......... Itchy feet go places

Have bags can travel.

Thousand apologies for no blogging for a few weeks.
The skies has cleared.
The planes are flying again.

"All my bags are packed and I'm ready to fly......"

So, itchy feet are going places again
to Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slavakia and Austria.
What else do retirees do ? ( Yours Sincerely / Y S really has to thank the government for the compulsory retirement at 56, thus forcing Y S to retire when he still has pimples ! Yet people are pushing the retirement age to 65 !!! Outrageous !!! Many will die in service and never get the chance to live. Yes, to live. )
Will blog bout it.

"Chai chian," bye !

....... of sleep, sleeping and pillows

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret. Anyway, if people were meant to pop out of bed, they should sleep in toasters ! Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) had been waking up with the sound of the alarm clock for the past thirty over years. Retirement also retired off my alarm clock !

They say that there are two types of people in this world; the good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. And yet we spend a third of our lives is passed in sleep.

" oh sleep ! It is a gentle thing. Beloved from pole to pole"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) gets on in age, there is this feeling of sleeping when you are not in bed, and you cannot get to sleep when you are in bed. This is the meanest feeling in the world. And fancy that you feel sleepiest when you are right in front of the television, but the moment you retire to bed, you are wide awake. Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the day time and too sleepy to worry at night. This individual is a blessed sleeper. A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

" And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning awake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created"
D.H Lawrence

Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking! And remember that all men whilst they are awake are in one common world but each of them when he is asleep is in a world of his own. A good sleep is a great blessing.

Y S was given a special gift of a good night sleep this birthday - a therapeutic and orthopedic pillow. Y S used to hold the old philosophy that it was the mind that made the sleep and not the pillow. So, Y S survived on cheap and uncomfortable pillows that sometimes strained and stiffened his neck. Admittedly, pillows do play a role. They do induce sleep to a certain degree. So, well, if you can have both, the pillow and the peaceful mind, why not ???

No day is so bad that it cannot be fixed with a sleep. There is more refreshment and stimulation in a sleep, however brief, it is than all the alcohol ever distilled.

...... heralding 58th year of life

April is a very special month for Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) . It is a month of celebrations. So, many memorably days seem to fall in this month. Two of which happen to be Y S' Wedding Anniversary and Y S' Birthday, the 20th of April , which also happens to be the birthday of a famous Hollywood star, Ryan O' Neal and an infamous German, Adolf Hitler.


This is the butter cake Better Half created for Y S' birthday, and the number stands out vividly to keep reminding Y S of his age! We know that we are getting old when the only thing we want for our birthday is not to be reminded of its year. Anyway age is all in the mind. The trick is to keep it from creeping down into your body. Because time itself is spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year. The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again each birthday, if you care to grasp it !

Y S has dedicated poem to himself :-

If you have left your dreams behind,
If hope is lost.
If you no longer look ahead,
If your ambitious fires are dead -
then you are old.
But if from life you take the best
And if you keep the jest,
If in love you hold -
No matter how many years go by,
No matters how birthdays fly,
You are not old !

Y S wishes to think of himself as only 30 years of age plus of 28 years of experience. LOL Ar... but then....time which may be a great healer is always a lousy beautician. It works against your ageing process. And getting old can be funny, know something? Y S' hair cut only costs RM7.00, but the hair dye costs RM48.00 !!! One more thing Y S would like to remind you : wisdom doesn't necessary come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself ! So, see your birthday as just feathers added on your broad wings of time. And be reminded that birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have most birthdays live the longest. LOL

Better Half spends the whole morning preparing Y S' favourite meal of "Kau Jam" ( in Thai ) or Herbal rice where the rice is cooked in a concoction of fragrant herbs ( Got it by compliment of my sister-in-law in Kelantan, deep frozen and exported to Alor Setar ) , eaten with an assortment of fresh sliced or chopped up vegetables : Cucumber, long beans, onions, "Daun kersom, " and "Bunga Kantan." Graded and fried coconut ( "Kersik') and peeled barbecued fish are added together with a generous sprinkling of "budu" ( fish sauce) and chilly "sambal." The rice has to be thoroughly mixed up, then you break up a few pieces of "keropoks" ( fish / prawn crackers) into it. O la la. You get yourself a plate of " Kau Jam." This is a communal meal, so Y S invited the assistant parish priest and some friends to join in.


