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dmjewelleBy some grotesque twist of fate, I had to go to Kuantan again after a mere 8 months!
It was cloudy and rainy at the Karak highway. As a wee DMling I've always connected the Karak highway with death, car accidents, and various other lovely morbid things. This may or may not have had to do with the one time I was stewing in a car en route back to KL due to a massive traffic jam which may or may not have been caused by this. What I DO remember is my dad telling me what a deathtrap the Karak highway is, though. I don't blame him - parts of the highway and a really large chasm are separated by a Really Flimsy-Looking Railing.
This time round we had an extra passenger - the daughter of my dad's friend who was going back to see her grandmother (who is 94 years old and had complications after eating petai. See how dangerous petai is! ><) When we sent her home, her dad insisted he take us out for lunch. We went to this food square where ALL the food signs were in CHINESE. I left the ordering to my dad. In between bites of food, my dad's friend decided that when friends come back to Kuantan after a long time, YAMCHAS MUST BE ORGANIZED. See, CF and old people aren't that much different!
Except when it comes to fiddling with handphones that is. XD
After that in a show of REAL old-fashioned gratefulness, we were invited to their home and was fed chinese tea and mooncakes AND fruit. Kuantan people seem to LOVE chinese tea - I barely drank water the 3 days I was there. The family are Christians, and this altar caught my attention because there was a plastic medicine bottle marked "HOLY WATER" in marker ink on the altar. I didn't dare take a closer pic though.
...I said THEY were grateful and gracious. I said nothing about me.
This time we stayed with a family friend (AKA the people whose daughter's wedding we attended in January and I videotaped the spectacle). The thing about Kuantan is that my dad was posted there for about 5 years before he was sent to Mentakab and I was born, so he built a *sizeable* contact list of doctors/dentists/healthcare professionals. These people are now old and still practicing in Kuantan, but seldom leave the state. It's like when Sizer comes from Penang to visit - we all go OMG SIZER QUICK YAMCHA TIEMS and SMS everyone. So we pretty much had free food the entire trip. I wasn't aware what sort of reputation my dad had until a doctor introduced him as "This is THE GREAT Michael Choong!" to his wife.
We went to this small shop which had really good tai chow - that pot of claypot curry is actually PORRIDGE. They had some little fried pork bits which were really good too!
We were introduced to another doctor couple (AGAIN). Would you believe the man is actually 60? Yeah, we thought he was 48 too. After dinner we went to Oldtown White Coffee for a yamcha until 10.30. OMG old people so hardy can die x__x
There is just something not right with this poster. I can't quite figure out what.
DAY TWO
So Auntie Alice (our host) said IMMA MAKING IPOH CURRY MEE AND YOU AIN'T LEAVING UNTIL YOU HAVE SOME and my dad said SHE'S MAKING IPOH CURRY MEE AND YOU AIN'T LEAVING UNTIL YOU'VE EATEN HER WORK OF ART, so we stayed at home while she took like 3 hours to prepare the ingredients. In the meantime, we were entertained with books about their convoy trips (the husband-wife team like to go on Petronas-sponsored 4x4 convoy trips across godforsaken land. Turkey! Iran! Africa! The Silk Road! If people rode camels along it 400 years ago, they've driven through it)...
...While they prepare the kerang and various meats. And boiling the curry. Which contains paste FROM IPOH. Note the FROM IPOH part.
So pick your noodles (yellow, laksa, meehoon), dip them into the boiling water, add ingredients, pour curry, and AUTHENTIC IPOH CURRY MEE GET. IN KUANTAN. I'M AWARE OF THE IRONY. Well it tasted nice, and that's all that matters!
The rest of the day was spent reading Black Swan Green (FINISHED!) and napping while my parents chatted with other people. How much drama does the Kuantan dental/medical circle have? TWICE AS MUCH AS CF COSPLAY DRAMA. THIRTY YEARS OF IT TOO. AWESOME OR WHAT.
Then got ready for wedding dinner lo. Because people bitched I didn't have any pictures of MYSELF the last time, HERE YOU GO. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.
Someone teach me to pose pls ;__;
The wedding was held at this seafood restaurant (which was in a new area of Kuantan that looked like it was desperately trying to be Bangsar...and failing. But hey, there were young people yamchaing, so it couldn't be that bad) which had pretty ok food except for the shark's fin soup. Lots of weird stuff inside. Uncle Linus (host punya husband) freaked out because I didn't eat any of the weird stuff in the soup because it was apparently expensive. EXPENSEEVE.
Welcome to DoctorCon 2009 (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dytia take note)! The Pahang State Banquet (why else would a wedding be decorated with black & white cloth??) where if you threw a stone you could hit FIVE doctors! Well at least if anybody had a heart attack you're in good hands. Seeing this many doctors makes me think Kuantan could be a REALLY good medical hub. Think about it - these are all OLD experienced doctors with decades of experience. If you don't die, they'll do before you! :D My dad comforted me by saying if he was a lawyer, then we'd be sitting in LawyerCon. You know...I wonder if they'd do the OBJECTION!! thing in a LawyerCon...
