Asian Ladies Lunch Club

In all my years of being abroad, this is the first time I have had so many Malaysian and Asian friends. I had lived in the UK for 20 years, and had 3 friends from Nursing from Malaysia, Shan, who is still in the UK and living in Essex, we were flatmates for 2 years and got quite close, Jan who left for Australia many years ago and June who lives in Cardiff. I have lost touch with all but Shan. They were friends from home that I had met in Bristol. In Nottingham, I chanced upon Jeannie, the most wonderful of people, also from Penang and was a colleague at the Out of Hours service that we worked for. We met and became really close in a short space of time after the initial testing the water with the toe stages, but once the water was fine, we dove in deep and long! I taught her how to knit and improve her techniques and she cooked and fed me til I was the size of a baby hippo. She cried when I told her I was leaving the UK to come to Trinidad, and I felt so guilty for upsetting her, even though I cried too. It will only be for 2 years....

I was introduced to the ladies club by Ima, a fellow Malaysian, married to a Brit called Dave who is a fishitarian, what a coincidence, similarities end there I am afraid, she's Malay, I'm Chinese, she's petite, I'm a hippo, she's soft and gentle, I'm a bull in a china shop, she's shy, I'm loud and brash LOL. In any case, my first lunch club was nice, I didn't really know anyone, but it was all very pleasant. They are all camera mad though, and just love taking pictures with their cameras. I, on the other hand, am not so photogenic and shy away from the cam at all costs, declaring that taking a pic of me would break their camera, so take at your own peril!

Through Asian ladies I have met and made many friends, some close ones, and feel so privileged. We are all in a foreign country and it is so lovely to be with friends from home who share the same language, cultural background and quirks and sense of humour and love for food!!!! Being in Trinidad has given me this wonderful opportunity and I want to thank the person who started the Asian Ladies club, she has since moved to better pastures, but the spirit of what she started is very much alive. It is great to know you have friends from home even in a strange country. If ever you feel homesick or frustrated, there is someone who will truly understand and help you through tougher days... I did not have this in the UK, just did not mix in the correct circles I guess, or perhaps I subconsciously stayed away from any clubs of any kind, for whatever reason. It's really great, though I do not think I would search for a club should I return to the UK. I truly believe in Karma, and I guess Karma dictated that I meet up with all these wonderful women.

Thought I'd better mention that we come from many asian countries and will attempt to list them all - Burma( Myanmar), India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand. Hope I've listed them all, Evy, the current co-ordinator will correct me if I've missed any.

Anyway, we had a great lunch at my house today, and everyone who came brought a dish and we had the most amazing spread. Ima and I had invited some of our friends and neighbours and they brought their dishes too.... far too much food, but who cares, we all ate and enjoyed each others company and had a blast.

There are 4 Malaysians who attend the lunches most months, Ima, Chik Mee, Mahani and I, and boy oh boy, when we get together we get raucous and loud and just can't help fooling around and laughing til our bellies ache. Mahani is such a scream, she should start a blog or even write a book! We apologise for our rudeness should we descend into ourselves and start talking in Malay, or Chinese, reassuring those around us that we are not talking about them, well, mostly we are not, sorry , norty , norty ... seriously though, we are not hahahahaha

To all my Asian Ladies Club friends, thank you so much for accepting me into your group and sharing with me, it's so very refreshing and I hope we will continue to be friends, even when we leave Trini .

Being with Dave

Thought I'd take a break from NYC, and write some mushy stuff down as Dave and I will have been married 15 years in 6 days time. Some would say you'd do less time for murder LOL, a life sentence.... why does it have to be negative? People joke about it, but are they really joking or is there a grain of disappointment in their comments? Being with the same person for years and years? For a person like me, that thrives on change, can it work? Will it work? Will I be bored? Get bored? Will we last the test of time?

