Christmas 2011 Road Trip - South

It’s been a crazy two months, with work piling and family trips planned. Work life has been even crazier as stronger emphasis has been given to my portfolio for next year, and given that I’m solo in my department, I’ve been mentally exhausted to the point that I just come home to play my Facebook games to erase work from my mind and relax before I sleep.

Anyway, this Christmas has been a bit more special. Ron came back and we planned a road trip covering the southern and northern tips of Peninsular Malaysia as a family. All in 10 days.

First, we went to Johor Bahru and stayed a night at my aunt’s new apartment. My uncle had a theme to everything in the apartment (like a F1 themed master bedroom and bathroom, black circles with a silver core for tables, deco etc). I never knew he was artistically inclined!

We headed to Singapore where we stayed in Asphodel Inn, Little India. We were initially doubtful to be staying there but because it was Christmas season, all other motels were rather expensive. Think SGD, two rooms, two nights and there was nothing below RM1,000 except for this deal I found on hotels.com.

Turns out, the inn was bearable and in the process, we discovered this great place called Mustaffa! The entire time we were in Singapore was to hang out at Mustaffa and City Square Mall beside it. We even missed the lights in Orchard (but mainly because the MRT was down during the days we were there). Plus Mustaffa was open 24 hours! If I could, I would have bought a whole load of stuff there! Thankfully, we were limited by the amount we could carry as we took public transport into Singapore.

We were in Singapore to attend my mum’s cousin’s 70th birthday. There we met cousins and relatives we’ve never met before. Not that we could talk to them in that short night but at least we connected with a couple and will try to keep in touch.

Uncle John and I sat down to update the family tree (Ron's camera makes my skin look flawless! Like!!)

My Mum's cousin, Ivy and her husband John, with my family.

The next day we had to rush from Singapore to Malacca for KS’s cousin’s wedding. Reaching there with just about time to get ready for the dinner, my parents and Ron continued their journey back to PJ.

The wedding turned out to be one of the most fun ones I’ve attended because KS relatives simply made themselves at home, taking photos in large boisterous groups, catching up with relatives we meet usually during CNY, 15 relatives from Indonesia also attended. I think there were about 80 tables so I didn’t even end up saying hello and wish the couple congrats because they were swamped with so many people!

This wedding happened to be KS’s cousin Andrew from Australia’s first Chinese wedding and he completely immersed himself with the YAM SENG. You can imagine the Yam Seng toasts were pretty er, exuberant and the Indonesians were er, amused (and probably thinking “These Malaysians quite kampong one…”).

KS parents had one Indonesian couple as guests at their home and they brought an interesting plant which you can make cincau from just the leaves. It was really, really good and I had several generous helpings of it. Unfortunately I could not communicate with them as they speak Mandarin while their Indonesian was heavily accented. Still, we had more relatives pour in during the day we were there and got to know Singaporean relatives whom I’ve never met.

Saturated with family gatherings and meeting new relatives, KS and I headed back to PJ into the complaining strains of Ang Ku for leaving her alone for days. Reached in time to do some laundry and bake a cake for KS’s grandma before repacking for the second leg of our holidays.