Friday, March 28, 2008

Passport application in Tokyo

Am now in Shinjuku, Tokyo, attending a conference at Waseda University...
Shall be heading off to Sophia University later on for a little meeting with research colleagues...

Took time off to apply for a new passport at the Malaysian Embassy in Shibuya...
For the first time in my 20-year residence in Japan, I rode the city bus for the first time in Tokyo, traveling from East Shinjuku to Shibuya...
The sakura is almost in full bloom...
Gazing out from the bus window, I thought to myself... mega-city as she is; Tokyo does look quite pretty with all these petals around...

Took me a little over an hour to have the passport application accepted...
The ‘old’ style passport shall be ready for pickup in four days time...
The ‘new’ type with the electronic chip takes about three months to be ready...
Reason is, the electronic passports are processed in Malaysia, hence, the time needed...
Anyway, ‘old’ or ‘new’, no problems for me as long as I can hit the road with it...

Monday, March 17, 2008

Kedahans to wear songkoks?

A good buddy who has lived outside of Malaysia as long as I do joked as follows...

'Kedah fell to PAS. Does this mean that all Kedahans have to now wear their beards long, shave their heads and wear a songkok?'

Well, am not so sure about shaving my head but I have been sporting a goatee for decades...now I just need to shave or trim less... and almost twenty years ago, a Malay pal gave me a songkok, which I have worn on numerous occasions albeit in Japan...

So, no problems whatsoever with this Kedahan...

In fact, I welcome PAS to the new position and expect them to do a good job at governing Kedah, for that is what citizens elected them for...

At least, unlike the newly dethroned party, PAS extols itself as driven by religious principles...

Jokes aside, if PAS intends to install Islamic codes to punish criminals, we would first have the pleasure of seeing many of the corrupted officials limbless...

Anyone seen that never-utilized, monstrous bridge that was built to connect to a no-man's island off the Yan coastal area?

I hope PAS will punish those scoundrels responsible for wasting such funds...

Having said that, I'd be lying if I say I have completely no worries about Kedah being inadvertently turned into a more religious state... in particular, the duality of the civil and religious laws...

But let us see, as what is there to worry... the world is watching and citizens now know the real strength of their vote...

If PAS tries to play games, citizens can always tell them to go and fly kites...

I'd expect PKR to be waiting at the wings...

On another front, the latest news on Kedah...

'All documents from the offices of the Mentri Besar and executive councillors in Kedah have gone missing. There is not a single paper left in all the offices'...

Fifty years of uninterrupted control by those newly dethroned rascals... they certainly think that public documents and such are their private property...

I am waiting quite eagarly to see what happens next...

Friday, March 07, 2008

How to vote while out of Malaysia?

Been living out of Malaysia more than half of my life now...

Although a registered voter, I am quite ashamed to admit that I have never voted before...

Not so much out of laziness or apathy, but more of, 'how do I vote if I am not in Malaysia?' kind of thing...

Frankly, and again, quite ashamedly, I don't have a clue...

I do check my voting particulars on the net (at least for the 2004 and 2008 elections)...

Now if there is someone who knows how to go about voting while out of Malaysia, yours truly would love to hear from him/her...

I know, we can contact the Malaysian Embassy here in Japan, but as far as I know, they do not even have a homepage...

Having said this, there is not a single doubt in my mind on who or what party I would be voting for...

The nonsense and cheating by the current crop of shameless 'leaders' must be stopped...

We need a strong voice to keep the so-called 'honorables' on their toes...

And while my vote will not be counted, I am fully with the citizens who have had enough of this corrupted and racist government...

Of course, if we managed to throw these rascals out the window (am I dreaming too much?) in the future, there is no guarantee that the ones coming in will be angels...

No, of course not... but we get to tell these bums not to fiddle with our strings and think they can get away with murder...

I would certainly cherish a coalition of PKR, DAP, and PAS... and put my books on Anwar to lead... criticised as he may be, but I think this is just about the best shot we have to rid ourselves off those maggots passing off as 'leaders'...

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Chiangmai is such a likeable place...

Someone mentioned that it is a ‘small city with big city conveniences’...
I’d say, she is more a ‘big city that has not lost the small city charm...
She is after all, populated by about 2 million inhabitants... hardly a small city...

Initially rented a bicycle to dart around the huge Chiangmai University campus...
That bicycle was just too small for my body frame, such that I could not exert as much leg power as I’d like while peddling...
To make matters worse, the right pedal dropped off from the bicycle I rented... imagine me cycling laboriously with just the left pedal... and with leather shoes at that...

Changed to another bicycle (which was not in any better condition) and went riding in the old part of the city...
It is easy to navigate around the said area because it is completely surrounded by a man-made (I suppose) moat on all four sides...
Two rounds the moat I went, and just as I was about to return to the hotel, my right thigh cramped... arrrrghh...

Returned the bicycle immediately (had actually wanted to throw the damn thing into the moat) and rented a Honda motorbike... a 125 CC ‘JRD Storm’... Wooh, so nice to cruise around the vicinity...

Went up with this bike to the famed Doi Suthep temple in the hills on Sunday…
Couldn’t help but to notice that the temple grounds are filled with donation boxes...
‘Donate for a happy life... Donate for a better tomorrow... Donate for Children’s library’, etc...
Plus, little girls dancing in tribal wear, of course, with donation boxes placed in front...

Come evening, chanced upon the Sunday market...
Boy, was I impressed by the length of streets blocked up for this purpose...
The walk through this market seemed endless...
The sheer magnitude of this market makes the pasar malams in Malaysia look like child’s play...

There were street performers aplenty... little hill-tribe children...blind musicians... young, clean-cut boy singers... old folk musicians... a little girl playing the violin... a solo, ragged-voiced, cigarette-puffing rock singer on the guitar... and a flutist playing a meter-long, thin bamboo flute...

The amazing thing of this market is, despite all the goings-on, the atmosphere was just so silent... there were no blaring sounds and no one yelled across the road… it was so peaceful, so quiet, in spite of all the haggling, the buying and the selling...

It is easy to understand why so many foreigners choose to spend their days here in Chiangmai...

The following evening... had dinner at a clean-looking coffee shop...
Ah, I said to myself... this shop... I do not have to worry about risking my stomach...
Not too long after I rested my bum on the wooden chair, I noticed three girls, twenties maybe, chattering in loud Mandarin two tables away...
What the fish, I thought to myself... spoiling the atmosphere...
The chattering went on almost throughout my dinner...

After they left, peace prevailed as three equally-aged girls sat at the table next to where I sat...
Man, I had to strain my ears to eavesdrop what they ordered through the waitress...
Through the bits of conversation, I gathered that they spoke Mandarin... ooh, should I say that they were too civilized...