Monday, November 26, 2007

A night's visit to Kuala Lumpur ...

Over the weekend, Sandy and I attended a wedding in KL, Malaysia. Yes, I know I have been travelling lots for weddings overseas. I guess that's a good reason to escape from the hectic life we have here in Singapore.

In Malaysia, many say they experience a total different pace of life. Things move much slower than that in Singapore. I agree totally especially when it comes to traffic jams. So is the pace of life really slower than in Singapore? I don't know what factors should be taken in for a comparison.

Nevertheless, we travelled with Baya and Ma, Uncle Richard and family. A journey of almost 11 hours to and fro, I have to say a night in KL is not enough. It can be rather tiring and too much of a rush but what was heart warming was that we got to see many relatives we hardly ever get to meet.

We stayed a little further away from the city in a town called Petaling Jaya or PJ in short. Royale Bintang became 'home' for a night. We stayed in a family room. Quite cosy but the aircon in my room wasn't cold enough. I think they forgot the quarterly maintenance. No complains about the location of the hotel as there are some malls in the vicinity to help us tide our boring afternoon before the wedding dinner.

Dinner was held at a resort not that faraway from where we stayed. There we were greeted with familiar faces that we have not seen for awhile. Grand Aunt Rita, all the way from Canada, to attend Ian's wedding and Granduncle Don from Ipoh. He has to be there, afterall its his son who is getting married.

So now to the stars of the night, the bride and groom. Its weird when we were introduced to Lai Yeen there and then. Its funny cause whenever she visited Singapore, we never had the opportunity to meet up with her so we had our first encounter with our new relative - an aunt who is younger than I am. Don't be mistaken. Uncle Ian isn't an old man.

Its going to be a long story on how come both my Uncle Ian and Aunt Lai Yeen are younger than me yet I have to call them Uncle and Aunt. You figure that out yourself. It aren't at all difficult.

Whatever it is, we enjoyed the evening in the company of relatives. Its a pity my parents and siblings weren't there if not it would have been more fun with those two brothers of mine for company.

So when the dinner ended, we made our way back to the hotel but not before getting ripped off by some weird 'taxi drivers'. I have to say, the resort is rather deserted, there were no taxis in sight at all. Now you know why traffic is bad in Malaysia cause almost every family has a car, not only a car but sometimes, many cars.

I guess its time for Malaysia to also implement COE like in Singapore, this will help lessen the cars on the roads. This way, traffic won't be that terrible but the authorities will still face resistance and that comes in protests for racial rights which took place on Sunday. Indian rights to be exact. Thankfully, they didn't manage to trace my Indian roots if not, I too would have been kicked in the arse like what we saw on the news channel.

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