Signs of Old Age

I went up to Genting Highlands for a night the day before yesterday. It was a casual trip among a few friends who wanted to make use of our holidays, so I tagged along. We left KL late afternoon, so it wasn’t until evening that we reached there. Then we spent almost another hour waiting to check-in to our rooms because we were 60+ away from the queue count.

The first thing that we did after checking in was actually searching for a place for dinner. When I came across this somewhere in the indoor theme park:

Who in the right mind would put something as horrifying as that smack in the middle of the theme park? That thing has been there for as long as I can remember, but I don’t remember it being that scary. I don’t know if the red paint on its face is supposed to be makeup or an act of sabotage (which is unlikely as it could’ve been taken care of easily), but it’s horrifying. I’m psychologically scarred for life.

There isn’t really much to do in Genting if you don’t take into account the casino and the theme park. Of all things, we watched Ocean’s Thirteen in Genting Highlands. We didn’t had anything better to do so oh well. I’ve watched the two previous movies in the series and I’d say the third isn’t that bad either. After the movie everyone was in the mood for the casino. Again, I tagged along for the lack of better things to do. All I did there was looking at money flow like water. Huge amounts of money. Waited for my friends to finish their thing and we went to Coffee Bean after that. After the customary supper, we went back to our rooms and instead of sleeping, we were mashing buttons on the PS2 which Howard was kind enough to bring. That lasted until about 4, only then were we able to settle down and go to bed. Though sleeping wasn’t such a lovely affair, especially when four people have to share a queen-size bed.

Waking up the next day with a sore neck, we had a quick breakfast in McDonalds. After that we split up into two groups – the Addicted Gamblers and the Inexperienced Themepark-goers. Guess which group I belonged to.

Our first ride of the day – the Corkscrew rollercoaster, notably the most “exciting” rollercoaster in Genting. That gave me a headache.

Our second ride was the spinning suspended chairs thingy, no idea what it is called but it made me all woozy.

We waited for the Space Shot to open, and that made my heart popped out. It is without a doubt the most exhilarating ride in Genting. I am afraid of heights to begin with, which only made it frightening instead. I’ve been on it a couple of times, but it’s not something you could easily prepare yourself for.

We went on another smaller rollercoaster, which gave me a swell on my shin because the seat was too small (read: I’m too big for it).

The last and most devastating “ride” was the ride home. Self-explanatory.

Genting made me feel old.

Burnt Later

And so, after a couple of hours on the road, we were in Port Dickson. This time we stayed in Sunshine Bay Resort, which isn’t such a bad place. Much better than the ones in Genting, though. We were pretty enthusiastic about getting our barbeque pit started at first. At first. While we were hanging around the lobby waiting for our rooms to be ready, the sun was shining bright, the evening was looking good. For about 15 minutes….

_{Now you don’t see, now you do =.=”}

We managed to get sea view rooms, though. At least that’s a bonus for having to stay inside. I have to admit, the view was pretty good.

_{The horizon was glowing. The one on the right was taken from the beach itself.}

It rained, and rained, and rained. It didn’t stop. We were all hungry. We waited for a couple of hours, hoping it would stop. It didn’t. As a last resort, we abandoned our plans for barbeque and drove out to the nearest restaurant.

_{Best meal ever. At that moment.}

After the meal we got back to our hotel to rest. And we were still hoping that the rain would stop, didn’t really stop until it was past midnight. In the mean time we got our bodies twisted and back aching from Twister.

_{*ooh my back hurts*}

We played a couple of rounds to determine the overall loser. There was going to be a punishment.

_This.

Poor Ivan. Somehow, he always end up being the victim. For whatever it may be.

After the Twister session, some of us went to the beach’s pub to have a drink. After which we hanged out on the beach searching for little crabs. By that time, the rain had stopped and the guard actually told us we could start barbequing. The ones who were on the beach wanted to do so, but the rest in their rooms were less interested. After much debate, we decided to call it off anyhow and just go to bed.

