Passing of Aunt

Yesterday (24th May 2010 - Monday(11th Day of the 4th Month)) at about 0845 am, one of my Aunt pass away. She was 67.

This Aunt have been quite close to our family. She is the one who had introduced me to my first 2 part time bank job when I first finish school while waiting for the results and just before I went to the the UK for my further studies. She is the one who had also extend a great helping hand to my brother when he further his studies after leaving school. She allows him to work there in the canteen she operated in the morning and in the afternoon, he will go for his classes. She not only did not cut his pay, but instead paid him a full salary and provided him with lunch before he left for his classes.

It seems when She first got married, she and my Uncle (BP) stays with my parents in my current house. My God-Sister was born in my house and that is how she became the God-Daughter to my parents.

She had struggle all her life to make ends meet. She started a steamboat restaurant about 11 years ago (back in 1999) and when the business started, it was not as good. However, over the last 5 years, the business have picked up really well and that is when she just started to have a more relaxing life no need to worry about making ends meet.

About 3 years ago, her family bought and renovated a Semi-Detached house in PJ area and that is when she started to enjoy the fruit of her struggle. Unfortunately, earlier this year, she was diagnosed with a critical illness and yesterday she succumb to her faith.

We (my mom, my brother and myself) made our last visit to her on Sunday evening when she was admitted to the specialist center after she had difficulty breathing.

The funeral ritual is was held yesterday and today and tomorrow (26th May 2010 - Wednesday) at 10am she will be cremated and her remains will be placed at the Memorial Park which is not too far from where I am working now.

Dearest Aunt, sincerely thanks for all the joy and cheer you have bought to our lives, thanks for everything you have done for us. I hope you are now enjoying the peaceful and joyful life wherever you may be. Perhaps you might meet my Dad and the rest of the Uncles / Aunties and now all of you are having a great time keep each other accompany. May you rest in peace Aunty.....

Getting the House Key

Yesterday afternoon, my mom called and inform me that the developer finally send a letter informing us that the house is now ready for handing over.

Finally after more than 1 year of waiting, the house is ready for occupancy. However, the process is not as simple as just go and collect the keys. Firstly, I need to clear off the outstanding amount with the developer which as of today, taking out the bank portion, I still owe them RM80+ even after I got a rebate of RM1,188 from them.

The developer paid for the whole year guard fees which cost RM70 per month x 12 months = RM840. Then, for the 2 pieces of touch card it cost another RM50 a piece = RM100. On top of that, it seems they have appointed a company to do some management work on the rectification or some kind, which I yet to discuss with them, that is another RM300.

Even after paying the RM80+, I will still have to wait for the bank to clear the outstanding 20% which will take another 2 weeks or so before they make the payment.

All in, as expected, the key can only be collected by end of this month. Anyway, its better than nothing. Now the major coordination work will start. Work on the renovation will start the moment the developer rectifies all the complaints (hopefully the list is not too long).

Stay tune. I hope I will have the time to post the development of the renovations in as the process goes on. It was an interesting journey from the day we sign the Sales & Purchase (S&P) agreement until today. But, I think the journey gets more interesting from now on until the day we shift in.

Insurance

Last Friday (7th May 2010), my brother experience chest pain while driving to work. Hence, he went to consult a General Physician (in a Polyclinic). However, the doctor fear that he might be having some heart complications, he was referred to a specialist center for further investigation.

So after discussing with this wife, he admitted himself to a reputable specialist center for further check up. The specialist center's business is so good that he waited from about 12pm till 6pm before given a room to be admitted.

They run all the test and investigation, he was found healthy and on Saturday morning, he was allowed to be discharged and can you imagine, he waited from about 11am until 6pm in the evening for the insurance clearance?

This is not the worse. The worse news came when the insurance company actually rejected his claim saying that he have had a some medical history and hence he is not covered. What is this??

He claim under his company's group insurance and in group insurance, anyone and everyone is insured regardless of their medical history. Unless otherwise stated initially, that the certain number of staff due to age, previous medical history or whatsoever is not covered or if the insurance company wanted to add loading to their premiums, it is by default everyone is 100% covered. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. So my brother have to pay the medical bill first and then pass the claim to his company for them to 'fight' with the agent / insurance provider.

