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Batik Kemban

Between Bidor and Manjung

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This is a picture shot with my Samsung Leather phone on our way from Lumut to Port Dickson traveling on the coastal highway. Among all the events that went very wrong, this picture now, however, softens the frustration of that Cuti-Cuti Malaysia Gone Sour experience.

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It was a planned getaway went kaput because of a misleading online advertisement. This happened some time around late 2007, if my memory serves me fairly. We spent only one night at the Swiss-Garden Damai Laut Lumut even though we had one 2-bedroom apartment reserved for four nights. Very very poor service and very very uncleaned rooms.

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And nobody supervised the swimming pool to say, “Excuse me Ma’am, pelampung batik kemban  is not allowed at this pool, ye.”

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pelampung batik kemban = batik sarong floating device

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Sudoku Sudomu

Keris Manja Seiras Melena

 

Between midnight and our second stretch to Moscow from Kuala Lumpur, we had a good two-hour loafing session at Silver Kris Lounge in Changi. That was between July 15 and 16, 2009. I tried not to make celeb of my little unit in that very dim light. Hence no flash. Hence not a very good picture. But I felt like a celeb myself being there to capture the emotion and expression from me Monchies, who needed no coaxing from Daddy to lap-seat and play Sudoku on Daddy’s phone. Here, Kitreena thought it was funny when Edrick said, “It’s eeeasy Daaaadd, you just put 1,2,34,5,6,7,8,9!”

 

 

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Tiba-Tiba Tiba

Dah tiba di Moscow. Ketibaan di Domodedovo Airport jam 1330 waktu Kuala Lumpur, 0930 waktu tempatan was after two uneventful flights. Absolutely uneventful! Tak ada tangan yang tersepit celah table-stowing compartment, tak ada orange juice tertumpah atas riba, tak ada siapa-siapa muntah belilah right at touch-down, dan tak ada yang menangis sakit telinga, sakit kepala, sakit perut, or sakit hati. So uneventful that it was almost scary!

 

I don’t suppose there is a need to elaborate on how good the kids behaved, how delicious the food was at the Silver Kris Lounge Changi and in-flight, nor how smooth the taking-offs and the touching-downs were, is there? The ‘absolutely uneventful’ term I just used is absolutely absolute. Just as absolute as how absolutely surprised I was when I set foot di bumi Rusia ni, tiba-tiba… just like my phone that switched from Celcom to Beeline, I did! I switched too.

 

Yes, Enida switched! From that calm, collected and connected self… to a weary, scattered and lost soul. Everything started to feel ‘tight’ for one reason or another. Everything I saw, everything I read, every un-smiling face I faced was un-welcoming me back to this Rush-Her land. I have always been a ‘critical reader’ yes, but when I landed, I became a cynical critical reader. I read the Lufthansa’s tagline “There’s no better way to fly.” as “There’s no better way to fly to hell.” Not good, Enida! Not good letting the negative energy consume you!

 

Tiba-tiba bila tiba, I realized… ada yang tertinggal di Jalan Duta.

 

Hati saya.

 

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Flirt Tyres

Flirt Tyres

 

… until I saw a superbike following me at a safe distance!

 

Well, he wasn’t following me. We were just cruising, kinda alongside each other at times. And at one point he was right beside me when I was laughing at Edrick’s question: “Mom, am I a boy?”… I saw a pair of smiling eyes from behind the full-face. Those eyes, down the highway lane, looked very familiar.

 

We parted ways at Exit 233.

 

Then you looked at me...

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What Goes South

Me Monchies

 

We had enough of our house-arrest lifestyle for 3 days. All of us! So today, my vote for driving 300km southbound went unchallenged. Me Monchies’ face just lit up, oh brighter than the mid-morning sun! And even after completing the 300++km challenge and even when the Tuesday’s sun was  no longer hanging on the Danga Bay’s horizon… Kitreena and Edrick  were still spinning around jumping up and down like the Ever Ready Heavy Duty batteries that they are. I must have conserved enough energy those 3 days – these kids look like they will not need to be plugged in for another month! Hoy!

