The Purpose of Life

A trip home for 3 weeks seems rather short especially when I haven't been home for more than 4 years. However, I am glad that the timing was perfect!
It happened that I decided to stay in Bandar Utama, PJ for the first week eventhough I "suppose" to stay at my grandma's place in Setia Alam, Shah Alam. But I was thinking it will be easier to go around, to shop and to spend time with my brother who work in PJ. I was right. I spend the 5 days staying with my 5th aunt, chatting, catching up, sharing thoughts at night before sleeping. Then I followed her to the office where I will see my brother (they both work for my uncle). Then I get to spend the lunch time with my brother, at the same time exploring different places with yummy local food. After that, we asked our dad out for dinner. It was great that I planned it that way, later I learned that my 5th aunt and my brother was very busy the 3rd week and believe it or not I didn't get a chance to meet my 5th aunt again after the 1st week. :)
The second week I went back to my hometown in Ipoh and had a lazy time there, spend time with my other brother and my mom and our new added family member, BaoBao, our dog (a Shi Tzu breed). I wish I could have done more in Ipoh. I wonder why there's not enough time...mostly I don't know where to go and so coincident my brother was busy to take me out at night. But I have to say I really enjoy the breakfast time in Ipoh, those noodles, yong tau fu (stuffed beancurd), and chee cheong fun (thin roll of rice noodle with gravy) is extremely delicious!!! I also enjoyed the vegetarian sushi that my brother recommended. I think the other reason is that I was thinking maybe there's chance again next year when hubby is going home with me. I have to write down and plan accordingly where I want to go... hmmm....have to take him to hike at Menglembu...and what else? to go around the oldtown in Ipoh I guess...I'm kind of lost, I don't remember where else to go... I found myself became unfamiliar with Ipoh. I think I can get some suggestion from FB.
So, at the end of 2nd week, I went to Penang and stayed at my friend, Doreen's place. It was a beautiful condominium by the beach. I am really thankful to her parents. They were so warm and welcoming. For the whole 2 days, they took me to different places with great local food. I almost burst with tears of happiness when I ate the asam laksa...that one is really good!!!!!!!!!!! Arrgghhh...I'm craving for it now. With such limited time, Doreen's dad make an effort to take us to tour around the island. I've been to Penang many times when I was little but I think I haven't been there for more than 10 years. The city has improved a lot. I also get to meet some of my high school classmates who are now living in Penang.
The 3rd week and the last....I went back to KL with my mother. This week I stayed at my aunt's place who live accross the street from my grandma. It's a very relaxing and warm week as well that I get to spend more time with my grandma and my other aunts and uncles, chatting, catching up and listening to my grandma's stories about her childhood and when she married my grandfather. She also told me about the day my grandfather passed away. I 'm glad she's coping well, and I keep telling her that I'm coming back soon next year with my husband, and that she has to live to meet him, to meet my children, to meet my cousin, Shen Yee's children, Hong Ping's children....etc.. she laughed...and said "ok, ok"
On my grandma's birthday, I took out some old pictures I took from home to share with everyone and I can feel the warm feeling and hear the laughter as everyone reminiscent the good old days.
On the day I have to leave, my 3rd aunt cried, my first aunt did too, my mom didn't, hehehe, she's used to it I guess, me too...but I'm crying now.... my grandma stand outside and keep waving until our car turned away. My cousins, and my brother including me keep saying, we'll see each other again, soon, in March, that's a great comfort.
Family is so important... I wish I have some of them staying in New York with me, but I am happy that at least I have my loving, caring hubby with me. He comforts me by saying, "one day honey, we may be able to retire in Malaysia." I think as long as I can go home every year, I'm happy.
I ask myself repeatedly will it be better if i never leave my country?...I know it won't be the same, just as my friend said, you will never learn as much if you never leave your home, if you never leave the comfort zone. I agree. It is a learning process.... I learn something during this trip, the message become clearer to my mind - The Purpose of Life is to discover yourself.
I think it takes many events and encounter with many different types of people to realize and really found ourselves.

I will share some of the photos soon.

Beautiful Calgary

Before it became an old history, I do want to talk about my trip to Calgary, Canada recently(hmm… a while ago). When hubby announced that we are going to Calgary, I was thinking “What kind of place is that? I never heard of it.” Later I recalled one of our friend once mentioned about this city that if she get to choose, she will want to live in Calgary and she described it as a big city with high rise building but not as big as NYC and not as crowded but just a very nice place to live in. Hmm?

