Old men chess masters

From my first floor hotel room the sound of animated chatting and laughter coming from the side lane below attracted my attention.

Two groups of old men were playing Chinese chess on makeshift tables. Surrounding the players were other men following the chess games with much interest.

Playing chess is a great way to stimulate one's mind. These senior citizens look like retirees who are still mentally active despite their advancing years.

The afternoon heat didn't seem to bother them nor affect their concentration.

U3A Carnival 2013.

Celebrating our golden years carnival.

Saw this ad in the SeniorsAloud page of Facebook. When my wife said she was interested in going with me to this event l looked for a number to make an enquiry.

The poster says that tickets costing RM5.00 are on sale to the public and those interested should contact some people for the tickets.

I see a couple of names with mobile phone numbers appended to their names. The first contact person at the top of the list is a Ms Lily.

So I called up Ms Lily for the tickets. After introducing myself and an exchange of some small talks I found out that Ms Lily is the author of the SeniorsAloud blog.

What a pleasant surprise and a coincidence. I have been reading her blog since I accidentaly stumbled upon it one day and even contributed some comments on some of her stories.

The layback lifestyle in a quaint town that I once knew is no more

Bentong is the town that I lived in for two years a long time ago.

During that time I was working as an employee of Sato Kogyo Co Ltd, the Japanese contractor responsible for the construction of the Kuala Lumpur - Karak Highway.

Before the Karak Highway the road from KL to Bentong was a just a narrow two-lane road that twisted and turned as it climbed up and down steep hill slides, much like the steep, narrow and windy hill road to the Cameron Highlands.

Although I was just an ordinary employee I was among the many who bear witness to the construction of this important highway.

Bentong is also the birth place and home town of my wife.  I never knew nor met my wife during the two years that I was living there. By a strange twist of fate It was in Klang after my Bentong stint had ended where I met a Bentong girl who was to become my future wife.

In those days when I was working there Bentong was just a sleepy hollow of a town. Today the traffic in the town is so dense that you will consider yourself lucky to find a box to park your car without driving around the town more than a few times.

The construction of the KL-Karak Highway has brought tremendous development to the town. Along with development the highway also brought a huge surge of traffic volume bound for Gua Musang and Kota Bahru in the East Coast that passes through the the heart of the town. Hence the serous traffic congestion during weekends and public holidays.

Because I have many relatives from my wife's family who are living in Bentong I am a regular visitor to this town. Today I and my wife came here to attend the wedding dinner of the son of a brother-in-law on Sunday.

Each time I come here I get the impression that the town is suffocating from an ever increasing traffic gridlock of East Coast bound traffic. If nothing is done to construct a bypass to divert the Easr Coast bound traffic I won't be surprised that in a couple of years time one will see a complete lockdown of the town by traffic congestion.

A first indication of better things to come for the visitor?

After so many visits to this government clinic for my monthly medical check ups I have become familiar with the arrangement of the building and its compound.

There is a big signboard inside the compound beside the main entrance announcing that the clinic is undergoing renovation work. On the signboard the clinic management even appeal to the visiting public to bear with the inconveniences caused by the ongoing renovation work.

This signboard has been there since the first time I first visited this place four months ago. I never fail to look at the board because it is erected in such a prominent location that it is the first structure that greets you as you drive your vehicle up the ramp and past the main entrance to park your car in the compound.

All this time up until this morning I have never seen any sign of refurbishment work being carried out though I did see small piles of sand dumped here and there in the compound. The interior of the building and the compound where the public park their cars look the same then as they were before.

However this morning as I was queuing up behind about 30 people ahead of me waiting for the clinic to open its doors I suddenly became aware that the tarmac that I was standing on had been resurfaced. Surveying the environment I saw bold white lines being painted on the black tarmac to mark out the individual car parking lots in a herring bone type of arrangement.

That explains why today the cars were so orderly parked. Previously motorists parked their cars haphazardly as they like with no consideration for other users. There were many instances when some car owners resorted to asking the clinic management through the clinic's PA system to appeal to owners whose cars were blocking others to remove their vehicles.

The fresh tarmac and the new car parking boxes that I saw today are the first real improvement that I have seen coming.

The next change that I would like to see is a makeover of the interior of the clinic which has seen better days.

Kihon Waza: back to the basics

K ihon means "basics" or "fundamentals." The term is used to refer to the basic techniques that are taught and practiced as the foundation of your Aikido training.