Here comes the shocker. We all woke up early to start a fire. We were barbequing in the afternoon. Like the sun wasn’t hot enough! I mean, whoever actually barbeques in the afternoon?? But we didn’t have much choice because all our food was already prepared and we had to finish it somehow. So we carried on roasting our chicken wings and sausages while the Sun roasted us.

_{Starting up the fire, with shade courtesy of…}

_{The Umbrella Boys! *cough*}

_{Little crabbies.. doing something…}

This is where my pictures stop. After the barbeque, the temptation to jump into the swimming pool is too hard to resist. It was a huge relief. For once, I appreciated that fact that the water was cold. But then again, I knew very well I was going to get sunburnt, but oh what the heck. I didn’t stay too long because all of us had to get packing to leave.

Update: While we were cleaning up after the barbeque, there were two leftover uncooked eggs. Phil told me to bury it in the sand. As ridiculous as it may seem, (:P) he said that the hot sand would cook the eggs. So we really did bury them and were planning to come back after the swim to collect the supposedly cooked eggs. And…. we didn’t. Now I’m hoping chicks would pop out from them

We all left Port Dickson at about 3. We went back to KL to have our dinner, and our trip has officially ended.

It was a good one.

Things will be changing from now on.

Frozen First

I got back from a relatively long holiday trip some time ago. Lazy Couldn’t find time to blog about it. It started off as a pretty hectic day. I drove back to KL from my hometown, reached at 5 in the evening, and had to both unpack and pack for the other trip at 7. Phil was coming to pick me up for dinner before we all leave to Genting Highlands. But as usual, delays happened, we waited for another friend for quite a while before we he arrived. By the time we start our journey, it was 9+. There was a bit of a problem with one of my friend’s car.. it was struggling to keep up at the highway…. on straights. And Genting is a long way up. We had to stop and take some weight off his car before going uphill, yet it was still doing 60 centimeter/hour. It took us a record of almost 2 hours to reach the top from Gombak.

Phil attempting to break the land speed record

The first night we stayed in Ria Apartment, but there was a big problem. There were only 2 rooms, and there were 11 of us. But my friends weren’t very bothered because they were thinking about something else – the casino. I wasn’t particularly interested, but I had to follow anyway. Cameras are prohibited in the casino so I didn’t manage to get any pictures, but it’s a shame because the casino is a pretty place. Considering we reach Genting so late that night, we didn’t go anywhere else besides the casino. I went back to the apartment a little earlier with a couple of my friends who weren’t playing at 4am. And that’s considered early.

_{Nice view taken on my way back to the apartment}

Throughout the night, I had difficulties sleeping. It was FREEZING. I had to sleep on the bed frame because the mattress was taken down for others to sleep on. I had no pillows because they’re also given to others. I had to use a towel as my pillow and my blanket was the bed sheet! I couldn’t feel my feet most of the time. Lucky it’s still working.

_{This is what the cold does to people. This is Ken in particular.}

The next morning was when we felt the full extent of the freezing temperature. It was so cold I couldn’t stand still. I couldn’t feel my feet! Some of my friends started a fire in the kitchen for heat. We were that desperate. I could feel the cold through my jacket. I took the the hairdryer and attempted to revive my feet. That only the beginning of our fears. The water was cold. Like refrigerated cold. If you want to know how it feels to wash up in the morning in Genting Highlands, sleep with your air-cond set to minimum temperature, wake up in the morning and grab a bottle of cold water from the fridge and wash your face with that. It’s so cold it makes me squeal like a girl hurts. To make things worse, the heater isn’t working like it’s supposed to, which left us with enough hot water for like… 2 people? I don’t even dare to think about taking a bath that morning. *shudders*

_{Kept me alive in the morning.}

We actually had to move to another apartment because more friends were coming and the one we were staying in couldn’t fit all of us. At first we hauled all our butts and luggage to Kayangan Apartment, but what an unpleasant surprise when we got there. The condition of the apartment was horrendous. None of us felt comfortable there, so much so that we requested for a change. That led us back to Ria Apartment, so we had to carry all our luggage back. But nobody was complaining, they were more than happy to leave that spooky place. The apartment we got is slightly bigger than the previous one, but as long as it felt comfortable and had hot water, it’s mighty fine by me. Before we moved, went for lunch… somewhere. I think my brain doesn’t work under abnormal temperatures. Now that I think about it, where the heck did we had our lunch? I remember how the food court looks like, but I don’t remember how to get there. I hope my brain is fully thawed now.

