with this piece of colour sticker on my passport, i started my trip. (for your info, it's called a visa)
4 june 2008, 1030h, i met sakuramoto kenji, the jap guy at woodland mrt station. we took bus 170 to the check point. the immigration officer scanned my finger prints and compare it with mas selamat's and then let me go off... later, i saw "selamat datang malaysia". then i was confused why they scanned my finger prints...
later kenji and me walked around in the city of johor bahru. it was such a great feeling getting out of singapore! it was a totally different society in there... i saw littering, jaywalking, graffiti everywhere; people sold pirated dvds, fake nike & adidas, sexual enhancement pills right beside the streets... fuckin awesome! it reminded me of the movie "babel", when amelia and her nephew drove from usa to mexico... i told kenji that i felt good. he asked my take care of my wallet... later we had lunch in a coffee shop, it was mee goreng... i regreted saying that mee goreng from simpang bedok was good...
then kenji brought me to larkin bus station. i bought my ticket to kuala lumpur with only rm25.00 (same thing cost SGD32.00 in singapore). kenji went off.
it was the best bus ride in my life. i loved to see countless oil palms stretching into infinitely far far away... tropical jungles with stems dangling around, and beautiful outlines of mountains camouflaged in the colour of the clouds...
1830h, the bus terminated at kuala lumpur, puduraya station. cheng hung fetched me from there. i rested at his house somewhere in kepong...
5 june 2008, 0930h, cheng hung's mom drove us to a nearby tea restaurant for breakfast. they bought me wantan mee, sia lah... i couldn't stop swallowing the noodles! the school canteen's wantan mee can go eat shit...
then cheng hung brought me into kuala lumpur city and walked around. nothing special actually. it's just a hybrid cluster to me. a combination of traditional asian civilization with the pride of oil billionaires. i didn't like it...
later in the shopping mall under the klcc twins towers (look like two bars of corns), cheng hung treated me guilinggao (the jelly made of herbals & turtle shell)... it was bitter like hell... but surprisingly my face didn't grow a pimple for a whole week... btw... cantoneese sounds cool to me.
i told cheng hung that sorry i didn't like kuala lumpur. so his family brought me to puduraya and managed to get me a bus ticket to malacca. it was an illegal bus. any way, at about 2330h it dropped me at the correct destination, melaka sentral. amanda and her mom and uncle ong were there waiting for me. we drove all the way to a kampung - where amanda's house were located... i slept like a pig... i loved the kampung smell...
6 june 2008, 1000h, amanda and her mom & uncle ong and michelle took me into the town and had roti canai as breakfast. then amanda's mom dropped us in some super old street with super old buildings. amanda and michelle became my local tour guide. it was really testing their patience, i know... malacca was such a wonderful place... and i "didn't miss a single corner" (quoted from amanda's blog)... i felt like being in the 17th century walking on those streets...
i was amazed to see ppl in a tourist site can still live as usual... pace of living was as slow as tango... it was fabulous... (people in singapore are busy like monkeys)
amanda recommended me this dessert called cendol. it was selling in front of the red house... yeah man... don't mention about ice-cream any more.
the lunch was at the chicken rice ball restaurant opposite ocbc bank. and of course we had chicken rice ball!
it was amanda and michelle's nightmare... i visited so many museums in one shot... "guys at my age should not be interested in historical stuff..." sorry lah... but that's what malacca is famous for... sultanate of melaka, han li-poh, cheng ho, the portuguese, the dutch, the british, japanese invasion, independence... hahax, see? i've learned a lot! can i say i'm half a malaccan now?
there were two portuguese street singers performing at the top of st. paul's hill. they sang english, cantonese, hokkien and malay songs; they played right-handed guitars left-handed. power sia!!! the performance was great... it gave them all the changes in my wallet... respek!!!
1930h, the chongs & the ongs treated me claypot chicken rice. trust me, it's 100 times better than any other chicken rice!
at night, the chongs & the ongs brought me to ktv to sing karaoke... hahax, time to show off again... i sang until voiceless... amanda's mom and uncle ong were very glad that i could sing old songs... hahax! and there was legal beer to drink!!!
while aunties and uncles were singing... the metta school kids were busy taking photos...
we sang until 7 june 2008, 0200h. then we drove to some restaurant in the kampung to have supper. i ordered mee goreng again... but this one was the best in the whole world!!! it was super spicy and hot, i ate until smoke came out from my ears! sedap!!!
again, i slept like a pig... and the kampung smell... best sleep ever...
