Hope you enjoy this bit of a rant. It is to do with my well-being, especially in the context of having (enough?) energy as a father chasing around demanding 6- and 3-year olds

I’m into social media and twitter, and I was whining about my bad knee, and how I was putting on the pounds with the lack of (conventional) exercise. This is my left knee, which I damaged years ago when I went back to the gym after some time off and went straight for the same weight I used before, for squatting. Dumbass. I should have, and do know better. That’s how I had stayed injury free, till then.

Either that or it was the time when I curled my leg to pull myself closer to the office desk on the wheeled-chair, and my knee popped.

Either way, it hurts like hell now at the point of the common angle of climbing up a stair- 45 degrees from straight; which means I can’t play tennis anymore (since one has to be bent-kneed to be ready to pounce towards where the ball is going).

So, a mutual friend on twitter read the whine. She happens to be a qualified trainer, just returning from Vegas then. “Why not come give Bikram yoga a try?”

My mum used to teach yoga to her friends at home, in the early 80′s. She had started practising at home in the late 70′s when my older brother bought her a book titled “Yoga for health”. Me being the youngest and already starting high school, she had more time and thought to teach it. I think she was proud of how many had commented how young she looks for her age; she’s always attributed it to yoga. Whenever she was teaching upstairs I’d be downstairs watching either The A-team, Airwolf or MacGyver, to give you an idea when this was.

Whenever she was practising, I’d use to join her. Not for all the poses, only what I thought was challenging for someone my age then. The Bat was one I would always try- where one sits on the floor with legs straight and wide open, and chin to the floor, finger grabbing the toes. If I recall, the advanced version would involve proceeding to a complete side-split, stomach on the floor and roll forward and end up on the stomach with legs behind and flat on the floor.

Years after that whilst growing up, I’d still do that for fun- on the floor while watching TV, or reading the newspapers. I always felt better after a stretch. It also helped with the karate and kung-fu classes I would take short years after that. Boarding school bullies who try to challenge me would think twice when I “show off” warming up for the “duel”. Okay- news about giving the karate instructor a bloody nose during sparring also helped.

Since those years ago, I took up the usual sports like tennis and gym, etc. Never at all giving “real” complete yoga classes any thought. I was in all ways, a typical bloke.

So I accepted this invitation to give Bikram class a try this past April. I was not happy with my weight and, truthfully, my image, my puffy face. I could only wear my 2 largest pants in my wardrobe. I had also just done a medical and my cholesterol levels were frightening.

At the first class, I could do most of the stretch-related poses, but no way till today could I keep my endurance up for all the pose-holding. In May there was a 3 week work-related travel away from home. Being the first time in the US I tried mostly all of the foods presented to the delegation and also US-sized fast food. Upon returning I was even more motivated.

I have been trying to go 3 times a week since then. Most times when I couldn’t was due to my daughter’s whining- due to my fulltime job I could only go after work, which means no time for her/them and our trips to the playground, dinners together, or simply just hanging out. During periods of lull in the office, I have gone for the early morning classes to improvise. I have been lucky with this arrangement this year.

Around July or August during a family dinner my older sister, whom I don’t see regularly, commented that I have lost weight “and look better this way”. Her teenage daughters and other nieces, being something of activity-junkies themselves, were asking which studio I attend. I had even brought one of them along once for her to try. And as expected, it is too slow for her. Though she could do everything and had enjoyed it, she is back to her usual bouldering and cheer-leading activities; “for now”, this late-teenager added.

So, I’m still attending as regularly as I can. I do feel more energetic, noticeably able to keep up with the kids. I am getting back some definition, an image which I wasn’t so conscious anymore at our recent family trip to a water park. I am sure the wife has also had some secret thoughts though she hasn’t shared much (!) but I do know she is happy for me too.

These days I can chomp down the nieces-made cheesecakes and rebut the wife when she warns that I would put on weight. “Don’t worry, I now know the formula!”

Thanks to Bikram instructor Mei Ng, http://twitter.com/MeiNg, for the invitation

I had not been inside before despite it being opened for years now, boasting the world’s largest indoor roller coaster. So what better opportune to bring the kids along.

We got there, saw and greeted kau-foo, got the free passes, and disappeared! How rude!

One of the rides that Caitlin had eagerly wanted to try was the bumper car. She had tried this once before when we went to Genting Highlands; where she froze upon the cars starting and other riders started to bump into her (read it here).

