Written by lainie at 04:57 PM on January 12, 2008 in Family, Friends.

Visited the Lim Courtyard recently. My granduncles and grandaunts (8 of them) got together to build an old-fashioned Chinese style courtyard in Ipoh, with the intention to stay with each other in the future.

They managed to coax some retired craftsmen to build the entire thing the old way - meaning, we had a huge courtyard put together without a single nail. Just big beams of wood interlocked like a jigsaw.

Aunty Regina joked that the craftsman was probably cussing the family as he went along building everything, because the house has a lot of these lattice stuff that was all handmade (apparently, he got bored after a while).

I don't have photos of the place, but if you like looking at newly built old places, my granduncle's blog has some pictures (also filled with cheesy humour and pics of relatives I cannot identify).

Unless I'm mistaken, he's the architect for the courtyard.

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Daph: He's half Italian! And half...not Italian.

I was just missing Daphne, and the things she says when a message came through my phone, "miss hating friends and family", but I understood what she meant anyway. Made me smile. Not to say the woman cant be so bubbly sometimes it doesn't drive me crazy, but I miss her. Also spent all my phone credit on her because pining for friends over the border ain't cheap.

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3am: Heard some extremely loud noises - bangs, like something was being beaten up by a metal stick. Went on for a while, making me get out of bed (and put on clothes).

I opened the curtains from my darkened room, to see what was happening, and spotted a man walking by outside my house, towards another road. I was worried we had some whackjob banging away at our gate, or that of my childhood friend's, next door. Phoned my mother and woke her up (eventually).

We looked out the windows and in the dim vision from the few working streetlights (why are the lights here so shitely maintained, I'd like to know), a group of men were walking the direction the first guy had gone, carrying metal sticks. They seemed to be walking away, and didn't give a damn who saw them.

Was wondering if a neighbour has loanshark problems. I saw quite a few of my neighbours peeking out from shadowed rooms, behind curtains - the wives always more discernable by the permed hair.

Then my mother distracted me - she had flipped the lights on, opened the balcony door, and walked out to have a proper look. In her loud, floral nightie. -___-". My ma's got style, sometimes. 

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Yknow, I told my doc that my cough was keeping me awake and I don't know what the hell he gave me, but by the time the meds kicked in I was trembling just lifting up a fork.