Monday, March 17, 2003

Blogger hates me bohoo... I uploaded the former and this entry with demoner's help. xie xie ni!
I just came back from Malacca. Tired. I went with my family and friends and we ate, shop, ate, shop. There was actually nothing interesting to buy. I bought a hat, wooden clogs ( to da2 xiao3 ren2 heh)...eh no more liao. The others did the buying i just followed. I was facinated by alot of stuff. I got to see the remains of St paul's church, got to see huge prawns with pincers, my bro insists it's not a lobster. The road trip back from Malacca to JB was exceptionally long 3hrs. My legs got all numb from that particular ride. I wondered how the driver could tahan. The driver had a cassette of hokkien music playing (and i really mean A cassette) throughout the journey. After one of my 2hr naps, I woke up to hear "ai pia zai eh iah", literally translated as 'must pia den will win', *the tune is still ringing in my head* for the fourth time. My mother commented that we should have brought our own cassette, heh, i totally agree. But, trying to figure out the lyrics of the little KTV lounge music occupied me for a while. After futile attempts at it, I switched my attention to the outside surroundings concluding that hokkien music sounds like thai music which explains why i couldn't catch a thing except 'ai pia zai eh iah'.

Some of the many things that caught my attention:
1. The old shop houses: The shop houses were dilapitated and some of the roads were so narrow. It felt like i was in olden Singapore all over again.

2. Floura and fauna: Not much of it. I saw a big rafflesia... painted on one of the tour buses. The place was hot probably because there wasn't enough trees around. I was shocked to see potted bougainvilla's on the expressway. Not shocked by the bougainvilla's lah. shocked by the fact that they are in pots, u know those huge kind which u can store water in, the one tt si ma guang broke to save his fren who fell in? No lah, exaggeration, it's not tt huge.

2. Bilboards and Neon signs: They have huge advertisements at the side of the roads which I don't get to see here. Adverts of tissue papers, petrol, even coconut milk. The coconut milk advert was funny, cos it had smilies printed on it and with the corresponding name of the expression beside and the advertisement ran like this "No matter the mood blah blah coconut milk will be ur choice." or something to that extent. What was difficult for me to accept was that the signs are printed in malay so clinic=klinik, insurance=insurans. I was just not used to the spelling and not being able to read the signs irks me. heh.

3. Road signs: I particularly liked the stripes on the roads. It made the van go bump bump bump.. Oh and there was also the crissy crossy thing which reminded me of waffles painted on the road.
Speed limit was 110 km/j and i was wondering what J stood for till i saw 7-eleven 24 jams. Did i get tt right?
There was this sign which had 9 polka dots in a square, which puzzled me.. anybody know's what it means? My ma guessed that since it's located at the crossroads it's to signal that there're 3 traffic lamps i.e 3 way traffic. -shrugs-

4. License Plates: JET 400, JEW, MAT... etc. Didn't see any JAM, JEM, JOY...

5. Street lamps: There wasn't much of them at some parts of the roads the only light came from that of the vehicles which cast weird shadows.. woo spooky. Drivers would have to be extra careful at night and passengers get better sleep cos it's dark!

6. 4-D results: People actually sold photostated copies of 4-D results on the roads at 3.5cents per copy. Impressed by their creative way of earning money leh.

My focus throughout this trip was what i saw on the road cause that's where i spent most of the time. I noticed alot of new stuff or then again maybe i'm just swakoo..(mt. tortoise) The trip wasn't bad afterall. I kinda enjoyed it...

by tab at 11:25 PM |