This time however, I guess she knew the objective of the ride, and wasn’t too miffed about being bumped into as much. However, whilst driving she was actually avoiding everyone as much as she could! I guess this was her first driving lesson, and not a bad one at that- I was watching her and she was avoiding “cars” quite well

Little brother Caleb however, I guess was going through what his jie-jie was going through on her first time. He wasn’t sure what to make of this. I could see he was hanging on (but not for dear life, probably cos he doesn’t know what to worry!) and looking everywhere. Perhaps he was getting motion sickness in that he wasn’t in control of the direction, and also the jerking whiplash stop-starting of the car.

When jie-jie wanted to go on it again, he opted out So we went on the train ride again

I think in all she went like 4 times

Not that we minded the idea. Back then we only loathed about what the likely quality of basic amenities would be like. After all, there were stories of toilets with no doors, toilets with no toilets but a hole in the ground. Somehow it never eventuated.

Through the years, the kids (my nephews and nieces) grew, and my parents have also continued keeping in contact with his relatives (well, they are mine too). They too have made visit(s?) here (but I was away studying/living in Adelaide at the time). A recent idea my dad had was to contribute toward a memorial of his ancestors, to keep the roots alive.

Recently, that idea came to fruition. And what better timing to also time the visit to the completed site with bringing the family there as well.

We had spent the week leading to, and including Christmas Day 2009, in Xiamen China. Xiamen city is only about 2-3 hours bus ride to the village, so it isn’t like a real trek too deep into China (please mind my poor knowledge of Chinese geography). That has worked out quite well all this time for my parents, making it easy for them to visit our relatives all these years.

My dad organised a tour group for this visit- which was actually just us, the whole 29 of us! It was a fun time for all as there were no outsiders and we were as our usual silly-carefree selves

I can’t say there was a sense of belonging, personally. After all, we were all born in and grew up in Malaysia. As a father I reckon my dad feels some form of achievement in finally bringing his own children together to see his birthplace, to see where we are from, his and our roots, connect with some distant blood relatives, and his contribution back to the community when he left with his father to seek, and found, a better life in distant shores. He had done well for himself with very humble beginnings, and by extension my generation (and later) are now a lot better off comparatively.

Take away the brick houses beside and behind this structure, and you have the house in which my father was born.

My grandfather built this house in the ’60′s apparently after the ethnic unrest in Indonesia, fearing the same for Malaya/Malaysia, with intention to bring everyone back to China to live in this bigger house.

This is (almost) everyone, infront of the “shrine” cum community hall that my dad funded and built

For Caitlin, at 5 years old I don’t think this will be a lasting impression. Ideologies of family ties is too mature for her. She will remember the some of the places we visited, and the fun with the cousins. She probably won’t remember how cold it was; she may remember what she wore; but she’s worn that same jacket before elsewhere.

One thing I’ve been saying to people who asked what I thought about my first visit to China is: “We were on the bus, driving through very long tunnels, to emerge to drive on long bridges.” I was rather awed by the landscape- it’s one thing to read about it and watch it on tv, but it’s another to see the natural landscape: mountains and valleys. Also, the technology deployed in this developing country is actually also more advanced than Malaysia. Tunnels bored through these mountains; long tunnels, and impressive world class bridges to carry you further. The highways are also multi-tiered, criss-crossing each other at higher and higher levels.

It is a big big country, there are uneven developments everywhere. I personally only saw 3 beggars on the street, only in Xiamen city; 2 of whom are disabled, the 3rd looked able-bodied but with a toddler probably 2-3 years old.

More pictures here:

• My brother’s photo collection on flickr
• Mine

It was also Hot Mummee’s birthday on the 21st Also, Yee yee (HM’s younger sister) is also back from Hawaii for a month; and it’s also going to be HM’s cousin’s wedding this weekend!

So we had quite a few activities lined up in the last 2 weeks or so!

As a nice little “cheap” treat, I brought Caitlin for a swim in our pool downstairs (of the condo building). Off and on I have been taking her floats out of her swimgear the last few times we went for a dip- she is tall enough already and can stand at the shallow end. She really surprised me by “going under” (as she calls it) and even remembering that one time I tried to teach her to exhale through her nose. I was watching her submerging and blowing bubbles out of her nose and really enjoy exploring this new skill and sensations!

