In the middle of Tuaran there’s a clock tower, and it has been there for as long as I remember.

A few days before Christmas 2009 I noticed that it has become so:

A close up:

Isn’t that a little like thinking murad reviews is all about reviewing persons with the name Murad!

I wonder how long has it been like that, and when it will be fixed.

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On 19th November 2009 I went to have lunch at one of the small coffee shops at Kepayan Ridge which I haven’t visited in quite a while.

They served drinks in recycled bottles, or perhaps more accurately, glass containers:

Personally, I haven’t seen any other place doing this – perhaps I need to go out of the country via Branson vacation packages in order to do so.

Are there any guidelines as to what eateries can use to serve food to their customers? Is what the proprietor doing allowed by law?

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Salim Khan Kabor, the proprietor of the Salim chain of restaurants has been inviting lion, unicorn and dragon dance troupes to perform at his premises during Chinese New Year for the past 10 years.

Is he the first, and only Indian Muslim restaurant owner in Malaysia to do this?

This year he did it on the 15th of February. It was supposed to start at 9.30pm, but I was informed that due to one troupe being held back and had to travel all the way from Telipok, the show only started around 10.45pm.

Some photos & videos I took when I was there.

The crowd started growing at 9 something, but it would be 1 more hour before the show actually starts. What it was like at 9.30pm:

View from another angle:

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We spent some time at the third beach of Tanjung Aru on the second day of Chinese New Year 2010, and I let my son use the camera. So he went off on a photography excursion.

When I looked through the photos he took later, one of them gave me a shock:

Of course it’s only a photo of someone playing bury-me-in-the-sand (sand is acne medicine?), but with that awkward hand gesture, that non-visible face and the 2 persons seemingly discovering the “body,” don’t you think it looks like somebody had drowned, or that there was a tsunami in Tanjung Aru?

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In early December 2009 I was sitting next to the sushi train at Wagamama Japanese Restaurant, Lintas when I noticed this piece of paper on the wall:

Therefore, I think parents with kids should NOT sit next to the counter. After all, which kid in the world can refrain from disturbing a moving toy train? That’s like saying everybody has read strivectin reviews, no?

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For Chinese New Year 2010, as usual we had a family reunion dinner on CNY eve.

Sometime during the evening, angpau (red packet containing money) giving out sessions would commence. Some would say it’s better to give than to receive, or even giving is the best anti aging product due to the warm buzz and general wellbeing it generates.

That night, everybody who is single gets something, even the kids of the Indonesian workers:

They even got presents during Christmas!

But what happens to the money given afterwards is another story.

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I went to the temporary GXFC market (lasts 22 January – 21 February 2010) at the Kadazandusun Cultural Association (KDCA), Penampang for the second time tonight.

I spent 90 minutes in total.

Missed the lion dance show last night: too tired to go.

There were more attractions than the last time I went there.

These 100-feet-long dragons at the main entrance have been there since before Christmas

Click here if you’d like to learn more about the event.

For the rides, they used tokens with a swastika:

But I’d like to focus on the Ghost House there.

Yes, there are several human ghosts walking around in the converted Murut House until the 21st.

So I wandered inside with my son – RM5 is the fee, kids go in free.

I found the whole thing more funny than frightening, although my son thought otherwise.

The place is apparently not so popular, so people came in trickles. Which made the “ghosts” bored.

So as we were about to go in, the doorman shouted inside “oi, ada orang!” [hey, there are people coming in!]. As I walked in I could see several “ghosts” sitting on the stairs, smoking away. When the “ghosts” saw us, they scampered off inside, presumably to take up their positions at strategic nooks and crannies in order to jump at us as we walk past.

When we reached the top of the stairs, 2 people started to walk behind us, apparently as guides to prevent us from going the wrong way or a dead end. Or to help the “ghosts” should anybody dared to beat them up. These 2 were also smoking all the time while walking behind us.

The Ghost House should be called The Smoke House.

Still, I must say the organisers did quite a good job at transforming the house into a place not unlike a horror movie set.

Well, my son screamed everytime a creature wrapped in white cloth and Halloween mask lumbered across to block our way, or someone in a wig writhed on the floor and touched our ankles.

The 2 people at the back kept reassuring us that these were not real ghosts, as if we didn’t know that.

Then, at the end of the performance, the “ghosts” offered to take photos with us, to which my son replied emphatically: “DON’T WANT!” and dashed off to the exit.

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I think the ultimate school reunion would be if you got together with people in the same class as you during Primary / Standard I. A second best would be revisiting the place where you spent your earliest years at school.

I went to primary school at SRK Rangalau Baru (established 1959) which is in Tuaran district and nearer to Tamparuli than Kiulu. During those days I walked about 2 miles daily to and from school. The world seemed so big then: Kg Malangang Baru, a mere few kilometres away, where we had our annual inter-school sports meet felt a world apart.

I left the school at the end of 1981.

During the afternoon of 7th November 2009 I managed to spend about 20 minutes visiting it. It was eerily quiet – it was just me and the school. This was not my first visit in 28 years, but it truly felt like it.

The building where I went to for Primary I classes was still there:

So was the other building where I had my primary 3 (or was it 4?) to 6 education. The corridor’s view as I came out of the primary 6 classroom was still very much the same:

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Towards the end of 2009 I went up Bukit Perahu / Bukit Ruhiang / St Veronica’s Hill in Tamparuli. However, I went late, only reached the halfway point as it was getting dark.

Started around 5.25pm, this is the signboard:

From the main road, the way up looks like this:

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