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Just came back from PD woot! Here’s the step-by-step chronological order:

Friday, 29th December 2006:
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After some long-winded planning just to catch a movie, finally Kai Tzin, Ding, and I went to Summit to watch Night at the Museum, with Esther joining us in the cineplex an hour earlier when we left her ticket at the counter.

Freaking hilarious movie and I rarely ever say that :D No stale lame jokes recycled from movie to movie because this simple idea of using a museum and the concept of everything coming to life at night.. works very well, for some reason. Somehow, everything – the characters, the props – is incredibly simple and tasteful yet the movie manages to implement all sorts of comedic actions in it.

Simply brilliant. <3

I read a movie review recently about Cicakman, where the reviewer went on that one of the best ways to conclude whether the movie is bad or not is to hear after-movie comments by cineplex-goers when they leave the hall. And with Night at the Museum, we hear the same jokes being told to one another, especially the Easter Island statue’s (in the movie, ‘course).

After finishing the movie, we went to the USJ 2 mamak to meet up with the rest to discuss about our PD trip the next day. It’s horribly last minute which most of us seemed to be oblivious to, because we were even discussing “How ah the transport?” and “What will we do there ah?” like 12 hours before we were due to leave for PD. >_> Ah well, Malaysians.

Long story short I fetched Ding and Kai Tzin back home early while the rest went to Suet’s house to test drive her old Wira for PD.

Saturday, 30th December 2006
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So I woke up early at 7am to get ready to go for my weekly Mandarin class. When it was finally over, I went back at 10.30am, took a nap to get myself refreshed for the long journey ahead, then set off at about 11.45am to pick up Shawn, Andy, and RB to meet up at Suet’s house.

After putting our luggages into the respective cars (which meant we have also finally decided who should sit in whose car), we went to Ryui Bynn’s house to pick up a pair of walkie-talkies for easier communication while driving to PD. Let’s just say that we were acting like a bunch of jakuns utilising it. :p

We went to Watson’s Taipan for a while to get some last minute items (as usual), then off we went to PD. I tagged along behind Shawn’s car since I don’t know the way (and neither do any of us), but as Jessica’s dad had told Shawn and RB beforehand of the way, there shouldn’t be any problems.

It was really stupidly fun using the walkie-talkie, and with a 5km radius, that’s quite impressive. We were ranting crap into it, singing songs, and when we have a problem navigating from Sepang to PD, we’d easily use the walkie-talkie instead of waiting precious seconds and money to phone the fellas in the other car or stopping by the roadside. That’s also what we basically did in those 3 days whenever we had to drive.

Dududu we managed to reach our Corus Paradise Resort in one piece without getting lost, and met up with this Uncle Lim whose unit we were renting from. Our 2-room unit at LG5 (costing RM560 for 2 nights) was quite live-able, and our balcony faces the ocean right away. Woot.

We ate our very late lunch at about 2-3pm at this Chinese stall/restaurant opening on the outside premises of Oceanic Mall, which, according to Jess, is the largest ‘happening’ mall in PD. The shopping mall itself is quite, uh, dead, even with a departmental store (called The Store) and several unusual tenants you normally wouldn’t find in a mall, ranging from a shop selling fish to a hair salon and a dermatological centre.

So we went back after visiting Aquathingy Oceanic and visited the beach a stone’s throw away.

DISCLAIMER: PICTURES COURTESY FROM RYUI BYNN’S AND SUET’S CAMERA *weeps at my own camera's disappearance*

Beautiful beach, but this particular beach has er, very rough sand. We played volleyball, then football.. all without rules since we just wanted to have fun.

Suet, Esther, Kai Tzin. This pic was taken when we moved to the beach with the softer sand.

The bunch of us enjoying ourselves.

Love this pic. Can guess which leg is mine?

Posers sial.

Enjoying the waves banging against us.

Like this.

I like this pic too, very solitary, lonely, serene-like of RB.

Ding somersaulting.

And an even bigger star, if you can see the shape.

The heads that hold the legs. Great picture.

Because there were 9 of us, the majority actually showered together to save time (with our so-called ‘bathing suits’ on) like a common toilet or something. It was hilarious because we were trying to wash our erm very private areas without the others looking, of which we were quite respectful enough to avert our eyes (unless um, if anyone did sneak a peek without any of us knowing).