You know what? I've been with Dave now for 18 and a half years and I feel very lucky. I am not easy to live with and the early years were very rocky. Very rocky indeed. There was the cultural thing, the I don't smoke and drink thing and so why should you? The why can't we do everything together thing, the what do you mean you need time to yourself and male bonding walking weekend thing and a whole load of other things, or perhaps I should say tings, as we are now living in T n T lol. I thought now that I've found him, I didn't want to lose him, I worried about his health, how much he drank, how much he smoked, I worried about him killing himself on that fast bike of his, I was jealous of how much time he was spending with his friends instead of me, I was so scared of losing him. Took me a while to realise that I was going to lose him if I continued trying to control his life, instead of sharing it.

I was very immature in the whole relationship thing, having not had any boyfriends or relationships till I was 23. I did not want to share, I wanted to keep Dave to myself, he had to be with me 24-7. I guess it boiled down to my insecurities and there's a lot of those for one reason or another. I was behaving like a girl and not a woman. I was listening to Jase and Taska, 2 DJs on the morning show on 107.1 FM and they talked about relationships and asked listeners if they were girls or women when it came down to relationships. Fundamentally, a girl would sit and wait for the boyfriend, expect the boyfriend to spend all his time with her, try to control the relationship, showing all the signs of insecurity. The woman on the other hand would be mature in her outlook, had her own life and the boyfriend fitted in to her life and not vice versa, the woman was confident and was not going to be anybody's fool. In all reality, I do not think it can be as clear cut as that. A mix of girl/woman would be ok and perhaps even ideal.

I'd like to think that I have moved on from being a girl and am now a woman with a few girl like elements still within. On reflection, I really believe that if it wasn't Dave that I was with, it would have ended long ago. He is such a rock and a star, hehehe a rock star. He has the patience of a saint. He is not without flaws, he's human after all, a super human to have been with me so long.... LOL. When we had a row, it would really be only me rowing, argument, only me arguing, he would not retaliate, which frustrated me even more, and I would give him the cold shoulder treatment for a few days which he hated, then we would talk and make up. Painful early days , but necessary I guess, he showed and taught me how it could and should work.

Here's some funny bits. We met at the hospital swimming pool and our friends all know that he spotted me swimming, was attracted by my physique slicing through the water and continued to perve me til that fateful day when he was swimming next to me. I was oblivious to his existence until then. His chat up line, "Do you get problems with water in your ears too?" And that was that, it was the 16th of October, 1991. Oh, I forgot, when Dave found out I was from Malaysia, he didn't really know where that was, like a lot of Brits I know, and I drew out a map of Asia, to show where Malaysia was. I got quite good at it, far better than when I was at school, Mrs Chandra you would be so proud of me LOL. Dave went home and did some homework, looking in the Encyclopedia Britannica to learn all about Malaysia and discovered it was a Muslim country and had visions of my father forcing his hand in marriage. He breathed a sigh of relief when he discovered I was a Buddhist. But drew a sharp breath in when I told him my dad collected knives and had a lovely collection of them. Slight improvement there. Not!!!!

Our relationship went at breakneck speed, and Dave had moved in with me within 2 months, and we had bought a house together by 10 months. In retrospect, it was too fast and I'm sure contributed to a lot of the problems we had in the early years. I took Dave home to see the folks and my large extended family and we had 6 weeks of relatives, including the dead ones during the all souls day celebrations, he helped clear the graves, tidy and refreshen the paint on the tombstones. It was at that point I think that my parents began to love him more than me! The pressure to get me married was on but we could not do anything about it as Dave was still married, shock, horror. Not really, he was separated from his 1st wife but was still legally married. That was another thing that bothered me tremendously, and the poor man was pressured to get divorced, which he did in all fairness, a do it yourself divorce. So, now he was divorced, my parents were like, well, what you waiting for? I was not about to get married just cos they want me to, though I had asked Dave on Valentines Day in 1992, a Leap Year and he had said yes! In the end, we decided to get married but did not want to wait too long and was going to get married in 5 weeks , told the folks, and they said,"Why so soon? " lol, after 3.5 years of pressure, why so soon????? It seems, I can't win. And no, there was no bun in the oven, I was not pregnant, Mitchell wasn't born for another 3 years.

