Outings – Page 2 – michelle teoh

A Weekend in Whitby

Last Saturday, Weston Hall organised a trip to Whitby for only £5 so despite not knowing where Whitby actually is and going against my natural instinct to sleep in and laze around on a weekend, I agreed to join the trip with Rumin.

It turns out Whitby is a sleepy coastal fishing town on the eastern shore of England. And when I say sleepy, I really do mean so because of the perpetually gloomy sky (Rebecca, a British Chinese who is also a Weston Hall resident whom I knew through Rumin, reminded us that this is how English weather actually is in contrast to the sunny days we’ve been having in Manchester for weeks now), colder and windier weather and also the fact that the tiny village is mostly populated by senior folks walking their dogs on leashes. It was the first time I’d seen so many senior citizens and/or dogs in the UK.

The bus journey to Whitby was rather tumultuous; I was greeted once again by my good ol’ friend motion sickness and the driver had to pull over with 30 minutes left into town and I had to walk into the nearest butcher’s shop to bashfully ask for a plastic bag that served as a mere placebo because the absence of it only made me more anxious and thus, made the nausea worse. Rumin brought up that if I did puke in the bus, at least it would be something I could write here. I didn’t puke, but I’ll write this in anyway.

Ironically enough, it was also the first time since landing in the UK that I felt the particular English vibe from my surroundings, if that makes sense? Manchester felt very internationally-influenced. Well, that’s because it is (especially walking along Curry Mile, you’d think we weren’t in the UK at all) and I reckon that’s what makes my experience in Manchester so far so different from my experience in Bath when I stayed with Sa Pek two years ago. Manchester is also an incredibly modernized metropolis, suitably catering to the interests of Generation Y evident in the form of bars, clubs, shopping outlets and fast food joints at every bend of the road and nook of the street. In contrast, Whitby is filled with narrow, winding paths flanked by tiny and quaint shops and cafés. There seems to be a niche market for fudge, toffees and sweets in the quiet town of Whitby.

Grandparents' humour is really something else — Old folk’s humour is really something else

"MEET ME IN THE YARD" — “MEET ME IN THE YARD”

I got chocolate mint fudge. Worth the £2.25 10/10 would recommend except I probably wouldn't go back to Whitby anytime soon — I got chocolate mint fudge. Worth the £2.25 10/10 would recommend except I probably won’t be going back to Whitby anytime soon

We then climbed to the top of a hill where the Whitby Abbey was situated, overlooking the entire town.

Probably the climax of this trip was lunchtime, because we had fish and chips at a town that offered an array of restaurants serving specifically traditional English fish and chips. We had ours at a place called Quayside that had a long queue (you know something’s good when you have to wait for it) and a poster stuck to its display window claiming the bragging right of winner of the National Fish & Chips Award 2014. I really ought not to be surprised anymore by the absurd amount of things people give awards for but I was still astounded by how…English that was.

After lunch we continued strolling around with ample time to kill.

There was also a huge row of parlours like this that reminded me a lot of pachinko parlours (I miss Japan) — There was also a huge row of parlours like this that reminded me a lot of SEGA arcades and pachinko parlours (I miss Japan so much)

Why the Whitby Tour Bus gotta look like a minion

a ROCK concert hell yes!!!! this is my kind of content

AND THEN WE WENT TO THE BEACH!!!!!!!!!!

The last time I was at a beach was probably two years ago during the Northern Road Trip at Batu Ferringhi. The Whitby beach was cold and windy and looked the part for the setting of an RL Stine book but it was actually pretty soothing looking at and listening to the waves washing ashore as well as the multiple dogs running around in the sand playing catch with their owners.

Me: *points at the sea* If you squint and look very very very far into the distance, you can almost see- Rumin, unamused: Malaysia? Me: Yes!!!!!! Rumin: I knew you'd say that — Me: *points at the sea* If you squint and look very very very far into the distance, you can almost see-
Rumin, unamused: Malaysia?
Me: Yes!!!!!!
Rumin: I knew you’d say that

IT'S A PAW PRINT INT HE SAND IT'S A !!!! PAW PRINT IN!!!!!!! THE SAND!!!!!! — IT’S A PAW PRINT INT HE SAND IT’S A !!!! PAW PRINT IN!!!!!!! THE SAND!!!!!!

Despite not actually doing anything in Whitby for the whole day (we did do some shopping though…in Poundland…I bought nine rolls of toilet paper, two tubes of toothpaste and three packets of biscuits, all only for £4. You have no idea how happy I was to find a toilet roll pack of nine for £1 I’ve never seen such a good deal before in any other Poundland/Poundworld franchise in Manchester) we were pretty exhausted by the time we were to board the bus back to Manchester. Rumin was functioning on merely three hours of sleep the previous night and I had a motion sickness pill before the journey started so we were both out for the whole two hours plus of the return journey.

Overall, this weekend getaway wasn’t exactly exciting or stimulating, but it was pretty nice to go somewhere different for once. I’ve only been here for almost three weeks and I’m already starting to get bored of Manchester, which is highly worrying. If anything, I got to see a lot of dogs that day and that in itself was already worth the £5 trip. Always the dogs. I’ll always do it for the dogs.

Ipoh Again

But this time, with different company.

Early in the morning of 27th November, which was a Thursday, Bellyn, Zitian and I took a taxi to KL Sentral, where we met up with Taliza, Karu and Harris before we took the 9AM ETS train to Ipoh.

As usual, what I did throughout the 2.5-hour train ride rotated between 1) sleeping 2) stoning 3) scrolling through Twitter pathetically (because there was very limited data coverage) and 4) working up the courage to play Five Nights at Freddy’s on Karu’s phone.

We reached Ipoh finally at around noon, and Zitian’s mum fetched us to Shamrock Guest Hotel where we (excluding Zitian) would be staying for the night.

