Singapore? 15 September 2011

I'm making this entry from my bed at 10am Singapore time in Singapore. Why? That's hardly a holiday so why put this into my holiday blog? Well I thought I'll just try to do this blog entry for my coming trip before I go for the trip. Later today, I'll be flying off for a break that I deserve. Do I really? Let's try to justify this next trip from my bed... My last trip was to Azerbaijan in june 2010. (Oh... That's not so long ago. Next...) Second try. I have not had any rest for my last two semesters' break. (Ok, this one sounds better.) I've been going away with the students to Wuhan the last two semester vacations and didn't have time for myself. After my trip, it was even more work. So I hadn't had any nice self time since then. Halt!! Last June, I took two weeks of leave and just bummed around throughout that time. Well.. That's a break away from work but no going overseas. Well actually I tried to buy tickets to Bali during that June break but because of the last minute-ness of the so-called planning, I couldn't find any good flights to Bali but what I did chanced upon was this promotion from Malaysian Airlines (which turned out not to be a promotion after all cause Erhan got the same tickets for a better price after the promotion period. oh well...) and I chose my flight to Frankfurt. What do I know about Germany? Zilch, Mercedes, BMW, Volvo. But... Ömer Faruk the future Mr Governor is there. Ok the trip is to visit Ömer Faruk. So I contacted Ömer, and one thing lead to another, he came up with an itinerary which till now is rather vague to me but still.. Splendid :) I know I'll have things to do in the 24 days that I'll be in Europe. Hope I won't get exhausted :o And just a few days ago, I met up with Erhan and he decided to come with me to Europe. So, no solo trip after all for me. I have no intentions of going solo anyway so it doesn't really matter. I'll have a friend with me for this trip. Nice... :))) Ok. Time to start my day now. Will go for lunch with Noraini, fetch Altay and maybe catch up with Hamza. And I still have not finished packing up, have I? I don't know. Will I have time for last minute packing before going to the airport? I feel so unprepared. What shall I bring with me? I hope I'll be fine... Ok stop worrying now and just get going... Passing of Wak: a struggle with my tears I was doing my bit of shopping at about 2.30pm when Emak called to say that Wak has been admitted into hospital. He vomitted blood. I didn't think it was that serious until she said 'the doctor said to just wait... His heart is failing' that didn't sound good at all. I was thinking how i could squeeze in time to visit him. I went on shopping anyway. 20 mins later, i received a call from home. Aidil was on the line. Bad news.. Wak has passed on. Well... Numb... I walked on... Then i felt tears in my eyes. I held back the tears... Walked on... Held it in..  Then I went to fetch Altay. And Hamza called. It came to a point when I had to tell Hamza my uncle has just passed away. That was when i just choked. The conversation ended abruptly. Altay came and the tears just welled up.  Emak called to tell me again. And my emotions got the better of me. And the tears won. I just broke down. Alfatehah to Datuk Achmad Syahbuddin. This brought back memories of December 2006 when Yai passed away while I was away in Thailand. I felt so hopeless then. It was a Sunday and no one picked up the phone at the airline office. I just had to wait till evening to get back home and the following day to visit his cemetery. I missed the burial of my late Grandfather and I wasn't there in his final moments. This time round, I was already getting ready to go. I don't think I could change the flight. It's several hours away. So I dropped by the hospital.  And with this breaking news, I forgot to tell Bapak that I'll be leaving for Germany for three weeks. When I called him half an hour before my flight, he scolded me for not being around. Then I said I was leaving for Germany and I was at the airport, he calmed down. Then I said for three weeks he said "why so long?" I was confused. He never made it a big deal how long I leave for my holidays.