HLS Book Club

Introducing HLS Book Club! We value reading, at all ages of life. Reading opens up new worlds of adventure, knowledge, happiness and English competency. 

In HLS Book Club, children will have the opportunity to spend quite time reading books, share their books with others, search their books for new words and to learn about characters, and bring their books to life with directed artwork. They will finish the lesson with a quick speech on what they learned.

Welcome to HLS Book Club. Let the reading begin!

Learn more about our business at: HLS

Top 10 things Malaysia has Given Me

September 16th is Malaysia Day and is not to be confused with Merdeka Day (Aug 31st). Merdeka Day celebrates Malaya's independence from British rule in 1957. Malaysia Day acknowledges the merging of Sarawak and Sabah with Malaya, becoming Malaysia.

People here may go on holidays either in or out of the country, particularly if it coincides with a school holiday week. Or, people flock to the nearest shopping mall to spend the day, and money, on discounts!

Today I decided to spend some time thinking what Malaysia has given me and why I'm so thankful to be living here. So here is my 

Top 10 things Malaysia has Given Me:

1. A beautiful wife and family

Horne family photo in Kuantan, May 2014

First and foremost, the reason why this Englishman is here in Malaysia today, is my beautiful wife. After meeting my Malaysian beauty on the island of Borneo, we soon engaged and married a year later. In addition to being the woman I love, she is a great help to my cause as a local Malaysian.

2. 4 sisters-in-law

My wife with her 4 sisters at home in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

Get that! Not only has Malaysia given me a gorgeous wife, but the family extends to four fantastic sisters-in-law (though I hate the 'in-law' part. I refer to them as simply 'sisters'). How lucky can one guy be?

3. A family company

Our company logo

Malaysia has given us our own family company. We registered Horne Learning Services through Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM, or Malaysia Companies Commission), and in no time we had our own business. We are able to work from home, giving us the pleasure of being with and raising our children simultaneously. Our website can be found at HLS English Classes Kuantan

4. Long-term visa with permission to work

The Kuantan, Pahang Immigration has over the years relaxed its policies and has allowed me to receive a 4-year visa with permission to work. This is a huge blessing for me which I am ever grateful for. Long gone are the days where I had to go to Singapore every 3 months to get a new stamp in my passport. I am now working towards receiving PR (Permanent Residency) in Malaysia.

5. A love of hotels

Meeting the Chief Minister of Pahang at Vistana Hotel Kuantan in February 2014

Through my blog and living in Kuantan, I have developed quite a love of hotels, which has seen us stay inside most of the notable hotels in Kuantan, and some of the smaller ones. We have often stayed there for free in exchange for positive blog reviews, while also taking the opportunity of combining our English classes with the hotel industry. We have gained many new friends in hotels in Kuantan and KL which has enhanced our lives dramatically.

6. An appreciation of health

In my hospital bed with dehydration and food poisoning at HTAA Kuantan

Malaysia has given me a more vivid awareness and appreciation of my health. Coming down with food poisoning has taught me to be extra careful what I eat and making sure it's clean and safe before consumption. Severe dehydration has alerted me to the need for drinking PLENTY of water and electrolytes, and also taking rehydration salts from time to time. 

I have also started regular workouts at the local gym, to increase my health, strength and blood circulation. It feels fabulous to work out and eat right!

Looking and feeling better at the gym

Living in this hot and humid climate has created a much greater importance to looking after my health. Coupled with my long-overdue dentist appointments to correct a number of problems at extremely low prices, Malaysia has definitely brought about an improved sense of good health.

7. A new outlook on life

with friends in Ipoh, Malaysia, May 2004

Malaysia has reinvigorated me. It has given me a whole new outlook on life. It is a combination of living a different culture, adapting to a new climate, appreciating the appearance of the sun every single day, interacting with really friendly people, serving others and experiencing new opportunities. Thank you for these wonderful things, Malaysia!

8. Nasi Lemak et al.

A gorgeous helping of nasi lemak

Mmmm, nasi lemak. The greatest food ever! And nasi kukus. And roti jala. And mango sticky rice. And a whole list of other brilliant foods. Malaysia boleh!

9. Beautiful beaches

Teluk Chempedak beach, Kuantan

Malaysia has given me a beautiful beach just 15 minutes drive down the road. Teluk Chempedak beach is the most popular place in Kuantan. I love going there and walking across the bridge through monkey territory to the next beach. What a luxury this is!

