29 November 2008

Sabah...# 1

This is a path for people to walk, jog and chat. (At least I saw people doing that.)

This is the harbour.

The path to the beach.

The Sutera Harbour beach.
The performance at the lobby of the Melligan Sutera.
Golf view from our room.
Our beds. The one of the left is mine. How come her bed was full of things? I did not noticed till now.
The view from my bed. It had been raining.


The view from my colleague's bed.

The Karambunai beach This is the center of the beach. There were a few kids playing there.
This is the right side of the beach.

The view from the sea.
This is the right side of the beach. Beautiful!

This is my shadow. The beach is so smooth.

The way to the beach.

While we were waiting for our bus at LCCT.

27 November 2008

The Hectics

Here goes my story of my Sabah trip...

I left Ipoh on Thursday at 8 a. m. We took a bus down to the LCCT and checked in at 12. 15 p. m. Then we went for our lunch. The food at the Food Garden located at LCCT sucked. I ordered Tom Yam noodles and my colleagues ordered one seafood soup noodles and one Nyonya soup noodles. The difference between their noodles was one with chopped chili and one without it. My colleague was so unhappy about it. She ordered another chicken rice which tasted bad too. We were too hungry that we ate all that we ordered.



After lunch we went on board. It took us 21/2 hours to reach Sabah, most people know about it. Well, the flight was smooth and we reached there safely. We reached the airport around 6 p. m. We took a cab to the place that we were supposed to stay called Kompleks Tabung Haji. Our room were at level 2 and the room number is 215. I remember it very well because that was the worse room that I had ever stayed before. The interior orang asli place is better than that room!



Once we got into the room, my colleagues started to cough and the other started to sneeze. I was fine because I do not have that kind of allergy. Hmm... The room smelled a kind, paint smell maybe. Once we got in we heard water running, so one of them checked out the wash room. The toilet was spoilt, the water kept running. Then slowly we checked out the other things like the cupboard, it was dusty; the towels got stain on it and the curtain was dusty too. The room cost about rm180.

These were still small matter. The most terrible thing was the noise from no where. It seemed from the floor above and it seemed not. There was some shifting furniture sound in the room once we were in the room. The sound never stopped even after I called to complain. After dinner we showered and were ready to sleep, the sound was still there. I took sleeping pill because I knew for sure that I would not be able to sleep. I thought my colleague was asleep but in fact she couldn't sleep the whole night. I slept and I was up on and off though.

My colleague complained that the sound got louder around 1 a. m. plus until 5 a.m plus only became softer. I was up around 6. 30 a. m. She said she was sure that that room was not "clean", in fact I already thought of that when I was getting ready to sleep. I felt creepy too. I experienced it before and I dared not tell my colleague because it was her first trip to conference. I kept to myself and I hinted Kok Ming about the room problem. He comforted me by saying maybe there were people working up there or shifting things. I got sms from Vincent too and he gave me a verse which I had forgotten what. I was comforted and I had peace knowing that they will pray for us. I requested them to pray that we can change room or even hotel. I prayed too that God will give me peace and God reminded me of the incident when I was in Penang. I thought of what Uncle Jimmy told before too that I can't do anything to chase them off as the room is not mine. Slowly I slept.

Friday was the first day of our conference and I thank God that I slept quite well. At least I was able to get a better quality rest after all the rush from place to place. The conference was held at The Pacific Sutera Harbour. It's around 10 minutes drive from Kompleks Tabung Haji. So during lunch hour, I went to the lobby to check if there were people checking out so that we could get two rooms there. Guess what, there was a bus of people checking out. Quickly, I went to see my colleague and I told her about it. Then she went with me to check. After taking a long time, there were 2 rooms available. I was joyous. So after all the procedures were done, we took a cab back to the complex, we packed and then checked out. It took us about 20 minutes to finish all those. It was so rush and once we were back, the conference just started. The timing was so good.

Yeah, finally we got a better conditioned room and a more peaceful room. The room was so quiet and everything was so nice and comfortable. My roommate was the most joyous one I guess. She was able to sleep or at least got some peaceful rest on Friday. Hehe... Though, I still took sleeping pill because I did not want to waste my energy on sleepless nights. I was there to learn not to feel tired. At night, we had a dinner. There were very interesting performances, the food wasn't good but acceptable. It was held at Meligan Sutera. Oh well, one day gone.