The other highlight was also the rare times that we as a family ventured outdoors together! HM’s not really an outdoorsy person, and with Caleb being still somewhat waddling, we don’t venture outdoors much. But being somewhat bored with the days-off, we contacted Moomykin and Cuddlyfamily to see what they were doing.

We ended up planning a picnic!

The kids had the most fun, whilst I enjoyed (not enough of!) Moomykin’s decadent potato and egg salad and Cuddlyfamily’s homemade cookies! Most of my time was spent watching over the kids; more so with Caleb and (possibly?) his first visit to a playground.

Oh, we had also bumped into See Ming (aka xmocha) and Sim and Max!

The picnic wasn’t as scary as we had feared (okay we are city folks after all). The dreaded rain held off just for us, where it had been raining every 12 hours or so the previous umpteen days regardless of day or night, and also the kids weren’t too much of a handful.

After the picnic morning HM, Yee yee and I, and their brother and some friends went for karaoke (don’t laugh- all are quite good singers and it’s also good stress relief!), followed by seafood dinner- it was after all HM’s day, and she got to choose which crab, and the cooking style to eat!

Typical female I guess. But at least for now she is not keen on checking out shoes….

However, I gotta be fair. I do like to go check out gadget shops too. When we passed the Machines store (Apple and accessory store) Caitlin actually recognised it. “Daddee you wanna go in there?” I didn’t have to, so we didn’t. Much as I’d like to repeat the ritual of making at least 1 round and probably see the same stuff as the last visit.

Hee hee.

I can’t say this shoppaholic gene runs through the whole family though. The little man was actually already asleep in the car on the way even though his big sister was all the chatterbox that she is (even more of since we were going shopping).

Nice way to spend the public holiday that we had this week, I reckon

It’s school holidays next week, and I have kinda made promises of more mini adventures with her…. Only that now I don’t think I can get days off work anymore- looks like this Daddee may have to break some promises, or only do them on weekends and cram the shopping malls and carparks with the rest of the city folk …. Yikes.

The sky has been like this all day today, and the wind was very strong outdoors; little ones like Caitlin may actually literally be blown off her feet!

I’d hate to see what it’s be like when this storm does hit.

One thing though- just as well I didn’t bring the kids.

But one doesn’t have to be kings to be able to eat like this in mostly all Australian cafes…..

Okay okay, this may not be a big deal for some of you guys, but it is for me; cos it’s not always that we get real bacon at home… You could find them in Malaysian supermarkets, but I don’t think I’d be able to get a “complete” meal like this!

And this is only for breakfast

Heh….

It is my parents’ 50th anniversary this year, and also a joint celebration for my mum’s birthday.

But my dad doesn’t want people to know these.

He is kinda shy about it, you see.

Also, both my parents just want friends and family to come empty handed. That’s right. No gifts, no ang pows.

They have insisted that the dinner event, some 18 tables I hear, to just be a sit-down happy joy joy dinner with close friends and relatives. No stage, no mics, no hoo-ha.

But the grandkids are up to something…..

Some parts of their grand-plan are finalised, others still need the Committee’s approval and budgetary sign-offs

* Photo courtesy of my brother’s Flickr site

The first is a friend over a year older than her. Their Mummees have known each other before they knew their respective husbands, and naturally when both had daughters, they play when the adults get together. The second is a classmate she gets along well- she talks about her all the time after school; at parent teacher meetings the teachers have even complained that these two chatterboxes had to be separated!

If I can categorise these 2 friends- one is while in school-mode, the other is outside of school-mode; if you know what I mean. It’s not that Caitlin is or acts differently in and out of school, but she only sees these friends in respective surroundings and circumstances.

So this party was held in an indoor kids’ gym, you know- steps and rubber balls and slides. And these two friends were present.

Being host we arrived early. Caitlin was off to the gym. Her friends started arriving, and quickly joined in the fun. This was also the first time I watched Caitlin playing host, unprompted. Let me rephrase that: This was the first time I had to prompt her to be a host. But it was all good; after all, in a place like that, one (kid) would not really need much urging to join in!

Soon, both of these friends were present. And since both didn’t know each other, they were demanding the attention of Caitlin.

While Caitlin was quite happy following either one of them, the other was starting to feel neglected in that Caitlin either didn’t heed her plea to “come over here..” or didn’t hear her at all. When she played with school friend, the other was feeling left out and cried. So when we asked Caitlin to also include the other, somehow the first one then became somewhat left out too. Caitlin, in all this time, was busy accommodating one or the other!