10. Astro

Astro is the Malaysian equivalent of Sky TV in England. Man, I get to watch more EPL football in Malaysia than I ever did in England. There are 14 channels dedicated to sports, with additional channels on top of that for special sporting events (ie. FIFA World Cup, Olympics etc). Malaysia has spoilt me!

A-Z April Blog Challenge

I've decided to give this blog a rest from the A-Z April blog challenge this year as I have a lot to catch up on from my recent travels and activities with my parents.

However, I have included 2 of my other blogs in this challenge and I invite you to go and check them out throughout this month.

First up is my A-Z of hotels which can be found at Xenodocheionology. I'm quietly excited about this one as I think it will make a very nice booklet/e-booklet once it is all completed through A - Z.

Secondly, you may visit our English business blog where I'm introducing rarely-used English words accommodated in a sentence. Click English Vocabulary to learn some new words.

Have a happy April everyone!

A-Z April 2013 blogging challenge topics

Today I'll be sharing with you the topics for my A-Zs on 3 of my blogs. The ideas I came up with changed a few times but now they have all been set in stone.

I originally was thinking of some grand plan which would have required a lot of work, but eventually decided to keep it a little more simple this year, as opposed to the detailed and extremely hard work I put in last year.

For this blog, I'll be sharing one of the famous "Keep Calm" posters each day, going through each letter of the alphabet, along with a few motivational thoughts to accompany each one.

Over at our English blog I'll be taking readers on a journey through the English language and the joys and pains of teaching it in Malaysia. For these first 2 blogs, I'll be asking questions to hopefully stimulate some discussion from visitors.

Meanwhile, my Nature blog will be posting a fascinating image a day from around the world, which I searched for and snapped with my National Geographic Maps App on my new ipad. I am probably the most excited for this one!

Whether you are participating or not, I hope you'll enjoy going through my blogs this April, whether it be my fun 'Keep Calm' posters here, English tips and clarification at Horne Learning Services, or beautiful images of the world at Kuantan Nature.

It's going to be one busy April!

English Workshop #4 at Vistana Hotel Kuantan

Over the weekend we held our 4th English Workshop at Vistana Hotel Kuantan. It was a great success and it was nice to have some new children having their first experience with us.

Group photo of children attending our English Workshop at Vistana Hotel Kuantan

We had 3 sessions which were attended by a total of 37 students. They really enjoyed the games and activities. I hope we will have more workshops in 2013!

For more details and photos from our 4th English Workshop, please click the link to visit our 

Horne Learning Services blog

Blog-hop Saturday (13 Oct, 2012)

For those of you who may be interested in this blog's statistics, *Our home called Kuantan* is closing in on 150,000 page views, which should be reached by next weekend.

So this gives me the opportunity to thank each and every visitor to my blog, whether I know you or not, whether you drop a comment or not, whether you are old or new followers. Thank you for visiting and showing an interest in what I have to offer. It's been great getting to know a lot of you better!

This leads me in to an announcement for next week. It's my 30th birthday coming up on Tuesday and I'll be having a guest blogger on Wednesday. Leovi is a talented guy and I'm really pleased that he'll be heading here next week to show his amazing work to you!

Today it's blog-hop Saturday where I show you around some of my other blogs.

First up is Horne Learning Services. Our English learning company is growing with new students filling up our classes. In the most recent post, I'm discussing the important factors that make up composing a great essay.

Over at my Kuantan nature blog you can view a couple of hot pink flowers gracing the roadside.

And finally you can browse my participation in Teaser Tuesday over at Dan Brown Portal, my reading blog dedicated to Dan Brown and other good books.

I hope you enjoy your tour of my blogs. Do drop a comment on any of my blogs to let me know what you liked. Wishing you a great weekend!

Blog-hop Saturday

Hi everyone, today is blog-hop Saturday. I have 5 blogs which I am independently running, so today I'm inviting you over to explore my work outside of *Our home called Kuantan*

At Dan Brown Portal I am introducing a fascinating book entitled "Secrets of Angels & Demons". Any Dan Brown fan will love this blog!

At Horne Learning Services I am discussing how our first English lesson went via skype to Russia!

At my Kuantan nature blog you may browse some summer pictures of flowers in great colour to brighten up your day!

And here you can have a look at some of my favourite photos from down the years in Kuantan.

I hope you find something interesting from these picks. Which blog did you visit?

Have a great weekend!

My Journey to Kuantan - Part 5 - Welcome to Kuantan!

