of adventures, ice-creams, and hepaiz-es

Finally, an update on the taman negara trip. Am actually very lazy to blog in detail, but still, i need to produce a report for imu (15 pages apparently) which i've no idea of how to do.

SO! Those who went with me were... min and york xiong. Yes, it was hard to convince my parents for permission to go.

Journey there - Met the guys in pasar seni station around 7 in the morning then walked to mandarin pacific hotel, where the bus was going to depart from. After a 3-hour ride the bus stopped at jerantut for lunch, then resumed another 1/2 an hour journey to kuala tembiling, where the jetty is situated. And due to a tiny glitch, we ended up taking the jeep to taman negara instead of the boat. The jeep ride was extremely bumpy and jolty, but we reached kuala tahan nevertheless, and it was another rm1 boat ride there to mutiara resort.

River crossing. 1.00 cent. wah!

The signboard which greeted us at the mutiara resort jetty.

Mutiara resort, taman negara - The resort looked okay, and wild boars, monitor lizards and monkeys were left to roam freely even within the perimeters of the resort. It took us some time to locate our room, and it was after few more strides along the pavement, laden with our bags, that we finally got to it. Our intial reaction: appalled, and say, disappointed to be given such a room. Uhh, i just can't pretend being nonchalant about the rustic settings sans hot water and what, sink? What we got was a long house kindda thing, which is separated into 2 massive rooms, that has a public-like toilet separated from the long house itself. And the rooms were veryy dirty and dusty. AND the toilet was an eye-sore. We don't even have a sink and a mirror that we've to brush our teeth using the shower itself. Accomodation was free by the way, i wasn't expecting much either. Anyway, it was only after we cleaned the room thoroughly, discarded unwanted furniture, and got ourselves clean blankets and bed spreads that the place finally looked habitable. It's the toilet which was the major letdown for me. During the night, there'll always be moths and all sorts of other creepy crawlies inside, and i've an inexplainable phobia for them. Each time i enter, i tend to remain stilted on the same position for a few minutes, observing the surroundings and scruntinizing every little movement of the insects. And it's only when the coast is clear that i could proceed with whatever that is that i wanted to do ;)

Do you know that you can actually experience close encounters with some of the friendly residents of taman negara just in front of your door step here?

That whole building was ours to live in.

Our room.

Places to go. Who the heck wants to trek 19.6 km? I know, everyone but me.

Meals - We had frugal breakfasts every morning, eating only cream crackers with jam. Whereas lunches and dinners were spent in kuala tahan. Malay food mostly, some of them were good, one of them particularly sucked big time as portions were too greasy and... bland. Argh, not that i love being fussy but my food has to be palatable. Anyway, i think right now i've gotten jelak of them. There were many times when min decided to skip lunch (he must have had a hunger bypass operation or something like that), and even attempted to influence us with his anorexic talk. huh! oOh, and we had LOTs of ice-creams.

There were many floating restaurants lining the river which serve to cater the influx of tourists. And you'll need to negotiate a narrow plank walkway to get to and from the shore.

Jungle trekking + canopy walkway + bukit teresek hike - Ah, i was fine until we finished the canopy walkway, which was when the lethargy kicked in and pretty much waned my confidence (wait, was there any at the first place?). My lungs were burning, my feet were smarting and on the way to the crest of the hill i felt sick and dizzy. I've been trudging for what seemed like hours, but that bloody mountain went on forever. And every time i thought i must have got to the top, i saw another peak rising up in front of me. Gasp... it was a relief to have finally gotten to the peak, and the view wasn't bad. Well ok, to be very honest the scenery here's quite typical, nothing too special. I wasn't entirely floored by it, and didn't give two hoots about the scenary when i got to the peak initially. Could see folds of hills at the distance and all are over-shadowed by the tahan mountain - a stark, jagged outline against the blue sky. And... leeches! They were there, even if we didn't see them at first. The ones we encountered in taman negara are really quite small - a couple of inches long, and about the thickness of a bootlace. Tiny fact which i got from the net: they have suckers at both ends, and they use one end to attach themselves to leaves on bushes or forest debris on the ground. The other end waves around in the air waiting for a victim to pass. And it's true, if you're not prepared, they can ruin the pleasure of a hike since we were constantly on the lookout for them on our legs, arms and socks. I even found one on my leg but managed to get it flicked off before it started feeding.

