Blackpool trip 1

One Friday, the 21st, we drove to Blackpool to view the famous "Illuminations" as well as the World Fireworks Championships. For your information, the Illuminations are turned on every autumn and have been a major part of Blackpool’s attraction since 1879.

The fireworks started around 8:30pm and on that day, it was the team from Austria's turn. We stood on the promenade and watched the wonderful fireworks display. Met up with Mozard and family later and a friend later.

The last and final display was on the 28th. Wonder who won the competition.

Here are some short clips of the fireworks:

Car boot at Lea Marston

Yesterday we drove to Birmingham to Mozard and Nana's place who then took us to their favourite car boot at Lea Marston in North Birmingham. Check out the North Birmingham markets and car boots site here for more details.


I have to say that of all the car boot sales I have been to, this is probably the best so far. Lot of choices and real bargains. Take a look at some of the stuff we bought there:


After the bargaining, we were really hungry. So off we went to Mozard and Nana's house where they quickly cooked up a few delicious dishes for us. We also learnt how to drink (and appreciate) tea the Chinese way.


Here's Mozard playing his new toy and my son was totally impressed (well, his daddy too actually).

Meeting Robin Hood - Episode 2

Some more pictures from our trip to Sherwood forest last Sunday.


Great story tellers




Rahil invited to join the orchestra


She's playing the tambourine


Dads with the kids


Now the mum's turn


An old oak tree int he forest


The jousting arena

We left without watching the jousting tournament as it was extremely hot and I was having a splitting headache.

We dropped by our friend Amruls' house Nottingham. He had cooked spaghetti and had baked a chocolate cake for us. Yes! It was as delicious as it looks.

Meeting Robin Hood. Episode 1

WARNING: Loads of pictures ahead

Last Sunday we drove to Sherwood Forest, Edwinstowe, 20 miles north of Nottingham, on a convey along with Nana and Mozard's family and another Malaysian family.

The Robin Hood Festival is an annual event and it ran from 30th July - 5th August 2007 and we were able to visit on the last day. Fortunately we arrived early because the park was soon packed with people. A lot of people had to park by the road and walk to the park.

It was a very hot and bright day - the hottest since we arrived here in the UK. I am not sure but someone was telling me that it the highest that day was 31 degrees.
Phew!

























More pictures coming up.

Malaysian Coventry Society BBQ party

Last Saturday (the 28th), the Malaysian Coventry Society organised a Barbecue party at the University of Warwick campus.

It was a nice day - bright and sunny. Besides the great food, the organisers had lined up a number of games for the kids as well as for the adults. Had a nice time.







More pictures on my Flickr page.

Testing the Godin LG SP90

Our friends Mozard and Nana dropped by our house today. Mozard invited me to accompany to a guitar shop in Lemington Spa - Regent Guitars, to check out a Godin electric guitar. More specifically - the Godin LG SP90. It was pouring down and I was a bit worried that the place might be flooded. A call to the shop revealed that it was ok to go there.

The shop was not as big as I had imaged it would be. Richard, the Director took us downstairs to the basement and left us there with the guitar plugged in. Mozart got down to business right away.

Took this video while he was trying it out.



Mozard has been playing the guitar since he was a kid and really know his stuff. He thought the Godin LG SP90 was great. He recently sold off his Gibson for £750/ and was looking for an affordable but good guitar to play at home. Affordable does not usually go with good, but this seems to be it.

Mozard asked me to try it out but after watching him play, I was not going to even try my "I-am-sure-would-be-painful" rendition of Amanda by Boston.

Richard told us that it's price was £449/. However, Mozard had seen it going for a mere £300 (without shipping) on an eBay shop. That's a huge difference of £149. However, he's a bit wary of buying a guitar online without trying it out first. I can understand as £300/ is still quite a lot of money. Anyway, it was an interesting experience.

Guest in house

My daughter is now having her summer break. She won't be going back to her playgroup when the holidays are over and instead will be moving to the nursery at the same school. However, not being at school means that she has a lot of extra energy. The first day she was jumping around everywhere and I had quite a hard time controlling her. She's not that bad as compared to some other kids I have seen though.

Fortunately she has something or should I say someone to occupy her. My wife's Italian colleague Roby flew in from Kenya last week and will be staying with us till the 1st of August. Now Rahil follows her everywhere. I try my best to stop her from going into the guest room and disturbing Roby but she will slip off when I am not watching.

