GARGANTUAN steps
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Malaysia, truly Asia
I had my holiday plans for the Summer of 2011 decided for me even before exams started. At least for the first weekend of my holidays. Thanks to Dad, he booked a nice family outing to Kuala Lumpur where he and myself were going to catch Liverpool in action, whilst Mom, my bro and sis, went on a shopping spree at Mid Valley shopping centre. It was initially just meant to be a father and son outing, but I managed to get the whole family involved! The only one missing was Bobbie.
The trip started rather early with a hired car and chauffeur picking us up from home at around half past five in the morning. The drive to KL was just close to four hours, with a rest point in between. After depositing my mom, bro and sis at the hotel, we adjourned to the main KFC headquarters in KL to catch up with the rest of my Dad's Liverpudlian fans. These were a bunch of extremely enthusiastic and energetic bunch who were extremely personable and friendly. They were definitely Liverpool fanatics. Or maybe it's just them! They brought us to eat fish head curry (assuming that it was one of my Dad's favourite dishes) and we definitely over-ordered on the food.
We then made our way to Bukit Jalil stadium where the match was to be held. The only important point of note was that it was just about two in the afternoon, with the match not scheduled to start till quarter to six in the evening! That meant a lot of waiting time. We 'managed' to get parking lots at a petrol kiosk and walked a good twenty minutes to the stadium, and by quarter past three, we had already taken our seats. That meant a good two and half hours of time to kill. Before that, we did manage to have pictures taken with the Liverpool legend, John Barnes. Inside the stadium, the conditions weren't conducive for anything productive. It was hot, humid, noisy, and worse still, lots of cigarette smoke adding to the ambiance of the occasion. Having to breath in that much second-hand smoke in those few hours was a most dissatisfying experience. It was as if these people needed smoke for aerobic respiration.
I found it extremely comical as well that by the time the players had arrived at the stadium, which was about quarter to five, we had sung You'll Never Walk Alone about four to five times, and another two more were sung whilst the players were warming up, and finally one before the match started. Surely a bit too liberal with the use of the Liverpool anthem? Meanwhile, on to the match itself. No discredit to the Malaysian national team but there must surely be something majorly wrong with the Liverpool defence if they can let it three goals. And the goals scored by Liverpool itself weren't altogether that spectacular. If anything, this match served to show how severely lacking Liverpool is in many departments and it is better to be pessimistic about the upcoming season as opposed to being optimistic. After all, something must seriously be wrong if the Malaysian team were made to look like Barcelona FC at certain periods of the match. Half-time couldn't come soon enough, though the second half was much better, with more goals in it. Final score - Malaysia 3 Liverpool F.C. 6
The next day consisted of some early morning shopping at Mid Valley shopping centre before we proceeded back to Singapore. It was really quite an enjoyable short trip! Any time spent with my family will always be enjoyable.
Bob and sis
Dad and Mom
The Bobs
Liverpool-KFC fans
John Barnes and Dad
Final score - Malaysia 3 : 6 Liverpool
Bukit Jalil Stadium
You'll Never Walk Alone
Barely a few days later, I was off to East Malaysia for another short trip - to Kuching. This was a meeting of old friends, as well as meeting a new friend. Considering it's our SJI 10th year reunion this year, it was most apt that we had our own mini-celebrations in Kuching first. Me, Andrew and Youjia (my new friend) met up at Changi Airport where we flew to Kuching to meet up with our one-time former class chairman back in SJI, Alex Qiu. First of all, I would just like to say that Alex and his parents were extremely hospitable towards us for the entire trip, and I am really grateful for how gracious they were towards us as hosts. Almost every meal was taken care of for us, and we were chauffeured about by Alex, which spared us the agony of hunting for places to eat as well as places to visit.
We were duly picked up by Alex and his mom at the airport, and we adjourned to his place in Sirian (an hour's drive away from Kuching) which was situated in the middle of the hill, which is not entirely a very apt description. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the place, much to my regret, but it was a house built in the middle of a small hill surrounded by lush greenery. According to Alex, you get various intruders into their compound, ranging from snakes, tapirs, ant-eaters all the way to orangutans. They grew their own fruit trees, and purified their own water obtained from the ground. Almost entirely self-sufficient except for the electricity! Entirely amazing.