Taman negara has lots of well-marked treks and at times, metal staircases to ease your trekking woes. Most of the tracks are do-able and shouldn't challenge the average urbanite (unlike me) too much.

Suspended by a web of ropes, wires, cables and wooden planks along the treetops, it is the longest crossing of its kind, spanning 470 meters long and 40 meters off the ground.

As you can see, it's not for the chickens as it's not vertigo-friendly at all.

From yx's 5 meter collection. Once you've gotten up the first platform, visitors are required to walk one after another and to maintain a distance of 5m apart.

la la la. The planks actually swayed lightly to the tune of every steps that we've made and at this level of elevation, this can be rather unnerving.

It's quite fun, at least if you don't have problems with acrophobia.

We sweated buckets in that humid jungle sauna.

The view on bukit teresek. Looks like one of window xp's wallpaper.

Orang asli settlement + cave exploration - At the orang asli settlement we had an insight into one of malaysia's aboriginal people, and were shown around by the batin (the head of the clan?). While we crowd around to gawk at what's being demonstrated, the batin showed us how they start a fire etc etc (wasn't being attentive :p). It was quite an insightful visit although i felt i was intruding into their privacy. Yup, not only were we peeking around their private houses, we were looking at the natives as though they were animals on display. But what the heck, at least trying the sumpit (blowpipe) was fun. After all that, we trailed another 1km or so until we reached gua telinga. It was pitch dark inside. There were stretches where we had to squat, climb, crawl, slide and slither through narrow claustrophobic passages filled with squishy bat guano (ew!). Gua telinga is an accident waiting to happen. Some places need more than just agility to get you through, and you have to know how to push your butt up some passageways. Besides fighting off my fears in the dark cave, i also had to be careful on the slippery stones. Every step taken had to be very very careful. Was more concerned about getting out the cave in one piece, and i actually felt this ridiculous tweak of anxiety and trepidation as i envisioned myself slipping off a rock or something. Practically hung tightly onto every rock or rope i could grip as though i'm balanced on the forty-fourth floor ledge. oh, forgot to mention that we had a snake encounter inside the cave too. It was our guide who first spotted it in the waters and it resulted in us scuttling away to safer grounds. While it is also fun, exploring the tiny cave can be dangerous for you if you share the same body shape as... Now i'm sounding a little discriminative. Not joking you know, if you're... plus-sized you might get trapped under a rock crevice and feed on bat droppings for the rest of your life, hehe. When daylight was finally noticeable and i came out unscratched, i felt a huge whoosh of relief.

Journey there. All excited.

That's the batin briefing us.

Min trying the sumpit. I tried also! But no picture. wuu~

At the entrance of gua telinga.

Bats!

Journey back. All sweaty and yucky.

Lubok simpon - Other than lata berkoh (which we didn't get to go), the only other swimming hole in taman negara is lubok simpon. We took a short 15 minutes walk from mutiara resort on a well-marked path... and voila, a shallow pool filled with cold water. I think i enjoyed this part of the trip the most. As it wasn't strenuous at all, and all we did was swam :)

Yup we're on a sinking canoe. It's just min's pathetic attempt to ape a national geographic shot.

With min.

With york.

Woodlands resort - After having to endure all the um, hardships dwelling in the foc accomodation, and having such unbearable yearning for the comforts of home, we decided to pamper ourselves to the amenity of living in a chalet. So on saturday, we moved to woodlands resort, bringing only clean clothes which were needed for the 3 days stay. We got the junior suite for rm 252 per night (after 40% discount). Well, the room's quite clean plus there's hbo channel whereby we can catch some blockbuster movies while resting in the room. And there's a swimming pool too! But unfortunately for me my goggles snapped right before my first dip so i wasn't looking forward to swim anymore.