This is the thing about insurance. When they wanted you to buy, they will give you 100% + 10% guarantee, everything under the sun also they say can claim, no problem, easy procedure etc. But when you really want to make a claim, they will come out with another 100 + 20 reasons to inform you it is not claimable etc.

Sometimes, I see, it is a cause and effect that the largest and possibly the oldest insurance provider in the world gone into liquidation. You know which company I am referring to, no need to mention names here.

That is the reason sometimes, when it comes to insurance, I am quite skeptical. I see those agents as people that was misguided and misleading the public. They think they know everything to the very last details of the product they are selling, but in actual fact, I think what they really understood is less than 10% of the whole story.

So to all insurance buyer out there, if you think you are always fully covered with all sorts of protection plans, coverage etc etc, please double and triple check again. You don't be surprise when the above incident that happens to my brother happen to you!! There is always a fine print that you might have not noticed in your policy and it will come back and haunt you!! Beware!!

1st May 2010

1st of May 2010 is my Birthday. It was a Saturday, hence, the public holiday was only replaced with one day of annual leave in the record.

On Friday evening, I went out for dinner with a close friend of mine - Sur. We went of some Japanese food here in Subang Jaya SS15. This is not the conventional Japanese fast food. It is a proper Japanese restaurant where the food is prepared only when you place an order.

We started the dinner with some Sashimi (raw fish), then proceeded to some fried stuffs like soft shell crab, deep fried oyster and grilled squids. Since both of us enjoy a fair bit of alcohol, we ordered a small bottle of sake - Big Mountain (Da Shan) as it was translated.

It was nice food and good sake. It leaves a very nice pleasant after taste in the mouth when it is swallowed. All this happened on the 30th April 2010 evening. The dinner ended at about 11pm before both of us headed home. Thanks mate for such a nice dinner and sake...

Then on the 1st of May 2010, I woke up quite early as we had plan for "dim sum" breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law. We left home at about 9am to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law at 930 near the highway where we headed towards Puchong for the "dim sum".

My brother lead the way and we went to a shop made popular by the owner which is a host of a food program in a local (now I think its regional). The food there was reasonable, the service is also not too bad. One thing is as any "dim sum", normally we have a pot of Chinese tea, the hot water top up is self service. Good thing is that the hot water dispenser is just behind me, hence, it was not too troublesome for me to refill it.

My brother told me that the treat have 2 purposes, one is to celebrate the forth coming Mother's Day (9th May 2010 - this coming Sunday) and the 2nd is no other then my birthday. Anyway, thanks Brother and Sister for being so thoughtful to remember my birthday and also buying the meal!!

The shop was crowded and people have to wait in a queue for table, but the service was fast. Within a few minutes, the piping hot "dim sum" is brought beside us for us to take our pick. We took almost one of each to try and it include the must have 'har gao" (prawn type) and not leaving behind the many varieties of "siew mai" (pork stuffed in a kinda wantan skin).

We also ordered a plate of "lor mai kai" (glutenous rice with chicken), stir fried "lor bak gao" (radish cake) and another must in eating "dim sum" the "chee cheong fun" (rice roll) which have prawn stuffings.

The bill came out approx. RM120 for the 4 of us, which is reasonable as for "dim sum" you expect to pay something like RM30 per pax. It was nice to have the family sitting together on a Public Holiday to enjoy some traditional Chinese food which also covers both the meals - breakfast and lunch. It seems the place is open until 3 pm, which means it serves lunch as well.

That night, after my futsal game, me and my mom went and pick up my uncle and aunt to go to our usual hang out place for weekend, Yuen Steamboat Restaurant. Normally we will all meet there but today, my cousin is taking his wife back to the in-law's place, so my uncle and aunt have to hitch a ride with me.

My aunt made some "mee hoon kuey" (rice flour made into a dough and eat with soup - also commonly known as "pan mee") to be eaten there at the steamboat restaurant.

To my surprise, my cousin which came later brought a birthday cake for me. I cut the cake and serve it to everyone there. It was a chocolate mousse cake with fruits toppings. Of course, they also have some candles place around the cake and my young little nephew blew the candles on my behalf. Again, thanks for the lovely cake.