Contrary to my younger self, I hated hotels, mostly because the ones I’ve stayed at were uncomfortable, cramped, and the sheets smelled really funny. But this one. This is one hotel room none of us really wanted to leave at all. We had two king-sized (or it could actually be queen-sized but anyway they were double beds) beds and a relatively alright-sized bathroom and ceiling-to-floor windows and a flatscreen TV (which we could connect my harddisk to so we quite literally had an endless playlist of music, movies and TV shows hallelujah), a small fridge, cabinet and countertop with kettle, free WiFi (of course) and even with all this we still had a pretty large floor space and (I might be wrong, but it certainly seemed that way) we had the whole hotel to ourselves. Honestly if there was somewhere I had to be stuck in, it would be right here with the exact same company. But more on that later.

They really play up the whole Irish image well

And then it was lunch time when Zitian’s mum came to take us to Oldtown Ipoh. After lunch, we explored a colonial building with murals of white people on it and we made it our own rave club instead.

We went exploring around town after that.

http://instagram.com/p/v5UERaMsnt/

(If there is one video you ever watch on this blog of mine let this be it)

We walked back to the hotel where we lazed around and showered and waited for my parents to reach Ipoh (they were on their way to KL for my mum’s Cosway meeting) before heading out for dinner – Vietnamese food at a restaurant just a minute’s walk away (but because it was raining, all five of us squeezed into the backseat of my parents’ Toyota Wish. It was pretty funny).

My parents had to leave immediately after that because they didn’t want to reach KL too late so we walked to Ipoh Parade, huddled together like penguins whenever we have to pass through dark suspicious alleys. It was also drizzling.

At Ipoh Parade, we got ourselves facial masks (impulsive purchases), presents for Zitian and her parents and came up with the idea to lie to the masses that we had actually and legitimately gone to Ireland for a vacation.

From left: Karu, Harris, Taliza, Bellyn (although after that she switched to Royal Jelly), me (and then we also got another Royal Jelly for Zitian) (I can’t believe I still remember this) (actually is that really surprising)

And then we went back to the hotel after visiting a nearby 24-hour store where we stocked up on supper and cave supplies.

The next few hours into the night were spent watching The Frog Princess on TV, playing Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 on Karu’s phone and just chilling. It was so nice. At that moment I’d tweeted that I never wanted that moment to end, knowing that I’d look back at that tweet and feel intensely. But it was true, and it still is true, and it’s kinda like in the first Hunger Games the day before Peeta and Katniss were going to go into the arena and they were at the rooftop of the Tribute Center and Peeta (or Katniss I don’t quite remember either one of them) said that if possible, he wanted to stay in that moment forever and when I read that I couldn’t relate to it at all because all along I’ve always just wanted to be somewhere else other than where I was at that time but that night, I truly dreaded that night ending.

But it did end, and I woke up really early the next morning after I received an email from UCAS. Then I changed into cave gear and became designated DJ while everyone prepared for the caves.

We took the second least challenging tour at Gua Tempurung: Top of the World. I say second least challenging, but I still burst into tears when my fear of heights got the better of me and I had to pretend really hard that I wasn’t exactly trapped in an enclosed area the entire time. Still, it wasn’t totally terrible. Harris and Bellyn reenacted scenes from Lord of the Rings (including shouting “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” resulting in echoes bouncing off the cave walls) and pretended flat stalactite surfaces were battlefields full of fallen men. That was pretty fun to watch.

After caves we had really good dim sum lunch at a shop opposite Foh San (which, according to Zitian, is far more superior than Foh San) and at Foh San. Then it was back to the hotel because we, I mean, I was a sweaty mess and couldn’t wait to wash my hair and, well, everything else.

We sort of understood, then, that that was our last moment together in Ipoh because our next stop was KL Sentral (our train was scheduled to leave at 4PM). And then out of nowhere jumping while laughing hysterically on the bed led to a pillow fight which led to multiple pillow ambushes while Call It What You Want by Foster the People (informally dubbed our “yolo song”) played in the background. No one cared much about anything else. We were having fun and we were doing so in the presence of favourite company. Nothing else could be better than that. The feeling from last night returned with full intensity. Which was why when it was time to leave, there was a tinge of reluctance in the air as we gathered our bags and tossed one last melancholic glance in the direction of the incredibly nice hotel room we were leaving behind, where we’d manufactured memories and marked our presence in the form of bad karaoke, damp towels and rib-aching laughter.

This looked a lot worse during and after the pillow fights

We said goodbye to Zitian at KL Sentral and then during the last 15 minutes on the train sentimentalities started washing in and we finally addressed The End, capital T and capital E.

I still miss this so much. I still miss everyone so much.

Red, Orange, Yellow Flicker

Carbon Milk

Feci3

Abandoned Popcorn

Yearbook Three

Not A Band

Horse

Carbon Milk: After Chem P5 and Econs P4, considerable amount of weight was lifted off my shoulders and my housemates and I went to Publika. We had milk and fancy toasts and bought a quarter watermelon from Ben’s Independent Grocer which leaked juice all over CPY on the ride back in the taxi. The night ended at 4:20AM for me (I remember this clearly) but the others continued to stay up till 6AM because why not right

Feci3: Miss MC posted on Facebook asking for volunteers to help out at the SIS Science Fair at the Chemistry lab on Thursday. The usual suspects were there. There were four waves of middle schoolers, each wave lasting 40 minutes (think Plants Vs Zombies) and during each wave our job was to help out these 13/14-year-old boys and girls carry out a flame test and a pH test, and also to make sure they don’t, well, hurt themselves or accidentally drink CuSO4. It was fun. But also tiring. Very, very tiring. I’m terrified of kids.

Abandoned Popcorn: After that, Usual Suspects and I went to watch Mockingjay Part I, continuing the tradition of watching Catching Fire last year. All my Hunger Games movie experiences so far have been with favourite people; please don’t let next year be a combo breaker.

My five-word review of this movie: Natalie Dormer Natalie Dormer Natalie

But honestly, Mockingjay Part I was so draggy and dry and as as the book itself but it stayed true to the tradition of Part I movies being boring and uneventful so I guess we can look forward to Mockingjay Part II with good reason.

Yearbook Three: Harris, Bellyn and I went to Kinokuniya and I spent a great amount of time hiding behind bookshelves at the art books section flipping through (read: absorbing) the brilliance that is Rookie Yearbook Three before I gave in and bought it. It’s my most prized possession currently.