So, why get married? We were happy together, had lived for 3.5 years together, got a house full of stuff, what was a marriage cert going to change? It did change, we seemed to grow together now, happier than ever. It was weird, I really did not think it would make a difference at all, but it did, for the better. Perhaps it gave me the reassurance and confidence that Dave did want to be with me, that I was the one for him.

The years roll on, Mitchell arrived then Jasmine, we bungled along, especially when we moved to Nottingham and had to make a whole new network of friends and work and the like. I had a funny few months when we first moved but Dave, once again, was rock solid, having a completely new job, a post grad course undertaken and a mentally unstable wife at home! Have I said how lucky I am? I am so very lucky.

More years pass, football training, matches, ballet, tap and modern lessons, performances, tennis lessons, school runs, helping out in class at school, trampolining, swimming, ice skating. Our days were filled by children activities and work. Living in Beeston close to family had it's advantages, we were able to escape to Paris on our own and had a really great time. I guess Dave and Suyin time wasn't happening that much due to childcare and work commitments but when it did, we made the most of it. I will leave the subject about my parenting skills for another post!!

Today, we find ourselves in the Caribbean, Dave's in Anguilla for a few days, and will be back tomorrow. He's working very hard. We were offered a posting in Trinidad, we weren't looking to leave England. We thought very hard about whether we should seize this opportunity or stay safe in our safe jobs at home. It was a joint decision, as a Libran, Dave was often indecisive, but on this occasion, he seemed to leap at the chance of working and living in another country, one with sunshine, warmth and beaches all year round, it was all sounding very attractive. So, we will be celebrating our 15th anniversary in Trinidad.

I love Dave more than ever and hope he feels the same about me. Our marriage is stronger than ever, though this is not a guarantee that we will be together til death do us part. What have I learnt over the last 15 years? I have learnt to let go, to be more patient, to try and sort problems out as soon as possible. Though I am very lucky, I still have to work at it, never taking anything for granted, never taking advantage and supporting each other as best we know how.

Love is very important, and love Dave I do, and I am very lucky ( did I say that already?) to be loved back unconditionally. Truly unconditionally.

The Big Apple part 2, Ice Skating

After 2 days on the tour buses, with some experience of using the LIRR- Long Island Rail thingy, and subway, we were ready to go exploring ourselves. Before we left, we had made a list of things that we wanted to do and things that we would shop for. We said that we would let M and J do some things that were not available in Trinidad, eg- ice skating, bowling, go-karting, going to a 'show' ( Lion King, Mary Poppins etc). We were going to shops for all sorts, credit cards at the ready LOL.

So, there we were, in the hustle and bustle of Time Square, people q-ing for tickets, all the billboards blinking images at us, the theatres in Broadway, 42nd St, advertising what was on...... the kids took no notice. Offers of, wouldn't you like to go see Beauty and the Beast, Hairspray, Lion King, was greeted with no enthusiasm on their part. But we've already seen Lion King, mummy. OK, OK, what about the rest... no reply yet again, clearly not interested at all! I'm on to a winner here, credit card stays safe in wallet!

What would you like to do then? We want to go to Central Park, Ice Skate, the Natural History Museum, buy a Nerf gun , skateboard and maybe some games. We went to the Rockefeller Centre and watched people skate, we wanna do that mum, please. I had not brought any spare clothes for them and so, we compromised and said, tomorrow. Let's go explore Central Park....and go to the zoo! Off we went, I love Central Park but the kids loved it more, they felt free to roam, run, jump, climb the rocks and they did not get too hot or flustered, oh, how they have missed the parks at home, the cooler, less oppressive weather and the freedom to run and play in open spaces. The zoo was puny, by zoo standards but still great, the seal feeding show was fantastic, and they recognised the zoo clock with all the moving parts from the Madagascar movie, but there was no Alex in the zoo, nor any big animals apart from the Polar bear and seals.