Kids!

Hardy and family comes visiting

Our dearest friends, Hardy and Zaza and their cute son came visiting yesterday evening. This is the second time they are visiting the UK from Holland. However, this time they are here for a longer duration. Check out their blog 'Bringing up an AIdan and handling Holland'.


Fathers and sons

Sleeping princess

To get my daughter to sleep is quite easy, all I have to do is take her for a spin on the car and it won't be long before she dozes off.

Last Sunday afternoon, all of us went to the Pool Meadow bus station to see off Muz. His bus was going directly to Heathrow airport where he was catching a flight for Malaysia.

As we were leaving the house, my daughter made a very serious comment, "Mama, I don't think that I want to live here anymore", while shaking her head (meaning she want's to follow Muz back to Malaysia). I wanted to laugh but held myself as I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Unfortunately for my daughter, she again fell asleep and wasn't able to say bye to her favourite uncle. I say 'again' because she fell asleep when we went to pick him up too.

She was quite upset later when we got back home and found out that Muz had left, crying "I miss Ayah Muz".

We had a dinner party at our friend Lisa and Zur's place and she was quite reluctant to leave the house. Her mood improved considerably after she met some friends around her age (Lisa and Zur's kids).

At the dinner, I meet another avid photographer and blogger. Check out Mama Sarah's blog about life in the UK.

At The Thai Twig

Went out for dinner with my Wife and her friends to Leamington Spa. Picked up her friend and set off from the University at around 7pm.

This was my first time driving to Leamington Spa and I think we made an excellent decision to buy the TomTom One Sat Nav. Read my previous post here. Our destination was The Thai Twig - a Thai restaurant on Augusta Place and we got there without any mishaps.

Nice ambiance and great food. The prices are quite reasonable too. I was quite buys eating to take pictures of the food. I only got to snap the one below before we dug in.
Chicken in Pandan leaves.
I ordered popiahs for starters. Quite good. Mushrooms and fried vegetable rice for the main dish. Tasty.

However, my wife was complaining later about the 'Tom Yam' she ordered. Not about the taste as it was delicious (according to her) but rather the amount. The portion was a quarter of what is normally served in Malaysia or Thailand.

It was nice finally meeting my wife's friends. Chatting with intellectual people is always interesting. You always learn a lot of new things.

Update: Some more pics.

Why you need breakdown cover 2

Continuing from where I left off in my last post.

I rushed back and picked up Naz. Learned that the AA people had come and left. The mechanic had refused to wait and told Aznil that it was out of his hands. Really felt bad for Aznil. He had just arrived from Malaysia and jet lagged. And there he was, freezing by the motorway.

When we reached him, another tow truck had just arrived. The tow truck was to take the car to the nearest service area - being Tamworth. It was about 5 minutes drive and for that he took £115. He also informed us that the car had been left on the highway for way too long and a police fine might be coming in the mail soon. I hope not.

I was relieved that we were at least out of the motorway. Aznil called up the AA as soon as we reached the rest area. They informed that they would be sending someone 90 minutes later.

We went over and had drinks and some snacks. I suddenly realised that I haven't had lunch. Felt sightly better after that.

The AA guy finally arrived right on the dot. He put in a temporary hose and recharged the battery. Our spirits lifted when the engine started but went down again when it died. The mechanic's diagnosis was the the engine had been damaged and it wouldn't take them either to Nottingham or to Coventry.

At that moment in time, it was like a blur and I couldn't think of anything. Can just imagine how Aznil and Naz were feeling.

Finally there was some good news, the mechanic was able to get in touch with a mechanic who would be able to tow them back to Nottingham but they would have to pay around £50. Of course, they readily agreed.

I returned to our house in Coventry to fetch the kids (around 22 miles). It was around 10 pm when I reached the Tamworth service area. The tow truck was not there yet but was on the way. So with nothing more to do, I went back home. Had gone back and forth between my house and their car 8 times yesterday. Not sure how many miles I had driven. You go do the maths.

It was a tiring day but I learnt a lot of lessons with #1 being:

"Don't procrastinate! Go get a breakdown cover ASAP."

Why you need breakdown cover 1

Have you ever been stranded on the highway? I have never been but yesterday, I learned why we NEED a breakdown cover.