 

Driving 300km south of Kuala Lumpur seemed to be the best idea today because:

  • My brother, Deal, just received his pink bundle of joy!
  • I have not seen, touched, held, cuddled, smother a newborn ever since Edrick!
  • The last time I was in Johor Bharu was at Deal’s wedding over 3 years ago.
  • Kitreena only had an ‘ON’ button for the manual reminder/request: “Mom, I wanna see the baby. Mom, I wanna see the baby. Mom, I wanna see the baby. Mom, I wanna see the baby.” No, no ‘OFF’ button.
  • I like driving south – all my body parts are going in the same direction anyway.

So when the sun woke my son up, and my son woke me up… I assigned myself a Jalan-Jalan Cari Pasal mission. Johor Bharu, here we come!

 

I wanted it to be an easy-going day. An easy-going day it was, an easy-going day indeed. Well, at least in the beginning.  Armed and equipped with all the munchies & nibblies, we took a leisure shopping and lunch stop at KLCC. Shopped at MotherCare, had lunch at Dome, reloaded Touch-n-Go at Maybank, bought kuehs at La Cucur, plus 3 washroom visits in between. Yes, three! (Boy, these kids were leaking!) By the time we hit the SMART Tunnel, it was quarter to 1600hrs!

 

With the half tank on my rented City, I knew I could go quite far. So I passed on filling up in KL to beat the rush hour – which was against my long-distant driving policy. But I hushed myself with two words: easy going. It was only 300km.  The first quick stop was right in front of my mak angkat Chan Yoke Lin’s fruit stall Hentian Serdang – to set my GPS pointing me to Mount Austin. The second stop: Nilai Utara – to shift Edrick to the front seat so Kitreena can lay down in the back seat. Total stop time: 6 minutes 22 seconds accumulative. I could feel my easy-going mission ‘going south’ very easily.

 

I was, nonetheless, making a good time  doing my Autobahn-style speed whenever the GPS went quiet and doing 119km per hour on the stretches that are ‘Police Ambush Area’ and ‘Speed Trap Zone’.  And that was despite Edrick’s frantic attempt to scare me with what he misheard as ‘This Dragon Zone’!  He kept on repeating the GPS’s instructions as though I was going left on all the right turns. Arrghh! I was busy driving and he was busy driving me nuts, bolts and screws!

 

Our little City on four wheels eventually became quiet when me Monchies dozed off, which gave me some quiet time to reflect on my life. Chewah! Well, I was truly reflecting on my life until…

 

 

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Nether Again

Hole-and-Broken

 

And who did it?

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Off Her Chest

There is something nice about me that is nice for you to know. Hopefully I can get around to fessing it up nicely within the next sentence or two, or within the next paragraph. But when I tell you this nice thing about me, my niceness will probably not seem as nice anymore to you. I am a bit torn here to tell or not to tell. Ahhh well!

I am, by virtue, a very thoughtful person. I think about others – the people I carry in my heart – when I travel. My thoughtfulness will exceed the speed limit or passengers seating capacity especially when I go to souvenir shops. Everything I see will have a name on it: KaCher, LilSis, Mom & Dad, Blaire & Meagan, Cik Nan, Bibik, Cik Rome, Neil, Lish, Chin, Nor, Kanaga, Sia Peng, Anne George, Yanie (not in alphabetical order). Everyone!

And then everywhere I go, every little place I visit… I imagine who would like it. And I’d start looking for postcards to send to the people who would ‘miss’ what I just see. Like that butterfly postcard I sent to Lindt from the Butterfly Park tucked somewhere in Florida I visited in 2003. I knew she would appreciate it the most as I could not think of anyone else who loved butterflies more than I did.

But that’s just one nice story to hide the so many not so nice stories about my nice-but-not-so-nice thoughtfulness. I am thoughtful when I travel. I think about everyone and I buy souvenirs for (almost) everyone. But… I never give the souvenirs away! (Oh no!) I still keep them. (Oh noooo!) And I have no intentions of giving  them away now though I have made my confession! (Oh noooooooooooo!)

Maybe I should go hide behind my souvenir chests!

 

 

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