Pity there is no MLTCon. :(
These are NOT cupcakes - these were the wedding door gifts. Apparently the towels are branded!
And this is the bride and groom. I used to play Double Dragon with her younger brother. Seeing him that night depressed me. Well, he's...cute...and taken. .__.;
After the dinner we actually had trouble going back - the bride's dad was only a *little* tipsy and wanted to drink MOAR so he wouldn't let my dad or Uncle Linus go home. Every time my dad lunged (lunged!) for the staircase, he'd grab my dad's shoulders and spin him back into the dining hall. I did not take a picture of this senior citizen tango :(
When we finally managed to sneak off and flee back (along with the half dozen people who also wanted to flee), my parents and the hosts chatted about MORE medical drama; Gray's Anatomy has NOTHING on this. Uninvited people! Badmouthers! A man who was so drepessed he RAN AWAY from home and family and work for a day! The father of the bride whom everyone realised they know NOTHING about except that he comes from Tapah and has a sister despite knowing him for 30-odd years. It was an interesting night.
DAY THREE (today)
Had breakfast at some place. It was...some porridge...some meehoon...with shark meat...cooked in alcohol. Kuantan has some damn weird chinese food. ><
It came to my attention that back lanes in Kuantan are REALLY wide. One I saw in town even had painted lines. The kind where if you step over them and brake you get fined.
One of Kuantan's new developments is this set of commercial buildings which have businesses according to...race. There's Malay Town, Indian Town, and Chinese Town. Each sell their respective type of whatever it is they sell, and some superfluous ethnic architecture for the facade. It is probably the WORST concept ever post-1Malaysia.
Then we went back. I like driving on the Karak highway. When I'm not fretting about the speed limit and turning turtle into a yawning chasm, that is.
Looking back at the trip, I think I need one more round in Kuantan - the reason being my handphone ran out of memory and my camera batteries kept DYING on me. I need to take a few more shots of:
- The town bus depot. There's the big depot that gets buses from out of state, and there's the buses that goes around town. There's NONE btw. THERE ARE NO TOWN BUSES IN KUANTAN. NO TAXIS EITHER.
- The only Hindu temple I saw, and the FIRST Indian couple I saw in Kuantan!! 8D
- Kuantan town in general, becauseimmanuel_aj asked me what it looked like.
- The last standing Petmal petrol station (if it's still there next time).
- McCorner!!
- Kg. New Zealand, found somewhere on the highway. Apparently Lyndon B. Johnson visited one Felda settlement and they named the village after him too.
- Mentakab. Twice to Kuantan and none to my birthplace. Something is wrong.
Road trip anyone? We'll eat curry porridge too!
It was cloudy and rainy at the Karak highway. As a wee DMling I've always connected the Karak highway with death, car accidents, and various other lovely morbid things. This may or may not have had to do with the one time I was stewing in a car en route back to KL due to a massive traffic jam which may or may not have been caused by this. What I DO remember is my dad telling me what a deathtrap the Karak highway is, though. I don't blame him - parts of the highway and a really large chasm are separated by a Really Flimsy-Looking Railing.
This time round we had an extra passenger - the daughter of my dad's friend who was going back to see her grandmother (who is 94 years old and had complications after eating petai. See how dangerous petai is! ><) When we sent her home, her dad insisted he take us out for lunch. We went to this food square where ALL the food signs were in CHINESE. I left the ordering to my dad. In between bites of food, my dad's friend decided that when friends come back to Kuantan after a long time, YAMCHAS MUST BE ORGANIZED. See, CF and old people aren't that much different!
Except when it comes to fiddling with handphones that is. XD
After that in a show of REAL old-fashioned gratefulness, we were invited to their home and was fed chinese tea and mooncakes AND fruit. Kuantan people seem to LOVE chinese tea - I barely drank water the 3 days I was there. The family are Christians, and this altar caught my attention because there was a plastic medicine bottle marked "HOLY WATER" in marker ink on the altar. I didn't dare take a closer pic though.
...I said THEY were grateful and gracious. I said nothing about me.
This time we stayed with a family friend (AKA the people whose daughter's wedding we attended in January and I videotaped the spectacle). The thing about Kuantan is that my dad was posted there for about 5 years before he was sent to Mentakab and I was born, so he built a *sizeable* contact list of doctors/dentists/healthcare professionals. These people are now old and still practicing in Kuantan, but seldom leave the state. It's like when Sizer comes from Penang to visit - we all go OMG SIZER QUICK YAMCHA TIEMS and SMS everyone. So we pretty much had free food the entire trip. I wasn't aware what sort of reputation my dad had until a doctor introduced him as "This is THE GREAT Michael Choong!" to his wife.
We went to this small shop which had really good tai chow - that pot of claypot curry is actually PORRIDGE. They had some little fried pork bits which were really good too!
We were introduced to another doctor couple (AGAIN). Would you believe the man is actually 60? Yeah, we thought he was 48 too. After dinner we went to Oldtown White Coffee for a yamcha until 10.30. OMG old people so hardy can die x__x
There is just something not right with this poster. I can't quite figure out what.
