Beautiful Rainbow Day

Thursday was a beautiful rainbow day! It was lunchtime when Sharon returned home. She had never done this before, Thursday being her half-day off and she would take her children swimming, returning only in the evening, just before dinner.

"Surprise!" she said as she came into the house. I looked up and there was my younger daughter Grace! Surprise indeed! I couldn't believe my eyes. Grace lives and works in Kuala Lumpur.

"Surprise, mummy!" said Grace. Then my younger sister Doris walked in. Huh??? I thought, when Doris also said, "Another surprise coming." I was quite light-headed by then. Wow, another surprise???? I ran out the door and there to my final surprise was my sister Ellie.

This was a super surprise, my daughter Grace and my two sisters, all having flown in to celebrate my birthday! It really made my day. I still couldn't absorb the fact that all three of them were really here, in Kota Kinabalu to celebrate my birthday. To me a birthday, especially my birthday is just another day, another milestone that reminds me of the journey so far with the end looming. However each milestone passed is a bonus these days.

We passed the next hour catching up. My youngest sister Rosalind had wanted to come along too but had stayed back because her two girls were returning home on Saturday from Melbourne but she sent her love and her present. Since Sharon would be fetching her children and taking them swimming, I decided to take both my sisters for a short city tour as they had not been here for a long time. Doris' last visit was more than 20 years ago while Ellie's last visit was more than 10 years ago. There would be changes that they hadn't seen.

As usual the traffic jam was an irritant but we managed to point out the landmarks that have come into existence. A drive to Tg Aru Beach and the resort hotel, past the Kinabalu Golf Club, then on to Sutera Harbour Resort with its lovely golf course, past the KK Times Square & the newly built shopping complexes, heading into town going through the central business district and the latest shopping centre cum boutique hotel under construction drew admiring comments from my sisters. Kota Kinabalu had certainly changed.

Then we headed to Tun Fuad Park for ABC or ice kacang, a cold dessert concocted from ice shavings, palm sugar, red beans, black jelly, atap seed, etc. It was certainly a favourite thirst quencher and we had pisang goreng and cempadak goreng ( snacks of fried banana and a fragrant fruit, kin to the jackfruit )to boot. So up the short flight of stairs cut into the hillside we went, to walk off the calories ingested before dinner that evening.

We walked around the park and cut across the wooden bridge across the lake before returning to the car to brave the evening traffic jam. We came home to our residence on the hill to enjoy the beautiful sea breezes wafting in. It was such a wonderful feeling to walk in the garden feeling the strong seabreeze fanning our faces, drinking in the sweet fragrance of a single large pink rose dancing in the wind. There is no place like home, more so when my sisters and younger daughter are there.