They're so gay.

Free time - Most often in the hotel time was spent either sleeping (70%), playing uno cards, watching dvd (yx brought his laptop), or trying to scare each other with ghost stories. It was ju-on which freaked us out most, but there were times when our lurid jokes left us bursting into peals of laughter.

Rapid shooting - This wasn't anything very challenging as all we had to do was just sit inside the boat while the boatman cruises the it. It's almost similar to sunway lagoon's niagara falls flume ride and we were all prepared to get drenched. Yeap, this was where we were met with seven distinct sections of white water rapids which got us all bloody wet. And to make things more exciting, the boatmen would race against one another :)

Journey home - We decided to pay and take the boat ride home just for the experience. Well, it was more like a jungle cruise on a pod-shaped motor boat from kuala tahan to the kuala tembiling jetty. The journey was fun initially, offering some nice scenery along the tembeling river, but it's long (2 hours). And you get off the boat with your butt totally numb and your back stiffer than a board. When we finally reached mandarin pacific hotel, i decided to just hail a cab and get straight home instead of taking the train.

A view on the boat. You'll also get to see monitor lizards doing the breast-stroke in the river.

I came home with bruises all over my legs, and itchy scratchy red blothies everywhere which i assumed are mosquito bites. It turned out to be an adventurous trip and i loved the slumber party feel. Though the accomodation was spartan, yes, we were laughing our heads off, never mind if we were in a room that had dust everywhere and a stinky loo. We shot the rapids, went into a claustrophobic bat cave and polished off all their droppings on our trackbottoms and hands. Yeah, it was definately an experience.

A week's update

Just got back from kl sentral. So dad's going back to china. And the moment he steps down from the plane he has to head straight to his workplace. haih. Too lazy to blog in detail about what i've been doing for the whole week. Anyway here's it.

Sat - Dad reached home around 1 at night. As usual, he brought back chocolates (yum!). And... etc etc.

Sun - Roused up early for breakfast. Went to this dim sum restaurant in connaught which sucked big time. We found insects (don't know what they are, looked bit like crickets and cockroaches) in 2 of the little platters. Complained about it and got half of the price waived off the meal. Went to aquaria later in the afternoon, and the queue was so freaking long. Never enjoyed it as it was severely packed inside too. After all that, we hung around in suria klcc. As for dinner, we ate at this western restaurant in taman midah.

Mon - Stayed at home. My parents went to leisure mall and brought denzel along. Whereas i had to stay at home to fetch shawn to and from his tuition.

Tues - Went to sungei wang. Both shawn and i wanted to buy new wallets but we couldn't find ones that we like. Western for dinner again.

Wed - Went to 1 utama in the afternoon, and we bought tickets for nacho libre. My family enjoyed the show. For me, it's just a another silly movie. Before the movies we ate in bakerzin, i ordered some ice cream thingy, forgot what its name is but it looked like this

Mocha comes with it. Look at that.

It's heaveanly. Loved it so much. We shopped a little after the movie, and when mum and i were buying clothes in the padini concept store dad actually went and purchase a new sony ericsson walkman phone for mum. Could see the wow-factor in mum's eyes when she saw dad at the sony ericsson booth. And at night, we decided to dine in new paris in ss2/72, but unfortunately we couldn't find the place and ended up eating nyonya food in another restaurant. But the food's fantastic too. And we took some pics while we were there.

First picture taken with the w700i. My face's so red i look as if i'm drunk.

Mum and dad. Haha.

Thurs - By now my parents realised it was time to do whatever chores there is - service the car, get the dog license, vaccinate the pets etc. So dad sent his car for service in the morning, and we stayed at home the whole day. Mum made lui cha, i assume most of you won't know what it is. But hey, it's actually in wikipedia. Here - Lei Cha or Pounded Tea (??): A consortment of tea leaves (usually green tea), peanuts, mint leaves, sesame seeds, mung beans and other herbs, which are pounded or ground into a fine powder which is mixed as a drink, or as a dietary brew to be taken with rice and other vegetarian side dishes such as greens, beancurds and pickled radish. I normally have 2 big bowls (those big chinese bowls for soup) of rice when we have this.

