manneken pis

naughty frite pissing

chanced upon this hilarious fritkot around the corner from the manneken pis. didn’t have the privilege to try this pissing frite as it was closed on a sunday. now someone stop his frusemide, that’s just rude. 

Singkawang

Singkawang konlo mee

We've just returned from another dental-medical mission trip, the first for 2012, and my first since last year! Feels good to get back into the grind, and a nice change of working environment. Assholes and geriatrics down at the pit, to relative paradise. We went to the town of Singkawang, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, with a fair bit of travelling. 

Singapore --> Pontianak, Supadio Airport  - via Batavia Air

Pontianak --> Singkawang  - 5 hour bus

Flying Batavia Airlines wasn't too bad. A quick online search revealed only a single hiccup in their short existence, so that calmed the nerves a little. 

Singkawang is supposed to be famous for it's food, and with it's majority chinese (hakka/teochew) population, it's no surprise. The picture above is the first meal I had after arrival. The hosts distributed packets of rice and noodles in the bus, afraid our calorie stores would be depleted while napping for 5 hours. This benign act of shoving food in our faces will turn out to be a recurrent theme during the trip. 

just finished this book by local author, brian gomez. i'm not ashamed to say that this reads like a dan brown novel. was unable to put it down and i read it in a single sitting. guess the location helped, i was spending an afternoon in the hotel room in yangon because the ladies decided to go shopping. didn't regret my decision staying in with this book in hand. borrowed this from a friend and it came highly recommended. it's a good read, simple english and a real page turner with the question "what's going to happen next?" popping regularly in your head. a retarded monkey with a lobectomy can probably give a better book sypnopsis  than me, but i can say this - if you're reading for entertainment purposes, go for it, i recommend it. but if you're looking for some cerebral discussion on malaysian politics or maybe a comical parody of the dismal current state of political affairs in malaysia, you've got the wrong book.

another great mystery has boggled me. other than scratching my head as to why barney is purple, i'm also left wondering why i haven't been more involved in the local rugby club, cobra. my dad was a player for the club, was the president and was a lifelong member. for the life of me, i cannot seem to remember much of cobra during my childhood. you'd think he'd bring me to watch some rugby games, meet his friends, attend some of the club's social functions, or, given my pre-pubescent girth, i won't be surprised if they used me as a practise ball. i'm not blaming my dad by the way, am just curious why something that was such a big part of my dad's life isn't featured in mine. strange. i came to this realisation today when i met cobra's current president and my dad's former team mate. he gave me a cobra jersey and how i loved it! and i cannot help but notice that the jersey was my very first! hope my little schoolboy glee didn't embarrass my dad's good name. am impressed with how close old rugby mates are, and hence the old adage is true - that rugby is a barbarians game played by gentleman (as opposed to football, whom some say is a gentlemans game played by barbarians).

am currently having an unexpected break at home in kl, which may not be a bad thing after all. come to think of it, it's been a fair while since i had a real break. settled a few family related matters, had some me time to play with myself, and more interestingly, i've made two discoveries. i've discovered short stories and urban trekking sites in kl.

i'm crazy about reading short stories now. i'm knocking myself on the head and wondering why i haven't discovered this literary niche earlier. i love a good story. heck, everyone loves a good story. the stories we hear nowadays come in the form of gossip, which is also rather entertaining so i shan't complain. anyhow, i've managed to devour roald dahl's short story collections. i've rented them off a second hand book store, wasn't too difficult to find. and i'm now eagerly awaiting for my amazon purchases to arrive. it all started when i was trying to expand my literary horizons to impress unsuspecting people at cocktail parties by reading neil gaiman's the sandman. the sandman is littered with short stories and i loved it. what imagination! that got me started on this short story frenzy and i cannot stop. everyone loves a good tale.

and with the second discovery, i've recently been told my some friends and an uncle that kl has some nice little trekking spots, and there's one right under my nose! bukit gasing, a mere ten minute drive from my humble abode! there's also bukit tabor in melawati. i never knew! will attempt bukit gasing tomorrow, after a nice roti telur (no bawang) breakfast at rajus. fun for the whole family, finger licking good.

there are only a handful of things that can make your friendly emergency physician's balls reascend to it's embryonic position in fear - a blue baby, a seizing pregnant lady, a chipped tooth and someone presenting with the above ecg.

the patient was sitting on the trolley prodding away on his iphone, oblivious to the flurry of activity surrounding him.

