Tragedy of the Malaysians

Not quite a happy-sounding title, but my short trip to PD was anything but – I’ll come to it later as this entry goes on.

I initially thought I couldn’t make it when Shawn suggested the idea to me, Ding, and Andy when we were doing Japanese homework in Shawn’s room on Sunday, as I had a house-warming party organised by my uncle that I had to go after promising him that last week or so. A lengthy story cut short, it was then decided that I would go at night with Kai Tzin whereelse the rest would go in the morning.

At 7.45pm sharp on Wednesday’s first day of Hari Raya night, I was about to leave with my brother when my mum’s female cousin arrived and then I had to dispense with the usual customary greetings and small talk (OH and that cousin of my mum has an ex-colleague who is now the head of my RMIT office WTF so small world! And the PKR Information Chief Tian Chua is her brother.. who supposedly attended the party too but I must’ve missed him – could’ve asked whether the government takeover plan is really real or not wtf). By then some 5-10 minutes have passed, and I firmly made my leave, hopped into the car, and activated the GPS software Mapking in my phone.

It didn’t work. After moving the car for a mere 200 metres an error flashed across the screen “RT error. Storage out” and I had to stop by the roadside while I pondered what the fuck was the matter, because earlier at my uncle’s house, I had gone through the route I was supposed to use to go back home using the GPS and it was working fine back then.

I was getting jittery and pissed because I knew I was running late, and I was unfamiliar with the roads (as usual) around Bandar Mahkota Cheras. Eventually even after having my dad come over and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong too, I traded places with my bro so he would drive while I fiddled around with my GPS, and then talked to my dad on the phone for an entire 8 minutes while he told us in minute detail where to go to when we missed the turning that we were supposed to make and found ourselves hurtling straight to KL. Maxis’ Family Plus 30 plan came in handy here – all calls and SMSes I make to my dad are completely free!

It was also the first time that I used my 3G to connect to the Internet – in my desperation, I thought of googling for solutions to my problem right there and then (it was expensive, 1sen/kb) and didn’t find anything useful. Blabla another long story short, I traded SMS with Jess, we picked up Kai Tzin, went back to my house to do further googling on my laptop, picked up my camera bag, changed my Dockers into a more casual 3-quarter pants, and left at about 9.20pm-ish.

I was about an hour behind schedule. >_> So much for leaving at 8.30pm.

Another reason why I was jittery and pissed was because then in my car, you have two people who know nothing about the roads leading to Port Dickson via Sepang’s Elite Highway, and I wasn’t too keen of a 2006 New Year’s repeat of how Jess, Sarah, and I got lost from The Curve all the way to KL. The circumstances were all too similar – the other car had people who knew their roads very well, while my car had none.

Multiple phone calls had to be traded between Kai Tzin’s phone and Esther’s phone, in which Daniel told us some directions.. and both of us were momentarily confused when Ding told us to “turn right at the T-junction” when what we really encountered was a crossroad wtf. But yeah it turns out that it wasn’t really that difficult to go to PD, except that the dark unlit roads at night, coupled with some specific windy, curvy roads, were really scary to drive in.

When we finally reached what looked like a town, we heaved a sigh of relief. There were only about 25 kilometres or so (from what we saw on the signboard) from where we were, and then I tested my GPS again (after uninstalling Mapking, and used Garmin instead) and it.. worked! The GPS indicated that we were on the wrong road wtf when we were going to the actual PD town instead of “Pantai-pantai Peranginan” or something like that, and that we were only 2km away from Ding’s Sunshine Bay Resort. :D

The GPS is a joy to use (even though it’s a little slow in pinpointing our exact location), especially for people who are prone to get lost like me.

When we finally got into our unit on the 12th floor at nearly 11pm, there were everyone else including Yen.. Esther and I went out to get some cigs from the nearby petrol station (not for me of course wtf), then went to the 3rd floor where Shawn’s family was.. and we ate steamboat of which the ingredients they had excess.

Then we went back up to our own unit. (Most of the pics can be clicked to enlarge.)

“From this dark cold hotel room / And the endlessness that you fear” – lyrics from Sarah McLachlan’s Angel which I thought somewhat suit this picture wtf.

Group pic minus Shawn, who had to be downstairs teman his uncle chat or something.

We were all smiling/laughing like that ‘cause I said something about me being in between Esther’s legs wtf. Oh and Andy was also on the phone sempat pose until not so noticeable.

Another group pic.

Esther even brought her laptop along to go online.. while Andy was sipping his whiskey that he brought along.

The night scene of PD from the balcony.

We played this drinking game called 007 (Shawn still didn’t join us) and sipped quite a lot of the mixture of the whiskey and Coke – quick reflexes were needed, and for some reason my senses must’ve dulled a lot ‘cause I lost fairly a lot of times.

We were about to finish drinking it, when some suggested that we go out and buy alcohol to replenish our supplies. Me, Kai Tzin, Ding, and Esther went out, and both Kai and Esther said that my face was turning blue WTF…

After Ding nearly crashed his car as a result of speeding too fast and swerving drift-style wtf at a sudden corner that appeared out of nowhere, we arrived at 7-Eleven.. which obviously did not sell heavy liquor. The streets were bloody dead nary a soul (save for a 変なおじさん [strange uncle] that we spotted walking with a bottle of beer in his hand), and there was no KK Mart in which Esther said would sell the drinks that we wanted (fuyoh what a bunch of alcoholics we were).