Not A Band: On Saturday, Bellyn, Taliza and I did a photoshoot for A Band (@bukanaband) at Empire Damansara and it was quite fun I guess. It was certainly a brand new experience.

Horse: On Sunday, I met up with InTeRnEt FrIeNdZ Elya, Effie and Sya (for the first time!) at Sunway Pyramid and we talked about TV shows, horses and ate ice cream. Elya gave me a bag of Lush stuff and my room now smells like Everything Right In This World

Last week of college!!!

Monday Night

We started the evening/night’s adventure with Sweet Child of Mine by Guns N’ Roses from Karu’s mixtape playing on the radio in Bellyn’s silver Viva.

Reservations were made beforehand at Upstairs Café, which was fortunate because when we reached the café which was literally an upstairs shoplot, it was pretty much full. We each placed our own food orders (all of us ordered pasta of different varieties) (I ordered putanesca despite not knowing what it was solely because there was a period of time in my life when I was obsessed with the Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events movie and one of the scenes in it was when the Boudelaires had to prepare putanesca as dinner for Count Olaf using a spittoon) and also dessert orders.

And then, we waited until around half past seven for iftar. In the meantime, we played Truth or Dare using an app of Bellyn’s phone as the “spinning bottle”. The last time I played Truth or Dare was when I was 12, but that was the least of the reasons why I was apprehensive to play this game. But in the end, I didn’t go a single round and it actually turned out to be quite an entertaining activity while we waited for our food to arrive.

Not surprisingly, all thoughts of Truth or Dare went out the metaphoric window when our pastas arrived, and in between gulping down our food wolfishly, exclaims of how splendid the food was were thrown around the table, which were met by equally enthusiastic nods and agreements by members of the dinner table. And then the desserts arrived – crème brulee, lemon meringue – and it was so, so good so Harris and I went to order our own desserts as well – lemon meringue too, and a chocolate French dessert. We also secretly ordered a slice of red velvet cake for Zitian, as this food trip was initiated partially to celebrate Zitian’s belated birthday.

Dessert eating was yet another round of happy and satisfied customers showing their affection for the food and now, the place and its ambience in general. And then Zitian’s cake came and we all collectively sang a birthday song for her.

It’s getting harder and harder to describe my experiences with these people using mere words. They really don’t do my emotions justice at all.

We continued talking after that and left when it started to get quite crowded. From there, Bellyn drove us to SS15 where we shopped for bread and pastries at RT Bakery. We didn’t say it out loud, but it felt as if none of us wanted the night to end just yet. Being mobile felt powerful. But it was a Monday night, which meant that there were still classes to attend tomorrow, homework to be done, responsibilities to be fulfilled. There will come a day when none of this will matter anymore, none of this will be top priority on our lists, but alas, Monday night was not that day.

At around 9PM, it was time to head back. Taliza was dropped off at college, and Karu and Harris were dropped off at Pyramid. And then Bellyn, Zitian and I headed back to SMR.

We ended the evening/night’s adventure once again with Sweet Child of Mine.

H-Ipoh-thetically… (We went to Ipoh)

Firstly, I AM SO SORRY this post is so overdue.

Secondly, I AM SO SORRY for the terrible, terrible pun in the title. It’s not even pronounced hee-po-the-ti-cally (hai-po-the-ti-cally) BUT I spent the past 20 min trying to think of a creative title so please work with me.

A week after MCKLMUN (I wrote a page on that), it was time to start packing again; this time, for a trip to Ipoh.

Friday 4th of July, after class, Zi Tian’s dad picked us and our luggage up from SMR, and six of us, Zi Tian, Zi Tian’s sister Zi Yuan, Pei Ying, Yi Jing, Rumin and I sat through the two hours + journey from KL to Ipoh in the car. Things we did in the car: sleep, listen to music, talk, come up with the hashtag #alorsetarxipoh to use for photos on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The future is now.

It was already 7 in the evening when we finally reached Ipoh, or more accurately, Zi Tian’s house. We had a bit of a house tour in the Chin mansion before going for dinner. Dinner being bean sprouts and chicken with hor fun. I, uh, finished the last bits of the bean sprouts??? I was the last one still eating at the table??? Heads-up, I ate a lot during this trip. Hard not to, because Ipoh food is great.

The rest of the Friday night was just basically chilling out, watching a movie until 1AM, talking and stuff etc.

The next morning was an early rise to curry mee as breakfast, and it was nothing like the curry mee back in Alor Setar. It was strange, but it was also amazingly good and now I’m just getting hungry thinking about Ipoh curry mee.

After breakfast, we explored Old Town Ipoh. Sekeping Kong Heng and its surroundings, specifically. It was a really quaint and lovely area segregated from the urbanities of the city and it was nice to just walk around and take loads of photos and also film. We even had some kind of ice ball that kept leaking all over the place.

We then had creme caramel at a really crowded coffee shop, the same creme caramel that my classmates tapao-ed for me from Ipoh during last year’s road trip. (Also the very same one that set Bellyn off on her pudding craving the following week.) And then we had egg tarts and white coffee. And tau foo faa. I told you this was a food trip.

We went back to Zi Tian’s house to clean up for a while after that before setting out once again for lunch at Tualang, which was an hour’s drive away. With so much food already in me, you’d think I couldn’t take in anymore. I thought so too. We are both wrong. I finished my plate of rice…and more. I went from barely finishing half a packet of Indomie during lunch hours at The Rock to eating non-stop for six hours. My stomach was a bottomless pit for that weekend.

Another hour’s drive back to Zi Tian’s house later, we watched Black Swan (or semi-watched, more like; I still remain highly disturbed to this day), cleaned up and then headed out for dinner at a hawker centre near to Zi Tian’s house.

Post-dinner hours were the highlights of the trip: we went to Kinta River Front and that’s when the longest 30 minutes of our lives happened. It was a very scenic place and we saw people riding two-seater and three-seater bicycles so naturally we wanted to do the same. 10 minutes into our attempt to ride a three-seater bike, we were all already pretty sweaty and aching and still had no idea how to balance a three-seater bike??? We eventually got it though, despite all the swerving and almost-clashing-into-other-bikes and it was the most tiring workout I’ve had had all year.

It wasn’t surprising that all of us slept pretty well that night.

