I'm back with some travel stories !!

Gosh i know i've only been on a two-week holiday but it feels a lot longer than that probably because we have been travelling to so many different places and staying at so many different hotels so it felt like we've been travelling for ages.

I didn't really tell a lot of people i was going home to Malaysia maybe because i would have loved to meet up with so many friends and i could have done so but the main reason for going home was to see my family and i knew that in a short span of two weeks i wouldn't be able to achieve that so i concentrated on just seeing my family.

We started off flying from Gatwick and had a 3 hour stop-over at Dubai before continuing the second leg of the flight and landed in Singapore early morning. They were quite pleasant flights because my other half found out that towards the end of the aircraft there were three rows of two-seaters so he booked those seats for all our flights and it meant we didn't have to sit next to a stranger and also we had more room near the window to put our bags. The inflight entertainment system was brilliant and the food was delicious (i highly recommend Emirates for those intending to fly long haul). When we reached Singapore our travelling was far from over because on the same day in the evening, we then made our way to the railway station (which took a while to locate because it was quite old), with our big fat luggage we boarded the night train bound for Kuala Lumpur and arrived at the wee hours of the morning at KL Sentral. We then took the LRT to Masjik Jamek, dragging our big fat luggage we then walked to Puduraya and bought a bus ticket to go to Penang. By then we were both knackered and plus our body clock was really messed up. it was lucky we booked a deluxe cabin to ourselves on the train so we managed to get freshed up but there was no hope of having a good night's sleep as the train stopped at every possible station there was along the way.

At long last we arrived at Penang, and was 'conned' by the taxi driver (it is next to impossible NOT to be conned when you are travelling with an 'orang putih') and had to pay RM45 just to go from the bus station to our hotel at Feringghi Beach (those bloody cab drivers told us that the meter was no longer operating in Penang !!! puffffff). Anyway we finally got to the hotel and started exploring our surrouding areas and because it was way past lunch time nobody was serving lunch and we had to content ourselves with KFC. Can you believe that?? For months i was craving for all kinds of Malaysian delicacies and the first meal we had upon arriving in Malaysia was bloody Kentucky Fried Chicken !! After that we managed to find a car rental place and hired ourselves a little MYVI which i fell completely in love with. It was such an easy car to handle and i took no time at all to get used to driving it. My other half was fascinated by a notice in the car that he took a picture of it.

Like i was going to find any durian anyway, it wasn't even durian season (much to my disappointment).

So for the next few days, we drove home to see my parents and Steve even brought along some real vanilla pods so that he could make a cheesecake for my mum. Gosh it wasn't cheap making a real cheesecake in Malaysia because just for two small tubs of cream cheese they already cost us almost RM24 !! not to mention other bits and pieces like sour cream and lemon and digestive biscuits...

Of course mum cooked all kinds of delicacies wanting to impress Steve and poor Steve had to eat whatever was chucked onto his plate (but i think he really enjoyed my mum's curry prawns) and i was just happy that at last, after nearly 5 years of being together, my parents finally got to know Steve. And mum was happy with all kinds of chocolate and cookies that i had bought her which i managed to prevent from melting with lots and lots of tender loving care.

So after three nights at the Bayview Beach Resort at Batu Feringghi, we moved to another hotel in town, which is the Eastern and Oriental Hotel. And we were both blown away by the elegance and granduer of the hotel. It was a real classic beauty.

Well i will tell you all about the hotel and show you some pictures of the hotel in my next blog entry as it is currently lunch time and my stomach has other ideas... ciao.

Kindness

On Monday when i got to work i realised that i had lost the key to my set of drawers at my desk. I was convinced that i had lost it because before i left the house, i checked it and it was there. So when i got to work, despite having emptied all the contents from my unnecessarily big big handbag, it was nowhere to be found. So i concluded that it must have fallen out when i was pulling my coin purse out for my bus fare.

Then there was this whole palaver of trying to pick the lock with two paper clips (as if) and then me worrying about the important documents that i need and also about the fact that i have about 3001 teabags locked in my drawers that i can't get into !!!!!

I eventually gave up and decided to submit a request for someone in the estate department of the university to come and unlock the drawers and the waiting list was so long they could only come two days later !!! Can you imagine my panic, TWO WHOLE DAYS without my teabags??!!! NOOOOOO...

So this morning I was walking towards the bus stop and thinking to myself, i might find it at the bus stop (fat chance). And then suddenly, there it was, sitting on a fence in front of a house !! My precious little black key, just sitting there waiting for me to pick it up !!! And all of a sudden i was flooded with these giant waves of gratitude and appreciation for the kindness that is still existent in this present society. Some kind soul had found the key on the floor and left it on a fence for the 'desperate' owner to come find it !! (of course i was a little worried it might end up not being my key coz after all, keys do tend to look similar). But when i got to work, the key slotted perfectly into its hole and magically opened me up to my sources of my beloved tea !! blisssss....

It's little acts of kindness like these that make the world a better place to live in. I was contemplating leaving a little note to say 'thank you' and sticking it on the fence but would that seem a little too crazy?

Anyway, whoever it was, a big 'thank you'. Although it was not pressing matter to get to my drawers it was comforting to know that people still look out for one another, in some ways.