If you've been following along throughout this week, you'll know that I've been documenting the story of how I arrived in Kuantan, dating back from the early years of my life, right up until the moment I first set foot in Kuantan.

If you have missed any of the previous parts of this story, you can catch up here:

PART 1 - RAISED IN ENGLAND (1982-2002)

PART 2 - SERVING AS A VOLUNTEER (2002-2004)

PART 3 - MISSING MALAYSIA (2004-2005)

PART 4 - LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT (2005 - 2006)

After our wedding, Fidelia and I flew by Malaysia Airlines from Manchester to Kuala Lumpur, and then on to Kuantan.

Fidelia soon resumed her studies at Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), (formerly named KUKTEM) by driving along this road in the picture above for about 35 minutes to Gambang.

Kuantan was a new and strange town to me at first. I wondered how I'd ever be able to make it and get started with work. Since 2006 until the present day, I've been teaching English to people of all ages, slowly building up my reputation and number of students, from zero until over 65 today.

You can learn more about our company and English teaching at our business blog

I quickly got to know Kuantan, the roads and services here, and gradually fell in love with it.

So for the final part of my journey to Kuantan, I'd like to take you on a little Kuantan blog tour. Would you mind coming along?

In this tour I'm going to show you (or remind you who follow my blog closely) some of my favourite places in Kuantan. 

It took me 24 years to reach Kuantan, from the day I was born in Leicester, England, passing through a series of important events which swung my path eastwards and set my destination to Kuantan.

I'll give you a link at the end of this post. When you click it your tour will begin. You will find similar links at the end of each post on the tour, which will take you around Kuantan and finally back to this post.

Thanks for taking the time to do this and I really hope you enjoy the Kuantan blog tour!!!

KUANTAN BLOG TOUR: First up is Lao Zi dragon temple

From Russia With Love

Hi everyone, today's post is over at our company blog and you're invited to attend! We had a great time with our new friends from Russia over the last few weeks, so click the following link to see what we did:

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Whatever, you're doing, make it great and have a lovely day!

English Workshop @ Vistana Hotel

Our first English Workshop was held at Vistana Hotel. Horne Learning Services is pleased to report that it went very well!

9am session

For a more full report of the 3 English Workshops and pictures of the day, please refer to 

Horne Learning Services blog

The children enjoyed the two and a half hour workshops, particularly the treasure hunts! Have a visit to our company blog and let us know what you think :)

A-Z challenge is a month away

Good day to you all and welcome to my post. I hope you will take some time to view the short video of my return home which took place yesterday. I've been busy cycling around for the last couple of days, trying to get some things done in relation to our company Horne Learning Services.

The A-Z April blogging challenge is now just a month away. In 30 days the alphabet soup will begin in the blogging world. I've been following the increasing numbers of people signing up for the A-Z challenge on the linky list which I've added to my blog beneath all my posts. There are currently over 800 participants signed up and I'm sure there will be 1,000+ before April 1st comes around. I'm at #387 on the list.

Those who were visiting my blog this time last year will remember my A-Z April blogging challenge. I really enjoyed it, although it was at times hectic, but I made it through the month.

This year I have already begun preparing my posts in advance, and they are shorter in length and all based on a specific theme, which I won't be revealing just yet! I believe it will be a case of "the shorter the better" when it comes to the challenge itself. There will be hundreds and hundreds of bloggers all trying to visit each others blogs and I'm guessing the shorter posts will receive a lot more comments, recognition, new followers etc etc.

If you haven't signed up for the A-Z April blogging challenge, you can do so right here on my blog at the linky list beneath all of my posts. Keep scrolling down and you'll get there!

If you have signed up for the A-Z April blogging challenge, have you decided on a theme? Or will it be random? Have you begun preparing posts in advance? Has it been tough thinking of what to do?

Horne Learning Services

My wife and I have begun our entrepreneurial journey by forming our company named "Horne Learning Services."

This is the logo we designed together. It was the first finished result we had attempted and we liked it.

We are really excited about this and are looking forward to much growth and success in the future.

We are writing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) like any efficient company, and that's not an easy job! So too is typing up 48 yearly lesson plans for four different age groups, along with other customised lesson plans for our work at hotels, hospitals etc.

I'm certain that the hard work now will pay off later. Please don't hesitate to visit our facebook page at the following link:

Horne Learning Services on facebook

All the information about what services our company offers is on the info tab of our facebook page. Go ahead, make yourself at home, we would appreciate your support!