The next morning saw us waking up at 11AM and having lunch after that. After lunch we shopped a bit at Ipoh Parade where we got a Parkson gift card for Zi Tian’s family as a token of our thanks. The subsequent hours between that and leaving for the train station was spent eating green tea ice cream, complaining about the terrible service of the cafe and lying on the living room floor talking and laughing. Soon, it was 3PM and we left for the train station with heavy hearts. We met up with Qiu Jing there and I spent the next 2.5 hours watching Adventure Time on my laptop.

The two-day weekend felt like a month-long trip in a good way, and I enjoyed myself immensely, being able to immerse myself in the full experience of the exploration of Ipoh without the immediate worries left back in Sunway. Thank you Chin family for having us. Thank you housemates for being such great companions.

I also made some videos for this trip.

All photos belong to Zi Tian.

It Feels Nice Doing Nothing

track listing:

01 weekend – last dinosaurs

Stats paper was over on Thursday, which signalled the beginning of our two-week holiday before we resume two more papers in June and then AS would end, finally. Exam period also meant that I was (uncharacteristically) cranky and (characteristically) tired so despite Austin, Ian and the rest’s open invitations to go ice skating, Taliza, Karu and I chose to hang out at Starbucks instead, having mini art therapy sessions, brief naps (in which one unintentionally strikes a melodramatic nap pose) and lazy conversations, just the right amount of replenishment before we rejoined the ice skating gang to watch X-Men: Days of Future Past at the cinema. Movie rating 9.5/10 would recommend; ’twas one of my favourite movie experiences ever.

02 supremacy – muse

The next day was a Friday, and the Sanuki Udon gang decided to revisit Sanuki Udon for lunch. Harris was yet again our esteemed chauffeur that afternoon, and we met up with Karu at Sanuki Udon at Kota Kemuning where we resumed the same seating as the one we had the last time we were there, which was 12 weeks ago. It was yet again pretty surreal, doubled by the absence of the pressing need to study for exams 24/7.

After lunch, we hung out at Karu’s room where we did practically nothing. And it felt amazing. Taliza, Irfan and Karu were playing guitars, there was a huge spread of Archie comics on the bed much to Bellyn’s delight, and even Harris managed to sneak in a few minutes of napping despite the commotion we were causing. Karu played Muse songs on his electric guitar and Taliza and I even had a mini Muse concert to it. I imagined if there ever was a three-hour music video to a lazy techno song, our three hours spent at Karu’s room would be it.

03 quality time -strfkr

On the same day at 5.30PM, Bellyn and I took the Aeroline bus back to Penang and I spent the five hours watching Star Trek and The Hunger Games, the last hour appropriately spent listening to STRFKR’s Reptilians album. Nothing eventful happened, but the general relaxed atmosphere which I hadn’t been able to feel in months was enough to earn a track on this playlist.

04 how can you swallow so much sleep – bombay bicycle club

I spent the night at Bellyn’s place, where we put together the next day’s driving playlist, dug out Bellyn’s high school yearbooks and to end the night, watched a 14 minute video of epic fail compilations on Youtube. We went to bed at 2AM.

05 glory – radical face

The next day started at 10AM in Bellyn’s Viva heading for a Penang authentic kopitiam to have toast and half-boiled egg breakfast. Being surrounded by old folks speaking in Hokkien and actually enjoying what we were eating was such an antithesis to the dull tedium of visiting The Rock almost everyday for every meal in Sunway; it was already a good start to the day.

We decided to head to the beach after that and the car drive to Batu Ferringhi accompanied by good music from our playlist was amazing. Ethereal. Surreal. I use the word “surreal” a lot but trust me, it definitely is surreal, the kind that leaves you literally breathless, emotions jamming your system that should you laugh??? should you cry??? who knows???

Unfortunately, we didn’t really think this through, and by this I mean going to the beach at 12 noon on the dot in the sweltering heat. We drove to (according to Bellyn) what was apparently the smallest national park in the world, found zilch parking, stopped by at two beaches before deciding it was too hot for this and finally succumbed to the cool air-conditioning of the car. But it was okay. Like I said, good music + car drive around town + good company = the impossibility of anything going wrong.

Lunch was mi jawa somewhere in town before we went cafe searching around Armenian Street and ended up at a cafe called Favourite Cafe (whose favourite cafe? We might never know). At around 4PM we headed back to the Ooi residence where we lazed around for about 10 minutes before my mum called and I had to leave with the heaviest of hearts.

Post-Mocks Indulgence

After two weeks (and probably more) of T-shirt-and-shorts wardrobe combinations, sleepless late nights and overall suffocating torture that could only mean the starting of mock exams week, on the last day of exams, ten of us went out for a much-needed necessary trip to KL to replenish our dried up souls and spirits. And indeed, it was a day/night to remember.

The last paper on Friday was Pure Maths 1, and as soon as it ended at 11AM, all thoughts of exams and chemical equations and mathematical formulae were temporarily thrown out of the metaphorical window to jumpstart this celebration I reckoned I properly deserved after all the shitty weeks I’ve been through for exams.

There were many different tangents to the curve of this post-exams celebration, but ours went like this: Danny’s house, shopping at KL, Jogoya and then whatever comes after that. So with Harris as our esteemed driver, we went to Danny’s house first, where we ordered pizza delivery service (care was taken not to fill up our stomachs too much to brace ourselves for the royal feast that was Jogoya later that night) and basically just chilled. And then around 2PM we left because Harris, Guinevere, Danny and Gerald had a movie to catch at Pavilion at 2.30PM and we were already running quite late.

At KL, the four of them rushed for the movie while Bellyn, Taliza, Irfan, Chok and I went (window) shopping around Sungei Wang Plaza, H&M (where I got a mesh shirt for a photoshoot the next day), Lot 10 and KLCC (where I spent RM100 book vouchers on David Levithan books hahahahahaha). And then it was 5.30PM and we had to walk the arduously long walkway back to Pavilion and then to Starhill where we met up with everyone else who had gone off on different tangents (Austin and Ian, and the movie bunch).