The first day was just spent eating - our first meal being somewhat of a delicacy of exotic food - wild prawns the size of your palm, wild boar (ala Obelix and Asterix), some funny fern, and last but not least, turtle-meat, which when you ordered in Mandarin, is known as 'water-fish' because it is illegal to sell turtle-meat. If you didn't know better, you would say it tasted like chicken, aside from the texture of the meat. We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting Alex's town and primary school before adjourning to Alex's other place in Kuching, where we played Monopoly card game (rather fun in my opinion, though I was the ultimate loser). This was followed by dinner with Alex's parents, then heading to the river for stroll, then heading back home to listen to music from high-quality speakers, and then finally ending the day with a game of Scrabble before bed time (not the ultimate loser this time, but still not the winner. Guess I'm just not ruthless enough)
Alex, Youjia and Andrew
Andrew
Lunch
- clockwise direction beginning with the green fern vegetables at nine o'clock: fern-like vegetables; soup; wild-prawns; wild boar (blue plate); turtle-meat (yellow plate)
Jit Hin Restaurant
- highly recommended, if you can find it
Alex's primary school
Dinner
One satisfied gang
Resort by the beach
Me, Andrew, Youjia and Alex
Kampung Budaya Sarawak
The other guys
Rumah Iban
Fish-traps
An unstylish me shooting a blow-pipe
The Penan Grandmaster
Beware of monkeys
Rumah Orang-Ulu
Clowning about
The Cultural Village
The three guys and the Rumah Melanau
The four of us
Never forgetting his roots
The Melanau blowpipes in action
Jumping Jacks
Kluang Station Cafe
Farewell at Kuching Airport
Angry Bird restrained
E. Honda
Dumb and Dumber and Dumberer
The trip started rather early with a hired car and chauffeur picking us up from home at around half past five in the morning. The drive to KL was just close to four hours, with a rest point in between. After depositing my mom, bro and sis at the hotel, we adjourned to the main KFC headquarters in KL to catch up with the rest of my Dad's Liverpudlian fans. These were a bunch of extremely enthusiastic and energetic bunch who were extremely personable and friendly. They were definitely Liverpool fanatics. Or maybe it's just them! They brought us to eat fish head curry (assuming that it was one of my Dad's favourite dishes) and we definitely over-ordered on the food.
We then made our way to Bukit Jalil stadium where the match was to be held. The only important point of note was that it was just about two in the afternoon, with the match not scheduled to start till quarter to six in the evening! That meant a lot of waiting time. We 'managed' to get parking lots at a petrol kiosk and walked a good twenty minutes to the stadium, and by quarter past three, we had already taken our seats. That meant a good two and half hours of time to kill. Before that, we did manage to have pictures taken with the Liverpool legend, John Barnes. Inside the stadium, the conditions weren't conducive for anything productive. It was hot, humid, noisy, and worse still, lots of cigarette smoke adding to the ambiance of the occasion. Having to breath in that much second-hand smoke in those few hours was a most dissatisfying experience. It was as if these people needed smoke for aerobic respiration.
I found it extremely comical as well that by the time the players had arrived at the stadium, which was about quarter to five, we had sung You'll Never Walk Alone about four to five times, and another two more were sung whilst the players were warming up, and finally one before the match started. Surely a bit too liberal with the use of the Liverpool anthem? Meanwhile, on to the match itself. No discredit to the Malaysian national team but there must surely be something majorly wrong with the Liverpool defence if they can let it three goals. And the goals scored by Liverpool itself weren't altogether that spectacular. If anything, this match served to show how severely lacking Liverpool is in many departments and it is better to be pessimistic about the upcoming season as opposed to being optimistic. After all, something must seriously be wrong if the Malaysian team were made to look like Barcelona FC at certain periods of the match. Half-time couldn't come soon enough, though the second half was much better, with more goals in it. Final score - Malaysia 3 Liverpool F.C. 6
The next day consisted of some early morning shopping at Mid Valley shopping centre before we proceeded back to Singapore. It was really quite an enjoyable short trip! Any time spent with my family will always be enjoyable.
Bob and sis
Dad and Mom
The Bobs
Liverpool-KFC fans
John Barnes and Dad
Final score - Malaysia 3 : 6 Liverpool
Bukit Jalil Stadium
You'll Never Walk Alone
Barely a few days later, I was off to East Malaysia for another short trip - to Kuching. This was a meeting of old friends, as well as meeting a new friend. Considering it's our SJI 10th year reunion this year, it was most apt that we had our own mini-celebrations in Kuching first. Me, Andrew and Youjia (my new friend) met up at Changi Airport where we flew to Kuching to meet up with our one-time former class chairman back in SJI, Alex Qiu. First of all, I would just like to say that Alex and his parents were extremely hospitable towards us for the entire trip, and I am really grateful for how gracious they were towards us as hosts. Almost every meal was taken care of for us, and we were chauffeured about by Alex, which spared us the agony of hunting for places to eat as well as places to visit.
We were duly picked up by Alex and his mom at the airport, and we adjourned to his place in Sirian (an hour's drive away from Kuching) which was situated in the middle of the hill, which is not entirely a very apt description. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the place, much to my regret, but it was a house built in the middle of a small hill surrounded by lush greenery. According to Alex, you get various intruders into their compound, ranging from snakes, tapirs, ant-eaters all the way to orangutans. They grew their own fruit trees, and purified their own water obtained from the ground. Almost entirely self-sufficient except for the electricity! Entirely amazing.
