3 Photos of The Week - HAIR, PEMPEK & TRAINS

HAIR: Kids love to immitate adults especially in the activities that adults perform like cooking, driving, building houses etc. It reflects in the games that they play everyday too.



Somehow my son likes to comb my wife's hair. He could comb it for a long long time. Maybe it is a sign of affection and also "doing things to help" the parents?



Of course my hair is a bit to short for him to continuously comb. However, seems like mama does not mind having being pampered!

PEMPEK: One day I took my son to PTC Mall to do grocery shopping. His mom did not come along, so we had a father and son outing. I asked him whether he wanted to have some "perkedels" (fried mashed potatoes) and he nodded. However, halfway eating the perkedels he felt that they are a bit spicy, so I suggested him to go have some "pempeks" (fish cakes).

Straight away his face lit up. Now I know why Palembang people like to eat pempeks! Because they eat it from young. Not many people like these floury fish cakes but it is rather famous in Palembang and majority of the Palembang people love pempeks. So from these photos, you can tell whether my boy is a Palembang boy or not!!...;)


TRAINS: My son also loves trains. His english and chinese characters on his white board is always "TRAIN" and "HUO CE" (mandarin for train). I have taught him many chinese characters but he would only write his favourite one.

Haircuts In Palembang

Yesterday I went for my haircut in PTC Mall's Johnny Andrean saloon. A JA haircut (including wash) only costs Rp32,000 (~RM10). However, everytime they cut my hair at JA's, the hair dressers will definitely say, "Oh, you have lots of grey hair, do you want to dye your hair?". This is without fail, different hair stylists make the same comment during my every visit. It made me feel as if I have loads of grey hair!

I have never found a better hair dresser in Palembang until my friend introduced me to this saloon next to a massage center. The price is a bit more expensive at Rp70,000 (double that of JA) but the hair dresser is more professional (supposedly came from Jakarta). The hair washing facility is better as they have this stump from the sink to support the back of your head while they wash (in other places, they just let the weight of your head supported by the neck rest). The environment is also more pleasant - quiet, not so crowded, spacious. The hair dresser is also more gentle with your hair (I don't like those that just snips randomly at your hair with a blunt scissors pulling out chunks of your hair in the process - they say it is called "thinning" - B.S!).

Another interesting thing is I do not know exactly how to tell the hair dresser what kinda hair style I like. 10 years ago I used to like this hairstyle called "Armani" hair style but recently I found out that in Malaysia they no longer have that cut anymore. I took some photos of my past "Armani" hair style and tried to show the Johnny Andrean people. They told me that it is called a "Mohawk" cut. Then when I asked for a "Mohawk", they gave me a "school boy" cut instead! As time passed, someone got it almost close to what I liked and I asked for the name of the hair cut. They said it's called "spike"! Ever since, I have been having "spike" haircuts in Palembang.

If it was not for the convenience of doing shopping after the haircut from JA, I would have paid more to get it from the pros at the massage center place (and also save me the embarrassment of feeling I have lots of grey hair). I hope my wife does not get a shock when she sees my JA "spike" hair style when I return to Malaysia next week.