As soon as I entered Jogoya, the surrealism of the night started to set in. Besides the grandeur that is Jogoya, just being there with all my favourite people having a royal Japanese buffet right into the night felt otherworldly and ethereal. As if we were just sitting for our P1 paper that morning! And it was exactly this sudden overwhelm of emotions that set me off a little, as I dived into a hazy stupor and tried to keep myself from bursting into an explosion of tears or laughter; anything at all to release the overwhelmingness of it all. That would just be weird, so I kept it under check the entire time. The accumulated exhaustion throughout the week also decided to smack me right in the face at the same time so that helped a little.

After dinner, not surprisingly, we had mini dance parties on the escalators and elevators of Starhill, everyone on an apparent high that I couldn’t deny I didn’t see coming. We wandered around Pavilion for a while, and then the outside streets of KL until we decided to just chill at Tous Les Jours where everyone went off on different talking tangents again. And that’s all we did well into the night: talking. And it felt, well, exactly like that overrated term coined by Stephen Chbosky in The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Infinite.

And then it was almost midnight and I was so close to dozing off, that kind of exhaustion tinged with nausea and not knowing exactly where you are. So everyone said their goodbyes (“see you next week!”s) and Gerald, Irfan, Bellyn and I climbed into the Austin mobile, and the entire ride home was just…splendid. Bellyn was the DJ and the KL nighttime landscape was the brilliant view and I’d say the ride home itself was comparable to the fun of the entire day itself.

Back at SMR, after parting ways with Bellyn at the elevator, I found myself caught in the in-between of fatigue and restlessness (such an unbelievable paradox but believe me it exists) and it pretty much went on throughout the entire night, leading to only three hours of restless sleep that night, as my brain continuously and involuntarily replayed the night’s surreal events in my brain over and over again, overwhelmed. But grateful. Grateful for all these people in my life whom I trust not only to have fun with but the not-so-fun parts as well. And that, is my greatest gratitude and fortune of all.

First-Time Futsal

When someone (I don’t remember who) suggested we play futsal on Friday (me, Bellyn and Taliza invited as well because usually it was just the guys who played), I was pretty reluctant because a) I don’t go well with sports and b) I didn’t want to make a fool of myself and cause my team (whichever team it was) to lose. But in the end I gave in to peer pressure and went to college dressed in sports attire.

Before futsal at 3PM, most of us went to have lunch at SS15 at this place which serves apparently “the best nasi lemak in the world” and to be fair, it was my first proper meal in weeks so I actually didn’t doubt the marketing slogan. It was pretty good.

And then futsal started and needless to say, I sucked pretty royally at it in terms of stamina (couldn’t run across the field without feeling exhausted), hand-eye coordination (the amount of times my foot has missed contact with the ball would make you howl with laughter; or cry a river if you were on my team) and general nervousness (didn’t dare go after anyone with the ball so what’s the point of me playing, really?) But I had fun and everyone was such great teammates and played really well and I think that was enough to make me like sports again. (For those not in the know: I used to be an athlete in primary school WHAT A SHOCKER I KNOW AHAHHAHAHA)

Of course, sudden exertion after lacking some in ages means that I woke up this morning with very sore limbs and the reluctance to do anything else. And thus, this Saturday, just like most Saturdays previously, was spent not doing anything remarkably productive.

PS. Thus far, I have been described as a Malaysian version of Zoella and Lydia Martin, and really, those are great confidence boosters to encourage me to live up to these flattering comparisons. I’m not there yet, but I’m still trying to believe in myself (truly, in all the cheesiness of that phrase).

Of Hats, Udon, Scrabble & Party-Crashing

I have not written in here for so long. Many apologies. The only incentive for me to open my laptop to write this blogpost is the reminder that today is the last day of February and I once made a promise to myself that I would at least publish a post a month. So here I am. And thankfully, for this last post of the month, I get to write about legitimate, solid happenings instead of trying to rack my brain for something interesting to write because today has been very eventful indeed, as you can probably guess from the title.

Friday lessons were always pretty fun because it was the end of the week and everyone had that glint of anticipation in their eyes, even in class. We didn’t have Econs class today as Miss Cherilyn had a training course so we even had an extra hour of break spent researching on music videos to get inspiration to make our own music video. It was also the Udon gang’s self-proclaimed Hat Day so I turned up to school in a white beanie, Bellyn in a snapback, Taliza in a black beanie, Irfan in a red beanie, Harris in his dad’s civil war cap (which is so cool oh my god), Karu in an adorable spirithood and Austin in a snapback as well.

And then, after class was when we put on all our adventure hats to set out on our adventures.

“Sanuki Udon” was where we got our group name from and it was how it was formed: Karu telling us that there was this udon restaurant near his house at Kota Kemuning that had really good udon and finally, after weeks, we did the thing. We did the udon thing. And we weren’t disappointed in the least bit.

After lunch, we walked around the area like a motley hipster crew taking photos.

We dropped Karu off at his house (it wasn’t mentioned- Harris was our esteemed chauffeur for the day) and then Irfan and Taliza at college before the remainder of us- me, Bellyn and Harris headed for a coffee joint at 1st Subang Mall at SS15 where we spent about three hours chilling, talking and playing Scrabble. I hadn’t played Scrabble since I was about 8 or 9 and it was a pleasant surprise to find out that I still had my inner Scrabble nerd alive and breathing within myself.

The next stop was Sunway Pyramid where we picked up Ian’s Vans and Harris’ necessities from Watsons, and then proceeded to scheme about crashing a certain college event which we thought was held at Sunway Convention Centre- but when we got there, imagine our utter surprise when we were greeted by an overwhelming crowd of men in football jerseys. Curious, we entered anyway but when the doors opened, I started feeling scared because fun time is up- we’d better leave. But Bellyn urged us to go in anyway and we relented under peer pressure- to find ourselves in Toyota’s Thank You Dinner event. We sat down at a table for a while before my fear really kicked in and I started to get pretty fidgety because getting kicked out of a dinner event was not something I was looking forward to so we left after taking a few photos and after we exited the place, we couldn’t stop laughing at what we just did. I couldn’t believe what I did. If it even happened at all. It was one of those rare moments where I was completely enveloped in the present because everything was actually happening and that left little room to think of anything else.

