Korea My First Destination For This Year

I am going for a short holiday to Korea. The flight from KLIA will be at 2.30 PM with a stopover in Saigon. After a few days in Korea the return flight will include an overnight stay in Saigon.
The highlight of the trip to Korea will be a meeting with my friend David in Seoul. Though it maybe just a short meeting, it will be meaningful as it will be our second meeting after David visited Kelantan sometimes last year.
Rest assured I will be blogging about the trip like I used to do for my European stint.
My apologies to all of you for not making any post after my last post which was some three weeks ago.
To my friend David, see you in Korea.

A Pergola Anyone?

From reading the many local landscape magazines, we decided to have a pergola for our diminishing garden. We used to have a pretty large garden but slowly it was built up with larger car porch and awnings. Anyway there was still space for a pergola and we decided to have one.

This is how the pergola looks after being completed.

The pergola was ordered from a local wooden frame maker not far from the house. Though the order was made in November 2009, we have requested the delivery to be made in April 2010 because I was engaged in doing the other job on the house.
The pergola we ordered was of the size of 10ft x 10 ft x 6 ft from post to post. The long beam will be of 14 ft with an overhang of 2 feet on either side. The rafters are of 9 ft with an overhang of 1.5 ft. The posts are 6 in x 6 in x 8 ft cengal wood, the best heavy hardwood available while the beams are 2" x 6" x 14 ft and rafters 2" x 5" x 9 ft 'cengkawan' (merawan?) wood. This wood is as good as cengal.

The site before the stucture was erected.

When the pergola was ready, I prepared the site by making the concrete footings for the wooden posts.



The holes are filled up with concrete and a metal piece of 2" x 18" length is placed with a 6 in protrusion and left to set. Two holes of 12 mm diameter were drilled in place.
The supplier brought the materials and fixed them up. It took the 2 workers and his boss some 4 hours to fix.





This is how it looks from one end. my wife Fatthiyah has placed her flower pots around and some were hang on the beams. Soon we will be planting some grape plants to crawl on top of the rafters. I heard that there are marcotted grape seedlings available in Kota Bharu on Friday morning.
All in all it cost us less than RM2,000 to have this structure to decorate our garden.
The next project will be a wooden wakaf to sit beside the pergola. That project will come in October.
Who says pergolas are expensive to build?

Son, Thank You For The Help

I would like to dedicate this blog to my son Azuan. He took a week leave just to help me with my renovation work on the house.
I have been contemplating hiring a helper to do the next phase of house renovation. The next phase involved the laying of about 40 feet of 4 in diameter UPVC pipe for the outlet of the HDPE septic tank. This pipe is important in order for the new septic tank to function. it will only function properly if the outlet is able to drain off the overflow after the WC is used. Since the water collecting pond is located at the back of the house, the pipe must be laid in a trench to be dug up in an alley barely 24 inches wide. The width of the trench is only 6 inces wide and vary in depth from 14 inces at the outlet to 24 inches at the collecting pond. Only cangkul and penggali can be used for this job.
Unfortunately a helper is hard to come by in my area. Those who are available are either too lazy or too weak to work or they are drug addicts. So I have no choice but to slog on on my own.
It was a great feeling when I saw a text message from my second son Azuan inquiring whether I need him to help with my work. Of course I do, I shot back to him and immediately called him to find when he could be back.
He had read my blog about the injury to my right knee. He said he can approach his boss for a week leave based on compassionate ground to help me to complete my job. He showed his boss my blog and his leave was approved.
The wound healed well. The sutures were later removed.

He came back and helped me with the digging of the trench.
See how cramped is the work area.

While I dug with the cangkul, Azuan will move the spoils to the other side.

Some section which was concreted had to be broken down with a jack hammer. Thanks to an influx of china made power tools, such tools are affordable and can easily last the duration of a job. For RM350 ringgit, such a tool is really worth the money spent.
Azuan back filling the trench after the UPVC pipe was laid. The pipe on the wall is a drain pipe.

The job is done and Azuan asked me to pose for this picture.

Later Azuan helped me with the work on the second restroom.

All the old fixtures were removed from the restroom including the pedestal WC.
For Azuan's benefit since he didn't get to stay back till the new restroom was completed, here are some photos of the room.
New tiles were laid. we chose this pink tiles with subtle flower motif on it.

The new look of the restroom.
The red hot wash basin.
Sticker of flowers bought at Shah Alam Pasar Tani. Since they come cheap, it doesn't matter if they won't last. I can always replace them.
Azuan, thank you for the help. Without your help, it would have taken me longer to complete the job.