forgotten

Are we still buddies? 

Does the friendship still exist?

Growing up, sharing experiences

Memories, secrets, stories

Forgotten

Are we still friends?

I pray for you sometimes

Vague in my thoughts you appear

Though I'm never in yours

Forgotten

Are we still sisters? 

Fought over the smallest things

Said things without fear of being judged

A language no one understood

Forgotten

Are we still buddies?

Friends?

Sisters?

Will we ever be the way we used to be?

college

After months of deciding, I finally enrolled in Methodist College KL's March intake of the A-Levels programme. 

I am a Marchie. 

Orientation was two days long, starting Monday, 24th March. We were asked to wear formal clothes (clothes you'd wear to work), and I actually had to buy a skirt and a couple of button-down shirts because I had none. The ultimate reason is because formal clothing usually require ironing, and my lazy bottom did not fancy doing that. But what choice did I have? 

On the morning of the first day of Orientation, I was heavy-eyed (due to being used to waking up at 11am for the past three months) and extremely nervous. It was still dark out as I put on my (cough) ironed clothes and got ready for... College. 

I'm not sure if every new student feels like this (or if I'm actually just a legitimate nerd), but I was insanely excited for college. Not being able to meet people my age every day and having to work (if you could call what I did "work") was driving me crazy (not to mention bored) and signing up for college was the best decision I have ever made this year. 

Dad drove me to MCKL, where I registered and got all the paperwork done. We Marchies were shown to the auditorium where we were briefed on the general rules of the college and the subjects of the A-Level programme. 

And we were made to sing the MCKL song thrice. Who knew colleges had anthems? (It sounds suspiciously like the Sri Sempurna song, by the way.)

The two days of Orientation passed in a blur of long briefings and awkward breaks. Being new (and a little shy), I made no new friends on the first day, but thank God for Alex who had lunch with me and took away any chance of my looking like a loner. On the second day however, I made friends with Elvin and Lavinia who were both in my group for Treasure Hunt, which was held at the end of Orientation. 

The third to fifth day was ruled by the Student Council of MCKL. They made us wear school uniforms on the third day, capes on the next day and towels (on the head for girls and around the waist for boys) on the following day. A council member drew a Hitler-inspired moustache on my face for not wearing a cape around. No one was wearing a cape around.

Anyway, we got our Pre-U stamps for our courage to allow ourselves to be humiliated (i.e. Wearing capes and towels), so it wasn't all that bad. 

Everyone in the college is basically nice and friendly; I haven't met any snobs so far. I made more friends over the next few days, and spent most of the time with Dhakshyane, whom I call Shyane (pronounced "Shiny"). She's hilarious and really fun to be with and YES SHYANE YOU ARE BEING FEATURED IN MY BLOG. BE HONOURED. 

Being in college makes me feel very young, a little inferior, yet sort of proud that I made it this far. I'm just glad I'm tall enough to pass off as an eighteen-year-old :B

The lecturers are not as scary and distant as I thought they would be. The workload is manageable (so far), although our maths lecturer is slowly killing us with two chapters in just two lessons. Seven exercises for homework in a day, no big deal! (inwardly crying)

Oh! And college has put me in a position I have never been in before: taking public transport. I take the LRT to and from college, and Friday was the first time I have ever taken it alone. Of all days, the train had to get stuck two stations before mine, and, to cut the long story short, I got home an hour later than I was supposed to. 

ADVENTURE! 

So yes, first week of college has been nerve-wracking at first, awkward along the way, and fun in the end. Can't wait for Orientation Camp this coming Friday! 

Macau: Day One (Part 2)

09.03.14 (night)

After getting our much-needed rest, we proceeded to head out to explore the Macau nightlife.

As I've mentioned earlier, my mother had done tons of research on Macau's popular restaurants. The agenda for tonight was to eat at a Portuguese restaurant named A Lorcha. We tried making reservations for dinner, but it was fully packed. The restaurant told us that we could come in at 9pm, which meant we had to wait for a while before we could take a cab to A Lorcha.

walkin' around, enjoying the cold air.
yes, neon lights in the background.