"i want to be cardioverted with 100j, synchronised please. no need sedation, i will try to tahan.", he requested politely.

erm. sure! clearly not his first time! i love these cases, "slamdunk" admission to cardiology. no argument!

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the ambulance brought in a sixty year old german tourist for drowsiness and a headache. he just couldn't be woken up from his hotel bed. with the ct scan as shown above, it's a no brainer. pun intended. for the uninitiated, that's a brain scan and the white crap you see in the black thingies is blood, which should not be there. intubated, squeezed in some generic concoction to lower blood pressure and intra-cranial pressure and off to the neurosurgical icu. wham bam thank you ma'am. easy disposition. he didn't make it home to see any bundesliga games. sure, he has travel insurance that would pay for the medical bills, but travel insurance can only do so much. some holiday. condolences to the family. if you think your life is fucked, think again. some people really have it worse. wouldn't want to be on that holiday.

a young french dude had a boating injury in bali, apparently some rope snapped and caught his leg. he didn't trust the local hospital, hence he was air flown to our ed, a good sixteen hours later. goodness, i could have driven to penang, jogged along the bridge, grabbed a bite along gurney drive, take a shit, finish a book and back within that time. his foot was near amputated as evidenced by the x-ray above. again, for the uninitiated, that's an x-ray of the right ankle and the bones should at least be aligned. his foot couldn't be saved. yup, he has travel insurance too. so what. one moment you're having the time of your life at a beach resort, and the next, you're missing a damn foot. for good.

just a friendly reminder to seize the day. carpe diem.

had the chance to be involved in medical student exams today. no, they weren't allowed to palpate my bulging hernia nor were they allowed to cup my scrotum for the cough reflex. instead of pimping my body for examination, i was helping to find willing patients, ushering them around, calling the examiners to come on damn time and buying coffee. it's a nice change from the daily bullshit ward routine, which, by the way, is ending in exactly a fortnight, yipee!

standing by the side and watching these poor fellas getting grilled over their cases, i cannot help but be thankful that i didn't pass through this particular medical school. my god. i'd failed twice over. i'd be paying a million dollar bribe with a cherry on top and still fail. but these exams are nonsense anyway. an academically good student may not be a very good doctor. he may be scoring distinctions and banging the prom queen in medical school, and still be a very useless doctor. i'm still convinced that doctors are the dumbest fucks around, and like i said before, with intelligence hinging between a pork bun and belly button lint. so what makes a good doctor. if i had the answer to that, i wouldn't be ending this post abruptly. so many factors to consider, just some food for thought. yum.

some random nonsense, little blogettes if you will.

• the tax man just paid a visit. boo hoo. still don't understand a thing about taxes, that's one of the reasons why it's been said that doctors are the dumbest fucks around, with intelligence somewhere between mouldy bread and a tuna. boo!
• passed my exams. yay! with imminent promotion, albeit small, comes more responsibility which requires bigger balls of adamantium. watch this space.
• have been doing a fair bit of travelling in recent months, mainly under the guise of a medical mission. attempting to do some good for the world, but failing miserably because of a lack of resources, and the only person benefitting from all this is me. decided to pen down my thoughts in a little travel blog, most recently to nepal. hopefully, i'm able to maintain it. if anything, all these little mission trips have just reinforced my desire to do something longer term, something more useful and meaningful than just a few days dispensing vitamins. again, watch this space.
• something is missing in my life. cannot put a finger on it. am sure i will find it soon.

no apologies for being so emo, rather unlike me. boo hoo!