The practice and mastery of kihon is essential to all advanced training, and includes the practice of correct body form and breathing, While practicing basics such as stances, locks, projections, rolls and breakfalls, body movements and footwork it also includs the basic representative katas.

Kihon is not only practicing of techniques, it is also the martial artist fostering the correct spirit and attitude at all times.

Hence we take our kihon waza training seriously and practice them for life. If at any instance in your practice you have a doubt you will find the answer to your doubts in the kihon waza. So let's always never neglect to practice the basis every time you step into the dojo.

As Bruce Lee said “I do not fear the man who has practiced 10 000 techniques once, I fear the man who has practiced one technique 10 000 times".

Uncooperative car

With the air-cond system out of order the stifling heat inside the car was almost unbearable. Instead of cool air the blowers were blasting my face and body with hot air.

Suffocating from the heat I had to drive the car all the way from TPJ to Serdang Hospital with the window wind down. With the window opened the wind from outside provided some relief to the stifling heat inside the car.

After the hospital appointment I told my wife that I wanted to check out the ailing air-cond system of the Kancil in Kajang.

Then immediately after I turned on the ignition switch as if by magic the air-cond system kicked in at full blast.

How to expect the air-cond mechanic to diagnose the system's problems when the air-conditioning is operating normally. Decided to abort the trip to the air-cond mechnic's shop. For the rest of the journey back to our house the car's air-condition system was operating perfectly.

I am going to Kajang again for some errands tomorrow. Let's hope that the car behaves itself by not turning on the air-con so that I can get the foreman to fix the on and off air-conditioning system.

A nostalgic visit to the sold family property in Kajang

The months of speculating whether the old family house has been abandoned by the new owners have finally come to a happy ending.

We are glad that the new owners have finally taken possession of what used to be the family's abode for 30 years in Kajang.

Although this 14 ft x 53 ft freehold property is a small house, it has provided the necessary shelter and security for me and my wife to raise our small family of 4 through the years. For this we are forever grateful to our former house.

Some minor renovation work is being carried out to transform the house to suit the new owners' preference. Note the little pile of sand on the floor in the car porch. The absence of construction debris indicates that the new owners are interested to do only the minimal remodeling work to the existing house.

Part of what used to be the main entrance has been bricked up leaving a small opening for a window. The main door has been relocated to the right, in line with the brick fencing wall. The window and door frames have been given a new coat of green paint, as if to match the green colour theme of the house next door.

With the view to the road being blocked by the brick fencing wall I believe the new owners relocated the main entrance door to afford some privacy. Where previously anyone can view the living road from the road now the view of the entrance is a little bit more discrete.

I wonder why the minimalist transformation to the property and the green painting to the window and door frame? Knowing that the new owners are a Chinese couple, green themed paintwork is generally not the preferred colour choice for the Chinese community.

Maybe the new owners are not the ones that are going to live in the house. Perhaps the owners are renting out the house to some tenants and the renovation work is carried at the tenant's request. This could explain the most basic of alteration to the existing design of the house and the green colour painting of the metal window and door frames.

A brief respite

Silence. Not a sound coming from the renovation work of my neighbour's house.

A brief and welcome respite.

Making friends with the pneumatic hammer

The sound of pneumatic drill and other hacking work coming from my neighbour's house that is undergoing a major renovation work is irritating to say the least. There is noise and unpleasant things happen, but if I become averse to them then I am creating hostility within myself. So the real suffering is not the noise but the stuff that I create in my mind.

The only way to stop the incessant din is to ask the neighbour to stop his renovation work, which is impossible. After all every thing is happening within is property.The other way is to adopt a realistic attitude towards the way it is.

I may not be able to stop the noise but controlling how I should feel is within my capability. When I start to accept the unpleasant situation as something temporary the noise ceases to be as disturbing to my mental state as before.

Applying the finishing touch

Ding dong!

Someone is ringing the door bell and interrupting my conversation with my wife.

It is one of the Indonesian workers who are engaged by the next door neighbour to renovate his house.

He pointed to the unfinished brickwork on the common brick fencing with my neighbour's lot. I knew instantly that he wanted to plaster the bare brickwork on my side of the common wall. I knew because I had been pestering the Indonesian contractor for weeks on when he would send his workers over to plaster my side of the common wall.

