Thursday, August 06, 2009

Penang trip

I'm feeling bored. Restless. My trip to Penang with my cell friends was good. Found out that I have pretty high tolerance for long-distance driving; actually drove back from Penang to KL for 5 hours with only one break in between. Also discovered some quirky things about some of my cell friends.

There was one really funny quarrel about money. I thought that the seven of us could sit, calculate the toll cost per person and just dole out the payment then. It came out to RM27.74 per person. Naturally, John the accounting student rounded it up to the closest which was RM28. I thought it was pretty reasonable. But then, Jin felt that it wasn't right and asked "Why not just discount the 74 sen and each person can pay RM27?" He got quite worked up about it and thought we were trying to make profit. And John and I were trying to explain that mathematically, RM27.74 rounded up is RM 28. Anyways, we didn't want to make a big deal of it and I just handed everyone RM1 back. Geez...was quite a silly argument. Haha.

Also went to Monkey Beach, which had no monkeys. We took a boat there. It was raining rather heavily in the morning, so we were praying like crazy for it to stop raining. When we got the beach, the rain subsided to a light drizzle, and we were optimistic enough to buy a trip to Monkey Beach (RM43 per person). When we got into the boat, the rain started to pour again. Waves got choppy and the boat man thought it was best if we headed back to Batu Feringghi and wait for the rain to subside. Was quite tempted to stand on the boat, hold out my hand and say "Wind and waves - be still!" After all, Jesus did expect His disciples to have faith in the power He had given them to command the wind and the waves. Read Mark 4:35-41, especially verse 40: He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?.

In any case, I didn't do that. Haha. Me of little faith. And anyway, the Bible says we're not to test the Lord our God. I prayed though..and just a few minutes after heading back, the rain stopped completely and we just continued our journey to Monkey Beach. It's a pretty nice place - though there are no monkeys and no corals or pretty fish. Just lots of oysters, crabs and snails. My cell members caught some poor snails, suffocated them in a plastic bottle, intending to cook and consume them upon reaching our apartment. We never did - just ate a ton of chips instead.

We had a great time. Snapped lots of pictures in me and my new white bikini, which unfortunately got stained pink by the bright red life jacket I was wearing. Sigh.

Another conflict occurred again in the evening. We were pretty tired after a long day at the beach, shopping at Gurney Plaza (bought gladiator-like sandals), eating fantastic Taiwanese beef ball noodles at Gurney Plaza, and a horrible supper at Gurney Drive. Gurney Drive has really terrible food. Ordered fresh cockles and I could only taste mud in each cockle. Urgh. I'd have better chance of finding and cooking my own cockles. Played pool after supper - John-Aidan won five games in a row. Tsk.

Later that evening, there was another fight. Was looking for a peaceful relaxing holiday and my sheep are just clawing at each other's throats. Sigh...so anyway, John wanted to go out with a friend of his and Jin. Abby wanted to follow. But John and Jin gave all sorts of excuses like "We're going to a 'dangerous' place" and they promised to take her elsewhere some other time etc etc. In the end, they must have tricked her, disappeared and left her alone to walk back to our apartment unit. I was quite upset for them pulling this on her - was wondering why on earth couldn't they have let her join them. In the end, they came back rather apologetic; I confronted them and John said that he had told his friend he was only bringing Jin. They apologized to Abby and all was forgiven in the end. :-) I just felt like a mummy the whole time, complete with nagging and waking up at 3 am and all. Haha.

Written at 10:59 PM