We didn’t do much after lunch. It was late afternoon already, and we just went back to our apartment as we had to get ready the food for the steamboat dinner that we’ve planned. I just took pictures here and there, covering _rape scenes, as well as being a _victim. Many great pants untouchables have fallen this time because we had a unstoppable hoard of maniacal gay rapists. The pictures you see here are carefully selected in order to be accepted by the general public and in order to prevent my site from being shutdown for displaying explicit materials.

_{Lynda had a great deal in preparing the food.}

_{While the rest… well…}

The raping continued until dinner was ready. The same hoard of maniacal gay rapists all stopped for food, and there was order. For a while. When dinner was over, the raping continued.

_{This brought order. For a while.}

_{As the raping continues, even the great Marvin fell to the perverse hands.}

After pants were stripped and macro shots of underwears were taken, many of them were off to the casino again. I didn’t want to go there again so I followed a smaller group of friends and went to Coffee Bean for a drink. After the drink… guess where we went. Right. So we were in the casino. Again. Something funny happened there, though.

_{Coffee Bean = Overpriced kopitiam}

_{I don’t know what this is supposed to be, but it’s nice.}

I was observing my friend playing Casino Wars – a lame name for see-whose-card-is-bigger game. So there was this game where the dealer dealed a 4 to the first player on the table, then the second, then himself. I thought, wow, three 4s in a single hand. Because it was a tie, cards were dealt again. The next thing I knew, the fourth 4 came out. I was like, wow! What’re the chances of that happening?! When I was actually counting the probability of that (I had a lot of time in hand), the fifth 4 came out. That moment, I actually thought the dealer was cheating. Until my friend explained to me that there are two decks of cards being dealt. Right……. Paiseh.

That night we didn’t stay too late at the casino because we had to get up early the next morning. Some of them however did stay very long because it was their last day to gamble. Hmmm.. what’s so fun with gambling?

The next morning, we were ready to leave. No trip would be complete without a group photo!

_{Lovely view that morning!}

_{Say freeeeeze!}

On the way down from Genting, we were overtaken…. by bicycles. No, we weren’t driving that slow. In fact, I was with Phil – our class’s reputed speed demon. We couldn’t catch up even when we tried! They had nothing but flesh and bone… and maybe a helmet but they were hurtling down the hill like rockets. I guess they didn’t had fear as well. I was so shocked I forgot to take pictures. While we were all recovering from the shock, another cyclist came from behind but he wasn’t as fast the ones before. At least not fast enough to overtake us.

_{Extreme cycling. Seriously.}

Well, the Genting trip was great. We all had a great time, and nobody had problems. I think.

Next stop – Port Dickson!

_{To be continued…}

Cold Mountain

The Genting trip I had a few days back was pretty cool. As always, there aren’t much to do in Genting anyway. But I didn’t stay long there. Barely 24 hours I think. It was way crowded. Very, very crowded. It’s as though the whole Malaysia (and parts of India and China too) decided to go there at the same time. I never liked crowds, and this is no exception. Fortunately, although it did get crowded the temperature remained cool. At least cool enough to keep me cool

Me and my friends didn’t go out much, so I only managed to get a small handful of shots. I never can get good night shots, as I don’t have a tripod. With all the heavy mist around, the flash was practically useless. I only managed to come up with a few shots like these:

Those pictures look kinda spooky, don’t they?