132; my overseas trip (contd, sat, 11062005)
Saturday, June 18, 2005

right now is 12:27AM of saturday 11062005. and my attempt at falling asleep has failed. i mean. i just cant sleep with the train banging here and there like mad elephants let loose. sighs. and almost everyone in a 180 degrees radius has all fallen asleep with the exception of me of course. and right now, there's nine hours to go to kota bahru. i am not sure what on earth am i going to do to will time away or have i got to risk jet lag and meet my long lost relatives with puffy eyes.

ok, that comment was atrociously snide. but really, i am dying from boredom here. is clearly no point for me to be euphemistic when i clearly should be frank. sighhs. right now i am wondering what is xx doing. hahas. most probably playing computer games or something. wahahas. okie. imagination going nuts here.

3:09:13PM and my notes on my trip have landed in a pool of water thanks to my stupid clumsy butter fingers of a cousin. sighs. well, i have placed them in a folder. they should be alright. so damn irritating you know? he could slam into me with such impact with the fucking reason that the train trip is too rough. hello?! he is the only one slamming into others like some kind of a ram. whats more, i think it was on purpose, on the account that he slammed when i was holding my diary notes and he knows that my diary notes are my life.

gosh. now is 3:41:26PM. and we have checked in into azam hotel. which has a logo with a huge "AH" symbolized. to me, the first time i saw it, i was laughing, cause it looks like someone had too much sex and sounds positively constipated. laughs. ok. being severely imaginative here. and my grandmother just claimed that i slept like a log. really? a log? i felt as though i didnt sleep a wink.

well, allow me to go into reminicense mode. we arrived at kota bahru station which was named wakaf bahru. at noon which was three hours past the predicted time. and my ever slow grandfather came into view, tottering, looking as though the wind will blow him off his feet. in a sense, i still hate him for all the facades that he has brought to all the families in my mother's line. but oh wells. shant comment further.

as of now, my aunt's orders were to rest and that later we will go out and see our long lost relative, idris. ok, it was initiatively termed as lost. but as it turned out, my grandfather has secretly been in contact with my relative's neighbors and we are here in an attempt to keep up good terms. which is something customary in my religion.

let's see. this hotel is chic and all. but so called, we were late and didnt do much booking in advance and so all the rooms with windows are all taken up. my cousin and i are right now stuck in a room with no windows. but seriously. i dont give a damn. as long as it is not stuffy or uncomfortable.

i loved the food at the restaurant just now. i had chicken rice and it was cooked with a delicious twist! the chicken was sauted with a delicious gravy and it was served like tahu telor or beancurd eggs like they do in singapore. the rice is cooked in a sauce giving it a pleasant yellowish tinge, making it taste so heavenly. arghh. yumm.

down sides of kota bahru, super slow paced. unorganized too. the people just walk on roads so casually, not bothering about vehicles or anything. the way they did their jobs was also somewhat disatisfying. when i asked a general enquiry, they would look so constipated and all which clearly pissed me off.

another thing is that the place is so damn hot. i mean, singapore is near the equatorial line and it doesnt come close to the temperature of kota bahru. i thought that i would enjoy some comfort when travelling but turns out that the whole place is baking! i was half put off whenever going out cause when i saw the sun, sheesh. really puts you from travelling.

about five or six just now, we went shopping at some bazaar and i got my father his favourite delicacy, the durian cake and my mother some scarves. i was drenched in sweat. and it was a leisure kind of trip at the bazaar. that was how hot it was.

after the shopping, my grandmother suggested that we go eat somewhere. and we decided to go to a&w since such outlets were rare in singapore. so we ate like four spring chickens and huge coke floats. hahas. how greedy. but wells. we were hot, tired and hungry. what can we say?

after that huge amount of eating, we rushed back to the hotel, simply cause i was having an urge to go to the loo. laughs. idiocity. stuffed myself, then everything come out. sighhs. so yeah. my cousin, amin, and my aunt, mak yah, did themselves justice by hanging out at the bookstore close to our hotel. my grandmother and i rushed back.

we soon were going to idris house, so my grandmother and i went into a deep sleep.

it was way at night before my grandfather came to pick us up to go idris house. i think that my grandfather is super dense. he booked one car for seven people. idiotic right? my cousin and i along with my grandfather took a cab there. i was a bit shocked. the house was like super close to this graveyard and my cousin was making whimpering sounds until i smacked his hand before he shut up.

initially i saw this huge house and i was super impressed. but it turns out that idris house is like through this super dark alley. and when i saw the house, i actually took it like a ruin. it was so damn run down and there was no staircase, instead, a chair was located in its place. oh my. i was like already a huge feeling of nostalgia when i saw the conditions of the house.

when i entered the house, i was so shocked. i mean. there was nothing but four walls and tonnes of things strewn onto the floors. and the roof had one huge hole which was covered by something filmsy. it was sad. and idris had super changed. i mean. he was no longer who he was. he had grown skinny and quiet. much a contrast to the plump and talkative son he was in singapore. sighhs.

the toilets look like those in the 1600s with no proper drainage systems and pipings. oh god. i felt like crying there. i mean. i never knew that this was what idris was going through. i never knew that life was this hard for him. i never knew he was having such problems.

and then idris' mother, ju was telling us that she was going to get a new house and all. at this point, mak yah was also in tears when she saw that i was on the edge. so mak yah brought herself together by showing all the books and things that she got for idris from singapore. and my grandmother gave ju the money all of us pooled together which should be sufficient to help them.

mak yah also told them that if need be, any financial help should be told to us in singapore so that we can give them those supplies. and mak yah was literally crying and sobbing when she made ju promise that idris and his siblings would be given the proper roots in education.

after that, we headed back to our hotel where we said goodbye to my grandfather and his entourage, which i shant mention. then mak yah, my grandmother, my cousin and i went shopping again! and it was like nine? so we shopped at those night bazaars and got some more things. laughs. i got two tops and one pants. hahas. congrats to me.

then we headed pizza hut in the nick of time and bought one super large pizza and brought it to my aunt and grand's room to eat together.

lights out for us after that.