The drive back from Ipoh took us double the usual time because the highway was packed with traffic. We couldn't get above 30 km/h for most of the way. It took us longer than it took us to drive from Singapore to KL (although the distance is about half) and that was with some "creative" driving.
We had a dinner date with Richard's family in PJ so when we finally got into PJ, we drove straight to the restaurant (Mama Mia at PJ State). It was another reunion dinner - Margaret and her family had come back from visiting her in-laws in Sitiawan so all the siblings (Richard and his two sisters) were finally together. After dinner, we went over to Margaret's house for fireworks and to light the Kuomintang lantern.
It was Richard's mum's birthday so Margaret served a carrot cake and everyone sang Happy Birthday.
Then it was mahjong again while the children rocked the Kinect. It was past 2 am before we finally headed home.
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| Bowling on Kinect |
The next day, we, together with my brother, popped over to our brother-in-law's (Jimmy) clinic for Richard to get a check-up. Jimmy is a GP and Margaret (his wife/Richard's sister) is an eye specialist. They share the shop unit where they operate their practices, so they were both there when we popped in. Richard has been having some headaches lately and his blood pressure is borderline high, so we decided to get everything properly checked. Jimmy took some blood for testing and sent him off for an ultrasound of his kidneys and bladder. Margaret bought us lunch at the coffeeshop before we left.
Margaret texted us a couple of days later to let us know that the blood test results show everything is good. She added "Carry on KFC. :)" which made Richard pleased as punch - he says he now has doctor's instructions to have all the KFC he wants!!
The ultrasound showed a very small kidney stone on the right side. We'll have to see if we need to do anything about that.
After the ultrasound, we went to buy some DVDs at Sungei Wang Plaza. On the way home, we bought dinner, which was a selection of hawker food from the neighbourhood coffeeshop - kuay teow soup, rojak, fried kuay teow, nasi kunyit with curry chicken, assam laksa - yums! Rested a while at home then went over to Margaret's house, and had more mahjong up till about midnight.
On the following day, Tuesday, we had lunch at Margaret's house. Richard's mum made the classic Cantonese meal - porridge and fried noodles. She also made some roast pork and stewed chicken mushroom noodles.
Went back home to pack and to have a quick bath before starting the drive back to Singapore.
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| Ryan with my brother |
The drive home was easy and smooth, made it in just under 3 hours. Ryan slept in the beginning but was quite active for the second half of the drive.
And so that was the end of our holiday. Chinese New Year is not over though, there're still lots of Chinese New Year meetups and gatherings, our calender is full!