After the zoo, we explored Central Park a bit and found the ice skating rink there, and said we would come back tomorrow to skate. Which is exactly what we did. The weather was getting decidedly warmer, and we could see a reflection of the buildings surrounding the park on the surface of the rink, it was a pretty picture. Due to this unusually mild weather, the ice was melting and there was a sheet of water on the rink, skates were making little waves as they moved along the ice. I looked at the rink and then Jasmine and Mitch and said, you sure you want to do this? It's very wet and if you fall, you could be soaked, yes we do, they chorused. Dave was not too sure and I said I'm not bothered about skating, I will look after all our shopping! We had gone shopping for clothes earlier and had 2 huge carrier bags full of clothes, mainly for Dave. We said, OK, you both look after each other, and at the last minute, I persuaded Dave that he needed to go too, to look after them both, esp Jasmine, who's not too great on the ice. I suspected that Jas would need Dave's help and as he was the more experienced skater between the 2 of us, he would go. I would add at this point that he was not overly delighted at this prospect, considering how wet the rink was and also the risk of falling and hurting himself, in addition, getting wet if he should fall was not looking at all appealing.

A short note on ice skating. About 4 years ago, the children had ice skating lessons at the Ice Centre in Nottingham. Lessons were on a Sunday, starting at 7.30am, we dragged ourselves out of bed on a Sunday for many months, Mitch was getting on well, Jas was very nervous and not a natural. They had borrowed skates initially and then I got some of their own from eBay. Mitch had some ice hockey skates and Jas had some white leather ones, which she assured me would make the world of difference, as the blue skates were not the proper ones. See how indulgent I am, I knew it wasn't the skates, but just in case I was wrong, I bought her the magic white skates.....they hurt less, they looked the part, they were the right skates, now the question is, will they improve her skating????

Off they went, on the wet ice, water everywhere, Jas emerged first, clinging on to the sides, not going anywhere fast. Then Mitch, skating of a fashion, gliding along but not overly confident. Then Dave, relaxed but somehow not really enjoying it as he usually does, worried about falling I guess. It was a lovely sight, all the skaters on the ice, some trying to do fancy turns, others falling over and getting soaked, all on a sunny spring day, the weeping willows swaying gently in the breeze and drooping over the rink. The skyline dotted with tall buildings, Ahhhh, I could live in this city!!!!

Skating not going too well, Jas was encouraged off the sides, falls and falls again, very wet, had to get up on her own, then she was off the ice and back to me, clothes changed, getting dry and apologetic as she felt she had wasted money on the skating. I told her not to worry, we were happy for her to have the experience and that the mild weather was unfortunate, we hugged and though she was still feeling low, she cheered up slightly.

In the BIG APPLE

We just love open top double decker tour buses, and have hopped on a few of these in most of the big cities we have visited. I have even done the one in Bristol! LOL. We decided that as we did not know NYC and that it was huge and also we had no one to show us, we would spend at least one day on the buses. We have always found them to be informative and it kinda gives you a whistle stop tour of the city you're visiting, allowing hops on and off and it runs all day etc etc. In the end we got a 48 hour pass, which allowed us on all routes, Uptown to the Bronx, Downtown to the Battery Park and Staten Island Ferry, and Brooklyn, which also included the night loop- tour to Brooklyn.

We were slightly mis sold the tours, were told we could hop on and off til 10pm, which was not correct, in order to find a stop for the buses, we had to look for bus stops with the Gray Line bus on it, this too was inaccurate. We had all these niggles sorted on the 2nd day, and managed to talk to a manager to voice our complaints. He was very apologetic, tried to make things right for us, and we were placated but felt slightly cheated by the whole thing. Tour guides were spouting loads of interesting information about architecture, a bit of history, anecdotes about the entertainment world, where the stars lived and where movies and television series were filmed. I must say, I switched off a bit when they talked about the celebrities, it's not something Dave and I are interested in....being told which building Spiderman was in when he was bitten by the spider was crazy, it's fiction, a comic strip and not in the least real!!! Not all the tour guides did this which made it better for us. Most would tell us something about themselves, where they grew up, they talked about their families and neighbourhoods. Trying to make it real I guess, inter spaced with celebrity talk. All a bit weird. The calibre of the different guides were questionable, some openly touting for tips, stating that the tips were their pay. I found this a bit rich considering I had just handed over nearly 200USD for the tours. The buses were always packed, so who was getting that fare? One guy was so bold to suggest how much we were to tip... USD30-50, and if we didn't feel to do so, please contact head office to state why!!! I think he meant it as a joke, but did he????