Harris sent both of us back to SMR after that with Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second by STRFKR playing on the car radio and all in all, it was the best day I’ve had in weeks.

I sometimes forget that the best things that happen in life are often unplanned, but rather stumbled upon head-on, spontaneous and without warning.

As far as Februarys go, this was the roughest but I’m glad I ended the month with a high note.

The Story, It Starts With A Cart…

ALL PHOTOS TAKEN BY AND HENCE BELONG TO BELLYN OOI

The little green imp that has been following them around everywhere, the two girls decided to put inside a cart they found at school.

The imp squirmed a little at first in combat boots (they had harsh terrestrial conditions where she came from) , but ended up savouring the novelty of being literally carted around by the two humans she considered her most trustworthy companions during her entire time in the human world.

However, like all her times among humans, the little green imp had to return home; although this time, she already found home in the cart she was pushed around in by her human friends. (They also found irony in the cart because a) it was also green b) there was a sign hung on both sides of the cart that says “Let us help ease your burdens”…the imp did anything but that.)

Check out that time we caught a merman at Lagoonview.

—

We didn’t actually go looking for a cart. Technically, it found us. And we seized the opportunity.

I spent the weekend meeting up with Effie and Elya (InT3rN3t fRenZzZZ!!111) and also (1/6) of the 2011 Starstruckers: Min Hui, Ann-Marie, Ju Mei and Le Shea.

I’m also going home for Chinese New Year on Tuesday. A lot of things are looking up. I just need to constantly remember that.

Three Days of Awesome with Ann-Marie

Continuation of the previous post!

After picking Ann-Marie up from Bukit Mertajam, we made our way back to the lovely sparse lands of Alor Setar where she will be staying us for three days.

That night, we watched the 1D movie (looooooooooool) before going to bed.

I promised to take Ann around Alor Setar the next day so that’s what I did, after dropping by at Mi Xia’s place (and subsequently pick her up) since Ann also knows her, through BRATs. And then where else was there to go in Alor Setar, really? We went to Menara Alor Setar (only to discover it was closed), Habit Art Cafe, Pacific for dessert and then home, and it was a relief of sorts because the air-con in my car broke down halfway through the “tour” and it was like a furnace in the vehicle the entire time.

Ann made this collage on her Instagram yooooo

At night we invited Khey Ken to come over for teppanyaki dinner.

Again, stolen from Ann’s instagram (Look at my distressed face at the petrol station I HATE PUMPING PETROL)

The next two days, we were Hatyai-bound.

Overall, it was a good three days spent with Ann complete with plenty of catching up and good company, 10/10 would do it again.

Aboard S.S. Libra

Two days after the class road trip, it was time to start packing again, but this time for the four days three nights Thai cruise trip aboard SuperStar Libra from Penang.

It was my first time on a cruise, plus the fact that Elya was sending “””encouraging””” tweets about the Titanic storyline right before I boarded, naturally I was quite nervous. I’d never stayed somewhere that wasn’t on land for more than 24 hours. And you’re surrounded by a vast spread of ocean, limiting your available radius of motion, which when you think about it, can be pretty terrifying.

Morbidity aside, the itinerary for the events and activities on the cruise itself was literally so packed that it didn’t really leave you much time to think about your being trapped in a boat for about 96 hours.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound so terrifying and all, but those were my exact thoughts before boarding the cruise. Things turned out differently though after boarding because there were so many things to see and so many things to do and so many people you can talk to (the cruise staff are especially nice, one of the best highlights of this entire trip is the entire cruise staff because they are just so nice and friendly and I feel like this shouldn’t be a new thing to me, this should be practised among Malaysians as well but noooooo) and I was pretty much fascinated about everything, even the sight of the ship cruising along the ocean.

We were joined on the trip by Uncle Lim and his family, Uncle Leng and his family and Uncle Din and his family.

The first night was spent at the topmost open-air deck just chilling with a Filipino band performing covers at the deck below. Fresh out of the road trip, I returned to my antisocial self and spent the entire time rereading Insurgent.

The next day we stopped at Krabi at around 10 in the morning.

There were no other Krabi photos that could be recovered after my mum accidentally deleted all her photos ha ha welcome to my life

There wasn’t really much at Krabi except touristy shops by the beach so that’s where we went and I got myself a straw hat [laughs] and had lunch at Burger King [laughs again].

Returning to the cruise in the evening, we had a gala dinner which isn’t as formal as it sounds, do not not be fooled, children.

We anchored at Phuket at around 1PM the next afternoon.

This time, the Phuket trip was slightly more interesting and eventful than the one at Krabi. We didn’t do any beach activities, because it was packed with Caucasians, so we just went to outlets and local attractions and finally, Jung Ceylon, a huge mall near Patong Beach. Our tour guide described the Tsunami disaster that wiped out about 500 people at Phuket island in detail, so that was a pretty depressing moment.

That night was the last night on the cruise so there was a Farewell Party on the top deck and we were the only ones “dancing” to 90s music; it was a good night.

(It was also the night that I finished Allegiant back in my cabin at 3AM and didn’t know what to do because everyone was asleep and I had no Internet nor service it was one of the worst nights of my life)

We were scheduled to embark from the ship at 12noon the next day, so after breakfast, we waited at the lounge for our turn to exit. Despite the fact that being surrounded by endless water scared me, it was nice feeling kind of regal and important in such a high society place for four days.

We picked up Ann-Marie at Aeon BM after leaving the cruise to commence my Three Days of Awesome with her.

Fin.

Road Trip(ping)

Credit to Bellyn | Kids in a line: Austin, yours truly, Ian, Harris, Rynn and Danny | Kid jumping and showing his butt: Ken Fui | Kid also taking a photo: Taliza

Contrary to what the title might suggest, the road trip was extremely safe and innocent, everyone do not worry, it was just a funny wordplay that I’m pretty proud of myself for.

Initially, I thought I might be hardworking enough for a photoblog but then equipped with this terrible lagged laptop, I realised that wasn’t such a good idea. So, for photos of the trip by Bellyn, Taliza, Harris, Ziyun etc, links are here, here and here.

