10 Dec 2008 - 8 Jan 2009

I have finally stopped being a tourist (following Cyrus' leaving from Malaysia). From my first arrival at Sydney till Monday a few days ago, I had travelled for quite some time.

Adelaide
My holiday really started from Sydney. I was way too busy in Adelaide to feel like having a holiday. Had to do Church Carols stuff, accompanying some people doing their auditions and exams. I even had to "sight read" Alex's audition stuff, as he asked me in the last few hours before his audition, because he forgot about it!

Then I left Adelaide for Sydney on the 10th December.

Sydney
Sydney was awesome. I was fetched by Dickson from the airport (thanks, Dickson!). Then I stayed at his house for nearly the whole time (apart from the 2 nights I stayed at the Blue Mountains). I first started cooking for the two of us, but in the end Dickson's mum came and she cooked instead. It was really awesome, as she is such a nice person! She practically mum-ed me! Cooked for me, washed my clothes, ironed my clothes, tidy up after me, etc. I kinda feel bad as the only thing I do is wash the dishes after each meals.

I did quite a few stuffs, like meeting Andreas (who has got a really long and awesome hair now), met up with Emily and Bernie, went to the beach, and did a whole lot of other things. And then Selina invited me over to her place at the Blue Mountains. It was great, I took a lot of photos, which are in my Facebook now. The party and everything was great there. So my Chrissie was spiffy.

Thanks to everyone who made my stay in Sydney really awesome! Especially to Dickson and his mum!

Flight to Kuala Lumpur was rather sad. It started off with me missing my Sydney-Melbourne flight because I thought the departure time was at 6:40pm when it really was at 6:10pm. It was stupid. When I finally got on the flight to KL from Melbourne, I was really tired and all. But when I woke up halfway through the journey, I thought my legs and bum were missing because I couldn't feel them due to numbness.

Kuala Lumpur/Kota Kinabalu
When I arrived at KL, it was really early and I was rather sleepy. I then waited for 2-3 hours from the time my flight was supposed to fly before my flight finally flew due to maintenance problems and thus, delay.

Met a Hongky girl who was going to Kota Kinabalu to climb Mount Kinabalu. I ended up sharing a cab, helping her getting a mobile phone card and finding her accommodation place. Something rather interesting happened when I checked into the hotel. The receptionist smiled at me too many times, and apparently I looked inviting and she gave me her phone number, which, of course, I threw away. I was rather annoyed really.

Met my parents and the rest of the extended family (they were stopping over for Shen Zhen). Then I tried to buy some sorta clothing for the wedding, but we failed. I ended up really sleepy due to the long flights and the lack of sleep.

Day 2 of KK was filled with awesomeness. I met up with Cyrus again, after 6 months or so! I saw Piao, Ricky, Miin, Margaret, Michelle, Reuben, Alison, Joe, Allen, Viv, etc. etc. too. So that was really awesome too. Chat a lot with Cyrus while eating and then went to buy some clothes for the thing at Padini's I think. At night was the rehearsals. After that, Joey took us for some Bak Kut Teh, which was awesome! Thanks Joey for taking us everywhere, especially the next day (which ended up rather a disaster due to bad traffic!).

Day 3 was cool. Played for Allen and Alison's wedding. It was great! Thanks to them for letting me play and I'm sure they will have a great marriage ahead! The reception was crazy! It all ended in the best exercise I performed in 2008! Joget and all with everyone who stayed after it. Alison's mum was super sanguine and she was dancing all over the place! That was really fun.

One of the awesomest thing is that Cyrus taught me how to tie a tie. Now I can tie a tie! Hoorah! Another funny thing was that I woke up one morning finding Ricky outside, sleeping on the sofa. Apparently our room was too hot, and erm, Ricky was kicked by me.

Kuala Lumpur
Woke up in KK, then flew to KL. Flight was delayed just for 10-20 minutes. Flight was smooth, the bus ride to KL Sentral was smooth too, except for a short traffic jam at the end, to which I decided not to take any of the bus. I hate the bus anyway.

Went to KLCC after checking in, and it was crazy! I met Steven Cheam, in front of the Dewan Filharmonic Petronas. He was getting back from work. So we all hung out. Met some of his friends too.

New years eve was pretty okay. We had one of the best views from the hotel of KLCC/Petronas Twin Towers where all the fireworks were, but we had forgotten about it and watched it at the randomest place! So it was rather ordinary.

The first day of 2009 was rather uneventful too. Did this and did that. Met up with Phei Xuen and it was cool. We clicked and talked and acted as if we had known each other for 100 years. Ate at a Japanese's, which was rather dumb, but I was hungry and couldn't think!