OK, enuf moaning for a bit.. the weather was glorious, it was dry, very pleasantly cool, the trees were bursting into life and I felt like I had come home LOL. We spent the first 3-4 hours with our necks craned, looking up at all the skyscrapers, and tall buildings, it seemed never ending, and all beautifully finished, the older buildings with hand carved stonework. The cast iron columns that made up the first pre fab buildings of the city were beautiful too, despite having high maintenance, ensuring the rust was kept at bay and not staining the walls. A British artist had installed his clay naked men on top of buildings in Midtown, bringing back memories for me as I'd seen them in London only 2 years ago . There was one on top of the Flat Iron building. He has installed 31 of these sculptures on top of other buildings in NYC and they will be there til August. I knew about Antony Gormley's work and asked the tour guide about them... he said, they've been here for years, more than 20.... I let this pass and and then thought to myself, whether these so called tour guides really did know anything about their beautiful city, or was it just all make believe, had I stepped into Disneyland by mistake???


The buildings..... The Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building, The Rock, 3 of the most famous sky scrapers I think, all very beautiful. We had planned to go up the ESB, but at the last minute, the kids decided they didn't want to go.. this was on the day we had travelled in earlier before the queues got too bad. As luck would have it, trains were delayed, and as we got into Penn Station, the train stopped and we waited, and waited and waited, there was a signalling problem, staff were at ground level trying to sort it out, trains were seen leaving but we could not proceed. The staff aboard the train was very apologetic and kept us informed about what was happening. All in all I think we waited for about 45 mins, making the usual 40 minute journey a 1 hour and 25 min journey. Passengers were making calls, explaining where they were, one young man got irate, started pacing up and down the train, saying how much longer, why are trains leaving but we are stuck. He was very unsettled, muttering to himself with a slightly crazed look in his eye. M and J just looked at us, and we smiled back, trying to reassure them. Towards the end of the wait, we were told that NYC police were on board to help calm the situation! It was all calm apart from this one disturbed individual, I guess it was reassuring for the rest of the passengers. After this long wait, the M and J decided that they did not really want queue to go up the buildings.

There were also some interesting sculptures, metal ones, in red dotted around the city, mainly in front of some important buildings I guess, but none of the guides said anything about them. I will post some of the pics here. We saw a lot of interesting artwork, graffiti being one, but alas did not venture into MOMA, will have to save that for the next trip. We did not do many of the museums but did do the Natural History Museum. The native American rooms were great, and as Mitch had just been studying about the Canadian natives, it brought it to life for him, life sized totem poles and weapons and other artifacts that he had been reading about and doing a project on.

We did hop on and off the buses and even did the night loop to Brooklyn, the weather was warm but as the sun disappeared over the horizon, the temperature fell and it got quite chilly on top of open bus! We braved the cold and it was a glorious view, of the Brooklyn Bridge, as we drove across the Manhattan Bridge, a double decker affair, with the rail travelling along under the road. Brooklyn's newer, had less tall buildings but nonetheless lovely architecture. Was lovely to see the NYC skyline looking on from the other side of the river. As we were travelling along, 2 young women in front of me started to eat some snacks, and were throwing their rubbish over the side of the bus. Self-righteous as I am, and I freely admit to it, I was appalled. they kept doing it, so I tapped on on her shoulder and said, give me your rubbish, I will dispose of it for you, I don't think she understood English very well, because she offered me the snacks! She probably thought I wanted some hahahahaha. She was eating monkey nuts and throwing the shells overboard, so I said, no thanks, I just want you to give me your rubbish, because I don't want you to litter the city!!!! She handed me the rubbish and promptly stopped eating hehehe. I am such a terror!