Fri - Brought the cat and dog to the vet to be vaccinated. Didn't do much on that day. Shawn was sick.

Sat - We had breakfast in the coffee shop near my place, then went to leisure mall later at night. Dined in the japanese restaurant there. Food was nice. Oh almost forgot, went to loy yang's house in the evening too.

Sun - My cousin's family + her brother came to our place today. So all of us went out to have lunch in some chinese restaurant, food's nice also. Is it just me or we've been eating lots of delicious food lately?

Anyway, there're few things denzel said which left us all bellowing with laughter.

First was when my parents were talking about their friend's son, and denzel went: "the son is boy or girl?" he later realised his mistake.

Another was when we went swimming. He said: "this pool has baby mosquitoes". All of us were wide-eyed, then he later added "because my legs are itchy".

some thai ad

Jon showed me this hilarious video clip which was up in the lowyat forums.

zhar dou...

random thoughts

Debbi: difficulties of living with

1. Am afraid of the dark. So i occasionally sleep with the lights on. Even if that's not so, i tend to doze off while reading a book, leaving the lights on, too.

2. Whenever there's a need to shop for something, i tend to take my own sweet time scouring around for the best piece.

3. Rants, rants and rants about any minute dissatisfaction or having just the feeling of an odd tiny qualm.

Too lazy to think of others. Heh. So that's about it. But we all have our little quirks right. These are just some of my um, pet habits.

back from the jungle

ugh, it was a 2-hr boat ride + a 3-hr bus ride. And now, i'm knackered + the headache i'm having really is bothering me. Sorry people for not replying messages on msn. Shall slump onto my bed now. zzz

Feels good to be home! But yeah, the trip was great!

off to taman negara

Hey people, i'll be off to the national park (aka taman negara) for my electives tomorrow. oOh, i'm feeling a tingle of excitement which reaches right to my fingertips. No, i'm actually very lazy to go. I'm not sure if i'm going to enjoy the trip, since i'm not really a wildlife/nature kindda person. And i'm not at all accustomed to staying in such places. But it's ok, it'll be an experience :)

So, i don't think definately will not be blogging anytime during this period. 1 week. Which is not unusual at all.

Anyway, hope everything will tick over as normal.

After i'm back on the following tuesday (it's a one week trip, loonggg i know. but we can leave early if we happen to get bored), my dad will be coming back on saturday (is it? can't remember). So there'll be lots and shopping (maybe), and i hope we'll be eating lots of good food too :) which reminds me, i need to start clearing up my dad's table, or he'll come home and nag.nag.nag.

The mess i've made on the table.

Another thing is, my mum actually asked me to follow my dad when he goes back to china. For the holidays that is. But i don't know how many days/weeks of holidays do i have left till the next semester starts. Don't really want my parents splurging up to thousands of ringgit on the air tickets for such a short stay there. But i've been thinking of what am i going to do there in beijing. What? Shop everyday?

one utama

Erm. How do i start? Oh, i'm posting this because loy yang told me to. HAHA. Anyway, both of us hung out in 1 utama today. Tam (who's the driver also) came to my house around 10.30 in the morning, right just when i got home from the condo. She wanted to use my bluetooth dongle, so i left her with the computer and went to change. Loy yang and lau arrived at my place not long after that (apparently they made my house the meeting place), and kiat hwa arrived... very long after that. So, we left for 1u later than we planned to, and as expected, the place was already congested. The parking was so full, and we had to detour the place a few several many innumerable rounds until we finally found one. Huh. Sux i know. Since it was already 12.30 when we got in the mall, all of us chose have lunch first. After humming and hawing, and looking at several directories, we decided that it'll be thai nudle house. I ordered pineapple fried rice, which wasn't great at all. Couldn't finish my rice, and loy yang helped finish it. harhar. He even took lau's fried rice, which lau didn't manage to finish also.

Bang! Snitch my rice?

And we did the usual cam-whoring.