The second day of conference was the most terrible day for most of us. There were lousy speakers. Sigh... we seemed wasted the time there that day. The workshops ended at 5p. m. We decided to go to the Filipino market and dinner out. Nothing much there. The most interesting things that I saw were those music instruments. It's hard to look for souvenirs to me. I just found it hard to and I did not really have the mood and energy to shop for things, after all, I was there to work not to tour.

Our flight changed time to 3. 45 p.m. Sigh... It was supposed to be at 8 a. m. Our bus was supposed to be 4. 10 p. m. But because of the flight, we were force to take the 8 p.m. bus. However, I should thank God for this delayed as I got to have an adventure with my friend, Ennie. She attended the conference too. She is a speech pathologist. In the morning, it was Sunday morning, she called to inform me that she would be going to a each called Karambunai. She said her friend would drop a car for her to drive there. She asked if I'm interested. Whereas, my colleagues would be going to another market. I was kind of lazy to go there.

I went to the beach with Ennie. Her friend brought us to a coffee shop to enjoy some famous noodles which are different from the Peninsula. We had some seafood noodles and it tasted OK to me only. But the soup was very sweet and the seafood was very fresh. Well, I'm not a fish and prawn person. Hehe... We started our journey to the beach at 10 a. m.. Ennie already knew part of the way to the beach so we followed the info that she got from her friend. Some how we got lost, so I went down to ask for direction. The first direction given wasn't clear, then we asked for another one from a petrol station. His direction was right. We were so happy. By the time we reached Karambunai is already near 12p.m. Phew! We were supposed to check out the hotel at 12.30 p. m.

Though we reached the resort, we went to the wrong place. We went to the Lagoon side which there are water sports. Then we drove back out and went to the golf side, then only we found the beach. Phew, we quickly snapped some pictures of the beach and then left. We spent about 10 minutes at the beach only. It's really a very beautiful beach.

We rushed back to the hotel, packed and then checked out. I managed to take a shower before I left the hotel too. Haha... My colleague gave me a "tak tahan" look. So rush still shower. Haha... We checked out and we visited a special school called Sri Mengasih. I heard of this school since 2 years ago. Then we went to the airport, had our lunch and then boarded.

When we reached LCCT was already 6p.m., we were not able to catch the 6p.m. bus, so we had out dinner at McDonald. I ordered Mcflurry only because I was still full. After placing my order, that cashier asked me to get from the ice cream counter with my receipt. So I went. I gave the guy my receipt and I told him that I want Mudpie. He asked me what was that and he even asked me how to make it. I was like, Huh? How I know how to make? I felt very ticklish but I did not laugh. That guy called his supervisor and she taught him. I went back to my seat and I laughed while telling them what had happened. They laughed too. He was new I bet.

Finally, we were on board again at 8p.m. The bus stopped at KLIA and we started journey back at 8.30p.m. I slept almost all the way. No quality rest as I was using drug to control myself. Sleeping on board was even more tiring. We reached Ipoh at midnight. Once reached home I slept without drugs. The next day needed to work. Sigh... I nearly couldn't wake up. I felt so tired. We gotta go back to continue the cleaning work. Whole Monday, my colleague and I felt so dizzy and we kept looking at the time.

At night still gotta go for that finale. I really couldn't make it. When work dismissed, I went to my car and I opened the door with my key. You know what happened? When I was in the car, I was looking up and down for my key. I stopped my colleague from locking the gate as I might have left it in the office. I was thinking how did I opened the car door. After looking into my bag then my car door. Oh man! I hung my keys there. My colleagues laughed like mad. So I decided not to go for that dinner. I did not have energy. I was exhausted and I slept at 9 p.m. that night. The next day I had fever until now. Sigh... Some more being misunderstood that I did not turn up was because of Kok Ming could not make it. Sad me. haha

25 November 2008

I disappeared for a week. I did not get to meet some of the familiar faces this week and I am still very tired and not well after coming back to Ipoh. Maybe it is because of the rush and hectic days in Sabah with less water intake and poor quality rest.

It wasn't a fruitful trip I would say. Let me line the story when I get back the energy and inspiration soon, I hope.