Unforgettable Tour?

I spent nearly my whole weekend reading up on nuclear energy, its discovery and current status. It all started after I watched "Decontamination: Losing the Sheltering Trees" - a NHK documentary about decontamination work in areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear event and how it has affected the communities there. 

The Fukushima event is one of only two nuclear events classified as a level 7 event (highest level - most serious) on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The other being the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. So that got me wondering about the current state of Chernobyl.

From my online search, I found out that work to build a new containment called "New Safe Confinement" to cover the old leaking sarcophagus (a huge concrete structure built in 1986 enveloping the destroyed Reactor 4) has started in 2012 and is expected to be completed in 2015. Now, I know that "clean-up workers" at the area are known as liquidators.

More interestingly, I read that since 2002, there were guided tours to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone which includes the ghost town of Pripyat but now the itinerary has been altered to exclude visits to the Rossokha village and the military machines graveyard as prohibited by the government.

Who would want to pay to visit this place, I asked so I looked for more information about the tour, read many articles written by people who went on this tour and browsed through their photos. Some descriptions about the tour:

- dreamlike
- eerie silence
- haunting
- unforgettable
- attracts people who like lonely, abandoned and deserted places

So would you consider going on this tour?

Home again

A big thank you to everyone who left me comments in my previous post. I have been back for some time, 10 days to be exact. Sorry for not writing a post earlier. I was busy sorting out things that were left undone while I was away.

No, I did not go adventuring to a mysterious remote place with no access to the internet. Just that I did not bring a personal device to go online while I was there. The place that I visited has this building:

Night view - all lit up

It was a short 9 days trip to visit my 96 years old grandmother. This trip is a treat for my mother and I from my sister who paid for all expenses. She also requested that I let it be known here that she also prepared many pieces of newspaper cuttings of sudoku and slitherlink puzzles for me to work on if ever I am bored during the trip. For the record, I completed 5 sudoku puzzles and 5 slitherlink puzzles during the 9 days.

Grandma and ma. In the foreground is the back of my head.

Basically, we walked, talked a lot and ate loads of good food. The best thing is seeing grandma and the bad thing is I gained weight. All in all, a short, sweet and sour trip.

Away

 spouse did this

This is a scheduled post as I have no access to the Internet starting yesterday for about a week. When I am back, I will resume reading and commenting on my favourite blogs - Raising Rockstars (I took the liberty to change the name a bit as there is more than one Rockstar now), Life's A Journey, My Memory Land, What I Did Today, Redbabe, Light Recollections (the name of this blog changes regularly so I won't be surprised to see another name when I am back ;p) and Small Kucing. Till then, keep blogging, ok!? :D

Update: How can I forget this - My Family's Memoir is one of my favourite blog too! ..and also Ms. Renaye's blog. :D

Ladies only

Just recently at a nearby shopping mall, I noticed that a huge area of parking spaces has been cordoned off to create a ladies only car park area. Security guards manned the single entrance and exit and they only allow cars occupied by ladies to pass through the barrier gates into the special parking area.

Now do you think this is a good move by the management team of this shopping mall?

Weekdays weekend

Last weekend was a long weekend as Monday was a public holiday since Malaysia Day (Hari Malaysia) was on Sunday. As with public holidays, I gave my netbook a rest and went online via other means. This time we did not visit the shopping malls but stayed at home to clean the house. After working through the weekdays, the weekend is here again. Now how will I spend this weekend? Rest or clean the house? Whatever I do, I will make sure I enjoy doing it.

So to everyone who drop by here, may all of you enjoy your weekend doing whatever you can't do during weekdays! :)

Lovely creeping plant

44

...is what I get when I add up the age of this blog and my age. Happy Birthday to us both!

No cakes for me as "old" people is not supposed to eat sweet food. ;p 

I just spend the day with my family and that's enough for me.

Last but not least, a big thank you to my blog buddies for dropping by here all these 3 years. :D

Another long weekend

What a surprise to see the flowers

Another long weekend gone as last Friday was a public holiday. We went for a gathering with old friends from secondary (high) school. Most of them are married with children ranging from 4 years old to 12 years old. That reminded me that I am getting old and I should treasure life more.

Then as usual with holidays, we took the parents out for a meal. My spouse also helped them to repaint their door and listened to their grouses about the various things that needed repair around the house. I guess when we grow old, it is harder for us to perform house maintenance tasks.

To wrap up the holidays, we watched a TV movie with the title "Temple Grandin". It is a biographical film of Dr. Grandin who was diagnosed with autism when she was a child but then went on to overcome many obstacles to earn a doctoral degree. A truly inspiring movie.