What a Shame!

I took a morning flight to Kuala Lumpur today flying AirAsia.

It was a good flight, uneventful. We took off earlier than scheduled and arrived, as the air stewardess gleefully announced twenty minutes ahead of schedule.

The downside of travelling by AirAsia is that you land at the LCCT ( Low Cost Carrier Terminal ) and you have to board a bus to go to Sentral, the main railway terminal in Kuala Lumpur. There is no train service from the LCCT to Sentral.
The bus service is SkyBus, a red bus which I believe belongs to AirAsia or is in jointventure with the airline as tickets are sold inflight and you can also purchase a bus ticket when you purchase your airticket online.

When I reached the bus, the luggage compartment was open and the staff all dressed in red as are Air Asia employees, sat there without offering a hand to put your luggage into the bus luggage hold. So I pulled my bag over to the young Indian man and handed the bag to him. He stared hard at me before he finally put my bag into the hold. I requested that he put it in the front area so that I could get it easily when the bus arrives in Sentral. He refused. A young Malay man, another member of staff then took out my bag and put it in the front area. The Indian guy was angry and said my bag will drop out when the luggage hold is opened. I told him not to speak like that and boarded the bus.

When the bus arrived in Sentral and the passengers got down, they took out their own bags but I couldn't find my bag where it had been loaded. I peered into the bus and saw it stuffed in the far end in a dark corner. So I approached a staff member and asked for his help. He said it is not for him to help me. I should ask the driver. THe driver was seated in the bus. He wouldn't budge. There was no way I, a 67 year old woman could climb into the hold and go right inside to the dark corner to pull out my bag. It really made me wonder how my bag could have got into that dark place.
However, that's a no-brainer.

A kind Chinese man, in his fifties, then said he would get my bag for me and he crawled inside and retrieved it. Mine was the last bag out after this kind gentleman got it for me.

This is not the first time that the SkyBus staff are very unhelpful and unfriendly. They will shout and solicit for your patronage but once you arrive at your destination,whether it's from Sentral to the LCCT or vice versa, they don't care a hoot. You jolly well get your bag out yourself. This happened every time my spouse and I travelled on the Skybus. He is hitting 70 years of age, white-haired and with a bad back. Yet he had to bend into the luggage hold to get our bags. He even hit his head when he dragged our bags out. The red uniformed young Indian Skybus staff couldn't care a damn.

I wrote in to Air Asia a few months ago to inform them of this very unsatisfactory service but was not favoured with a reply.

In other countries, this kind of thing does not happen. Whether it is the bus driver or another member of staff, they would unload the bags and the passengers just have to pick up their bags and go their separate ways.

However in Malaysia, I'm most ashamed to say, this is not the case. The young here especially those working for this bus company Skybus, have no respect for the elderly and they are very uncouth and rude as well.

This is a very ugly side of Malaysia, where you have ugly young Malaysians.

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Wear & Tear, the New Age

As we grow old, we realize how much we have abused our bodies. When we were younger, we just took our health for granted. We never fell ill and doctors were from another planet.

We could walk fast, we could run, we could zip from one place to the next with boundless energy, we could multi-task, fitting in child-rearing with job demands.
There was no need to take any vitamins or supplements. We were just so busy!

We could eat whatever we liked, drink whatever we liked. Fast food, noodles, curries, cakes, chocolates, sweet carbonated drinks like Root beer, Coco Cola, Pepsi, Sarsi, etc. etc…


Then one day, we realize, oh gosh! Half a century has gone by! Our children are in their teens or twenties, college-going, university undergrads….

The energy has begun to flag and there are the visits to the doctors. A fall here and there.
Xrays show that our bones are no longer what they used to be. Osteoporeosis is round the corner.

“Take care. You can’t afford to fall now!” is the advice that rings more often in our ears.

Yes, it’s time to slow down just as our bodies are slowing down and telling us in subtle ways that wear and tear have set in. We now opt to take supplements, some for joint mobility, some to boost our immune system and we give up the more strenuous sports for the more sedate ones like tai chi or walking.

For those of us who are now at the stage where everyone addresses us as “Auntie” or “Uncle”, well, we know what that means. We have been elevated into seniorhood and soon we may even be superseniors!

Welcome to Seniorhood!! The New Age for the older baby boomers. Life begins at 60, not 40 when you are still in the rat race.

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Creatures of Habit

Do you realise that we human beings are creatures of habits and most of the things we do in life are the result of habits?

Habits generally start with very small changes in our life that we often don’t really notice. However, once they become habits it is very hard to make changes. For example, I must have a piece of chocolate after a meal, no matter what! If I don't have that, I feel very distressed and out of sorts and the rest of the day is spoilt.


Many people are overweight because of habits that all combine to make them fat. Like me I guess, with my chocolate habit.

How often do you find yourself eating due to a particular emotional state of mind that you are in?