This is the part where it gets a bit desperate. At about 8:30, we hailed a taxi and told him we wanted to go to A Lorcha. Like many taxi drivers in Macau, he told us he didn't know these "English" words, and asked us for the Chinese name of the restaurant or the name of the area around it. We told him a couple of landmarks around the place and showed him a map on the iPad. He agreed to take us there.

Turns out he knew where those landmarks were and took us to a hotel nearby (but not really, as we found out soon enough). He said, "Okay, the restaurant should be around here," and dropped us off. Feeling a little hungry and cold, we walked briskly down the road to find the restaurant, expecting it to be just around the corner.

After what seemed like hours, (okay, maybe just fifteen minutes), we still could not find A Lorcha. Our hands were numb from the cold and we were all shivering in our jackets. The streets and shops having no signboards made everything worse. We walked up and down, turned left and right, but could not locate the restaurant. We finally decided to ask around.

Feeling desperate, we stepped into a nearby restaurant and asked the shopkeeper were A Lorcha was (I know, I know, asking a restaurant owner where another restaurant is isn't exactly the nicest thing to do). Like many of the locals that we've encountered in Macau, he was not very polite and didn't seem very willing to help. After many attempts of trying to translate the Portuguese names into a Cantonese phrase, we finally got directions to the place (the locals here have a seriously low command of English, for some reason).

The restaurant, we discovered, was nearby, if you were driving. Walking there would be quite a distance, let alone it being winter. We trudged on, determined to find the famous Portuguese restaurant. After goodness-knows-how-long of walking on dark, empty sidewalks, the A Lorcha sign was spotted.

PRAISE THE LORD, our stomachs said.

The interior was an imitation of a ship-like room:

quite cute, isn't it?

The head waiter (or maybe he was the boss) introduced some best-selling dishes to us:

the buns came with the following dish

these clams are really popular

mixed seafood rice with portuguese sauce
(includes prawns and oysters)

chicken in portuguese sauce

Review: This restaurant deserves all its high ratings! Obviously, the warmth of the food makes everything taste better, but I've never tasted such delicious Portuguese sauce. It's authentic and feels very homemade, with a nice creamy texture and a taste that could make you quite addicted to it. The clams' sauce is for the bread, and the combination works perfectly. The amount of seafood they give is ridiculously much, especially the four to five large oysters that they serve. I'm usually a picky eater, but there was no picking for me in this restaurant! Each and every dish we'd ordered came in a large portion, but we polished the platters clean. It was just that yummy.

Looks like all that walking was worth it! 

Getting some warm food (and some really delicious food at that) down our bodies had re-energized us, and we left the restaurant feeling satisfied. But to our dismay, we realized we were a little lost as to how to get back to the hotel. We did not know how the public transport worked here, and not a single taxi seemed to stop for us. We stood there shuddering in the cold, with the biting wind hitting our faces.

We finally decided to take a leap of faith and study the bus timetables and lines. We hopped onto a bus that was heading toward Lisboa, a landmark hotel/casino near our hotel. The warmth in the bus was welcoming. I've never felt so comfortable in a bus before. It was also one of the first few times I've taken public transport, and that's inclusive of the times I took public transport in Malaysia.

The bus headed to where we expected, and we reached the Lisboa bus stand safe and sound.

Casino Lisboa in full neon at night.

My dad thought it'd be cool to take this photo since we all had our hoodies up in the rain.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

And that's it! We quickly made our way back to our hotel, where we took our beautiful warm showers and crashed into bed.

Oh! And one thing really amazing about Macau; even where the busiest roads are, the cars stop for anyone who wants to cross the road using the zebra-crossing! Now that's something Malaysians should learn! I've never felt this safe crossing roads before!

Macau: Day One (Part 1)

09.03.14 (day)

2:30 am, and we were all already wide awake. Our flight was at 6:30am.

An hour-long taxi ride later, we arrived at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal where we checked in our luggage and got our boarding passes. After breakfast at McDonald's (which seems to be our typical before-flight place to eat), we headed to the departure hall.

Now everyone can fly.

Boarded the small-ish AirAsia plane when it was still dark. Managed to grab a couple of hours of sleep even though I'm sure my leaky nose was annoying all the passengers on board. I woke up to this beautiful sight (I got a window seat hence):

yeah. Clouds, clouds, and more clouds. Pretty, isn't it?

