BACK FROM A 3-WEEK HAITUS

Just got back to Japan yesterday after a three-week vacation in Malaysia...

Was at Pulau Perhentian from 31st August to 5th September...

My, the crowd there... dinner time was like a fish market...

Stayed a pretty nice resort and enjoyed 15 dives around the islands...

The highlight of the dives was without doubt, the large school of buffalo fish...

They really looked so graceful, chomping off the corals and stirring up the sediments...

Then, spent about ten days in my kampong in Kedah...

Mother is about 85 years old, and weakening although she still eats well...

Each time I leave my kampong, I have to tell myself that this could the last time I see her...

Anyway, when the time comes, each and everyone of us has to go...

Food in Kedah is always superb to me...

By this, I mean the nasi lemak and mee rebus... they are not quite like the ones you get elsewhere...

Finally, spent three nights in a hotel in KL...

This place... I have never developed a liking for it...

Crowded, jammed up roads...

Except for some (scuba gear) shopping and looking up my school friends who have migrated here, I would have given it a pass...

Anyway, it rained everyday when we were there...

Must admit one good thing, however... which was, we enjoyed the wonderful masala and rawa tosai breakfasts in a shop just outisde the hotel...

This trip is 'unusual' in that, both my missus and I were inflicted with cough just before our return...

Our flight home was pretty bumpy due to the winds from Typhoon Number 13...

From today, it is back to my routine at the university...

Ahh... should have gorged in one more mouthful of that wonderful masala tosai...