Ramblings About My Life..

Chow and Paul's Visit To JB! (Day One)

Just before the A2 final exams, all planning efforts for our supposedly last class trip came to naught as there were certain issues on certain individuals wanting to come along and different stances adopted by different factions in the class on the aforesaid matter. Furthermore, there was plenty of indecision on our part regarding the class trip - planning was hasty, details were obscure and cooperation among ourselves was nonexistent at best. The problems were most likely excerbated by the fact that I managed to piss off the person doing the bulk of the planning..hahaha... Anyway, the end result was that there wasn't a class trip. Period. However, some of us Middle Earthians came up with a brilliant plan to organize a replacement class trip of sorts - a trip for those interested all the way down south to our "homeland", Johor Bahru. Actually, we had already been toying with that particular idea for some time - Patrick and Yih Seong in particular had been extolling to all who would listen about life in Johor Bahru and that it was actually a great place to visit since it was, after all, where we ride pigs to school and use cows as cars...haha.. However, Johor Bahru isn't really a happening place as there's not many places to visit or things to do - you could say that it's much more boring in Johor Bahru when you compare it to other places like Subang or Kuala Lumpur. The only thing that might draw people down to Johor Bahru would be the local food, and of course, not forgetting the pirated stuff sold there. Johor Bahru is practically pirated VCD/DVD/CD heaven! When the idea was pushed forth, it generated quite a lot interest, especially among our clique's close friends (Paul, Tze Chow, Anne, etc). We started with having a lot of people interested in this plan, but one by one they dropped out as they were unable to come along for the trip. And in the end, the class trip involved just two non-Johorians - Paul and Tze Chow. Ah, well... Two or two hundred, it's still a class trip - in essence anyway... Hahaha...

Day One - 20/6/2005

Having slept late the night before, I woke up at noon just in time to remember that I had to pick Paul and Tze Chow up from the Larkin Bus Terminal at 3pm as Jeremy couldn't make it - he was replacing his 'P' license with a full driving license. I immediately scarfed down lunch, bathed and called Paul to confirm their arrival time - all while wrangling temporary ownership of the car from my mum. At 2.45pm sharp, I left home to pick up Yih Seong, who was coming along to greet our VIPs arriving from Subang. I reached his house a little late as I was caught up in traffic and thought that Paul and Tze Chow would already be waiting at the terminal for us as it was already way past 3pm. When I reached the bus terminal however, I had a minor misadventure. First, I overshot the entrance to the parking to the bus terminal as I thought I saw a sign that said "Motorcyle Entrance". Yih Seong told me not to sweat it as there was another entrance further on. This time, I didn't miss the entrance and went in. However, after pressing the button to receive the parking ticket, I could just hear the whirring of machinery in the parking ticket dispenser - but no ticket was forthcoming. What the hell?! I don't believe my luck! A car just went in before me and it had to run out of tickets just when it was my turn?! After repeatedly punching the button for about three minutes or so, I decided to hell with it and to go back to the first entrance. However, as I was reversing my way out of the entrance, I thought I saw a ticket - hallelujah! I promptly drove forward again - but the "ticket" turned out to be the glint of the sun on the parking ticket dispenser and the product of my imagination! Utterly embarrassed, I reversed again - only to be gestured at by a taxi driver who was coming out of the parking lot in the opposite direction! His signal meant hey boy, this entrance can use one lah! and I signalled back cannot! cannot! and drove away as quickly as I could. No doubt everybody nearby would be bemused at the sight of a CRV reversing out of a parking lot entrance and driving forward, only to repeat the procedure again before finally driving away. Anyway, I made a round and entered the first entrance that we saw earlier without any problem.

After parking the car, we made our way to the platforms when we suddenly received a call from Jeremy. Apparently, he had done replacing his old driving license with a new one and he was coming to the bus terminal as well. After receiving the call from Jeremy, Yih Seong called Paul to ask them of their whereabouts and to our dismay, they were still some distance from Johor Bahru - and they were at least thirty to fourty-five minutes away from arrival! At that point, Yih Seong decided to wait at Dunkin' Donuts for them to arrive. Jeremy joined us there not long after, and we killed time by planning the places to bring them to for their lunch and dinner (Paul and Tze Chow only had breakfast prior to the bus ride down to Johor Bahru). After a rather shorter wait than what we anticipated, we received a call from Paul who said that they had arrived at the bus terminal - and off we went to greet our VIPs from the land of Subang. At first, we couldn't really recognize Paul since he wore his sunglasses and looked much more thuggish than usual - BUT...we could recognize Tze Chow from his bright orange shoes! They seemed none the worse for the wear after a five hour bus journey, and their only complaint was that the bus driver drove way too slow - taking a serious toll on their behinds. Hahaha... After that, we drove them to lunch (and all the way, Yih Seong and yours truly were acting as tour guides and showing them the few sights JB has to offer), but somehow I forgot that a particular intersection was blocked and we ended up driving a huge circle before we finally reached our destination - AK Noodle House! This is undoubtedly the most famous noodle-serving restaurant in Johor Bahru, with even people from Singapore coming all the way just to eat the noodles - and judging from what Paul said, the noodles were good (actually, I can't really remember what he said but he said that the noodles tasted good or something to that effect)! AK Noodle House has the Sarawakian's vote! Hahaha... After their very late lunch, Jeremy drove them to Leisure Mall since Paul wanted to change his money to the Singaporean Dollar whereas I headed home to park the car since my mum needed it later on. After their financial affairs were settled, Jeremy picked me up from my place and drove everyone to his house where we awaited the arrival of the others before we headed off to dinner.

At Jeremy's place, we had nothing to do and hence, we finally resorted to watching Discovery Channel for nearly two hours. Hahaha... A very interesting "class trip", eh? After waiting for what seemed an eternity, the others finally arrived and we headed off for dinner. Dinner was at the Tebrau Hawker Centre, and we ordered ikan bakar, a sort of thick noodles in black sauce, fried rice, fried prawns and a plate of fried vegetables. When it came to ordering the drinks, everyone ordered a medium-sized glass of sugarcane juice, but Tze Chow, curious as to how large the "large" would be, asked the waitress taking our orders the question he had in mind. To this question the waitress didn't bother answering in words. In reply, she took the "large" glass and plunked it on our table for one and all to see - and yeah, it was large, all right. He seemed rather daunted by the huge glass and stuck to his order of a medium-sized glass of sugarcane juice. Surprisingly, Jeremy ordered what everyone else at the table ordered - a medium-sized glass of sugarcane juice! I thought he would have asked for a "large" and then maybe even upsize it some more since he's the only guy I know who can down an entire can of Coke in twenty - read this - twenty seconds! Maximum respect! However, he managed to finish his entire glass of sugarcane juice before the food arrived at our table, so perhaps "large" would have been just nice for him... Haha.. After dinner, we went to Leisure Mall and played at the arcade for a while before proceeding to Johor Bahru's most prolific cybercafe, "KingSurf", for a quick round of DotA before everyone went their separate ways. It seems that DotA is almost always on the itinary whenever we gather together, isn't it? It's inevitable, I guess... Hahaha..

The next day - The trip to Singapore! (next entry)

posted by yong chen @ 5:39 PM