Christmas and New Year in KL

Happy 2010!!

I remember the first year when I was in the UK, Christmas was cold, quiet and lonely. But it was also fun and interesting. It was the first time I benefited from charity. Foreign students who had no where to go during Christmas were invited to attend a Christmas party in a church. I also remember how I celebrated Christmas Eve in London with other Malaysians as they too were away from home.

Three years have gone and past just like that. This year I decided to return for Christmas and New Year. I was very happy to be back with family, friends, warm weather and all the delicious food. The miserable weather in London that delayed my flight home for 7 hours further convinced me that I've made the right decision.

Dinner with family and relatives

Christmas was celebrated in church. Jenn, my ex-housemate in London visited KL for Christmas. Irene was with us. All of us went to church as Jenn wanted to experience how Christmas was celebrated in Malaysia.

Christmas in Church

The Christmas decorations in KL were not bad. Colourful and generous. In London, most of the decorations were out on the high streets for shoppers to enjoy when they shop. However in KL these were housed in the shopping mall because Malaysians do their shopping in the malls.

Decorations in Pavilion

Decorations in KLCC

We went to Melaka the following day which proved to be a silly idea because on a public holiday everyone else was going out. We were stranded on the road for hours. Armed with a GPS, we used it to guide us through the trunk roads and onto Seremban. We took the opportunity for an eating spree. We brought Jenn to eat the Seremban siew pau, hakka mee, beef noodles and a variety of tropical fruits. I am more fluent with the history of Malaya now than in 2007 when my Cambridge friends came. So tour guiding Jenn this time was much easier. I guess I would never have known and appreciated Malaysia's history so much more than I had to narrate it to my friends.

Melaka with Jenn and Irene

Good old friend Raymond was also back from HK. So it was really nice to catch up with him after our last meeting in Taiwan.

Catching up with good old friend Dr Ray over Japanese in KLCC

This time I was also back for a wedding dinner as my Singaporean colleague was marrying his Malaysian partner. Winson who's back for good also attended the wedding. So all three of us who were once from the same office in London managed to catch up in KL!

Colleague's wedding

New Year's Eve was celebrated in Charmine's condominium, a vantage point overlooking The Curve and Tropicana which the fireworks in PJ took place. We had a potluck. She invited other colleagues whom I still keep in touch with. We were like a family and still are. In fact, my godson was also there! It's a delight to see him grow to this cute little thing now!

Godson

I made my own recipe salad which I discovered while experimenting with food in the UK. I guess after staying abroad for a while, you tend to try new things and be more adventurous with food. I made them a salad with wild rockets, hearts of romaine, prawns, hard-boiled eggs, seedless red grapes, cherry tomatoes, sea salt, ground pepper, extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest and lemon juice. This was somewhat inspired by Jamie Oliver's wild rocket salad, only that I tore everything apart and reinvented my own to suit with local ingredients. Still it was a good way to deliver some sort of a taste of "life in the UK"; all summed up in a bowl. Wild rockets have a unique taste and sometimes bitter, so that's quite a good summing up of life in the UK.

Ex-colleagues

After a good night out on new year's eve, we reached home at 2am. One would expect us to wake up late the next morning, right? No. Instead, we went for a run. It was the Pacemaker Network Run 2010, a run I signed up for two months ago. The lack of sleep, Christmas, tour guiding and new year eve's countdown took a toll on training and performance. The four-loop run which came with a series of steps sounded the death knell for the exhausted body. My 12.2k time was 1 hr 4mins and 39secs. Not sure if it was good but I knew I could do better than that given the right conditions. Oh well...

Run in Lake Garden, KL

The torturous part in Network Run 2010

So we're in 2010 now. Some people say the ushering of the new year is overrated. Some say the new year is just another number. Whether or not it is a number or a commercialised event, every New Year to me is a milestone of life. It is marked by the successes and failures of the past 365 days; and how we can now make use of those experiences to tackle the next 365 days. All the best in 2010!

**Post New Year's Day note: I've finally gotten myself a Christmas present. The Asics Gel Nimbus 11.**

Running Shoes for 2010