Out of desperation, we eventually traded phone calls with Yen and Andy, and bought Shawn’s uncle’s Henessy VSOP cognac for RM200, which we found out was still unopened. We proceeded to buy 2 bottles of Coke from another 7-Eleven, went back, resumed our drinking game.. and then played a second drinking game which Esther taught us that revolved around using numbers, and saying it in a circle – can’t remember the name to this game.

OH there’s something else that I really wanted to say and I nearly forgot! The first Tragedy of the Malaysians:

Earlier at about 1am or so, these inconsiderate lalachai shufflers or whatever they were, were blasting their boombox of a speaker at maximum volume (you know, those pointless beats “boom-boom-boom” sigh I don’t know how to translate the beats into actual words) at 1 FRIGGING A.M. IN THE MORNING!

I was quite incensed at their gall for doing something like that, because I’m sure there were many other occupants at the same resort as well – and even at 12th floor we could hear their horrendous noise (I won’t confer the tunes coming out of their speakers as ‘music’, oh no I’m not so kind) penetrating the otherwise soothing silence of the night.

And so I did any peace-loving Malaysian ought to do – call the police! The usual term I saw “menganggu ketenteraman awam” in BM essays truly rang true then.

I first dialed 999, and waited for what seemed like sufficient time to see my son enter kindergarten WTF. Now I was even more incensed that an emergency hotline failed me, because what if I was really in an emergency and needed help (actually I did call 999 once in an actual emergency and no, NO ONE answered it despite dialling the number repeatedly)! I would’ve been murdered/robbed/kidnapped/whatever by the time someone actually answers the bloody emergency hotline, which didn’t live up to its name.

So sigh never mind, what a hopeless hotline, let’s call 103, the directory number, I thought. Someone promptly answered the phone (even at 1am mind you, on a Hari Raya no less, props to Telekom Malaysia for once) and I asked for Port Dickson’s police station’s phone number. It was duly given, and I then rang the number.

My son had then entered an Ivy League wtf. (Sorry if you didn’t get the joke. >_> It’s lame I know.) I phoned them repeatedly until my friends had to ask me to get off the phone and to give it up. :( What the fuck wei, both the emergency number 999 and the local police station didn’t pick up my phone calls at all! This is an utter disgrace – even if it’s a public celebratory holiday, if I really have an actual emergency and because of them failing to answer my phone call I suffer something horrible, I will sue their ass.

Okay on with the drinking program.

We just drew the sliding door shut in the end to keep the drowning noise from the beach from disturbing us, and turned on our own music instead from Esther’s laptop. This pic was snapped after we came back from purchasing Shawn’s uncle’s VSOP.

Getting ready for the continuation of our drinking session.

It ended up with me talking and singing really loudly to ABBA’s music coming from the pirated Mamma Mia! DVD that Esther bought and brought along (eventually they shut it off ‘cause I think I was getting too excited or something wtf, and hushed me when, if I recall correctly, police actually arrived at the beach beneath us or something) and then from my phone. I was also getting quite cocky with the second drinking game we played, proclaiming that I wouldn’t lose at all ‘cause it was too easy – despite losing for a few rounds when I was distracting by singing ABBA, I still remained confident and didn’t actually lose from then on. :) It’s amazing how my concentration powers are still so attuned when I was tipsy.

The next thing I knew, I woke up next to Esther in bed wtf.

Woke up at 8am with a searing need to use the toilet – I seem to have an unusual system in my body unlike any others: whenever I consume loads of alcohol, the next morning it’s likely that I’ll descend into a stomach-expelling frenzy, it’s as if my body is rejecting the toxins that I’m injecting into myself. And I learned from a sleepy Sarah that apparently most of them slept at 5am.. swt. I probably KO-ed at about 3am along with Kai Tzin.

Seeing the rest still fast asleep with nothing else to do, I took the liberty to snap some pictures from the balcony of the 12th floor.

The morning overcast view from the balcony.

It’s disheartening to see loads of liberally-disposed paper plates and food wastes around the beach instead of the bins – it’s the second Tragedy of the Malaysians. Luckily there were some garbage collectors picking them up an hour later, otherwise it really was a sore sight. Stupid ugly Malaysians! >=(

The rest who slept at the living room.

We ate steamboat again for lunch wtf, while watching a few episodes of Gossip Girl Season 1 that Kai brought along. At about 1.30pm we left, Kai Tzin and Esther sat in my car. I was following Daniel’s car closely until we reached the KLIA extremely long, straight highway, where Ding sped like crazy (probably around 140km/h) which I tried to follow till Kai chided me and asked me to be safe lol.

Eventually reached home at around 3.20pm-ish.

Then at night, Jon picked me and Andy up and we went to Marco’s Pizza, Kelana Jaya!

The signature Marco’s pizza that we ordered – it was really good!

Can’t remember the name to this pizza, but it wasn’t as good as Marco’s.

I liked the place – brightly lit, modern atmosphere, with televisions showing different channels around us.

Damage done to the wallet: RM27 per person, for 2 large pizzas and an ice lemon tea each.

On the way back at about 9pm-ish (there was also a strange flash of light that illuminated the surrounding for about a second, which we figured could be lightning without the thunder as there was no sound), Jon picked Ding up, then went back to my house to pick up my laptop, then went back to Jon’s house again to play DotA. When we were ready to go back at about 1am.. Jon had to fetch us back wtf.

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I’m so happy that my laptop has finally rid itself of nasty trojans – it was very tricky to fix, and one that requires me to post my HijackThis log at hijackthis.de, and this amazing volunteer dude helped me out through the one-week process of cleaning my laptop up (he IS a volunteer after all, so I don’t expect it to be done very quickly). But the bottomline is, much as we hate the Internet for the viles that it brings, it’s the Internet too where we find reminders that the world is still alright.