My trip to dreamland – Malaysia

On the 23^rd of July, I woke up at 5:45 and prepared to leave for Malaysia. Just the usual routine, travel by car to Pudong and airplane to KL. The skies were beautiful on the flight, clear blue skies and clouds that look so pretty it looks fake. Here’s a picture.

The good news started when I was reading the newspaper on the plane. Apparently, the harvests for durians were good this year. Simple economics tell us, increased supply decreases prices, ceteris paribus. So, this just means durians for supper the first night in Malaysia.

After about 5 hours 13km above the crust of the Earth, the plane stopped fighting gravity and landed at precisely 3:35 pm. Then, I took the KL express and then taxi to my grandparent’s house.

Here’s a picture of my grandparent’s house and their neighbour’s.

The little house with the yellow doors are the toilets, I guess you can genuinely call this a loo.

As I hoped, after a simple dinner, my grandpa, my dad and I (3 generations of guys from the Chong family) went to the pasar malam (night market) to buy durians. In the end, we returned with 4 durians and 3 kg of mangosteen. That night, my taste buds were fully exercised and I went to sleep at about 11.

The second day, I woke up at about 7 to go to the market for breakfast. Once again, my taste buds were reminded of a stimulus they haven’t experienced in a year. Then, my dad and I were off to fetch my mom from her mother. After that, my parents decided to go to my sister’s church service (it was Sunday if you don’t follow). I was afraid it was going to be similar to the ones in Suzhou, where it is as crowded as Auchan, so I brought a book along, just in case it is, then I could go to a coffee shop nearby to wait for my parents.

It turned out to be a place that wasn’t crowded at all, in fact there were actually some empty seats, so I thought, I guess I can just sit, relax and wait for them to do their thing and then go on with the day’s plans. Then, at about 10:00, everybody stood up, and they started singing. And I guess they really like to sing, cause they just kept going and going, sometimes they start the next song while the previous song was still fading away. Well, I waited through that, and didn’t really keep up with the lyrics of the songs that were in Malay. But I was quite satisfied to hear that the chord progression of the songs were pretty well made, and the different instruments (a band played for the songs) did their job well in filling in their part of the sound spectrum while synergizing with the other instruments well. I also liked the fact that they had a tenor voice to blend in with the main melody (I would say soprano but it isn’t really that high).

Then, we had lunch with my sister’s friends, chat for some time and my parents were comforted in seeing that my sister is mixing with some good honest people and that she is making great reliable friends.

After that, it was basically relaxing at my grandparent’s house, called up ShunYang since he’s in KL also. And then went out with my grandparents for dinner.

Returning to this place has been fun and relaxing for me. It’s a pity I can’t live life just feeding off my parents :P. My grandparents are really pleased to hear that I got a full scholarship for my first year in university. So my grandma decided to reward me and I guess that should make me happy, but lands pressure on my sister I guess. Hope my grandparents don’t compare us too much.

Oh, and my savings in China finally broke the 10,000 rmb barrier! Gonna treat myself well when I get back to Suzhou, I’m gonna have a 3 day home alone :D

 Funny Plants!!

A picture of my grandpa and I, 2 generations is a big difference huh?