Disappointment with Emirates

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we discovered that one wheel of our stroller was missing on our Emirates flight to Birmingham from Malaysia. We were really disappointed as the Hauck Esprit Speed Sun pushchair was brand new and the first and only time we had used it was in KLIA - right up to the door of the plane where the Emirates people had taken it away for storage in the cargo compartment.

Anyway, at Birmingham, I had filed a Damaged Luggage Report with OCS, the repair agent for Emirates. I received a letter from OCS after a few days, asking me to call a number. A guy answered and we went through the steps and they told me that they would have someone pick up the stroller. He also asked me the value of the stroller. I answered that it cost me around 60 pounds (after conversion from Malaysian Ringgits) IN Malaysia.

Didn't think much about it then but this was a major mistake as I learnt later. They told me that they would send me a replacement within 7 days.

Days passed by.

A few weeks later I received a letter from OCS telling me that they couldn't repair the buggy and that they will inform Emirates to send us a settlement.

After nearly a month, I received a letter from Emirates along with a claim settlement for 60 pounds. This is when my wife really got mad with me. She was like: "Do you know how much a good stroller costs in the UK?" Actually I didn't and was dismayed when I found out later. On checking around, I found that the cheapest (comparable) strollers cost at least 75 pounds (Mothercare, Maclaren).

Tried talking to the people at Emirates. My wife was really angry and blasted the guy on the other end. Her reasoning was that the right value is the cost of a comparable pushchair here in the UK and not in Malaysia (where it is way cheaper). Unless of course, Emirates provides us a return ticket back to Malaysia to buy a buggy and of course they are not going to do that. but he asked us to file a complaint in writing.

I finally persuaded my wife to just accept the amount. After all, I was the one who told them the amount.

A lesson here. If your airline damages anything and you want to claim for damages, inflate the cost. Keep in mind, that they are not going to pay the hardships costs (Just imagine - In a foreign country, emergency trips to the doctor 45 minutes walk away, with two kids - one weighing 17.5KG and another 8KG, when you don't even have a car and then it starts raining).

As we needed a good pushchair urgently, we looked around on ebay. After a few unsuccessful bids, we finally won a Quinny Zap (2nd hand) for £73/. Drove down to Leicester and collected the pushchair from the seller's house.

Quite happy with our purchase as it is in excellent condition and a new one costs around £150 .

Given below are the pros and cons of the Quinny Zapp.
The positive:
1. Very light weight (only 8.8kg)
2. Very compact when folded. It is after all the smallest folded pushchair in the world (L:69cm/B:27cm)


The negative:
1. Doesn't recline.
2. Doesn't have a carry basket.

Extremely disappointed with Emirate's service. They damaged our brand new expensive pushchair. They failed to give us a replacement within 7 working days as promised. In the end we can't buy a comparable pushchair with the money they are going to give us.

I will be sending the completed claims forms tomorrow.

Tags: Emirates OCS Pushchair Hauck Quinny Zapp

A haircut

"What's so special about having a haircut?" you may ask.

Of late, we have become very careful with the way we spend our money. Of course, we have to be when we are surviving on a meager student scholarship.

Anyway, it's been more than a month since I last cut my hair. Everyone I have been chatting with, using Skype video, has been commenting that "your hair is really long now". I only time I tried keeping my hair long was when I was in school and I am not going to start keeping them long anytime soon.

I had asked around a bit but it seems that everyone I talked to (including my landlord) has someone at home, cut their hair. Evidently, going to a hair saloon is a rare event here. However, I had no choice as my wife doesn't know how to cut my hair. Even if she does, we left our battery operated hair clipper at home in Malaysia.

There are some hair saloons in our locality but they looked quite expensive, so I set off towards Stoney Stanton road where I hoped the barbers would be cheaper. Went into one saloon but it was full and thus it was to another one down the road. It was a no-frills, small outlet with only two chairs. I had my hair cut really short and I was poorer by five pounds (approx. RM 35).

Have to buy a hair cutting kit and then convince my wife to learn how to cut my hair so we can save some.

Tags: Hair cut Barber

Malaysian traffickers luring girls to UK

Malaysians are in the UK news but in a negative way. In the Nov 4 edition of the Times, it was reported that a ruthless gang comprising of Malaysian and Vietnamese traffickers who lured hundreds of women to Britain to work as sex slaves in a £2 million-a-year vice racket were jailed.

...at least one woman was tricked into leaving her family after being offered a sightseeing trip with all expenses paid. In Britain she joined other women servicing up to 50 men a week in luxuriously furnished brothels.

Really shameful.

Read the article here.

Girls! Better think twice before accepting that free trip to the UK.

Tags: Crime Sex slavery

Missing a turn

Last Saturday we decided to pay our friends Fifi and Redza, a visit at their new house near Warwick.

Now, before we go anywhere, we always check out the route using Google maps and the RAC route planner. "Why two maps?", you may ask. Well, sometimes we get two different routes from the different website. However, as they say, not everything goes as planned.

