Christmas Holiday Year 2011

It said no pork! It started with an English cottage in Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia and a wonderful barbecue Christmas Eve party cum a birthday celebration. It was pretty cold at 1600 meter above the sea level especially at this special season. It was a wide range of salads, cakes, lambs, chicken and a turkey. The majority of guests were Japanese who were settling in Cameron Highlands for their retirement. Most of the guests were here in Malaysia for the Malaysia Second Home Program. They enjoyed their lifestyle in Malaysia particularly in Cameron Highlands.

"It is 300 Euros for a month of rental in Cameron Highlands. You can not get this price for the lifestyle you have here in any places in Europe and Japan. It is expensive to stay in Europe and Japan if you compare them with Malaysia," said a German educated Chinese Malaysian lady.

Besides Malaysians, we had some guests from all over the world. We had one from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, one from Lyon, France, a few people from Germany, some from mainland China and a few Malaysians.

A heart attack incident was happened on a Japanese tennis sensai. He was sent to the nearest hospital for treatment. It was not a pleasant news, however, he was safe and no life treat. We were shocked for a while, and we moved on. A lot of people tried to do a rescue. No medical doctor was around at that time.

"I think Indians should know more about privacy matter. We just enjoying to have some private areas for example in a beach in Goa. I hate people come to disturb while I am resting and enjoying the sun bathing. I just prefer some privacy. Some Indians come to sell flowers and massage packages while I am doing my sun bathing. I need some privacy. I hope that they will not come to disturb me."

A few of the guests agreed on the statement while the rest just noted as a new statement for them.

We had all Indian chef for the dinner. They did a good job for a good barbecue dinner.

"Hi, I am from Boston. And, this is my girl friend. She is from Lyon. We met in Switzerland on a work trip. Our companies are involved in Bio Technology. I am an IT driven personnel for Bio Technology while my girl friend is a lab specialist. We have a long distant relationship for 2 years now. We fly from far to meet in Malaysia, a lovely place for gathering and holiday."

The guests from the long table noted his speech. The girl was shy, and she smiled.

"We have some development for Bio Technology in Malaysia too. I know that the progress for the development is a bit slow in Malaysia."

"Selamat datang! Welcome to Malaysia." A Japanese greeted all.

Later, we have speeches from the host, and the invited guest. Of course, it was a birthday celebration for an important guest. We sang "Happy Birthday" song.

The Japanese practicing time with a group of Japanese was fun.

"I learned Japanese during my undergraduate. It was 10 years ago. I was in Japan once for a ski trip, and later, I did not have an opportunity to converse in Japanese any more. I need about 2 weeks to refresh, and revise my Japanese knowledge."

"Malaysia is a good place," praised a Japanese.

"We have our tennis and golf session almost every week. Besides, we have a little strawberry farm here. We were scientists in Japan, and we are farmers in Malaysia."

"If we need anything, we can go to the nearest happening place, Ipoh. It is only an hour drive from here. It is not far to drive to Kuala Lumpur too."

"I am from United Kingdom. We are Indians. My parents are migrated from India to United Kingdom. We are Muslims. And, we love Malaysia after the landing. The people are friendly, and they are very polite."

"Well, you are just lucky to meet those who are friendly and polite. I just did a random shop at one of the American Franchise chains, I found that the servants, the waitress and the shop keepers are lazy and not treating me as their customer. They just answered my question with some nonsense. Kentucky Fried Chicken is earning great money. I have the doubt that the management will look at the service issues. Since the dollars and cents look pretty good in every month's balance, I afraid they will not consider to revamp their service capability and attitude."

"You are wrong. The American franchisor takes complaints seriously. You may call their hunting line or log on to their website to express your feeling and complaints. I am sure it is just a bad day for the workers. So far, I have a very good experience in Malaysia. Oh yes, I was in TGI Friday in London. The waitress let me waited for half and hour for my food, and they promised to deliver in a few minutes time. I complained about it. TGI Friday did not response to me. See! The service issue is not only in Malaysia. In fact, it happens every where in the world. I had a bad experience with TGI Friday in centre London. I agreed that their business was very good. A lot of people was in queue during the dinner time. They wanted to dine in the restaurant."

I went to bed after the dinner. I did not watch the fireworks presentation.

It was fireworks after the barbecue dinner.

"It is so beautiful."

It lasted for 15 minutes. It was noisy in the early morning.

The next day, it was a mossy forest exploration day. The mossy forest in Cameron Highlands is the Brinchang Mountain which is the only drive way to the mountain in the world. The drive way was build by Telekom Malaysia to set up the telecommunication antennas.

In the mossy forest, there were various flora and fauna. We were highlighted for a few types of flora.

It was a lot of walking and breathing. Some of us chose to walk from Brinchang to Tanah Rata.

Jasmine cafe brings the Holand theme. It is orange in color. The food was quite delicious. Moving on, we had steamboat at Brinchang with Tom Yam and Herbal Soup. Of course, we have deer meat for our lunch.

"The deer meat in Cameron Highlands is as tender as the reindeer meat which is served in a Mongolian restaurant in Ontario, Canada."

"The heritage hotel and some resorts in Cameron Highlands look like those resorts in Swiss Alps. These places seem familiar to us in Europe."

"I seldom hear about the morning prayers from Muslim in Malaysia. I hear the prayers in India and Thailand."

"Maybe you are not staying near the Mosque. Malaysia is a Muslim country. I am sure you may hear the prayers which is broadcasted in every early morning."

The Muslims enjoyed their time in this Christmas celebration too.

That was the end of my 3-day 2-night Christmas Holiday Year 2011.