So the tears were flowing, complaints being raised with the mummies, and Caitlin seemingly needed coaching.

But even I was at a loss somewhat. Naturally I was thinking in adult-mode: Can’t we all just join in and (learn to) get along? Hot Mummee and I were saying things to all 3 girls to try and pacify and solve the “issue”. “Why don’t you include the other…”, “Why don’t all 3 of you play together…”, “.. they don’t know each other, so you (Caitlin) have to try and get them to play together….”

While it is somewhat amusing to see this little dilemma, how would you have settled this triangle??

So since my friends in Adelaide either don’t have a spare one to loan me, or that their kids are already grown, I had to bring my own on this trip (I also had to bring Caitlin’s child toilet seat too, but that’s another story!)

Going there was ok. After all we checked in at KL Sentral where there was a rather menacing looking guy offering a plastic-wrapping service for your luggage: RM10 for “large” bags. It’s not regulations to have your luggage wrapped; as I was explaining to the passenger in front of me at the check in queue. it’s really only a matter of preference. Plus, it makes it harder for would-be thieves to break into your luggage. With the plastic wrap I also thought it would give the seat some level of protection.

It was on the way back that got me. Adelaide airport; and dare i say most Australian airports, do not have this service available. So I checked it in “naked”.

After arrival, my fears were confirmed when I saw it come around the carousel in a tray. From a distance I could see black where there shouldn’t be, and white where there also shouldn’t be.

So, I picked up the pieces, literally, and got our belongings onto the trolley to board the express train. Generally, damaged baggage ought to be reported on the spot. However, there is actually a 7 day window where you can still lodge your report. Not wanting to hang around the airport too long with a hungry toddler, I decided to lodge the report at another time.

I did make sure that I had proof of the damage though, so I took this, and a few more shots of the damage, whilst on the express train.

Before this post, I had already sent the photos plus a note to the relevant authorities, as my official report of baggage damage.

There.

I have asked Uncle Al again if he can take us to the beach again, and because he also had so much fun, he just might!

So a few months ago I asked Hot Mummee where we should go with these free tickets. “Gotta save money lah, impending recession, you know..”

The long and short of it? I went ahead with the planning without her. I decided to bring Caitlin along to Adelaide, where I went to uni, where Hot Mummee wouldn’t be interested in coming anyway, and where (thus, since it was only going to be an adult and a half) I was able to crash at a uni friend’s house. Yes recession may be coming, but this trip is looking pretty cheap!

So, last night we set out for the flight. This was all quite familiar to Caitlin already, after having flown to Australia twice before already, within weeks of her 2nd and 3rd birthdays, and now her 4th birthday!

The train ride was fun, as expected. We didn’t have that much time in the terminal to run around like the last time, due to pretty-ok-thus-little-buffer-time planning during that evening.

As soon as we got on the plane Caitlin was asking for the headphones already! “I wanna watch Bob the Builder!” She was quite right, Bob the Builder was listed as one of the program on the kids channel. But it was only 1 episode. In the end, she ended up watching Finding Nemo, twice.

Which also means that she didn’t actually sleep that much. I guess a little like her Daddee, she was trying to savour every moment of the holiday by staying awake as much as possible. But being an overnight flight, this wasn’t something I had wanted, because it will mean that we’d be wasting the following fullday trying to recuperate from the lack of sleep. And I had forgotten to ensure that she didn’t have her afternoon nap the afternoon of the overnight flight.

Which was what we ended up doing, because Caitlin only managed about 3 hours sleep, and I even less. But you wouldn’t know it if you saw her in the Adelaide international airport. She was jumping and running and giggling all the way!

Just as well for the time difference. She knocked out at her usual Malaysian afternoon nap time, which was around late morning Adelaide time. So, come night time, she’d be adjusted to sane local sleeping times.

Which she is now asleep soundly as I type…

Tonight, with my uni friend we went to Fasta Pasta. Those of you who thought this sounds familiar is because these are the same guys who ventured into Malaysia at Ikano years ago. It’s quite a big franchise here in South Australia, and the menu is still the way I liked it when I was at uni here over a decade ago….

So, after spending a day here, these are the things I forgot to bring! (ie, as of today!)