we woke up at 1100h and went to eat bak kut teh in the town... i hate the stupid school canteen bak kut teh... that's purely garlic soup! the melaka one is the real thing!!!
amanda and i went back to a-famosa to take this picture... the stupid photographer chopped off the top of the building... by the way, a-famosa was built by the portuguese; the dutch or is it the british bombed the whole place... then the kind hearted and diligent amanda accompanied me all the way to the sultanate palace and the memorial of independence or whatever... she 's a very good malaccan; she could tell the story how malacca got its name...
lunch was the malacca's most famous laksa. cool shit... almost beat my favourite singapore katong laksa...
uncle ong brought me to bukit cina in the afternoon. amanda was scared of mosquitoes and decided to rot in the car... i followed uncle ong climbing all the way to the top of the hill. uncle ong breathed heavily after the hike... from the plateau we could see the whole of malacca town... it was beautiful! i cant find an appropriate word to describe it... or should i say it's like a paradise? uncle ong told me that he used to play truant and hide on the hill when he was young... he said it's the last piece of chinese resort in the town. he then brought me to the sam po kong temple and the memorial of chinese victims during japanese invasion. "do the chinese people in china consider the oversea chinese real chinese?" he asked me... i didn't know how to answer him...
i joined the chongs' family dinner at night. amanda's mother, brother, grandfather and all her uncles and aunties and cousins were all there.
after that was supper. we ate the town's most famous satay celup. it reminded me of the mah-lah huo-guo in chongqing... i rated it as the no.1 food in malacca! hahax!
and again, i slept like a pig... kampung smell... satay celup smell... the malaccan smell... so nice...
8 june 2008, 1030. the chongs gathered at cheng hoon teng temple and had some sort of ceremony for amanda's grandmother... i stared at the smoke of burning incense and the dust of bank-of-heaven-currency in the air... i realized it's come to the end of my journey, but i still haven't found my answer. i don't know why the ancestors chose to stay in this place, but eventually, after their super hard work with blood and sweat, they built there a paradise... we are just everywhere in the world; malacca, singapore, san fransisco... they are the real chinese people, more real than the chinese in china (the cultural revolution made the china chinese mad)... i truly respek them yo!
terima kasih melaka!
and terima kasih, malaccans...
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4 comments:
"She 's a very good malaccan; she could tell the story how malacca got its name..."
And sadly, that was the only story I could tell! LOL! But yes, at least I'm considered a good malaccan by somebody~
You're still the No.1 Fan of Malacca. It's scary in a way. Like how I'm No.1 fan of *ehemKoreaehem* =)
what so bloody great about malacca?People like u came all the way from china and yet think that places like malacca is so great. come on man, China, with thousand of years of history (malacca only around 150 years lah)and uncountable places of interest should at least capture your imagination more than a small state like Malacca. don't you think so? Btw, have u really travelled around China?.......... haha........ there..... u have yet to do so. right?........... so young man, or should i say, new malaccan, the grass over the other side is always greener......... see you.
thank you anti-malaccan... i don't really get what you mean but you really sounds like a communist to me. of course i travelled around china; it gave me a very bad impression. i mean those places are great; it's just that people over there are not protecting them... i don't think there's still any culture left after 10+ years' brainwashing. there's nothing wrong with malacca; and there's nothing wrong lovin malacca. it's only wrong when you don't even have the freedom to express urself.
hai again.... it is very unfortunate indeed that you do not really get what i meant..... well...the last thing about me is to lable me a communist...... for your infor, i am what you should call, a pure capitalist...
now you are talking about freedom of expression.... let's see.... let me pose you a question...before you get me wrong again...., do you really believe the freedom to express onself is really that crucial and important?
for that matter, do you really think our asian society is matured enough to grant each and every one of us the freedom to express?
think of the consequences.....young people like you (and many others) were born in a different era (i am not saying that is bad) and you people have a different perception of freedom....
freedom, by the way, can get lots of people into unnecessary troubles... don't you think so....
In the case of china under the KMT, i think they have freedom..... what happened..... the fittest survived and the others became rubbish..... until the communist took over. I am not saying the communist is better... at least they make sure everyone is poor... hahaha... just a joke...
anyway, the ironic part is today we see a china that is moving towards the direction of capitalism and hopefully, freedom....it is going a full circle..... for better or for worse, its people like that will see the end result and to face the changes...
oh..... what happened to our initial topic on malacca? jesus.... another time another place maybe.... see you around and take care.....
before i end this comment, i had an african friend who claimed that the mud over here is better than in his country...... can you believe that? bye............
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