuit.  As an avid race fan, I would have liked to watch the race, however our budget did not feel that to be a reasonable idea.  As many of you may be able to identify, large events create a wee change in the economy.  For instance, our fairly reasonably priced accommodations would have doubled in price should we have stayed another night.  As we took a tour bus on our second day I was able to get a few photos of the track setup and then after returning to Johor Bahru was able to watch the race on television as it was held only about fifty kilometres away.

This was actually the first part of our current travels that it was just the two of us, with no family or friends, so we did a tremendous amount of walking around while we were here, total time was two nights and the better part of three days.  During this time I calculated that our sandals got over twenty-five kilometres of wear.  The weather was fantastic with no clouds and daytime temperatures ranging in the low to mid 30s Celsius.

In order to keep our strength up for all the walking, of course we had to have great food.  So for example, we started one day with Dim Sum and finished it off with spicy snails, chicken, spicy green beans and fresh baked buns.  Considering that one meal was about 7:30am and the other around 9:00pm, you can imagine there was a certain amount of food consumed in the interim.

We spent some nice relaxing time at the Gardens By The Bay which has some wonderful different areas.  On the left you can see what they call Supertree Grove, which are essentially vertical gardens up to sixteen stories high.  If you look you can see a walkway, about twenty-two metres up, which joins several of the trees and gives a wonderful view of the gardens as well as the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which can be seen in the background.  On the right, Kim is modeling for us on the walkway.

All in all, we had a great time in Singapore and look forward to going back.  As usual, I have way more photos than I can share here and many will be making their way to a travel album which is being put together.

Until the next post, thanks for traveling with us.

Last night the Governor’s Gala, much socializing and then a good night’s sleep.  Kim and I awoke refreshed and headed downstairs for breakfast.  It was an amazing buffet style meal, with Malay food, Muslim food, Chinese food and Western food.  Enjoying the meal were folks from all over.  Some Russian aircrew, a couple of families from the Middle East, quite a number of people from Australia.  Spoken languages overheard included English, German, Spanish, Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Korean and so on.  An interesting start to the day.

Following breakfast it was time to pack up, check out and wait in the lobby for Jaclyn, Kent and family to pick us up for the day’s activities.  While waiting Kim made the acquaintance of a new, but slightly taller, friend and I managed to find a very comfortable chair.  It was very busy around the hotel entrance and it took a while for Kent to work his way to the front door.  They arrived, and off we went for today’s adventures.

After having a brief lunch, Kent pointed the van about an hour out of Johor Bahru to a most interesting place near to Kota Tinggi.  First we chatted with some of the local residents (see left photo), then we arrived at the Tien Hoe Kung Temple which was established in 1884.

The temple, located along the river, was filled with people who had come to pray (as Vince was doing with his grandmother) or meditate.  Valen and father Kent were praying at some of the outdoor stations while Jaclyn spend considerable time trying to keep track of everyone.

Our second day in Johor Bahru (JB), begins with a serious downpour as seen in the photo to the left.  It wasn’t like someone turned on the tap, rather that they had opened the sluice way.  The amazing part was that less than twenty minutes after it stopped there was no water visible anywhere.  The drainage system that I have spoken of is extremely efficient.  As you can see from the photo of grandson Vince, the ground is hardly even wet.

The morning begins with meeting new family as Kim and I go to breakfast with Sister Hong, Niece Stephanie and Nephew Ah Kok.  He and his family are down from Johor Bahru for a visit with his mother Hong.

After visiting for a while Kim and I were off to guess where… Johor Bahru, about 2 1/2 hours by bus.  We are on our way to do a couple of things, first and foremost, to visit family.

A few posts ago I had talked about the drainage system here in Malaysia.  As we traveled on the bus I saw numerous examples of the drains to prevent erosion.  I have included a couple of them here.

We arrived at the bus station in Johor Bahru (JB) and it was time to take a taxi for the last portion of our trip.  Our driver was a great chap, long time resident of JB and he had good stories to share with lots of history about the city.  He and Kim kept up a running discussion the whole trip until we arrived at our destination for the day.