Now, we see it for ourselves and I have to say I fell in love with Calgary. It’s a very well-balanced city I should say, it feels like home, there are times that I felt like I’m walking in KL because they are so many oriental faces, most of them are from Hong Kong and in certain area, there are many Japanese too. Basically they have very healthy mix of many races, and you don’t see obvious separation. They are very well mixed in the society.
I’m a city person, I always love high rise building and especially enjoying looking up at the city light at night. But a big city as busy as NYC can also mean lower quality of life. Calgary has both the view, energy and the quality of life…

We stay in the downtown area so that we can conveniently walk to the US Consulate. This trip is for business purposes but we grab the opportunity to travel around a little bit. Bicycles are everywhere especially near the high rise buildings. Looks like most of them ride the bike to work.

Calgary is a very clean city, I heard they are the 5th cleanest city in the world, I was thinking to myself, this city is already super clean, who gets the first place? Maybe you have to consider the size of the population too relatively.

Most of the building have beautiful sitting area in the front or the back of their buildings.

We were wondering where are the people? We see many buildings, it cannot be that empty, and it’s lunch time.
And there you go, everyone is inside the buildings. They have what they call the elevated walkway, or the crosswalk between most of the building so they do not need to leave the building for lunch or dinner.
On the second floor of most buildings are restaurants, food court, malls, boutique…etc. So, in the winter they do not need to put on and take off their coat and walk in and out of the building like us, they can stay inside, keep warm and still walk through the whole downtown. Nice! Brilliant idea. Of course NYC can’t follow that, we are always scare of bomb, remember? You don’t want to connect the buildings, sigh.

They have many nice seating area everywhere inside the building, and not bench I’m talking about, they are nice beautiful sofas. Everything is very new and clean in this city. FYI, for privacy purpose, we’re not allowed to take picture inside the building, we didn’t know until the guard came to us, LOL!

I think they have more Starbucks than US. Well, we can’t help to stop and have a cup of our favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte!

We both think this is by far the vacation with most satisfying meals. Of course being a vegetarian is not always without challenge in terms of getting food. But in Calgary, we find it very easy to get fresh healthy vegetarian food and the people are very happy and willing to modify their recipe for us. Even this kind of fast food, I would not dare to try in NYC, but this one here is FRESH and delicious. We also found a very nice vegetarian restaurant with Hong Kong style food.

It’s so relax to stroll along the unique shops.

Chinook Centre is the largest shopping mall in Calgary. It is really HUGE and the food court/cafeteria is big, new, beautiful, and fresh. There’s soooo much things to see!! I skipped all the retailers that I can find in US, pick those that sounds most interesting, it’s still impossible to visit all of them. However, I was still lucky to grab some stuffs that I need with a very good deal.
By the way, we noticed Calgarian are majority good looking with lean body.

The Prince’s Island is 5 minute walking distance from our hotel. A very beautiful park. A stroll along the river and bridge complete our day.

From Calgary, we rent a car and drove to Banff National Park. The scenery along the way is indescribable…
And when we reach there, and as we walk and observe the beauty of the nature’s masterpiece, we both have the same feeling that we human are indeed so small…
The amazing part is we are so small yet we are so smart and powerful in creating all the technologies that enable us to reach places on this earth like never before, but we human can also be rather destructive in many ways…
Whatever it is, we’re totally taken away by the grand & magnificent view at the Canadian Rockies.

A view taken from the cable car.

There are more places that we really want to visit but with the limited time, we didn’t get to go, we will have to go back again one day. I wish I can bring my parents and family along in the future.
To view more pictures go to my Facebook.

Autumn Cleaning

Photo: Calgary, Canada (on the route to Banff National Park)

It’s time to clean up the spider webs that have spread across my blog. :) I don’t know why I’m just not so inspired to write lately…and was actually busy with quite a few things too. However, under the demand of my faithful reader – my dear husband :P , and hopefully some of you who did follow my blog, hehe sorry for kept you waiting. Well certainly not my brothers who claim to be too busy to read my blog. @-@
Anyway, it’s time to start writing, I think it’s also the time for a new look and style perhaps.

Here comes the bride…