I never thought this departure would rattle me, but it did. My entire 5 days in Brunei was pleasant and entertaining thanks to Desmond for the most gracious hospitality I’ve ever encountered—something I was very surprised for as his dad insisted on paying for all of my meals—and his friend Pei Yi, who accompanied us on nearly all of our trips around Brunei.

Desperate. I guess that sums up my feeling exactly as I sat in Desmond’s dad’s car to the airport amidst the jam (caused by cars who stopped by to look at an accident involving at least 5 cars on the other side of the road)—I’m desperate to clutch on to one of my remaining connection to my Melburnian life, and I was on the verge of choking up. The rain that descended on Brunei the entire day and caused much floods affecting the many webs of roads in the city seem to fit the mood appropriately.

During our brunch at a rather classy restaurant today, Pei Yi had asked how I was feeling as I was leaving Brunei that very evening. “Sad,” I had told her, to which she said, “But you don’t look sad at all.” I told her I would be, as I wouldn’t see Desmond for a long time to come after today.

So farewells and “I’ll tell you when I come to KL” and “I’ll see you on MSN” and the usual goodbye ritual befell us, and I departed with the Royal Brunei Airlines with much melancholy. But I suppose if I departed feeling that way, it must surely mean that during my short 6-month stint in Australia, I’ve found the rare few friends whom I’m most comfortable and enjoyed being with, where I can truly be myself, as I am with the u8 gang.

I’m typing this in the airplane—a first for me—and in less than an hour I will be touching down for the 2nd time in a week in Malaysia. My Bruneian visit had made me feel, at times, in a bizarre, inexplicable fashion that I was still in Melbourne, with a familiar Melburnian face there. But In a strange, twisted way as I write this to get stuff off my chest, I feel as if that I can now truly leave Melbourne in peace.

The Internet has made the world smaller, people have said, and I tend to take advantage of that fact. Till our roads are crossed again, my Melburnian friends.

My menial 8-hour flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur was punctuated by an incident when I wanted to purchase a AUD$9 meal (some BBQ chicken) and the air stewardess told me that they don’t accept foreign coins. This put me to a spot as I only had mostly coins with me, and how the eff was I to pay an exact amount of AUD$9 if the Australian denomination for $2 consists of only coins? I argued with her, when the Vietnamese girl sitting to my right came to my rescue and offered to help me pay in a RM100 note (costs RM23 for a miserable portion wtf.. but I figured it’s still about the same as in Australia, except that the Australian portion is MUCH bigger), and I paid her the AUD$9.

At one point in the flight, the Year 12 Australian girl sitting to my left (yeah I had centre seats -_-), by the name of Sachelle, asked me some questions about the immigration form she had to fill up. I was a bit puzzled as to what she didn’t understand—she asked if she had to declare her medicine in a particular field, but that particular field cearly mentioned stuff about duty-free goods. >_> Subsequently when she wanted to buy a cup of Milo (RM5), she asked if she could pay with “this note” (while pointing to the red RM10 note in her purse) and asked if it works the same as Australia. lol. She was also apparently a bit afraid of the turbulence.

Also throughout the flight, the Vietnamese girl asked me a few stuff about KL (whether it’s safe there at night, how much do the hotel rooms cost on average, etc) as she has a connecting flight to Hanoi the next day at 6am.

Then there was an incident in which my bag was carried mistakenly by a Malaysian Chinese dude (out of habit of being in Melbourne, it’s hard to just say “Chinese” without thinking of alluding to those from Mainland China) who was bound for a connecting flight to Penang (resolved in like 20 minutes after going to the baggage counter and talked to the Malay dude manning it, who, most amusingly, called me “sir” wtf), and when that was resolved, I was whisked away by my family en route home for dinner, and it felt good to be back. Sure, deep down I missed the fact that I’m gonna miss quite a few things—a farewell party thrown by the Walsh St Boys according to Kelvin—but it’s only when I was back I realised I do miss seeing my family again, with mum letting me catch up on all the recent news I missed.

At the Chinese restaurant at USJ 23 last night, I wolfed down on the Malaysian Chinese food I’ve missed—taufu kang (I thought the one Desmond cooked tasted better..), steamed fish which I haven’t had in ages, some prawns, and good ol’ kangkung. And when I reached home, everything looks the same as before with a few distinct changes: the sofa was changed, the toilet doors were changed (they were somewhat rotten before), and a shiny new PlayStation 3 sits in place of where the Wii was below the television in the living room.

I missed the hard, elastic pillow and the hard mattress in my room—they were nothing like the soft craps I had in my rented room in Melbourne. As I showered, I slipped in quickly to my old habits, getting used to the cold water again (as opposed to the hot showers I had daily), and it was then that I realised that Melburnian bathrooms are different than the ones in Malaysia in the sense that they have a specific cubicle thingy for showering purposes.

I’m actually getting a little tired of air travel, more so because of the long wait that we had to put ourselves through before boarding a plane. Thankfully there’s a free 2-hour WiFi access here at the KLIA terminal (my first time flying off from there, it has been the LCCT all these while as all of my flights were through AirAsia) for me to fight that boredom, plus a Market Panic book by Steven Vines to accompany me throughout the flight—my first business book ever, and it was actually rather enlightening when it explained about the 2008 global financial crisis and how we could profit from it. It’s all in the psychology of the investors, something we’ve often overlooked when emotions take over rational thoughts.

Esther called me last night about an hour after I reached home, and I rang Shawn at near midnight.

It’s good to be back.

And now I’m in transit again, less than 24 hours later, on my way on a short 5-day trip to Brunei to meet a friend I made in Melbourne and whom I prolly won’t see again for a long time after this.