The Cat City…

As I landed at KLIA low cost carrier terminal (LCCT) early in the morning, I had my breakfast at the now widely-franchised Old Town White Coffee outlet. Ordered Ipoh chicken hor fun (thick flat rice noodle) and of course the famous white coffee. Then, boarded the connecting flight, flying across the South China Sea, To Kuching to attend my sister’s graduation ceremony in University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). Well, this is my first time ever visiting the Borneo Island!

One thing that caught my attention in the flight was the number of passengers wearing face mask, in fear of contracting H1N1! Throughout my entire flight from Salt Lake City, Dallas and Los Angeles back to Melbourne and Gold Coast, I hardly saw anyone wearing face mask, but more than half of the passengers in the Kuching-bound flight were wearing it! Well, it is important to be health conscious, but then it appeared to me that Malaysians seemed to be over-paranoid about H1N1!

Anyway, as I landed in Kuching International Airport, I took a cab and rushed to UNIMAS campus, as it was already near noon (the graduation ceremony was in the morning). The ceremony just ended when I arrived, but at least there was still opportunity to have photo sessions with my family outside the hall. It was heartwarming seeing so many families and friends sharing this moment of joy with all the graduates who had make it through after 5 long grueling years in medical school. Ah, and so there you go, the first Dr OWL from our family! Congrates!

Since this was my first visit to Kuching, I spent the next 5 days exploring the Cat City with my family. The day after the graduation ceremony, we went to Sarawak Cultural Village where traditional houses of different native ethnic groups were showcased.  There was also traditional dance performance sometime around lunchtime. Overall, the visit provided a good summary of the culture of god-knows how many ethnic groups in this region of Borneo Island.

The next couple of day, sis went off to work in Sarawak General Hospital, and so dad, mum and myself went exploring on our own. We covered places like the Bidayuh Long House, Semenggoh Oran Utan Rehabilitation Centre (it was raining and we didn’t really get to watch the Orang Utan close-up), Sarawak Museum, Cat Museum, as well as the Kuching River waterfront. Of course we did try some famous local cuisine, such as the Kuching laksa and Koo-loo mee. Thanks to Boon Phiaw’s recommendation, we  tasted laksa at three to four famous stalls around Kuching!  Also get to tried some native cuisines, such as Ayam Pangsoh (bamboo chicken) and Umai (’sashimi’ prawn), which for unknown reason are not easily found around Kuching.

I was also glad to hang out with Boon Phiaw and Freda for two nights as well. It has been almost 8 months since we last parted when they left Melbourne for good, and they didn’t seem to change much i.e. Boon Phiaw still remains the fat single guy who’s picky when it comes to choosing gf! Raymond also joined us for one of the nights when we went to the Kuching food festival.

After spending about 5 good days time traveling with my family, and meeting up with friends, dad, mum and I boarded the Air-asia direct Penang-bound flight back home. Huh, another two-hour flight! Basically I have lost count of the numbers of time I have been flying over the last month or so! At least I am back at home now!

Stopover Down Under…

Due to delay in the connecting flight, I arrived back in Melbourne from the States on Saturday morning, one day later than scheduled. It’s kind of weird having to get used to the chilly winter in Melbourne, having just left the searing summer in the States. But thankfully, I only spent two short days in Melbourne, as I left for Kingscliff, near the summer-ish Surfer’s Paradise, on Monday afternoon.

I was there to attend a 4-day Familial Cancer Conference. I must say that I was extremely lucky to be in such a supportive lab, as my supervisor paid for all my (and three other students and one lab assistant’s) expenses for the conference, and that included the airfare, accommodation, and conference registration. Mind you the conference was held in quite a ritzy resort along the beach, and we get to stay in the resort. Ah, what a luxury..:D

The first day of the conference largely focused on the clinical aspects whereas the subsequent 3 days are mostly on basic science researches. Though I sat in for most of the presentation, I could hardly concentrate, as I was constantly thinking (and fretted) about my own oral presentation scheduled on the very last day of the conference. As I am a complete novice in the field and it was also my first ever presentation in a conference, my supervisors, David, Melissa, and John went through my presentation with me a couple of times the day before. It was quite a daunting experience presenting my research findings, with quite a large number of prominent clinicians and researchers in the audience. It was a great relief as I stepped down from the stage after my 15-minute talk plus a couple of jittery attempts to answer the questions. Nonetheless, the sense of achievement is ineffable considering the fact that all other speakers were renowned researchers, post-doc fellows or Phd candidates.

Apart from listening to the latest research development by distinguished researchers, the conference was also a good place for meeting other people in the field. It was during the conference that I met Soo Hwang, the chief executive of Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation (CARIF) in Malaysia. She has been such a nice and approachable lady, offering me valuable advice and giving me a better insight into the research development back in Malaysia.

At the end of the four-day conference, I took the flight back to Melbourne, followed by another flight back to Malaysia on the same night. Well, it’s time for a well-deserved short break back at home after such a long hard work from the beginning of the year…

Journey to America VI

Day 15-40 Salt Lake City, UTAH

Note: This is a long over-due post…

When I first arrived in Salt Lake City (it was a weekend), the city was totally deserted – all the shops were closed, hardly any cars on the streets, and not to mention the bus from the city centre to my accommodation (about half an hour bus ride away) only runs hourly. I arrived at Foothill Place in the afternoon, and was greeted by the landlord, who showed me around my apartment. He was also kind enough to bring me out for groceries shopping. I spent the next day in the apartment as the bus service in my area does not run on Sundays. Thankfully, the apartment was connected with broad-band internet, other wise I would have died of boredom. As my supervisor, Professor David Goldgar, was away on Monday, I had the luxury of spending the day exploring downtown Salt Lake City; visited the State Capitol and Temple Square.

The following day, David drove me to the University of Utah School of Medicine, where I was based at for my entire stay in Salt Lake City. As Bing, the post-doc was overseas during my time in Utah, there were only David and I in the office most of the time. My three and a half week in Utah was largely spent working on the analysis of the breast cancer genotype data, which I have generated in Melbourne, under guidance of David, who has been working in the field of statistical genetics for the past 30 years or so. It has been a great pleasure working with such highly-regarded yet unassuming  and funny person like David.  We even went for lunch-time jog and hiking together.

A visit to Utah is also not complete without exploring the many national parks in the state. I went hiking on the Little Cottonwood Canyon with David and his wife, Connie on the first weekend, and later on in the Bryce and Zion Canyon on my own on the very last weekend. I was utterly impressed by the beauty of the unique geographical landscape in the state.

As my stay in Salt Lake City comes to an end, so does my Journey to America. Over the past six weeks or so, I got to catch up with my primary class mate, went on a solo backpacking trip, met different people in the field of medical research, and most importantly, managed to work on my BMedSc research and had an abstract accepted for oral presentation in a conference! All in all, an enriching experience!

As I boarded the flight back to Down Under, I shall look forward to coming back to the States some time in the future…