The first day was just spent eating - our first meal being somewhat of a delicacy of exotic food - wild prawns the size of your palm, wild boar (ala Obelix and Asterix), some funny fern, and last but not least, turtle-meat, which when you ordered in Mandarin, is known as 'water-fish' because it is illegal to sell turtle-meat. If you didn't know better, you would say it tasted like chicken, aside from the texture of the meat. We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting Alex's town and primary school before adjourning to Alex's other place in Kuching, where we played Monopoly card game (rather fun in my opinion, though I was the ultimate loser). This was followed by dinner with Alex's parents, then heading to the river for stroll, then heading back home to listen to music from high-quality speakers, and then finally ending the day with a game of Scrabble before bed time (not the ultimate loser this time, but still not the winner. Guess I'm just not ruthless enough)
Alex, Youjia and Andrew
Andrew
Lunch
- clockwise direction beginning with the green fern vegetables at nine o'clock: fern-like vegetables; soup; wild-prawns; wild boar (blue plate); turtle-meat (yellow plate)
Jit Hin Restaurant
- highly recommended, if you can find it
Alex's primary school
Dinner
One satisfied gang
After our exploits the previous night, we woke up rather late the next morning, missing out on our Laksa breakfast. We made our way towards the beach, which was about an hour's drive away. There were two resorts by the beach which apparently were suitably cheap, costing approximately SGP$100 a night. That seemed rather incredible to me, and I must find out more for myself. If so, definitely a nice place to have a short holiday in the not-so-immediate future. The afternoon was spent at the Kampung Budaya Sarawak, which is the Sarawak Cultural Village. Though I had my initial doubts about this place, especially with the hefty entry fee, I was suitably taken over by the place. The Cultural Village basically showcased various native Sarawakian communities living in their natural housing. Thirty percent of Sarawakians are Chinese (the largest ethnic group), and the rest of the population consists of the Bidayuhs, the Ibans, the Penans, the Orang Ulus, the Melanaus and the Malays. This area is basically a tourist-attraction for people to gain an insight into these various ethnic groups and the way they previously lived their lives. My understanding of them is this - these were various families from the various ethnic groups that were transported from across Sarawak to come and 'live' in this cultural village for people to learn more about them. They lead such peculiar lives now - forever 'stuck' as a showcase of their culture and heritage, but all but just a facade of the way their community actually lives right now. Still, an interesting experience nonetheless. I particularly liked seeing all the various houses that each community lived in, and it can be pretty treacherous climbing up and down those narrow steps which have been carved into a thin tree trunk. Those long and tall houses are quite an architectural feat I must say.
The afternoon at the Cultural Village ended with a performance by each of the various ethnic groups, all except for the Chinese. Wonder why they didn't showcase their Lion Dancing skills.
The afternoon at the Cultural Village ended with a performance by each of the various ethnic groups, all except for the Chinese. Wonder why they didn't showcase their Lion Dancing skills.
Resort by the beach
Me, Andrew, Youjia and Alex
Kampung Budaya Sarawak
The other guys
Rumah Iban
Fish-traps
An unstylish me shooting a blow-pipe
The Penan Grandmaster
Beware of monkeys
Rumah Orang-Ulu
Clowning about
The Cultural Village
The three guys and the Rumah Melanau
The four of us
Never forgetting his roots
The Melanau blowpipes in action
We then adjourned to the beach to enjoy the sun, sand and the sea, and to take some ridiculously silly photos. By my standards at least. But we did manage to get a possibly iconic one for keeps - this will be the final picture of this post.
Dinner with Alex's parents followed before they proceeded on to watch Harry Potter whilst we had coffee and tea at this Kluang Railway cafe in the shopping centre. Admittedly Kluang holds a certain significance to me since that's my mom's home town! And the Kluang Railway station coffee certainly had a good reputation, though this franchise found in KL certainly didn't do it justice. I'll need to go to the original place to have a taste for myself. The last night in Kuching found ourselves chatting late into the night, feasting on pineapples and another fruit I can't quite remember the name of anymore. If there was anything to sum this trip up, it's awesome company.
Dinner with Alex's parents followed before they proceeded on to watch Harry Potter whilst we had coffee and tea at this Kluang Railway cafe in the shopping centre. Admittedly Kluang holds a certain significance to me since that's my mom's home town! And the Kluang Railway station coffee certainly had a good reputation, though this franchise found in KL certainly didn't do it justice. I'll need to go to the original place to have a taste for myself. The last night in Kuching found ourselves chatting late into the night, feasting on pineapples and another fruit I can't quite remember the name of anymore. If there was anything to sum this trip up, it's awesome company.
Jumping Jacks
Kluang Station Cafe
Farewell at Kuching Airport
Angry Bird restrained
I had a particularly good time on this short trip to Kuching! I guess what makes a great holiday is the company. I've also discovered a little bit more of myself on this holiday as well - that's what you get when you socialise with exceptionally perceptive people (some call them judgemental, but I suspect I fall into the same category). Meanwhile, it's back in sunny Singapore enjoying my holidays, though I am on my electives. It's been rather pleasant so far and hopefully it will remain so for the rest of my few weeks here! I leave you all now with the best memories of this trip to Kuching.
E. Honda
Dumb and Dumber and Dumberer
Labels: Asia, Family, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Travel
posted by Gabriel Yan at 12:23 PM
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