With this birthday, Y S is two years down retirement lane. They say that time flies. Does time fly? I doubt. It simply keeps ticking away. Some of Y S' contemporaries who were born after 1st June ( the date of the option to retire @ 58 ) and opted to retire at 58, do not have many more months to work. One by one is due for retirement. Does time fly?


This is the card from elder daughter & hubby in NZ. A small neck exercise for you when you read. Sorry.

This is given my the younger daughter and it really confirms the ageing process and what Bob Hope ( a comedian) has to say :-

" I don't feel old.
I don't feel anything until noon.
Then, it's time for my nap. " - Bob Hope

As for Y S, lots of life is yet to be live. " I still have a full deck; I just shuffle slower now."

Thanks for all your good wishes.

....... of toilets and toilet visits

Yours Sincerely used to suffer from "STU" or Strange Toilet Unfamiliarity ( Y S coined the word by himself so don't bother looking up your medical books), meaning to say, you just simply cannot do your operation, the long call, on or over a strange toilet. You need to use the one at home. During Y S career days, he had to dash home for the long call. However, a good boss allowed him to use the one attached to his office. Then, life was more bearable. So, travelling those days was torturous as Y S had to constipate all along the way.

As age catches on, "STU" somehow compromises and as long as the toilet is clean, the operation is fine. So, Y S found this toilet on his tour in Taiwan. O la la... it is superb, especially the switches on the right. You can select two jets: long range and short range. Well, Y S leaves it to your imagination what is each range for. LOL

Then there is a switch to warm up the seat and adjust the tenperature of the water. And the jet of water comes out in four sets of spray: focussed, diffused, regular and spurts. Finally, another switch to blow dry the area concerned. If only it had one more switch,........... to spray the affected area with some deodorant then it would have been more complete. LOL

Talk about hi-tech !!!


Y S' last trip to Taiwan was more with an elderly group of females. This specie of humans after the age of 60s and 70s seem to have less tolerant for a full bladder. So, hourly toilet stop was mandatory all around the island of Taiwan. And that was still not enough, one of the ladies had to do it in the coach. She just could not contain it anymore. Her face turned green and she started to convulse. The coach was caught in a jam. There was no choice so Y S' Better Half sacrificed her jacket bag for the lady to relieve herself. You should see the smile of relief on her face after she had released what she had held.

The problem with travellers, especially the Chinese, is that they over consume water, thinking that it does good to their bodies. Y S observed that pupils in school drank like a fish and this could be irritating to the teacher. They have been infused with the oft heard tale of kidney stone build up with under consumption of water. Don't gulp down your water all in one go but sip it on and off leisurely. This ensures quenching of your thirst and less toilet visits.

There is also the anxiety of not knowing the availability of the next toilet so most people feel that they MUST visit any toilet they come across. It can be quite time consuming waiting for toilet visit, especially when the tour group consists of mostly ladies. Some places have only one or two cubicles for the females. This is frustrating when 10 to 15 ladies rush up at one time. The situation, Y S observes, is worse when the travel is in winter. Imagine the layers of clothing that have to be unpeeled and how much time is taken up. One of Y S' trip to Kunming was with 27 ladies and only 2 males. Y S and another young boy. You can imagine the amount of patience Y S had to stretch.

Another reason which may not be acceptable could be the age old instinct which is prevalent in dogs. They just have to place their marks wherever they go. The marking of territory or rather the inner expression of "I have been here." Of course, humans do it more discreetly in the toilets and not only at any posts, trees and shrubs.

Meanwhile Y S is thinking of inventing and marketing special diapers for travellers !

.... of Taiwan ( 3 )

Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) would like to share with you snippets of Taiwan. This is the zig-zag staircase leading to the old British Consulate Building.

A shot from the Twin Pagoda. You have to enter the Dragon's mouth to come out of the tiger's mouth. Interesting, eh?

Is this meat ? No, Y S had a vegetarian Buffet with all sorts of look alike.

This is a view of the the Sun Moon Lake.

Well, this is the interior of a very weird " Five Dime Boat Restaurant" which is full of weird statues of females with exposed breasts. Here you can see two of them.

These are the urinals and wash basin of the weird restaurant. Y S was worried of hidden CCTV!

This is a popular statue of Sun Yat Sen, Father Modern of China who overthrew the last of the Manchu Emperor of China to establish a republic. Btw the Taiwan museum is like a market place, sardine packed with visitors, especially from Mainland China.