Time for a break, don't want to bore the pants of you now, do I?

Getting into the USA

This is the deal. Even though I have lived in the UK for the last 20 years, and married to a Brit,I am still Malaysian, no British passport. Therefore, in order to get into USA soil, I need a VISA, a non-immigrant, non working, visitors VISA. No problem, will go onto the US Embassy website for TnT and get all the info I need. It's an all singing and dancing website. You fill in your forms on line, then print it out, make the appoiment on line too, all instructions on paying the fees , all there, what documents to bring with you etc etc, it's all there. Great, fantastic, everything's ready.

I trot off to the embassy with all my receipts, forms and documents, and photographs. Get to appointment on time, was in a room full of people, all trying to get a VISA. My turn came, window E please, faced with a pleasant young man. He looks through all the forms, and starts firing a barrage of questions at me, I try my best to keep up. He then asks for my children's birth certificates, which incidentally I have in TnT but just not with me at that moment, as it was not one of the documents the website said to bring. I voiced this and man became irate, said I am not talking about the website...... ooooh, excuse me,but the website was my guide for what documents to bring.... he said he was trying to establish my marital relationship with my Dave, marriage cert in front of him,married 28th APRIL, 1995!!!! Anyhow, stumbled through that hurdle and as abruptly as he was questioning me,he approved the VISA, YIPPEEEEEEE!!!

Tickets booked,paid for,we are on the plane,OK flight delayed but we are on our way. We had to fill out some landing cards which we did , we got into the queue for immigration, and it was a looong queue,we snaked along, perhaps snailed alone, a it took 1.5 hours to get to the front! Finally, we get to get out of the airport..... or do we??? We are facing the immigration officer, he had a Spanish name. Young, smart in his uniform , dark hair and eyes, tanned skin, good looking but a bit on the small side, definitely not my type.. perhaps he sensed this, took him all about 5 seconds to look at our passports, and say, 3 of you have filled in the wrong form, you, pointing at me, with the VISA, you're OK, you got the right form. What form do we need? The green one,not the white one,OK, have you got some of those forms? No, I haven't, says the officer..... you need to go all the way to the back to fill them out.... Dave says, you kidding me? We have just waited in line for almost 2 hours. Officer calm- all the way back to get forms to fill, then come straight back to the front and I will deal with you all. Phew!

Forms filled, we trudge back to the front, pushing in front of others and feeling like a queue jumper, like the lowest of the low,as we know how long they've had to queue to get to the front. So, a sense of De ja vue descending on us, nice, young immigration officer, so why do you want to come to the United States? Holiday, see some friends,but most importantly,because my daughter wants to go to McDonald's as there aren't any in Trinidad,where we are living at the moment. This was said tongue in cheek, as I was fed up with all the delays and was being facetious. Well, maybe not facetious, but was kinda joking, I needed some laffs, even if it were only me that was laffing. Immigration officer,in a serious voice, so, no Maccy Ds in trini, so, how do you know about Mc Donald's? LMAO boy oh boy. What can one say? Are you serious??? Uhmmmm. Because we have McDs in the UK????? and Malaysia, and Singapore and Germany, France, Belgium, (just naming a few of the countries we've been to), it gets advertised in TnT because we have US channels on TV???? Satisfied with our answers, and after some swish finger print scanning we were let loose.... to collect our luggage and venture out to the Big Apple...... the feeling of relief was immense.

We had a taxi waiting for us to take us to Great Neck where we were staying at a friend's apartment. Saw our first yellow taxi, and they were mostly Lincolns I think, not like the old yellow taxis in the Taxi sitcom. It was warmer than I expected it to be, pleasant coolness that I have so missed since leaving England, and on the journey to the apartment, I felt like I could have been in England, apart from the cars all driving on the wrong side of the road! The flora was similar, blossom trees in bud, waiting to burst into a mass of pink/ white, magnolia trees with velvety pink buds, trees with green buds waiting patiently before displaying the lovely delicate first green leaves of the season, daffodils, spring was definitely in the air.

Our first trip to the US, an adventure has begun........