At about ten, we landed safely in Macau International Airport. After the usual procedures, we took a cab to our hotel.

This place is not too bad, I must say. You've got to admit: they knew what they were doing when they
installed this amazing, speedy internet! *winks*

After checking in, we left the hotel immediately to check out the towns of Macau. Come to think of it... I'm not even sure what this place is called. *hides face*

But, to satisfy our growling tummies which had long digested our Sausage Egg McMuffins, we made our first stop at:

Mum had done her research and this restaurant seemed to be popular among food bloggers.

 Oh, and one thing! Macau still has many traces of its Portuguese influence from history. Its signboards and road signs have Portuguese words on them. How cute! Who knows what "Loja Sopa Da Fita" means?

a quick snapshot with my mother before we ordered our food

Soup noodles with prawn dumplings
(the amazing thing about these dumplings is that each one has at least two prawns inside!
That is way more than the pathetic half-prawn we find in KL dumplings)

Noodles with beef (I'd rate this the best out of the dishes I've tried in this shop)

Have no idea what this is, but apparently it is popular.
I find it a tad bit dry, though.

"Shui gao", which actually also means dumplings.
These were not too bad as well.

I don't know what these are called!
But they're sort of like fishballs. Quite yummy.

All in all the restaurant served quite good food, but it can be a little pricey. Generally, though, the prices of food in Macau are all slightly more expensive than the food you can find in Kuala Lumpur. Now I know that I should appreciate the cheap food in my homeland instead of complaining that the nasi lemak man has raised 10 cents a packet.

Once done with lunch, we did a little sightseeing. The quaint streets and alleys were kind of cute to me, especially since every sign board has little Portuguese words on them.

"Largo Da Barra"? "Ruinas De S. Paulo"? "Largo de Santo Agostinho"?
How interesting!

brother and I lepak-ing in the streets of Macau

*By the way, if you look again, my brother and I are actually wearing slippers, and he's in shorts. We got quite a number of looks since the temperature here is about 14 degrees Celsius. Yeah, not really a good time to wear slippers, but how were we supposed to know?

Next stop was Senado Square. It's basically a huge area with loads of branded shops and your typical tourist what-nots.

Senado Square

a typical tourist-y photo at Senado Square

Next: a cathedral known as St. Domingo's Church;

grand.

just one of the statues they have in there

 And get this: they have a confessional too! I've never actually seen one in real life before.

Outside, we passed by many food stalls, most of them selling food like this:

steamed then served in curry

 One of the many attractions of the place is the Ruins of St Paul's.

basically, all that's left is the front wall. It's quite beautiful, really.

another tourist-y picture!

Of course we had to try to include everyone in the family in photos, so we tried to take a selfie...

close enough?

In the midst of our many attempts, a kind stranger came up to ask us if we wanted her to help us take a family photo. Yes, please, thank you! 

success!

Oh, and one more thing: Macau is famous for a certain bakery called Koi Kei Bakery. It was made even more popular by a Hong Kong TVB Drama, and now they have opened branches practically on every street! Turn a corner and you'll most likely see a Koi Kei branch after having seen one a minute ago.

their pastries and sweets are delicious.
fun part was going in and trying samples non-stop. no one chases you out.

Another thing Macau is famous for is their pork burger by Tai Lei Loi Kei. They have them in KL as well, but the original one's where it's at! 

we ordered two pork burgers and one bowl of curry fishballs

it doesn't look too appetizing,
but take just one bite and you'll fall in love.
you'll overlook all its flaws and learn that true beauty comes from the inside.

these were pretty yummy too!

sibling love awww

Last stop: (I don't read Chinese)

they're kind of like crunchy pancakes.
quite scrumptious!

 

After this we made our way back to the hotel to get a rest. We were all exhausted from the early morning four-hour flight and walking around in the cold. 

*  *  *

And that's the end of our daytime expedition! 

The night time adventure needs a bit of explaining and I'm too tired to do so now, because of all the walking I've done today. Besides, Macau is much much colder than I expected, and my family is clearly unprepared for this kind of weather. We're only wearing hoodies in a temperature that requires parkas!

But that's okay. For the first time, I actually can't wait to feel heat.

MALAYSIA I LOVE YOUUUU.

P.S. Stay tuned for Part 2!