With the guys - loy yang and lau.

With the gals - tam and kiat hwa.

After all that, we splited into 2 groups, the guys and the gals. The guys planned to catch a movie, but in the end didn't. And the gals, we went shopping. Muahaha. We pratically spent about 2 hours on the same floor, no, on a small section of the same floor. That's about... 5 shops max. Huh. We left around 5 something, since i wanted to reach home by 6. And before we left, tam and kiat hwa each grabbed a drink from starbucks (i didn't feel like it), and since lau was there (he's been working as a starbucks barista for quite some time) he introduced us with a few drinks. And it's nice! Are they not in the menu or something? I think they're not. Kiat hwa got a caramel with java chips... 'don't know what' drink, i had a few sips, and it tastes good! Tastes a little bit like cookies and cream. Yum.

I managed to reach home by 6, and yeap, had to go our for dinner with my uncles, aunties and cousins. Well, my uncle came back from myanmar (or vietnam?) for one week, that's why we're having this dinner. Went to this restaurant in ss2, it's like any typical chinese restaurant where you order the dishes and eat with rice, but i've to say the food is terrific. We left the restaurant around 8 something, and some of us went to my uncle's place. That includes my family. So we talked and talked. No, the adults blah-ed and blah-ed, until my mum decided to go home. Oh, and at his one point, uncle nim questioned me about my fluency in chinese. He asked, 'how good is your cantonese?', and 'how good is your mandarin?'. Gave him a double 'not so good', and he started commenting on how am i going to handle my patients in the future. Sigh~ With no warning, a surge of fresh humiliation went through my body. Felt a pang of dismay and i automatically muttered something about 'i don't plan to work here' softly, that only my mum could listen, and she started telling everyone that she wants me not to work in malaysia. Saved. This's what happens when you're born a chinese and can only speak a tinge of the language. Never mind.

Got so bored in the restaurant. Was sitting next to denzel and wing kor kor. Denzel kept bugging me for my phone that i finally relented. And as itchy fingers go... he took a picture of himself.

alas. huh?

How do i write a b'day post? I've seen friends blogging about their birthdays, and they go up to the detail of listing everyone who wished them, even categorizing the people according to the way did the wish came. Nah, won't do that. Just in case some of you people forgot to wish me and couldn't help feeling paiseh about it. Or just in case you missed the 00:00 dot(?) and think that i don't appreciate your wish as much. hah!

Well, thanks to those who wished me, whether it's through msn, friendster, my cell, in person... it's getting too soppy already. But yeah, THANKS everybody. Think loy yang was the first to wish me online - he did it through msn, and posted wishes in various shoutout boxes (his own blog's, conrad's, and ivy's) and even posted a comment in my blog since i didn't have a shoutout box. Guess his effort deserves to be mentioned here. Aw, he’ll be all flattered when he reads this. Then came the bunch of sms-es. And a bubble talk from jon. Then the friendster testimonials, phone calls, everything.

The first birthday present i got this year was from jess and pek yiong, the 2 closest people I’ve made friends with in taylor's. Apparently, all 3 of us exchanged birthday gifts on the same day (17/7).

On the day itself (28/7), uhh, what did i do already? Oh, had to pick both my brothers from school and we had lunch in leisure mall. Then, it was off to buy my birthday cake. Had to buy my own cake, it's sad pathetic i know. Anyway, i got shawn to do it for me. I assumed being the birthday girl also bestowed me the privilege to give orders. So, technically, i didn't buy my own cake, my brother bought it for me! It was half choc banana and half choc fudge. In the evening i hung out with jon in leisure mall, he got me a caramel frappucino from starbucks, and we just walked a lil around the mall. And at night, i celebrated with my family. Cut the cake, took pictures, no big deal. It's just like what we do every year, for everyone's birthday.