DAY TWO
So Auntie Alice (our host) said IMMA MAKING IPOH CURRY MEE AND YOU AIN'T LEAVING UNTIL YOU HAVE SOME and my dad said SHE'S MAKING IPOH CURRY MEE AND YOU AIN'T LEAVING UNTIL YOU'VE EATEN HER WORK OF ART, so we stayed at home while she took like 3 hours to prepare the ingredients. In the meantime, we were entertained with books about their convoy trips (the husband-wife team like to go on Petronas-sponsored 4x4 convoy trips across godforsaken land. Turkey! Iran! Africa! The Silk Road! If people rode camels along it 400 years ago, they've driven through it)...
...While they prepare the kerang and various meats. And boiling the curry. Which contains paste FROM IPOH. Note the FROM IPOH part.
So pick your noodles (yellow, laksa, meehoon), dip them into the boiling water, add ingredients, pour curry, and AUTHENTIC IPOH CURRY MEE GET. IN KUANTAN. I'M AWARE OF THE IRONY. Well it tasted nice, and that's all that matters!
The rest of the day was spent reading Black Swan Green (FINISHED!) and napping while my parents chatted with other people. How much drama does the Kuantan dental/medical circle have? TWICE AS MUCH AS CF COSPLAY DRAMA. THIRTY YEARS OF IT TOO. AWESOME OR WHAT.
Then got ready for wedding dinner lo. Because people bitched I didn't have any pictures of MYSELF the last time, HERE YOU GO. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.
Someone teach me to pose pls ;__;
The wedding was held at this seafood restaurant (which was in a new area of Kuantan that looked like it was desperately trying to be Bangsar...and failing. But hey, there were young people yamchaing, so it couldn't be that bad) which had pretty ok food except for the shark's fin soup. Lots of weird stuff inside. Uncle Linus (host punya husband) freaked out because I didn't eat any of the weird stuff in the soup because it was apparently expensive. EXPENSEEVE.
Welcome to DoctorCon 2009 (
dytia take note)! The Pahang State Banquet (why else would a wedding be decorated with black & white cloth??) where if you threw a stone you could hit FIVE doctors! Well at least if anybody had a heart attack you're in good hands. Seeing this many doctors makes me think Kuantan could be a REALLY good medical hub. Think about it - these are all OLD experienced doctors with decades of experience. If you don't die, they'll do before you! :D My dad comforted me by saying if he was a lawyer, then we'd be sitting in LawyerCon. You know...I wonder if they'd do the OBJECTION!! thing in a LawyerCon...Pity there is no MLTCon. :(
These are NOT cupcakes - these were the wedding door gifts. Apparently the towels are branded!
And this is the bride and groom. I used to play Double Dragon with her younger brother. Seeing him that night depressed me. Well, he's...cute...and taken. .__.;
After the dinner we actually had trouble going back - the bride's dad was only a *little* tipsy and wanted to drink MOAR so he wouldn't let my dad or Uncle Linus go home. Every time my dad lunged (lunged!) for the staircase, he'd grab my dad's shoulders and spin him back into the dining hall. I did not take a picture of this senior citizen tango :(
When we finally managed to sneak off and flee back (along with the half dozen people who also wanted to flee), my parents and the hosts chatted about MORE medical drama; Gray's Anatomy has NOTHING on this. Uninvited people! Badmouthers! A man who was so drepessed he RAN AWAY from home and family and work for a day! The father of the bride whom everyone realised they know NOTHING about except that he comes from Tapah and has a sister despite knowing him for 30-odd years. It was an interesting night.
DAY THREE (today)
Had breakfast at some place. It was...some porridge...some meehoon...with shark meat...cooked in alcohol. Kuantan has some damn weird chinese food. ><
It came to my attention that back lanes in Kuantan are REALLY wide. One I saw in town even had painted lines. The kind where if you step over them and brake you get fined.
One of Kuantan's new developments is this set of commercial buildings which have businesses according to...race. There's Malay Town, Indian Town, and Chinese Town. Each sell their respective type of whatever it is they sell, and some superfluous ethnic architecture for the facade. It is probably the WORST concept ever post-1Malaysia.
Then we went back. I like driving on the Karak highway. When I'm not fretting about the speed limit and turning turtle into a yawning chasm, that is.
Looking back at the trip, I think I need one more round in Kuantan - the reason being my handphone ran out of memory and my camera batteries kept DYING on me. I need to take a few more shots of:
- The town bus depot. There's the big depot that gets buses from out of state, and there's the buses that goes around town. There's NONE btw. THERE ARE NO TOWN BUSES IN KUANTAN. NO TAXIS EITHER.
- The only Hindu temple I saw, and the FIRST Indian couple I saw in Kuantan!! 8D
- Kuantan town in general, because
immanuel_aj asked me what it looked like.- The last standing Petmal petrol station (if it's still there next time).
- McCorner!!
- Kg. New Zealand, found somewhere on the highway. Apparently Lyndon B. Johnson visited one Felda settlement and they named the village after him too.
- Mentakab. Twice to Kuantan and none to my birthplace. Something is wrong.
Road trip anyone? We'll eat curry porridge too!