Er for dinner.. I can’t remember exactly where we ate. Shit memory damn bad must be that alcohol I consumed. We went to KFC for dinner, like it was customary for every holiday because during our Langkawi trip we ate at KFC 3 times.

After dinner we played this silly stripping game from cards which I was lucky to still have both pants and shirt on plus other useless accessories. The unlucky ones who had to strip down everything but didn’t because we were er kind enough were Esther, Kai Tzin, and Ding. lol.

We then went to this Rhapsody Lounge of our resort, and it’s quite a good place to chill. The live band was playing all sorts of songs that makes one want to groove, but too bad not many of our gang are sporting enough to just get off their arses from their seat to just dance, whether they know how to or not doesn’t really matter, does it?

I had this Singapore Sling cocktail which tasted quite strongly of cherry brandy or something of that sort, and it cost RM15.

At the footsteps of the resort’s stairs near the Lounge.

Slept at the room with the hideous lighting we dubbed it as kai tao because it really did look like one. Shawn, Esther, and Andy were in the same room.

Sunday, 31st December 2006
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Anyhow the next morning we did this:

On top of Andy.

Lazed around on the beach in the morning at about 10am.. then in the afternoon when the sky were semi-lit with clouds, went for the banana boat thingy.

Oblivious to the horrors we were to face.

It was quite a ride, because we need to exert great energy to support our weight to hold onto the measly plastic grips, where people with heavier weight couldn’t stand the tremendous stress it causes on the muscles of their arms.

This happened for 5 or 6 times:

After 3-4 times of falling straight into the sea and swallowed a generous amount of saltwater, I followed Suet and RB who jumped ship (read: suicide) when we noticed the boat who was pulling the banana boat was moving at a 90 degrees angle.

Daniel snapped all those pics (and videos) of the banana boat while in the boat with the boatman btw, cause he just rebonded his hair and couldn’t let any water touch his hair for 3 days. Shawn after 3 falls into the sea gave it up and joined Daniel in the boat.

We spent loads of time on the beach, with Jess joining us (and her family) for a while. I was mostly exhausted and felt funny cause my stomach had too much wind. I don’t quite know how to say except that it felt really shitty – imagine walking around and trying to eat stuffs with wind bloating up your insides.

At a seafood restaurant at Teluk Kemang, which Jess’ dad told us where to go to.

Cheers~ c’est la vie.

After the RM120+ dinner involving buttered prawns and fish and vege and pork and whatnot in which I had less appetite to actually enjoy them, we went to the fun fair nearby the restaurant since the two girls in our group wanted it:

Suet, Esther, Kai Tzin in the ferris wheel.

Shawn and I were in one of the er.. ferris wheel’s cubicles and it was bloody scary because of:

• the heights
• the cubicle was shaking irregularly like it was gonna drop off any minute
• the way the cubicle stuttered around when it stopped at its highest peak, heh

Ding won a dog plushie from throwing-the-rings game.

The entire gang at the happy fun park.

Then we lazed around some more at our apartment before we left at 11pm for the beach. We sang songs and time passed very quickly before we reached the countdown of the new year. 2007.

We lazed around on the ‘cliff’ which leads diagonally down straight into the sea, which er was pretty scary considering how the lamp posts were not lit and everywhere was pretty dark.

But when the fireworks (presumably from the resort/hotel) blasted off into the air quite spectacularly and near us, it was quite a bloody sight.

Now in the next few hours I couldn’t really recall them vividly, only vague patches here and there jumbled up into a single category: “Did I really do/say that?” I remembered drinking up a bottle of Carlsberg’s Christmas beer and let the rest have the remaining 3 bottles in that single 4-pack I brought along. I also remembered drinking 2 cans of Carlsberg belonging to Andy.

I remembered feeling really happy and excited for no apparent reason.. maybe the fact that it was the new year made me feel all euphoric and acting completely childish (which is really not a logical reason to justify it). I remembered trying to search for the toilets alone when no one wants to teman me go, I remembered coming out of it, I remembered wanting to go to the loo again with Ding accompanying me this time, I remembered all the unusual talk both of us had with him apologising and me muttering some shit trying to say it’s okay and encountering a bunch of cockroaches sprouting out of nowhere in the gents.

In this state of inebriety, I think I let myself completely loose – too loose – so much so that I did stuffs I wouldn’t normally do, talk about things I normally have zilch courage to do so..basically revealing the real me? I think it’s quite pathetic that I needed alcohol to do so. ~___~ And dangerous. But I did felt freer, liberated from having to control what you want to say or do for fear of being ridiculed or laughed at or embarrassed for. Heh am I contradicting myself?

