Cookies and lion dances

February 4, 2019.Reading time 6 minutes.

Chinese New Year (CNY) will be upon us tomorrow. Another celebration that we Malaysians have the good fortune to enjoy with our Chinese friends. To get into the mood, I put up our Lunar New Year decorations soon after storing away our Christmas tree until its next appearance in December ( I always feel a […]

Replaying holidays

January 21, 2019.Reading time 11 minutes.

El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina, with the Fitz Roy mountain range in the background

It’s been seven years since my husband and I took a very belated but welcomed gap year. Yes, 365 days off from work and business to travel. Just thinking and remembering the year makes me light up like a Christmas tree. That feeling of freedom, Merdeka, as we Malaysians like to say, was palpable. We […]

A 3-in-1 resolution

December 31, 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

I am one for resolutions. Every year, I make resolutions. I like making them because it encourages me to think. Yes, just think of what I’d like to do better or different in the new year, never mind that I forget some and ignore others. Still, I enjoy the thinking and the listing, and hopefully, […]

I like December

December 24, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

What a wonderful time of the year, December is

December is my favourite month of the year, second only to March as that’s my birthday month. There’s a sense of joy and lightness in the air, imagined or otherwise, at least in the airspace that I breathe and live in. December means year-end holidays, Christmas, presents and eating loads of good stuff. How can […]

Leavers and remainers

November 26, 2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

The only time my husband and I take an early morning flight is from England to Malaysia. Up at 5am and out the door by 6am to catch the 10am flight home when the leavers (us) and remainers (family) are still half-awake and a little groggy from sleep. I dread the leave day as it […]

A no-plan holiday in Somerset

October 15, 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

Picturesque villages everywhere in Somerset

We spent close to a week in Downhead, Somerset. The plan for this particular holiday was to have no plan. A sort of free and easy sojourn, which is rather easy to organise when there is just the two of you. My husband and I decided to wing it when we got to Downhead, a […]

Do now list

August 12, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

If we knew we were going to die in a year or within a specific time frame, what would we do? This is not a morbid thought or question, if anything it made me think about what I wanted, liked and enjoyed most in my life. My husband and I intermittently speak about what we would […]

Riding the E & O Express

June 6, 2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

“Will there be posh people?” my sister asked. “What will you wear, what will be served and how do you speak to posh people?” I didn’t know the answers to be honest. Far from being posh and of the jeans and t-shirt variety, my husband and I were not entirely sure how this whole experience was […]

Snowy Sapporo

May 12, 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

It’s just under eight hours away from KL. While it is not a hop, skip and jump away Sapporo is the place to visit if you, like me, like snow and the cold. Being a typical Malaysian, I get googly-eyed about all things snow. When home is an average sweltering 30C all-year-round, I can’t be […]

Unusual holiday lets

May 10, 2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

I have stayed in some dumps in my time. So I know what it means to have a nice place to return to after a day’s exploring. With some savings and old age, clean and comfortable accommodation is a must now. Nothing too fancy or too expensive, although I would never decline such an offer. […]