I missed one crucial left turn to a roundabout. Went straight ahead and took a wrong turn on another roundabout, straight into a motorway - the M40 to be more precise. We had to go all the way to Birmingham before we could make a U turn. Moral of the story: if you are at a roundabout and you are not sure, just go round and round a few times before you decide.

We ultimately arrived at their house, safe but more than an hour late. It was nice to meet up with them and their parents, who were there visiting from Malaysia. The last time we had seen them was at their's (and Hardy/Zaza's reception) in Johor.

Their new house looks fabulous and with a huge garden. Redza showed off his new DIY tools, which made me drool. He plans to renovate the house himself. Though I didn't have the chance to look at it, my wife did and according to her, the bathroom, which Redza did up with a friend, looks great.

Imaan was well behaved and he made quite an impression, I think.

Tags: Google Maps RAC route planner

Baby Talk

Imaan saying something. Sounds a lot like he is saying Baba Baba. Now my wife is trying to get him to say Mama.


The quality is not so good as it was taken using my webcam.

Tags: Baby Talk Imaan YouTube

Getting Connected

As regulars might have noticed, I am blogging almost daily now.

Yes! We finally have broadband internet connection. Getting connected was quite easy, the difficult part was selecting the service provider. Consumers here have so many choices, it's crazy. Pity the guys back in Malaysia who have to depend on Streamyx becoming bald after tearing their hair in frustration.

We asked around, checked the comparisions on the web, read the reviews and finally narrowed down our choice to BT, Sky, Talk Talk, NTL and AOL.

The NTL package was particularly attractive - cable TV, telephone and broadband, all for £30 per month. However, a lot of our friends talked us out of it as their experience with the service provider was not so good. Sky and Talk Talk had a long waiting list and we finally settled on AOL. Their Silver package provide download speeds of upto 1Mbps with no limits on downloads (as compared to only 2 gigs for BT). However, what clinched our decision was the fact that they were providing a wireless router for FREE and we quickly signed up online.



About one week later the postman dropped by with a box. Everything we needed to set up a connection was in the pack. It contained:

- a Netgear wireless router
- three DSL filters
- ethernet cable
- line cable
- power supply
- a booklet &
- an installation CD.

Setting up the connection was a breeze. Just followed the steps on the CD.

So far, so good.

Tags: Broadband AOL Wireless router

Coping with my new life and a scare

A lot of people have been asking on how I am coping with my new occupation - as a full time house husband. Yeah! That's what I am right now. I admit that I used to look down on other house husbands when I was working and I take it all back.

As I was washing the dishes a few minutes back, I realised that my life has changed when I was in the middle of singing along with my daughter, her favourite nursery rhyme "1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Once I caught a fish alive".

It's not as bad as it sounds and the transition has not been that difficult. I enjoy the quality time with my kids. However, staying at home all day can be pretty boring. I miss lepaking with friends, drinking teh tarik at the mamak stall right in front of the entrance of my previous organisation in Kedah.

My wife is at the Warwick Arts Centre right now to watch 'Thatcher The Musical' with her friends. I wish I could watch it with her but it's a sacrifice I have to make. Here, in UK with no maids and no parents, we have to take turns to look after the kids. When I go out, she has to stay at home. Most of the time when we do go out, we have to bring both kids along. Had to cancel a few invitations because we couldn't bring the kids along. It is not easy handling the kids. It only takes but one second for disaster to strike.

We had a big scare a few days back. I was with Imaan in the living room and my wife was upstairs. I heard Rahil coming down the stairs - thump, thump. Then it suddenly sounded like a ball bouncing down the stairs. I jumped from the sofa and rushed out to find Rahil lying at the bottom of the stairs crying with blood flowing from her nose. I was like in a trance. At the same time my wife came running down and was hysterical. Seeing her cry, Rahil started crying even harder. I had to cool both of them down and did a quick check to see whether there were any visible injuries on my daughter. Apart from the nose, which had stopped bleeding by then, she looked ok.

As we were rushed out from the house to dive down to our surgery (the clinic), we met a lady who turned out to be the nurse from our surgery dropping by to tell us that she's coming to meet us and check out the house this Friday. She informed us that we should take Rahil to the hospital and not to the surgery. Pure luck.

I didn't know the way to the walk-in hospital but from her directions and by looking at the map, somehow reached there. The nurse asked us a few questions: "Was she knocked out?" "No." "Any bleeding or injuries besides the nose?" "Not that we can see". As she decided that Rahil was OK we had to wait our turn (it was a long queue). She ultimately gave Rahil a clean bill of health.

My wife was really traumatised and she slept the rest of the day. That was really scary and I am thankful to God that nothing worse happened.

What about Rahil? Well she was up and hopping around right after we reached the house.

Related posts:
- EPF for Househusbands
- Househusband

Tags: Househusband children