First day of the trip was Sunday, 8th Dec, but I was only present for the second half of the day. I’d flown back to Alor Setar the day before since I’d already purchased the flight ticket earlier on, whereas the other eight (Bellyn, Taliza, Austin, Ian, Ken Fui, Rynn, Danny and Harris) rented a van from Sunway, stopped for lunch at Ipoh (where they met up with Zitian) and then only headed for Alor Setar where they would be crashing at my house for a night.

Seeing all my Sunway classmates standing outside my house, sitting on my sofa, using my toilet, eating my food (technically not mine alone but it’s easier to describe it that way): it was all so surreal. It was like watching two worlds collide; previously when I’d firmly separated both environments and people (Alor Setar people in Alor Setar; Sunway people in Sunway) in my mind, I never once imagined they would both merge together to form something…beautiful. Initial foreignness aside, it was amazing having these people at a place where I’ve grown up all my life, it’s like writing more solid characters of them in the previous 17 years story of my life that was already written and archived before I went to college.

Credit to Mum | We were joined by Irfan by Facetime, where we put him in a bowl and made him watch a movie together with us

The next day, I was supposed to follow on the trip to Langkawi where the adventures will officially start but saddest of sads, I had diarrhea early in the morning and vomited at night due to indigestion.

I only met up with them again at Penang on the next day (Tuesday) after they took a ferry from Langkawi to Penang, and that night we had a fantastic seafood dinner at DeHappy, Bellyn’s dad’s seafood restaurant. Upset stomach momentarily forgotten, it was pure indulgence for the entire two hours we ate, and then we headed to Armenian St. to take photos with the famous murals in a seven-seater driven by Bellyn. Mural photos by Penang visitors are in abundance, but have you seen people take these photos at night? I don’t think so.

Credit to Taliza | Austin and yours truly

We stayed at Bellyn’s house that night, and the consecutive two nights in Penang, all nine of us. Taliza, Bellyn and I occupied the bed in Bellyn’s room while all the other boys found comfort and solace in random corners of the house (eg. spare bedrooms, couches, sleeping bags on the floor), as was the arrangement in my house as well.

Before I continue, I think it’s wise to add as a prelude that this trip was essentially an eating trip, because for the entire three days we were in Penang, we had three courses of breakfast, lunch and dinner each and that’s not including afternoon tea and supper. You can never run out of good food to eat in Penang, and everyone was wise enough to carpe that diem. We were transported around the island in the seven-seater Bellyn was driving, during which it was a constant jamming out session in the car accompanied by Taliza’s DJ-ing skills on the bluetooth-equipped car radio from early morning till after midnight.

Our first real day in Penang started with us going to the Chew Jetty (where we were joined by Ziyun) and subsequently the Made In Penang 3D Interactive Museum, a visit which turned out to be rather interesting. I’ve come up with the theory that the bunch of us are the literal embodiment of chaos walking, bringing fun and joy and laughter (lol) everywhere we go.

It was also on this day that I was introduced to this little alleyway place where they serve steamed/toast bread with half-boiled eggs in little mugs and coffee and despite the size and location of the “cafe”, it’s one of my favourite joints on the trip.

Credit to Bellyn | Harris and Ken Fui enjoying their coffee (perhaps a little too much)

Love Lane was also one of the places in Penang that we visited, where hormones started flying in the air and lines were blurred as the guys made outrageous, Nicholas Sparks-esque romantic poses/gestures in pairs under the Love Lane sign.

Credit to Bellyn | Ian and Harris; things got a little steamy at Love Lane

Bellyn, Taliza and I also had a HAIM photoshoot.

Besides eating and occasionally sight-seeing, we also went cafe-hopping. One of the cafes we went to is called Sip & Chew. This was when one of the biggest unicorn moment of my life happened: two shops away from Sip & Chew where Bellyn dropped us off to find parking is a really cute children’s bookshop. Our interest piqued, Taliza and I immediately ventured forward because of the adorable decorations and also because of the mere fact that it was a bookshop. The owner, a Chinese man in his late forties, I would say, welcomed us really warmly and I liked the place and the owner already, never mind that we were also greeted by a huge Urbanscapes poster by the entrance which we were always excited about. And then when everyone entered, Ken Fui’s sudden exclamation caught everyone’s attention and it turned out that the owner is actually Ken Fui’s uncle and his only relative in Penang. The coincidence! A lot more exclamations ensued, as well as multiple phone calls, and the atmosphere in the bookshop was just simply amazing. Never mind that when I started flipping through the children’s books, a lot of them were actual gold in terms of content and I doubt anyone can find children’s books of that sort anywhere else anymore.

Credit to Bellyn | Ken Fui and his uncle aka the owner of the bookshop

After saying our farewells, we thanked Ken Fui’s uncle and headed for Sip & Chew, where they were playing Birdy’s songs when we stepped in. 1901, specifically, which was one of the last songs we just listened to in the car before we arrived. We also had good ice cream and the moment was just perfect.

At night, we went to another cafe called Piknik and before we left we had a dance party to the sounds of our own laughter and heartbeats.

The first thing on our agenda the next day was– the beach! The Batu Ferringhi beach, to be specific. There, I went parasailing for the first time together with Taliza, and although I was absolutely terrified at first, I was encouraged by Tris’ courage and bravery since joining Dauntless (I was rereading Divergent at that time) and told myself that if Tris could do it, I could, too. So I did. And it was one of the best feelings in the world, I kid you not. We were both screaming when we ascended into the sky together, but then the screams of terror turned into screams of euphoria and I felt larger than life up in the air.

After the beach, we went to Straits Quay, where I got myself a Christmas jumper to get myself into the festive mood (as if I wasn’t in the mood already). We then went on more food ventures (do take note that the rest of the time we weren’t doing any of the things I’ve mentioned above was spent eating) (I wish I was exaggerating) and then went to Gurney Paragon at night. Our last stop before heading back is another one of Bellyn’s frequent joints, a dessert house called Crepe Cottage at Gurney.

That night, Taliza, Ken Fui, Harris, Rynn, Danny and I stayed up till 3AM playing Monopoly aka the game that ruins friendships. By that time, most of us were just delirious from tiredness and everything seemed funnier than usual. I imagine that must be what being drunk feels like, but then again I wouldn’t and couldn’t know.