We had a welcoming committee when we got to the home of Kim’s daughter Jaclyn, husband Kent and children Valen, Vaness, Vanessa and Vince (ranging from ages 12 to 2).  It was pretty special for me as I was meeting all of then for the very first time.  Shortly after, that huge suitcase we had brought suddenly got a whole lot lighter.  Gee, I wonder why that might have been.

The reason that we came on this particular day was that Vaness would be performing in a concert at her school.  So the day I met my step-daughter and my grandchildren was the same day I got to see one of them in her school concert.  It was a day that I shall not soon forget.  When we got to the school (Valen, Vaness and Vanessa all attend here), Valen took me under his wing (so to speak) and showed me around, introducing me to his friends (and it seemed like anyone else who would listen).

This school has so many students that they have classes from 7am to Noon for one group and 1pm to 6pm for another.  Valen and Vaness go in the morning, Vanessa in the afternoon.  Not all schools are like that, however this one is held in high regard and is very popular.  Part of the original school is kept to this day.

There was much festive activity prior to the concert with a Dragon Dance and a Lion Dance, as well as a mini market with food and other items.  There was many parents and students in attendance.

Amongst all the activity, Grannie Kim got to meet with a costumed Vaness prior to the start of the concert.  Then it was time to start wending our way to the concert seating and get ready for the big show.  And big show it was.  There was a large number of performances, displaying both Chinese and Malay culture and history.



As per usual, I have many photos, many of which will make an appearance online later, however I would be terribly amiss if I failed to have one of the performance including Vaness.  Then one of proud Mum, Dad and Grannie (oh and Vince too) with Vaness in the background.

It was a most excellent day.  Tomorrow will be pretty special as well.  See you in the next post.

For this blog post I will start off with a few words about my posts for this trip to Malaysia and beyond.  You will have noted that I have not assigned any dates to the posts, and as I indicated that I was playing catch-up on our trip the dates the posts are published have no bearing on the post content whatsoever.  The posts are all in order, and it is possible (nay, it is likely) that some may span more than one day, so dating them is not necessary.

Today, first order of business was Dim Sum with Cynthia.  Quite a selection of choices and very enjoyable.  I must admit that I do have favourites, such as chicken feet, tripe and curried squid.

As we were eating and looking out the entrance, I noticed that there was a rather unusual mosque across the street.  After breakfast we walked across and had a look.  It was different and it is unique, reflecting the Malaysia composition and history.



The Kampong Kling Mosque was completed in 1748.  The architecture is Sumatran, with strong Hindu influences, particularly evident in the minaret which resembles a pagoda.  Looking closer you will notice an unusual blend of English and Portuguese glazed tiles, Corinthian columns with symmetrical arches in the main prayer hall, a Victorian chandelier, a wooden pulpit with Hindu and Chinese style carvings, and Moorish cast iron lamp-posts.  The mosque remains central to Malay community life.

Then we were off to do one of my favourite things.  While the ladies did some shopping (this is not it folks), I was able to wander, observing and taking photos of people and places.  I would love to put all my photos here, however will select a few to share at this time.  The place on the left is quite elaborate.  Features like these are not uncommon and do add much to the neighbourhood.  The empty street on the right was a rare opportunity, thanks to a tour bus unloading behind me and blocking all the traffic, including the motorbikes (if you can believe that).

With the tour bus gone, traffic gets back to normal (this is code for stay on high alert while walking along, or crossing, the street).  I quite like the variety of names used by businesses here.  Imagination and uniqueness are both in wide display.





While walking around, it began to rain, which was, as Kim likes to say, “cooling” on quite a warm day.  The rain didn’t seem to bother either of these two folks who were passing by me on the street.  The chap on the motorbike made me smile.  After taking his photo, he saw me, and as he went by I could hear him say “Ah-yaaaa”.  The lady on the bicycle made no indication that she saw me, and went on her way, focusing on the tasks at hand (like avoiding the motorbikes and cars).  She is so typical of many older folks we have seen in Melaka.

