11th August 2009 - Ina (my wife), Munif (my son) and I were in our Gen-2 crossing the Penang Bridge. I glanced at my Seiko wristwatch and the time was 10:45am. It's still to early, I thought to myself. Munif's medical review appointment with the neuro surgeon at one of the private hospitals in Georgetown was scheduled at 2:30pm. What are we going to do in the next 3 hours or so?
Suddenly, I thought... Penang... lunch... family... friends... friends in Penang... aha! Hussin Masrin. With my left arm still clinging to the steering wheel, I reach out my right hand and zipped open my Nike pouch bag and searched for my Nokia 6120 Classic. Menu... Contacts... (key-in) H... U... S... S... I... N... walla! out came Hussin Masrin handphone number. Select... Call... Voice Call... Then, 3 second pause... it's ringing!
5 minutes later, we were approaching an empty parking lot in the basement on TESCO Penang. That was our meeting point fixed by Hussin. While waiting for Hussin to arrive, my wife still had the time to look for her "tudung Raya". Clad in a light yellow T-shirt with a pair of jeans, Hussin's head turned left and right like a windscreen wiper, on the look-out for the three of us. Just to increase the fun level I positioned myself behind a rack of hanging "Baju Kurung"s. Hussin's face looked a bit worried. As he walked by me, I grabbed his shoulder and called out his name. Then only his face turned happy. After a few handshakes and a few hugs, we were in Hussin's car.
Hussin gave us the tour of his "office" - it is actually the second biggest sewerage treatment plant in the world (the biggest one is in Ireland), 800,000 PE (population equivalent) - still remember my Construction Technology! This plant is under the concept of "Build-Operate-Transfer". By 12:30pm, we were heading to KFC for our lunch. During lunch, we talked about post-school era and family. Thank you Hussin for a nice lunch.
We parted company at 1:30pm. I'm happy to meet Hussin at his workplace and hope that we'll meet again some other days.
Hussin, yours truly and my wife in front of Hussin's "office"
