My one month trip back to Msia turned out to be one full of surprises. My internship didn't start untill the end of my 2nd week home and it only lasted for 2 days. A visit to a doctor turned out to be a surgery and a 7-day hospital stay. In between that, I hosted 3 couchsurfers and one girl we met in Zouk. Ryan's from Hong Kong, Colin's from Sarawak, Jeff is from Kelantan and Felicia is from KL. They reached Ipoh at about 3 am [Sunday], then we went to get supper at a mamak, chilled for a while, drank some Southern Comfort, and then Ryan wanted to catch the sunrise. So we drove up to Gopeng, had breakfast and went white water rafting. It was all totally unexpected! We had lunch then came back to Ipoh. Rested till about 6 p.m., went to have dinner/Guinness Draught at MP. We got our supply of booze and headed back to Gopeng for a full night of drinking and smoking some legal herb... good times.
The next day, we spent some time dry abseilling, singing along to songs like "Belaian Jiwa", "I'm yours" and "Hotel California" while the staffs at the resort strummed the guitar... before leaving, we took some great shots at the waterfall. We had an amazing and cheap dinner [our first meal of the day] at Lawan Kuda. We've been drinking beer since we woke up, and had more beer during dinner. Jeff and Felicia took the bus back to KL while Ryan and Colin headed up to Thailand and got there at 11:30 p.m., and spent the night on the beach in Songkla. Tomorrow's a big day - the surgery.
My hospital visit was a pleasant one. The surgery went well, the food was great, the nurses were kind, I had my own TV with StarMovies on 24/7 and my MacBook[I was on FaceBook almost every minute of the day... for 7 days!! lol] and my mum brought me a huge stack of movies.
After getting discharged from the hospital, I decided to just take it easy and rest at home for the day. The next day however, for the entire week I spent every night drinking at bars like Krave, Barbeza and Barroom. Yeah, every evening/night. It was rather exhausting I gotta admit. But it felt good spending time with some of my friends... reminds me of my worry-free days. It reminded me again why I left my life in the U.S. and spent 30 hours traveling halfway across the world, twice!! You guys know who you are and you know I'd always have you guys in my heart no matter where I am and what I do or how long it will be until we get to hang out and be crazy again.
During my last week in Malaysia, I spent that Monday in Penang with Sneha, Matt, and the rest of the group.... 10 of us.. on an impromptu trip... we took the boat out to an island.. fooled around... had fresh coconut and mangosteen!!! yumm..!!! I don't think we get mangosteens here in the U.S. I guess we all didn't feel like leaving but we had to. Mat had a 10 p.m. bus to Singapore. Sneha sped 140km/hr all the way back and we were 5 minutes late. I think his mum was pretty pissed, so was everyone else in the bus... oh well!
The next day, Sneha and I went to Pangkor for a 2-day reunion trip. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. There were 9 of us, from the same highschool. I knew some of them since I was 13, some even before that. I haven't seen most of them since we graduated high school. It's been 4 years and to add to that, we're extremely different from each other, from our personalities, background, college experiences... I'm glad to say it turned out quite well. It was good to see them again, regardless of our differences back in high school. We made a pact to have a reunion again, 4 years from now, in Europe!!
We came back on Wednesday night and I met up with Sze-Ryn, one of my best friends and I haven't seen her in about 2 years!! I had so much to talk to her about... I wanted to know all about her life in Dublin and I wanted her to know all about my life in the U.S. But things got a lil awkward, not that I mind the presence of her friend, but it did change the way things turned out. Anyways, we went out for drinks... and more drinks... and let's just say it was an interesting night.
Thursday was really just more drinking and packing!! Oh, and I met up with some of the girls from my Ballet class.. and I haven't seen them in more than a decade!!! isn't that crazy? They're all over the world now.. one is married in the U.S., one is in London, one is in Scotland, one is at a university in KL... crazy how time flew...
My parents and I left for KL on Friday. My mum and I went shopping at The Garden and someone unexpected met up with us. I was so sure Kee Loon would have so much fun shopping with us! lol..
Later that night, I met up with a couple of my closest friends and some of their friends as well at Republic. We had beer, shots, cocktails, and it went on... and on and on... untill about 3 am, we went to Ben's house to hang out.
I looked at the clock, "oh shit" it's 5.15 a.m. I'm supposed to be getting ready to leave to the airport. My dad's calling. I had to leave. It was surprisingly hard this time. Since I left for the U.S. 3 years ago, I've only been back once a year, 2 weeks at the shortest and 2 months at the longest. Goodbyes for me are not supposed to be hard anymore. And yet this time, it was emotional, even from the least expected person. I'll miss them, for sure, even more than before, perhaps because my life is even more uncertain now than ever before, now that I'm graduating, or maybe we realize we're all growing up, we're not who we were 4 years ago.
On the way to the airport, I got a phone call. One of my best friends got into some serious trouble. And I was helpless...
The 30-hour journey was rather uneventful. The food was great, so was the service. I slept a whole lot and watched tons of movies... again! =)
I reached at midnight, and went straight to my old house for the 4th of July party!! It was great to see Jenna again and to meet the new housemates. It's good to be back...
now back to reality...
graduating soon - check
homeless - check
unemployed - check
car is officially a junk - check
officially broke - check
Life is good! =)