Saturday and sunday were boring. Had dinner with my aunt's family on saturday night. It was my mums idea, to give my aunt a birthday treat (for her birthday of course, which was a week ago). But i don't think my aunt even knows that it was my birthday the day before. Hmph, was half expecting an extra ang pow. Almost whole of sunday was spent practising the piano, from 12 noon onwards, shawn and i took alternate hours to practise. Speaking of the piano exam, its... devastatingly depressing. I think i've screwed up. Those butterflies in my stomach seemed to have interfered with the coordination of my fingers, and i was shivering because it was extremely cold that my hands were shaking even when i played the keys. Got so nervous that i couldn't get a 'B major third apart' right on first attempt. It's one of the easiest scales! Aural's totally gone, it's hard anyway, blurted whichever chord that came to my mind, and uh... i don't remember anymore. All i could remember is that i got a lady examiner who exclaimed 'good afternoon!' once i entered and her name’s manya horn.

Monday – piano exam in the morning (sigh), then drove to the weld to meet my mum for lunch. In the evening, there was this party that my bunch of secondary school mates pulled together to have. It’s supposed to be a surprise thingy, but i somehow found out. And this was how.
When ivy first called my house phone to talk to my mum, i was the one who picked up.
So, she said: “hello, may i speak to mrs. chai please?”
Like i always do, i went: “sure, please hold on”
Then immediately i thought *weh, that sounded like ivy*. Calls mum, gives her the phone while saying: “this’s strange, but i think it’s my friend on the phone”
While they were talking, i tried eavesdropping, and i heard my mum saying something about ‘monday’ and... lots of ‘okays’. Once she hung up, i transformed to my inquisitive self and started bombarding her with questions about it. But she never let out any clue. Well, guessed it anyway ;)
So, it was around 9 that i got to my condo (they’ve gotten the keys from my mum and had everything prepared earlier). I’ve already knew that they were there, but when i first got in, i noticed there were no shoes outside, and the lights were all off, like no one has entered. It was only when i started turning on the lights that they came barging into the living room and i got sprayed with whipped cream all over. And instinctively, i let out a tiny shriek, then they came with the cake. Now that’s a surprise, i’ve never expected that. Blew the candles, cut the cake, i changed into my brother’s t-shirt which i dug out from his wardrobe (since i don’t keep any clothes in the condo) and after that time was spent gorging on the food, chatting, playing cards and cam whoring. It was nice, they’ve ordered pizza, bought fruit juices, sushi, and oh, we had plenty of whipped cream. Oh, thanks for all the pressies! Although I know half of you there don’t even know I have this blog.

So formal. I look as if i've just came back from uni. That's because i had piano exam earlier in the afternoon.

Food.

Us. There were 15 of us altogether i think. Back row (L-R): jon, lai tee, ken choong, loy yang, michelle, loke, conrad, chris. Middle: tam. Front row (L-R): kelly, ivy, me, kiat hwa, pek mun. *edward left before this pic was taken.

Wednesday – Met min in 1u. And i’m proud to say i drove there myself without getting lost. Yeay. Anyway, we were supposed to meet at 4, but I arrived like, 40 minutes earlier? Called min, like what he TOLD me to, but he was still at home, obviously. So i told him i’ll walk around first till he gets his derriere there. And when he finally got there, we first went to... cuz he wanted to buy a... all because of him being unnecessarily self-conscious. lol. And all they way he was ranting and heaping the blame on me for rushing him. Blah blah, all that done and we headed to the cinema. Min bought tickets for dorm, a thai horror movie, which turned out to be all gushy and mushy, which, apparently made me jumped on my seat once (twice according to min - he's lying). Had dinner in tgi friday’s. It was between sri melaka, chilis and that, as usual i was indecisive, so min devised this little ‘game’ thingy which led us to our answer. We ordered chicken fingers and fries, something roast chicken and mocha mud pie (min insists that i must try the mud pie), and i must say, it’s... heavenly. *Hungry now* Anyway, the dessert came before the main course and halfway through my meal, i was already beginning to feel satiated. Think we both left the restaurant stuffed to the brim. Reached home around 10.15 (didn’t get lost, thankfully). Oh, thanks for the movie, dinner and pressie - again. Bet you're tired of hearing it. Cuz i'm tired to saying it as well. hahaha :p

Finally got this pic.