The phrase “last day” was thrown around frequently the following morning, because that was exactly what it was, our last day in Penang. After having three breakfast courses (again), we went to Ghee Hiang biscuit shop before heading for our last stop in Penang: Queensbay Mall. We said our goodbyes to Bellyn there, the atmosphere beginning to get emotional with every second, and then it was my turn to say goodbye to all of them, as they would be taking the Aeroline bus back to KL at 4.30PM. After saying my farewells, I went to meet my parents who had already arrived hours ago and started to feel slivers of post-road-trip depression sinking in.

This class road trip is definitely one of the highlights of the year, and I’ve had my fair share of infinite moments during the trip. Here, I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who joined the trip for bearing with my antics the entire time and especially Bellyn for letting us stay at your humble abode for three nights as well as transporting us around the island for three days straight. I’m so thankful for all these amazing people I’ve met at Sunway and dare I say they’re one of the best things to have happened to me ever? Yes, I dare. I also like to think that I’ve picked up several courage lessons along the way and some of that never hurt anyone.

Bellyn made these cool videos.

is it the glow that keeps you moving?

(Credit to Taliza) Bellyn, yours truly and Taliza testing out our Destiny Child’s potential skills through Irfan’s bedroom windows post-exams

Late night blogging again. I still remember my secondary school days when I would stay up till 2AM to write about emotions and feelings that were only experienced at that time of night.

I think I’m doing the same thing again.

I’m home now, properly home, although it will only be like that for a day until I get whisked off away again to a three-day Thai cruise trip. Prior to this, I only just came back from a six-day class trip, majority of which was spent at Penang with my classmates. It was great and all kinds of amazing and I left the island and the people of the trip with hugely conflicting emotions.

On one hand, it’s amazing to be able to share infinite moments with people you like, but on the other you are also constantly reminded of your own flaws as you compare yourself with everyone around you who are infinitely more talented than you are. This feeling is followed by guilt, the guilt of comparing yourself with your friends because you don’t want any animosity or hidden feelings between your friends and yourself; yet you can’t help it. The persistence of feeling inadequate almost your whole life has led yourself to believe you are less worthy of these people’s company, and then you start to wonder how they do it so effortlessly. Is it the way they dress? The way they talk? The way they laugh at people’s jokes or don’t? And slowly your actions start to mirror their actions, they way you talk, they way you walk, but still it doesn’t work for you. And why don’t these people that you like so much like you back the same way? And you’re left wondering what exactly it is about you that repel so many people away even upon first impression.

All these shebang, when all you want is just a friend whose actions and/or words you don’t have to second guess all the time and figure out the presence or absence of an ulterior meaning.

Overanalysing too many details is not very nice, but the more I push it away, the more I’m reminded of having to do it out of habit.

Heightened emotions, man. Who invented them.

Nuffnang Food Fest 2013 (among other things)

I’ve been a terrible blogger lately and I apologise; college has been really hectic but a good kind of hectic though. According to Elya, I’m a “social butterfly” now and one of the “social events” I went to during the course of this week is the Nuffnang Food Fest 2013 event at Sunway Pyramid.

There was no real intention to attend the event at first, but then I thought five hours of marathoning Avatar: The Last Airbender alone in my dark room wasn’t exactly very productive so in the end, Pei Ying, Rumin, Zi Tian and I decided to go to the Food Fest because a) why not and b) free food.

Rumin, yours truly and Pei Ying; all in flowing skirts (I actually forgot what they’re called)

The place was full of people; and how could it not be? Free food attracts anyone anywhere. Later on, we found out this “fest” was conducted with the usage of social media sharing as currency. In simpler words, everything is free with the condition that you tweet or share a status/like the vendor’s page on Facebook with certain hashtags and/or captions. Hence, if any one stranger happened to stumble upon this carnival without any preceding warning about the rules accompanying this event, all they would see is a huge crowd of people typing away on their smartphones or taking random photos of food while waiting in line to show the vendors what they had just typed or photographed. It was pretty unbelievable to me at first, because these food items came at no cost- except for the tweets and Facebook statuses we were sharing out in real time.

Example of the terms of trade involved in this business transaction (whoaaa watch out we got an economics student here)

Genuine real legitimate NASI LEMAK ICE CREAM at Cielo Dolci (which had sambal and nuts and everything and HOW DOES SCIENCE WORK)

And then I met Audrey, a pretty well-known Malaysian blogger who also goes by the pseudonym fourfeetnine, also wife of Timothy Tiah, co-founder of Nuffnang itself. She was lovely, even though I was super nervous to get a photo with her at first because she was surrounded by a group of people who made my self-esteem plummet sixteen feet under because I was but a mere simpleton in a crowd of famous bloggers.

Would I make a good Chatime ambassador (just a suggestion) (I had to take this photo to get a free Chatime drink) (I don’t actually think I would be a good face for Chatime) (That would kinda pull down their business soz)

I personally think the idea of this whole event is genius; in this era where individuals can make a living out of blogging and/or vlogging alone, no one should ever underestimate the power of social media. It was pretty clever of them to “buy” customers for free and get them to do all the publicity work indirectly at such a grand scale. All in all, it was a win-win situation for both parties involved.

By the time I finished touring the whole place, I was already pretty full even though the food they gave out came in really tiny portions. So after that, since it was a Saturday night, we went on a spontaneous decision to watch a movie…but not before exploring the Sunsilk booth at the Orange Atrium where they were having a sale or something. Apparently, if you bought RM30 and above’s worth of Sunsilk products, you get a free hair makeover. So that’s what I did.

And then we went to watch About Time, a brilliant movie that made me look at the journey of life in a different, more eye-opening perspective. It reminded me very much of a Jodi Picoult-esque novel, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was indeed the movie scriptwriter.

Also, why is it that Rachel McAdams always play the role of the wife of an awkward dude who can travel through time

Rumin, Pei Ying, yours truly and Yi Jing

So that was the end of my supposedly “socially active” weekend. There’s still a Dogathon post to come, which I guess boosts my social points even more? I don’t know, I just see this as an opportunity to expand my horizons and meet more people and do more things which I previously wouldn’t have had the chance to do. So I guess you can say I’ve been busily living my life now. Wow.