Had dinner with old school friends last night at Topspot, Kuching.

It's great getting together with school friends. Dish choice was restrained for "old boys" but the steamed fish was good. Love steam fish anytime and everytime! Gettogethers like this are also uplifting, invigourating. Great fun!



Other than that it's always the present that send you contemplating. There was no "loose" change! Talk was about "big" stuff! This rigour should add to the swell for more, come September!

Incredible how ugly the media spin is. The things you heard from Kelantan in the MSM is pure dung! Interesting how Kelantan residents got back together after the election regardless of whatever. It seems the reason why BN cannot get back, more likely will never get the State back is because of their folksy fairness and virtuousnes.

Must make a trip there to the feel and witness!

The change on the political scene has given a great sense of anticipation amongst us, and doubtless many more out there in Sarawak. It's happening in our life time and we want to see it through, reminiscent of Brutus in Julius Caesar:

"...
We at the height are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures. ..."

(Julius Caesar Act IV Scene III)

It's incredible what the State Civil Service has degraded into as heard over carrot juices, "kopi o" ice and Guiness Stout! Taib Mahmud was depicted like a slob directing public officials to his in-laws; this is governance in Malaysia Boleh! The present Sarawak Civil Service is in the hands of punks who glibly bullshit in serious meetings. We are really at the " 'height' ready to decline"!

There was no mistake in the discerning fervence. And it colors the hope and the reawakening!

Kuching City, Sarawak, has two territories - Kuching City North and Kuching City South, administered by two institutions, Dewan Bandaraya Kuching Utara (DBKU) and Majlis Perbandaran Kuching Selatan (MBKS). And of course, we have 2 mayors! Ain't two heads better than one?

The City's day population now is roughly some 600,000 - 750,000, more like less than 750,000. But already, cars are in heavy road jams. With petrol prices shooting the sky, there won't be much "roti" for the "jam"!

The North and the South are cut roughly half by the Sungai Sarawak into North Bank, Tebing Seberang (Utara), (Petra Jaya), and the South Bank, Kuching Central.

Why the North and South Banks don't quite tally in the popularly known areas as Petra Jaya and Kuching Central, is anybody's guess. That might explain why Borneo have lost a lot of "orang hutans" and who could have turned into urban Kuching cowboys. I have some guesses but perhaps it's because in Kuching Central there is a part of DBKU. That doesn't adequately explain why the North (Utara) is also in the South, which really is Kuching Central. No, I'm not "nyanyuk" yet! My best guess is (here's inspiration), there is Little Lebanon, located right smack in Kuching Central and which is supposed to be in Dewan Bandaraya Kuching Utara, which is in the North but located in the South Bank which is Kuching Central. No, the Hezbollah people are not here in Kuching but Kuching is a Boleh! Malaysian City - urbanity personified but an old town named after a "kucing" (cat) or the fruit, "mata kucing", 'the cat's eyes'!

Great! Either way, it's got something to do with cats. Cats stray but you won't. I promise you won't get lost in Kuching!

Our New Mayor

Image by imageshak.us

As interesting or as confusing as Kuching is as I've tried painting it for you, MBKS (South) just had it's new Mayor installed yesterday. He's James KS Chan. The Mayor "who had to be helped when walking around yesterday", comes on with experience promising many potential credits to Kuching North, I'm sure! He's an accountant by profession. As long as you know where the debits and the credits are, the "sheet" will balance and won't smell. Trust a book-keeper for that!

He's also not superstitious and avoids moving into the ex-Mayor's Office. We lost the previous Mayor in Office as he suffered from terminal cancer.

Some wild "cat" in Kuching groaned whether Kuching will be the City of Hamelyn where the Piper took the children away. That won't happen. The new Mayor ain't supertitious! And as the picture shows on the page, he's well endowed, heavily built - and appears so, particularly below the shoulders and above the hips.



Kuching City Map


Little Lebanon


Kuching Statues


Kuching Waterfront

Semua "Naik"! Saya naik Angin, pun!!

It's come! The oil price increase!

When at the gas station, don't you feel pumped up?!

Back in 8O's some Shell people told me, it cost just a couple of bucks to dig for oil when prices were up to US$20.00 per barrel!

So what does it it cost us now? You know like US$120/barrel less how much? And what has happened to the difference?

We are an oil producing country and we are a net exporter!!!

For those "warga mas", not many many things "naik"! Except perhaps "Naik Angin"!

Under the skin

It's Gawai Dayak Holidays in Kuching, Sarawak. Many have hit the road and balik Kampong. And Kuching City streets are lag and 'lega'!

Had to see my Elder sister, suffering in pain from from her knee problems. My bike and I hit the road and reached her home some 20km away in a jiffy!

How do you convince a dear 67 year old sister to insert some metal plates under the skin and flesh of both her knees?

When I got to thinking about it myself, I balked at the thought of foreign materials under my own skin. I really don't mind foreign migrant workers in Kuching and getting a little under the skin. You can't deport the metal plates from your knees, but you can the migrant workers! So that got me on the right mood!

My sister's groans are really too much! But she's my DEAR old sister. But when she groaned that it's her "lot", I had it! It's God given, her destiny! But instead of giving it to her, I abruptly got up and went to the kitchen and made myself some real thick coffee and loaded it with lotsa sugar! I know the sugar's bad but the coffee's anti-oxidants, I mused, would whack off diabetic incursons of my being!

Facing her squarely in her face, I told her I agreed it's her lot! God gave it to her. But isn't it odd that terrible things like broken knees are God given? What about good knees with steel and strong fibre makeup? Who made these? Satan? Another God?

"No!!!" she growled.

I roared the bike off the Kampong 3 hours later and left her with a big battle in her mind. It might have been painful but what the heck? It's probably God given!

I'll give her another week or so. And wait for the good news! I just hope our 'world class' medical service will not botch another job. If they do we'll send some foreign material into the robust Minister of Health's heart!


What you could get - a brand new knee! At the cost of another arm and a leg?