After letting him and another worker in he went straight to work. Earlier I had placed some old newspapers on the floor to shield the flooring from being damaged by the plaster debris. However he came with a big piece of plywood that he used as a protective barrier to mount a wooden platform for the plastering work.

Working alone he finished the job within 30 minutes. On inspection I noticed that the workmanship was satisfactory.

Yesterday this was the same guy who replaced a broken roofing tile with a new piece. Last week he broke a piece of roofing tile while stepping on the car porch roof to plaster the common wall. I was glad that he owned up to his fault without kicking out a fuss after I spoke to him about the cracked tile.

Before he returned to my neighbour's lot he said to me that he would come back to apply the finishing touch, remove the staging and clean up the floor after the wet plaster had dried up.

Back to planning a wedding dinner guest list

Iremember the trials and tribulations that I had to go through when planning for the guest list for my daughter's wedding dinner in Kuala Lumpur. It was in June 29 2013 that my family had to organise a wedding dinner for my daughter's marriage to Nicholas.

Now 3 months after that event I have to go through the same exercise to plan the guest list for my son's wedding dinner in November.

However this time the planning should be much easier and faster as the I have the experience of doing the same work the last time to guide me.

I started work this morning using the Excel template for my daughter's wedding dinner guest list that I saved just for this occasion.

Learning from the previous experience my family has decided to invite less people than before. This time my family has decided to invite only immediate relatives and close friends. Cousins and nephews are excluded from the wedding guest list.

Nevertheless even with a shorter guest list I do not anticipate plain sailing. On the other hand I would expect many revisions to the first list before it is finalised.

I have a young man's bone quality and strength

Just to go along with the wife's insistence signed up with her on the spot for the Anlene Bone Health Check. 

After analysing the result of the bone density scan of my right foot my wife was ecstatic to hear from the Anlene inspector that at my age I still have the bone quality and strength of a young man. 

As for the wife her scan analysis shows that her bone health is in the medium risk category of osteoporotic fractures and was advised to consume high calcium milk eg Anlene to maintain her bone health. 

Of course we already know the status of our individual bone health and all these scan test results are old news to us and only serve to confirm what we already knew.

Ipoh Bean Sprout Chicken Rice

At 3.00pm in Ipoh city with my wife, son and two relatives at the famous Lou Wong Bean Sprout Chicken Rice and Kuetiau Restaurant.

As usual this local celebrity restaurant was packed with customers but our party of 5 were lucky to find a vacant table. The steamed chicken, bean sprouts (taugeh) and fish balls that we ordered came in large portions, ample enough to feed 5 adults. As we ate our meals we noticed groups of people disembarking from tour buses and streaming into the restaurant.

In the vicinity of Lou Wong other restaurants serving similar fare were also well patronised by hungry customers.

It seems to me that the success enjoyed by Lou Wong sprouted a booming bean sprout chicken rice food tourism industry all located in this small corner of the town centre.

Back to basics

Basics are the foundation of advanced material. The lessons from your first class, those that you never outgrow, contain a huge amount of material that keeps giving and giving with more practice. 

Simple broken down structure and body movement work is the foundation of moving with power. When you dissect the most advanced practice you know you will see the basics. The advanced techniques are simply the basics done to perfection. 

As Musashi wrote, "your combat walk should be your everyday walk." Keep on practicing.

An unlikely place

Tthe things I like about this self-service cafe situated in the most unlikely location is its clean and brightly lit environment , quiet ambient, reasonable price and the food menu. This cafe is actually a staff canteen located in the basement of the TCM Department of the KL Tung Shin Hospital. Though not serving exclusive vegetarian fare, it has a large variety of vegetable dishes in its lunch time menu to choose from. For lunch I ordered stirred fried Chinese spinach, stirred fried mixed bean and nuts and stewed tofu while my wife also ordered two types of vegetarian dishes.

I accompanied my wife to visit the hospital for acupuncture treatment for her stiff and painful shoulder condition. She had been complaining that she could not raise her hand above her head without feeling excruciating pain. I should think that some people would call this type of shoulder ailment as "frozen" shoulder. The 40 minutes of laying on the bed with needles stuck on her shoulder and hand brought immediate relief to her painful condition.

Since it was about 1.00pm after her treatment we adjourned to the cafe which is located next door to the TCM acupuncture clinic for our lunch. After so many repeat visits to the hospital for acupuncture therapy we have grown quite attached to this cafe.