Well, that's how I spend my birthday. Looks like lots of activities for the day right?

To sum up, I really appreciate all those who took the effort to make this day so special to me. Thank you All!!

Demanding Week

This week (19th April 2010) have been a really demanding week for me.

The week started with me in Auckland, New Zealand for a meeting and catching a 1830 hrs flight from Auckland to Sydney and on the 20th, evening again catching a flight from Sydney to Brisbane and back on the 21st evening.

Only today 22nd April 2010 morning, I can properly sit down and do my work effectively in the office. Within the 3 days, I have been on the plane for 3 times, on average of one flight a day.

On the flight, from Auckland to Sydney, I remember watching a movie (Up in the Air) if I got the movie title correctly, it feature this guy (George Clooney) which is a frequent traveler which clocked 10 million air miles and is one of the only 7 that had reached this status. More people had been to outer space then those that have hit the 10 million air miles.

It reminds me of the life that I might be heading for in near future after being transfered here to Australia. Australia is a very big country and I am in-charge of the whole of Australia and including New Zealand. We have sales office in most of the major cities across Australia and I am supporting all the sales team there.

Looking at the positive side of it, it is nice as I get to do all the travelling and visiting at the company's expense, but on the negative side, it will be challenging to keep travelling like the way I am doing now when I am older, say by another 10 years or so. Therefore, for this assignment, I just plan to do it for about a year or 2 and then back to my home country and sit there quietly - hopefully.

The bright side of things is today will be my second last day of this 2 weeks adventure visit to ANZ, tomorrow afternoon at 2pm, I will be flying back to my home country.

Until the next posting, cheers mate...

3rd Day in Sydney

So fast today is end of Wednesday (14th April 2010) already. Today is fully meeting day with all the top sales managers presenting and answering to their respective P&Ls and give a projections on how are the going to fair by year end 2010.

As per all meetings teas and dinners are part of the schedule. However, I realize for tea time, the food they serve here is not as good as compare back home in Malaysia hotels. The only better is their coffee which tastes better than those we get in Malaysia.

As for dinner, the team organised a Thai cuisine dinner. First time having Thai food here in Australia, nothing to shout about. The cookings had been altered to suit to the local taste buds here hence, it is not as spicy as typical Thai food should be.

One cultural difference I realize is during meetings, the people over here do speak freely and openly to the presenter when they have doubts. Of course, they will first raise their hands like in schools before speaking out.

Well, as initially I have not expected to update this blog as I never thought there will be any internet access, but I was wrong, they did have WIFI services which was part of the hotel meeting package which allows me to login to update his blog at approx 2230 hrs from my room - 508.

At approx 4pm (local time) I got a SMS from Tzu Chi Foundation Group organizer to ask if I can serve them in this coming Sunday's free clinic. I had replied that I will not be able to make it as this weekend I will be in Auckland, New Zealand.

Tomorrow is another full day of meeting and more numbers to digest. Hope it will be as good as today... stay tune...

2nd day in Sydney

Today is the 2nd day in Sydney office. Woke up at about 6am this morning. Perhaps due to some early rest yesterday evening, was feeling refreshed and took some breakfast. For so many trips I had made to Sydney, this is the first time I got breakfast as part of the room package. All previous trips, my room bookings was excluding breakfast.

Came into the office at about 0745. This morning was productive. Lead the team for a detail engineering discussion for the tender that we are working on and clarified almost every single details required. Also, send out a detail specs to some suppliers to request for quotations. Just a round table discussion for about 2 hours, I think it had reduce the bouncing of at least 20 mails back and forth.

Today was rather interesting. My boss told me that they HR finally agrees to give me a full Ex-pat package for the transfer. Previously the package given to me is full transfer package which is not attractive to me. Anyway, again, lets see how it all works out. Hopefully this will be a better offer comparatively to the previous offer.

Will be leaving at about 5pm from the office. The whole lot of Sales team managers is now at the hotel preparing their presentations and figures etc. for tomorrow's meeting. Me and my boss are invited guest for this meeting. Hope it will be a great meeting for the next 2 days. The meeting is at the hotel we are staying, so don't think I will be in the office for the next 2 days to check my mails and update this blog.

Stay tune for more updates later....