At night, we went to eat at the KFC's, another dumb thing to do because the KFC we went to was ridiculously sucky compared to the rest of Malaysia's. Internet cafe after that was refreshing! :D

The next day was the flight to Penang. Nearly missed the flight. Thank God the Indian taxi driver offered to take us straight to the airport, which costed us RM70, quite reasonable. Cyrus left his boarding pass somewhere, I think he actually dropped it. And for a while we were worried shitless. And then a lady returned the boarding pass to him. Flight was just a bit delayed and before we knew it we were in...

Penang
Went to Gurney Plaza first to wait for Miss Leong and then took the cab to Miss Leong's. Practiced for the wedding Miss Leong and I were supposed to play in and we dragged Ricky and made him play the violin for us. "I used to play the violin," made him the violinist, that's Miss Leong who is expert in delegating! Cyrus was made to play the egg shaker as he doesnt play any instruments. Stephanie got tagged along to, thanks to me! At night was hawkers food at Northam Cafe! Cyrus was running around the place like a little kid in a toy shop. Ricky looked indifferent, but was surely quite happy to be there.

The wedding on the next day was cool, played quite nicely. The morning was filled with great food! Ate this and that, we went Hawkers hopping with Christine (she was driving). Just before the wedding was madness trying to find some quick laundry place, of course we didn't find it, so we ended up just ironing our smelly clothes (from Alison's wedding). But Cyrus actually bought a new shirt, which looked rather nice, I tried one on and it made me look really fat. I then decided to just wear my old and smelly one, oops. And after the wedding, we went to Subaidah's for some Mamak food, which was rather pleasant. We took photos and videos of the foodmaking there.

Ricky left the next day :( and he didnt get to eat Laksa! That was quite a shame. Miss Leong actually took us to Penang road for some Laksa then! That was rather sad, because we were taken there once Ricky left. Ricky was screaming out and calling out for Laksa throughout Penang and we didn't even take him there! We should have let Cyrus bring some frozen Laksa for him! Besides Laksa, we had some Chendul too. I forgot what we did after that. But at night, the food was, something too... I forgot. I think it was Passion of Kerala with Felix. Passion of Kerala was totally changed!

The last full day before Cyrus left was rather eventful. We went to Penang road again, to find food for Cyrus to bring back home. He got a lot of stuffs like dodol, instant Bak Kut Teh stuff, coconut sweets, etc. He also bought a lot of DVDs from Batu Ferringhi. At the arvo, we went to the beach in front of Miss Leong's and was going to do the parasailing thing, but didn't end up going because we both fly planes/gliders and parasailing wont be half as exciting as what we did anyway. Dinner at night was at Sunset Bistro with Steph and Christine too.

We didn't sleep at night because we were busy talking. Our talk was rather normal in the beginning and went a bit emo a bit later, as usual, happened before with me and Tom just before my Gr8 Piano exam! I stayed up till 6am then! But this time it was 5am, he then went to brush his teeth. Turns out that Miss Leong had been up for the whole night because she was worried that Cyrus couldnt wake up! I ended up falling asleep so didn't end up saying goodbye to Cyrus! Oh well.

Stayed home bullying Teri the whole day and using the internet that day. Went to Felix's, met Joey, Namie, Andrea, Nicola and Konstantin after our dinner at the Northam Cafe again. They drank a lot, while playing some sort of drinking game, which was rather lame. I, on the other hand, was such a good boy. I just drank Coke throughout the game :p

Slept then woke up today! Met Helen, Tom's mum, where she took me to the Corner Club to do some food review. Of course I was just tagging along for the great food! It was really great to eat so much food for free. I really liked some of the food, especially the Almond milk stuff they had. Worth checking out! Oh, I saw Mr. Web and Eric with Miss Leong at the Coffee Bean at Island Plaza. Mr. Web is working in Jordan now. And then we went back, Stephanie came too. Oh, I drove for the third time after like nearly a year! And the first time I drove, Cyrus said that I acted very calm. Of course I did! And Miss Leong said that I passed her driving test! :D

I took Stephanie to the hawkers, but I didn't know that Golden Beach or something like that closed down! So I took a turn, but upon taking it, I saw the road to the Uplands Boarding House. So I went there and met with Matron Juliana, Nurse Sarah, Film, Tong and Gilbert. Gilbert tagged along to the hawkers. I saw Mr. Newton there, and he looked great. It was awesome seeing old Uplanders!

This was what happened so far. It was really awesome, It felt like so much had happened in the last 2 weeks and I was really glad to meet up with a lot of friends I haven't met up with before especially Cyrus and Miss Leong and Stephanie. And today, Gilbert! More holiday awesomeness is going to happen!

Anyway, so yeah. I bought some season 5 House DVDs and been watching it. On the 3rd DVD out of 3 DVDs now. Gonna finish it soon!