Hakuna matata…

Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase!
Hakuna Matata! Ain’t no passing craze!
It means no worries for the rest of your days.
It’s our problem-free…philosophy
Hakuna Matata!

But unfortunately, it seems that more often than not, Melissa would worry a lot like when she had to fly from KL to Auckland – her first long-haul international flight alone. When she first went over, she had some of her coursemates with her and even though she ended up flying to Wellington on her own while the rest were on a later flight, it was a domestic flight and only took just an hour.

When she came home for the holidays, once again, she flew from Wellington to Auckland by herself and from Auckland, it so happened that she had a friend on the same flight – somebody from Kuching doing the same course as her but in the university in Auckland. This time around, however, when she had to fly back to New Zealand, she would have to go all the way all by herself and I could see that she was worried.

I had planned to stay in KL so we could go around some places and eat some nice stuff but unfortunately, she did not seem to be in the mood for that. I took her out for breakfast that morning in KL and since she said she would prefer hawker food, we went to this place where I had been to once before…

The hawker stall there is owned by a Foochow man from Sitiawan…

…and the previous time I was there, I had the pork noodle soup which turned out to be something like kway teow th’ng (flat rice noodles in soup) and was very nice.  I also had the char kway teow (fried flat rice noodles) from another stall, probably the man’s wife’s, and that was very nice too.

Melissa had the century egg porridge…

…which she said was good. I asked for pork to be added…and the Indon maid threw in a few slices of the meat. I had expected her to use minced meat like what we would normally put in our porridge. Unfortunately, Melissa did not even manage to finish half of it. Sigh!

I had the pork noodles again, this time the dry version…for which I got this very nice clear soup…

…and the kway teow (flat rice noodles) tossed in whatever ingredients. The soup was great but I did not really enjoy the noodles…

That cost RM11.50 altogether which I reckon is the normal KL standard but I would say it is a bit expensive compared to what we would pay here in Sibu. Nevertheless, I think I would still go back to the soup version should I happen to drop by this place again…as it really is nice.

It was way past noon, possibly around 1.00 p.m. already when I insisted that Melissa should have some lunch. After some discussion, she agreed to go for some naan bread…

…at  a shop near the hotel serving North Indian and Pakistani cuisine. She wanted mutton curry and I asked for chicken…

…to eat with the bread. The mutton curry was not that great. It was a rather dry version of curry, something like the Bangladeshi curry that we had here…while the chicken curry tasted different too – something like ayam masak kunyit (chicken cooked with tumeric). Melissa ate a bit but again, she did not finish…and I ate most of the meat in both curries. Sigh! Sigh! In case anybody’s wondering, that was RM14.50, inclusive of a bottle of drinking water and a can of 100 Plus.

Later at KLIA, we sat at the KFC outlet there and waited till it was time for her to proceed to the departure lounge. I ordered a whole lot of things in the hope that she might eat a little – which she did – some of the cheesey wedges and two of the fish donuts plus half of the iced Milo that she wanted.

In the hope that it might help ease things a little for her, I told her to put her trust in God. When something is meant to happen, it will happen and there is nothing we can do to change that – “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” If it is something good, give thanks and praise the Lord and if it is to the contrary, accept it in God’s name as penance for our sins.

Then it was time for her to go…and I sure am glad that she managed to go through it all the way till Wellington on her own without a hitch. Hopefully the next time around, it would be a lot easier for her – as they say, the first time is the hardest. I guess that’s all part of life and living, isn’t it? We learn new things every day…and whatever it is like, we get by…somehow.