Next, we figured it was time to be a tacky tourist and go on the Melaka River Cruise boat ride.  Only it didn’t work out that way, it worked out better.  We got to the departure spot (empty parking lot), went up to the wicket and bought our tickets.  Cynthia’s was less expensive than Kim and I due to the fact that she was from Melaka and we were not.  Then we moved to the departure area for the cruise.  We were the only ones there.  So we waited.  Then along came two Malay boys and their father.  So we all waited.  While waiting the father approached and asked if I was a visitor (good guess).  He indicated that his son, for a school project, was to interview some visitors and ask how they found their visit to Melaka.  I obliged and was interviewed (and videoed by Dad), then we had a nice chat about the project and I gave them some interview tips and suggestions.  And we waited.

While we were waiting, I observed the monorail that isn’t.  Henry had told me about that on a previous occasion.  Seems that Melaka had built a monorail system (well, a track that went from one end to the other, then back).  It ran for a while and now sits, decommissioned I suppose.  Not sure if it will ever run again.  And we waited.

Finally, a tour bus pulled up and disgorged its load of humanity, a school group, junior high range I think.  Aha, this is why we have been waiting (we thought).  But no, we were then loaded onto one of the boats, all six of us, and off we went.  The busload were on a different boat.  The result of all this was that we basically had a private ride and had a great conversation between the six of us and the cruise boat operator, who was a most pleasant young lady.

The cruise goes quite a good distance along the Melaka River, past where Henry and I had walked, past Auntie Ming’s house, past the old clock tower and the start of Yonker Walk.  If you are in Melaka, I do recommend it. 

 

All in all, it was a very good day, wrapped up with another visit to Yonker Walk and a wonderful dinner with friends and family.

Tomorrow brings some travelling and more family.  See you then.

This morning Henry took us to a traditional Malay foodery for roti canai.  Once we had arrived and parked (parking at times is a highly competitive activity), I opened the car door and came face to face with the locals pictured on the right.  They were quite friendly and totally unfazed with happenings around them.

Once in the foodery (in is a relative term as there are no walls, only a tent type roof), we got our table and then made the acquaintance of the folks preparing the food.  They were, as has been everyone I’ve met so far, very friendly and accommodating, kindly allowing me to take photos as they prepared the food.  Breakfast was delicious and as we left we got friendly waves, not only from the workers, but from some of the patrons.  A good start to the day.

Our next stop was the Cheng Hoon Teng Chinese temple.  This temple is the oldest in Malaysia with its initial construction in 1673.  It is equally devoted to three doctrines – Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese-Buddhism.  When exploring the temple it tells a story about the Chinese in Melaka, covering their lives, their beliefs and their concerns.

This is the temple that Kim went to when she was a child and growing up so there is a lot of Gee family history here as well.  We didn’t just go to visit, we went there to pray as well, as there is great meaning for Kim there.

While exploring around the temple we saw many different, and interesting, people from all over the world.  There was an East Indian lady and her daughter, who was deaf, and they kindly let me take their photo.  There were a number of monks, likely from a variety of places, who were busy taking pictures of the temple, and each other, with their cameras and smartphones.  There were Westerners (besides me) sightseeing and locals praying.  It was quite a place.

Then, across the street, was a “new” version of the same temple, built to replace the original at such time it might become unusable from age.  This had definitely not happened yet as those who care have worked very hard to keep it in very good condition.  Both temples seem to be in continuous use.

Later, Henry took us to the Portuguese section of Melaka to show us some of the old Portuguese buildings.  When we got there, lo and behold, there were no old buildings but rather a new hotel.  A bit disappointing to say the least.  We understand that there is another way to get to the old Portuguese buildings and we will do some more exploring.

Off we traveled then to another example of what I consider to the be big inconsistency of Melaka.  We visited a beautiful beach area (certainly in my opinion) that is unused, complete with a very nice bricked walking area between the road and the beach, lined with trees.  The beach is littered and the walk is falling into disrepair.


There is a ship docking area close by, which may give people second thoughts about swimming, however for the area to be unused totally doesn’t seem to make sense.  On top of that, there is a hotel, and not a small one, across the road which is entirely abandoned.  There was some activity at the front entrance but is was not hotel related.

This blog post had been delayed due to Wi-Fi issues, hopefully they have been resolved so the next post will appear shortly.

Thanks for reading, comments are always welcome.