I was just back home after a few hours at the Furnace End car boot, where I had gone with my daughter. My wife informed me that her friend Naz, was stranded on the M42 motorway. Naz was with her 3 kids and cousin and were on the way to Birmingham airport to pick up here husband who was arriving Malaysia. The car had broken down and unfortunately they were not a member of either the RAC or the AA. They called us because we were the nearest.

This is where I made the first mistake. I rushed off without asking anyone for any advise on what to do. Was under the impression that the car had overheated or was a simple battery problem.

It took nearly 35 minutes to get there via the M6. They had pulled up against the hard shoulder of the motorway. I checked the engine oil - Was ok but I topped it up. Checked the battery - water level was ok and the car even started. It was then that I noticed the big crack on the hose connecting the radiator to the engine. Didn't have any duct tape or anything that I could use to do a temporary fix - to at least get off the motorway. Called a few people but they were not much help and so we decided to go over to our house and contact a nearby workshop from there. This is when I miss Malaysia and all the tow trucks that roam the highways.

Got all of them into my car and Naz requested that I drop here at Birmingham airport as her husband had already landed. This was my second mistake. I didn't know that we couldn't leave our car on the side of the highway for more than an hour.

I dropped her off at the airport- she would be coming to Coventry by train along with Azmil.

It took another half an hour before we got home. Soon received a call - they had already reached Coventry station.

Brought them to my house after picking them up. We made the decision to call up the AA and see whether they could fix the car or tow it even though they were not members.

"Yes!" Our spirits went up when we learnt that they could, but of course Aznil would have to fork out a little more than £100. They said Ok and joined up,

The person from AA said that a tow truck was on the way and so we set off for the car. Halfway there, Aznil suddenly realised that the car keys were still with his wife. Oh No!

This is where I made another mistake. As we were nearly there and the AA petrol was on the way, I decided to leave him there by the car and go back for the keys.

Part 2 tomorrow.

High Tea at Nottingham

Drove to Nottingham yesterday, the second time this year. Our friend Amrul had invited us for high tea at his house, which he rents with a Thai and a Vietnamese friend (a mini Asean).

My wife had printed out the directions from the RAC website. It was really rubbish. I personally prefer the AA Route planner, which is way more detailed.

There was a lot of traffic on the motorways (M6, M69 and M1) and after a really stressful drive, we finally reached Nottingham. We left the M1 at junction 24 (following the RAC directions). We realised that the route was different from the one we had taken last time when we passed the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station.

Ultimately we got lost and we had to call for help. We really, really need a GPS sat nav. One of Amrul's housemates found us at the University of Nottingham's West gate and led us all the way to their house.

Amrul is a great cook. He was really kind to make some vegetarian dishes for me. Take a look at the Tiramisu he made.


Other Malaysian friends, Shah and Zarina (also PhD scholars at the University of Nottingham) also joined us later with their kids. They also brought along some goodies they had cooked up.

Delicious. We still have some left overs we brought back in the fridge.

Fortunately the way back was faster. I relied on my memory and instinct alone.

Friends from Holland

We finally got to meet up in person with our close friends Zaza and Hardy, and their cute son, Aidan, after such a long time. Actually Hardy's here for work but it was the perfect opportunity for Zaza to visit us and her sister, Fifi and her husband Redza.

They informed us that they were planning a trip to Birmingham to stock up on food and we decided to tag along yesterday. It was our first visit to Wing Yip, which probably has the largest selection of Asian food in the UK. Was amazed to find some familiar Malaysian brand names there.

Finally tasted real Malaysian "roti chanai", again today. Not as good as the one in my favourite stall in Kedah but I am not complaining.

wing yip
friends

Plug for Zaza

Our dear friend Zaza has been blogging since April 2006 in her blog "Handling Holland". She writes about how she's coping with life in a foreign land, as a housewife and as a mother to cute little baby Aidan.


She was a successful entrepreneur in Malaysia running her own gifts business before packing it all up to follow her husband (and our friend too) Hardy to Holland.

She is really really kind hearted and we will always be indebted to her for a very special favour. Zaza you know what I am referring to.

Hardy you are a very lucky guy.

Related posts:
- Majlis Bertunang
- Akad Nikah in Johor
- Traditional Bersanding in Johor

Tags: Zaza Holland