• Caitlin’s hairbrush!
• Clothes for ME to sleep in!
• Malaysian driver’s license! I am so used to the fact that it’s incorporated into our MyKad that I forgot to bring the “actual” one..

So since I had the day off work (actually I had taken the whole week off since I have a load of annual leave left), and also that our department had organised a lunch party, I thought to pick Caitlin up from school and head on over to the office party with her in tow, to show her the place where I work.

The party was a combined Raya celebrations as well as farewell for a staff. But little did I know that there was also gonna be performances by my peers. Some singing, some dancing, some fashion show parade.

We arrived about 50 minutes after the party started- Caitlin’s school day only ended 30min after the scheduled start of the party. By then there were thank-you speeches already by my unit head, and soon followed by performances.

The ladies in the unit danced, sang self-written rhymes to tease the farewell staff. Staff were also requested to come “dressed up”, so there were also fashion / catwalk parades. In good sportsmanship, when my peers saw me walking in with Caitlin, I was also requested to parade under the “Daddy with daughter” category. Caitlin wasn’t too appreciative of that, but she obliged since I was holding her hand. We did a walk, I wanted to twirl her but she wasn’t really in the mood, and we walked back to where we were hiding.

Soon after, lunch was served. It was only then that she started coming out of her shell, starting to respond and then started talking to the adults in my office. It was afterwards that I found out that she even volunteered info- that she spoke first instead of just responding, about her day in school, with one of the ladies here…

Hmm I wonder if it was ‘cos food was being served that she opened up….

So now she has seen “Daddee’s office”. Complete with dancing ladies, singing ladies, ladies winning (small) awards for being best-dressed, a big table full of food with tomato rice, not-spicy curry dishes, cakes, “crackers” (she didn’t know they were called papadums), and Playhouse Disney (website) on Daddee’s work laptop.

Talk about misconceptions about the adult working life from an early age!

… I mean, after all, Caitlin’s had the whole week off school because of Hari Raya, and it was already the Saturday night before school reopens. We (I take all the blame as the father) hadn’t really done anything with her or for her in such an opportune time for fun and togetherness.

So since it looked like it’s been a fairly dull week-off for her, after a fairly early dinner on Saturday night I told Hot Mummee that I feel I should bring Caitlin out to do something. Hot Mummee and I had plans to meet up with my brother that night to discuss somethings, and she herself had a business plan to complete, so she suggested I bring Caitlin out for a drive (only, since it was too late for anything else and I had to be home for this meeting) to, maybe, Bintang Walk and “see the lights”…

How boring I thought. But when I got into the car with a very excited Caitlin, I actually didn’t know where else to go. KLCC (Twin Towers) may not be all that far away from my parents house (where we were that weekend) but given it’s a Saturday night, I may actually waste more time looking for a spot in their basement carpark than the actual window shopping / walkabout. I found myself heading towards Bintang Walk and the (boring-but-ok-gimme-an-alternative-then-smart-arse!) “bright lights”.

I come to a traffic light. Stop. Green. Go. Another 200m. Another lights. Stop. Green. Join the crawl. Ooh look- wow man bright lights, woop-dee-doo. Then I saw it. Brightly lit also, to the right of the one-way street Walk. Fringing the new posh Pavillion shopping centre.

Blue background, white bold typeface. “P”, for parking.

Do I bore her with the bright lights “Huh, that’s all you are bringing me out for, Daddee the hero in my eyes?” Or risk being late for the appointment at home but yet meet the expectations of my daughter and maintain the hero standing?

The choice was obvious. After all, I had to maintain my reputation: I am known for my punctuality and keeping to my word on appointments, for I myself would not tolerate my attendees to be late either.

I turned into the carpark.

Inside, father and daughter were running chasing around hee-hee ha-ha, playing and bonding and creating new memories of and with each other being the envy of other pram-pushing parents and yet other solemn-faced parents of butt-crack-exposed multi-coloured hair teenagers.

Oh, how time flew and stood still and in slo-mo at the same time, images of wide grins and a running little girl looking back at you; momentarily forgetting that I still needed to leave soon much to the disappointment of the apple of my eye.

So what is the parenting lesson here?

Never run around a shopping centre with a toddler, even if it is in as grand and as spacious a place as The Pavillion, white marbled flooring lit by high ceiling spotlights with Beverly Hills retailers and halogen bulbs.

Because they puke from running too much. Especially so soon after dinner. Of steamed fish and (a bit of) crab meat.