..I don’t remember some of the conversations we had (remind me next time?). I remembered feeling all emo-ish and sad and whatnot. I remembered crouching and hugging my legs a lot. I remembered dragging my feet up to Jess’ penthouse where she was staying at, I remembered a whole lot of unpleasantness back at our own apartment, of trying to vomit but couldn’t.

Can’t remember what time I finally slept, probably 4-5am.

Monday, 1st January 2007
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I woke up on the non-kai tao room with RB screaming for us to wake up. We checked out at nearly 12pm, picked up Jess, went to Petronas to refill our tanks for RM50, then went to another beach to release a crab that RB and WH caught.

Last look at the crab.

Yeah it was quite hot. For the three days we were there, the weather forecast that Suet had looked up for turned out to be wrong :D (it was forecast to be raining three days in a row we were to be there)

Then we went to Jess’ auntie’s place to have a buffet lunch woot.

Damn nice okay. The wild boar’s meat was excellent, the fried rice was just different than the usual ones we always eat. WH also somehow banged his already cracked toenail against the table and it bled, and er the rest made loads of jokes out of it of chopping the toe off.

(I also sustained all sorts of cuts on the soles of my feet thanks to the not visible corals in the sea.)

After being introduced to this stall with a supposedly tasty ais kacang (I had some funky cendol instead), we headed straight back home. Oh and RB had some bird dung falling right on top of his pants, which Jess’ mum kept insisting that it’ll bring good luck.

We used the Sepang road and lo and behold after 2-3 hours of driving through forests of oil palms and cows and some lonely towns, it was only then did Shawn (who was leading my car) realise that we were lost.

We drove 108km straight to Klang (I thought at first they wanted to evade paying the RM4 tolls cause we didn’t pass a single toll). When we finally stopped by one of the petrol stations (Esso was it?) for a toilet break, Shawn told us that we were somewhat lost but we were gonna use the Klang way to reach home. There wasn’t any communication with the other car through the walkie-talkie since it had low batteries.. and too bad we didn’t listen to Ding when he said “Eh I thought need to turn right?” at the cross junction when Shawn turned left.

So 3 hours later (which would normally take an hour to reach home), we reached Klang and went to Teluk Gong for our dinner. Delicious crabs with some exotic sauce (oklah I suck at describing food, what else you want me to say.. heavenly texture and tribal ambience and stuff?), got lala mee, got taufu.. etc.

Shawn and RB also got conned when this dude approached our table whether we want to buy durians. 4 of us didn’t want (me included), so when we told them we’ll buy the durians later, the idiot told us that they were gonna leave soon blablabla.

Then Shawn and RB followed him, and they returned 5 minutes later with 7 durians costing RM180 wtf. Apparently it had cost RM300 but they managed to bargain it down to RM180. Their modus operandi? Cut open the durians at lightning speed (really!) and offering unsuspecting buyers to eat them. When they finally tasted every single durian, they had no choice but to buy them. That’s when our two dear friends realised they kena con. wtf. lol good luck indeed. >.>

And to add insult to injury, the fucker who said that he was going to leave soon was found walking around from table to table selling the overpriced durians heh.

Oh well lesson learnt I guess. I probably won’t buy any fruits, let alone durians, alone from now on (unless in supermarkets lah).

Reached home at 9pm after zooming through the highway, went out again to RB’s place at almost 10.30pm to get the PD pics and taste the overpriced durians with Suet, Esther, Andy, and Shawn there before I left at midnight.

I think that’s what we really need – a holiday with a bunch of close friends to break away from all the monotony and rigorous routine of college/Form 6 life. There’s this tinge of sadness at having to leave a place we had so much fun from, as it has always happened on every vacation. Of not wanting to leave. Of wishing we could just stay there together forever.

I loved our impromptu karaoke when we sang in cars, sang songs on the way to our apartment, sang together on a beach like a bunch of lunatics.. it’s as if we’re displaying to everyone else how.. united we were, for the lack of a better word.

This PD trip in which I have almost next to zero expectations turns out to be great after all (yeah, always keep the expectations low). And I think this new year would mean a lot to me.. since I don’t have to keep my.. real self from a few friends I hold dear to – and it’s literally as if we’ve been ushered into a completely new year to start anew on a different track.