Guess what? This is the popular Ah Chung " Mee Sua" (Rice noodle) soup. You have to practically queue up to buy one and stand to eat it. Ah Chung used to operate a popular roadside stall. He stationed himself at busy intersections and street corners and was always playing hide-and-seek with the police for obstructing traffic. When Ah Chung was on the run from the traffic police, his clients had to follow suit, clutching their bowls and chopsticks, half slurping their "mee sua," panting and coughing. Ah Chung has made a bundle. Now he has a permanent stall : -

But he still lacks service. You stand by the five foot way and slurp your "mee sua." Somehow, it is delicious. Y S surmises that it could be the standing that makes the "mee sua" passes down directly to the intestines and this makes you yearn for more.

This how the Taiwanese make their Chinese tea. The tea leaves wre brewed in the oblong container.


These old time Long Play black records decked the ceiling of the old British Consulate building. When Y S visited the place, there was a Beatles' Exhibition going on.

The Pacific Ocean is directly behind Y S who was amazed by the two shades of the ocean.

This is Y S resting a a tea house in Taroku National Park.

As usual Better Half stanched a chance to dance with the natives.

Fancy that Y S travelled in this double decker all over Taiwan.

Overall comment, nothing spectacular but a good holiday with lots of food and seeing another set of Chinese.

...... of Taiwan ( 2 )

The first day was at YeLiu Geopark. The weather was unwelcoming and wind of gale strength howled across Y S' ears and nearly wrenched off Y S' glasses. Now, I understand how buses get blown off the road during Taiwan's typhoons. However, the sight was breathtaking and rewarding.

This is better half holding on to her cheap TESCO poncho.

Gale and rain could not deter the determination of tourists who inched their way down the plank walk to view the spectacular landforms.

This is Y S at one corner of the park. You can see the breakers behind him and he could felt the spray from the breakers.

This is what everybody comes to view and snap a photo. Mind you, the queue could be long. It is supposed to be the Queen's head. Look like it, ya ? It seems that her neck is getting smaller and smaller by the years due to weathering and one fine day it will drop off.



Better half could not stand still in the gale. Behind her are eroded and weathered rock forms that look like brocolli.

And this one looks like the tail of "Free Willy", the great whale.

This geologic mystery is a rare sight and worth visiting. If the weather were better, Y S would have lingered here longer and feasted his eyes on these magnificent sights.

........ of Taiwan ( 1 )

Taiwan here we come.

Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) and better half went places again. This time to the island of Formosa or Taiwan or R.O.C. (Republic of China ) Having been to Mainland China for umpteen times, it was time to see and experience some changes, and also to compare and contrast the two countries.

South China Airlines flies to Taipeh regularly from Penang and Y S' flight touched down smoothly. It is strange that the Taiwanese refer to themselves as "Taiwan People" and not Chinese. They really want to stress their difference from the Mainland Chinese or "Tar Lur" Chinese or Chinese from the " Big Road."

The four-hour plus flight from Penang landed Y S at Taipeh at dinner time. So, we made a beeline to"Shilin" night market which is a gourmets' haven as you can judge from the following pictures.

An assortment of meant to be chosen and soaked with greasy gravy.

This is fried "something' in a very greasy pan. Y S could not make out.

Taiwanese seem to like morsels of food skewed with a stick like these sausages.

This is deep fried crabs to be eaten with chilly sauce.

This is something like our "roti canai" but it is filled with onions and some other vegetables.

This is a sort of pancake with lots of fillings.


This is the notorious "smelly toufu" but wildly delicious. Y S had two, mind you, 2 pieces. You can imagine my breath after that !!!

The market can be very crowded. You have to jostle to get your order.

.... and the menu is all in Chinese. This is the time when Y S regretted going to national school.

This is only a small section of the market. There are many, many more stalls. It is easy to buy in Taiwan compared to Mainland China's stalls which love to prey on tourists by giving wrong change, giving you bigger portions that necessary, adding unnecessary ingredients and then demanding for more cost, the list is unending and Y s has had enough.

Taiwanese are more polite and cultured. At least you get back the correct change. Their mandarin is easier to understand given Y S' basic knowledge of the language. And above all, they also speak Hokkien ! " Ai chiak borrr?"

So, this was how the first evening went. Well, as they say the best way to a man's or also a woman's, I suppose, heart is through the stomach.

And that is how Y S got an extra kilo around the waist !