Spring Cleaning in Subang

This recent holiday back to Malaysia (and short detour to Singapore) was great. We chose not to pack it full to the brim with itineraries and excursions and plans. We just wanted to chill, relax, eat all the yummy foods we missed, spend time with close family, and be pampered by mum and dad.

Sounds very uneventful, right?

Well actually... allow me to share one of 'interesting' things we got up to while we were there.

We found out not long before our trip that hubby's dad had to go in for surgery for hernia. He then subsequently had to go for a second surgery to treat an infection that surfaced following the first one. I guess this trip was well timed so we were able to see him. He has been recovering steadily with the wound healing well. We took te opportunity to do something special with him by taking a (partial) family photo with him...


I think he was very proud and happy and I'm glad our trip was well timed so that hubby's youngest sister could also be there.

We also took on a major clean up project of hubby's dad's house. It took one and a half days to clear all sorts of old stuff from the house which have been sitting around collecting dust... old furniture, broken electrical stuff, old clothes, old newspapers and all sorts of odds and ends.

The thing that shocked me the most was the amount of old containers he had been collecting. I think this is typical of the traditional 'waste not want not' thinking. You know all those Chinese New Year cookies that come in the plastic containers with a red lid? Well through all the past Chinese New Year celebrations in al the years gone by living in that house, my FIL had tenaciously saved all these plastic containers, washed and dried them, and stored them away. As I was walking through the kitchen, I had been filling up bags abd bags of these containers stacked all along the counter... and then I opened one of the cabinets and almost fainted at the sight of yet more of these plastic containers.


We ended the first day of cleaning (a Friday) surrounded by this ocean of plastic bags filled with stuff. And then we started thinking "how are we going to dispose of all of this???". So me being the ever resourceful one, armed myself with a phone and the Yellow Pages (no internet connection at the house), and proceeded to make enquiries for hiring a skip bin. I finally found one who could come the very same day and pick up the bin the next day for RM200... not sure if that is considered a good price or not, but please remember that I was relying completely on analog tools.

Continued in next post: The Amazing 'Karang Guni' Man