Many people ( me included!! )turn to food when they are feeling sad, depressed, lonely, happy and so on. These emotions often trigger the desire for food. Unfortunately, the food they reach out for are those that are low in nutritional value which in turn makes them feel more hungry. Thus they eat more to keep their stomachs satisfied.


So now you can see that overeating is the result of habits. Changing them will see the end to overeating and subsequent weight gain.

However, these emotion-related eating habits are very often difficult to break simply because most of the time people do not recognize them for what they are…. Bad eating habits.

This is because they are focused on the need to feel better and they think that food will put them in a better mood or give them the energy boost they need. Over a period of time, these habits will become so entrenched that the cycle of overeating and weight gain continues on and on until one day they are hit by metabolic obesity and the related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and the list goes on...

Frightening, isn't it, to think that bad habits can become life-threatening. Many Malaysians and I suspect, people of other nationalities too, have the habit of late night suppers, either at the mamak stalls
or kopitiams ( coffee shops with stalls that serve delicious food )
without realising that this is leading them towards the road named Metabolic Obesity.



We are not supposed to eat within four hours of our bedtime as our metabolism slows down at night and this is when our bodies repair themselves. By consuming what we like for supper ( I love Hokkien mee!! )
every weekend or more times than that, we are heading towards an unhealthy life and courting possibly premature death.

So be warned! Start breaking those habits!

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More Time Please!

Have you ever felt an urgency that compels you to do things which you are afraid you may not have time to accomplish? I wonder if any of you out there are in the situation that I find myself these days? So many things to do and not enough time to get going.

Maybe it is the fact that I’m not getting younger each day but on the contrary, time seems to be spinning faster and faster as I grow older. A quarter of 2010 is fast slipping by.

Before I retired I had a list of things that I wanted to do after retirement. I wanted to have time to indulge in my passion for handicraft such as doing more paper tole,( the larger 3D pictures are in my second daughter's home in KL )


quilling,making gift/greeting cards,(Strips of paper are rolled to create things)


paper clay brooches and pictures





creating dolls. Here are some of my dolls, the clown being my favorite.




These were things I used to do whenever I had some spare time and it gave me such great pleasure to create something unique.

Reading was another big item on my list. There were so many books that I wanted to read. In fact I have a collection of special editions which have yet to be read.


Learning about the internet and creating websites….. that was what I wanted to learn very much. I hadn’t heard about blogging then, nor had I heard of Facebook or Twitter.


Gardening is another hobby which I like. I love greens and flowers, even chillis. It gives me such a wonderful feeling when the flowers bloom and the chili plants bear chillis.


Now that I’m retired, I haven’t been able to do all that I had planned to do. I’ve not been able to sew any dolls or do any quilling or paper tole, or create gift/greeting cards. I’ve yet to open one of my special edition books.

I’m learning a little about the internet each day and I’m blogging but I’m still unable to create a satisfactory website. There is so much information overload that I feel overwhelmed. I get bombarded by so many emails daily that sometimes I’m afraid to open my mail box!

Creative writing is another hobby which I’ve neglected. It’s been years since I wrote a poem.

Upon retirement I’m supposed to have a lot of free time to do what I love to do but unfortunately I find that I hardly have the time to indulge in those hobbies. Not having a housemaid means that the mundane chores have to be done and these do take up time, especially Chinese cooking.....sigh!

I have a couple of hours on the computer each day not at one go but in small chunks of time as chores come in between. Thank goodness I can listen to music while working on the computer. My favourite CDs play in the background as I do my online reading or blogging.


I feel such a compelling need to assuage my thirst for knowledge and to make some money online. The learning curve is steep and time consuming. Outsourcing takes money and I don’t have the funds. Now it looks like I’m running out of time too!

Maybe I ought to divide my time more meaningfully, such as devote a couple of hours here and there to my different hobbies. Will that be more satisfying? Is that the way to go?
I don’t know. Maybe I will try it out for a month to see.

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Parting Throes

The anxieties run through you, fears of the unknown claw at your heart but the face you put forward is calm, a smile plays about your lips as you wish your child, (even if he/she is an adult) bon voyage and journey mercy.

A parting kiss, a wave of the hand and your child is off. A sense of hollowness sets in. You are already missing him/her. You return home, on tenterhooks until a message is received that he/she has arrived sfely at his/her destination.


Mind you, these feelings have not changed, not since he/she first left your side to begin school. Do you remember hovering anxiously outside the classroom?
How your pressure went up a notch when children began crying for their parents?


Some things don't change and even when your child is now an adult, anxieties and fears still have you in their clutches when he/she leaves your side, whether it's off for further studies in another location or a holiday abroad.

You pray daily for his/her safety and well-being, for good health and to do well in his/her studies/career.

The family bonds hold strong and when he/she goes on to start his/her own family, you begin to relax, happy that there is a significant other who will love and care for him/her. Instead of anxiety and fear, there is now hope.


This time, if there are tears, these will be of joy. You have become a mother-in-law and a grandma-in-waiting.


I salute all mothers and grandmas out there.

What about fathers? Do they feel what mothers feel???

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