Rastam is 27 (1)....

23rd September 2009

Rastam, pakdokter's son, turned 27 today. And he has now been away for 3 years, working and living in Tokyo, Japan. How fast the children grow and with both the children living overseas and pakdokter and partner both being semi- and fully retired respectively, we can now really understand what it is like to be in an 'empty nest'. Luckily these days, with the internet technology and the webcam via MSN or the Skype, we all could at least feel that we are not so far apart after all....

Pakdokter was reduced to looking through the piles of old albums at the many old photographs documenting the things that the family had done together through the years. The family had done quite a lot together, actually...........

one of the earliest photo of Rastam, at 2 years old?...


playing sand at the Cherating beach circa 1988....

with their 'bunny rabbits'....

pony ride at the Fraser's Hill....

with Ah Ying,

the family 'amah' for the first 5 or 6 years....

10th birthday?.......1992....

pool-side of house in Damansara Heights...

on top of the Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa...

with pakdokter at the Datai, Langkawi....

'what's so funny?.....'

with the Japanese language tutor...

first family trip to Tokyo....

pakdokter's partner did her sabbatical at

the Tokyo Metropolitan Hospital...
of the' Todai', the Tokyo University...

sleeping 'tatami' at a university guest-house where pakdokter had

an arrangement to visit the Psychiatric Department...

waiting at the little airport at Caticlan,

to fly out from Boracay Island back to Manila....

at Kews Garden, London....

visiting "Mum" who was recuperating from surgery...

with "Bib" in London....

at the Kews Garden... London...