A Holiday That Was Too Short

I am really getting rusty. It's taking me far longer time than before to come up with my first sentence for this entry.

So, how was your Chinese New Year? Mine flew by so fast I barely knew what happened those few days in Singapore! Yes, it was that fast.

Frankly, I never expected to travel so far again after all that has happened these last two years. For those of you who have been with me since 2006, you will probably know what I am referring to. I try never to venture too far from home and if I need to travel, I make sure that I didn't have to be on the road for too long. So you can imagine how hard it was for me to be on a four hour journey from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore this Chinese New Year. Just half an hour into the long drive, I began to feel uneasy. Although I had some reading materials with me as part of my distraction plan, I couldn't stop the panic rising within. I grabbed Papa Bkworm's forearm (he was the driver) and told him I was getting panicky. He kept me talking and after a while, the feeling wore off. At the Ayer Keroh rest stop, I changed places with Little Bkworm and I sat at the back for the rest of the journey. That helped a great deal and I made it to Singapore quite safely.

I love going to Singapore. I love the wide roads, the clean lines. Everything is just so spick and span! My only grouch is their super efficient law enforcers which had us SGD30-00 poorer this Chinese New Year. We got slapped with our first ever summons in Singapore, issued to us in the early hours (at precisely 2.52 am while we were all sound asleep!) of the second day of Chinese New Year for failing to pay for parking at the multi-storey car park near the flats where Lara lives. We were so confident that parking was free during weekends and public holidays until we spied the fine print on the sign board outside the carpark which has this written in brackets below 'Free Parking' - "between 7.00 am to 10.30 pm". Great. Really, we are innocent. Even Lara and her hubby who are both Singaporeans were not aware of the fine print. But the law is the law. Sigh!

Aside from this expensive glitch, the four days were rather quiet for us this time around. We didn't visit Orchard Road where the shopping belt lies. Didn't go to Borders either (which has always been part of our activities whenever we were in Singapore) and we didn't even stop by Breadtalk to get our bread, a thing that we never failed to do on previous trips. Yeah, I know, we have Borders and Breadtalk in KL too but it's just not the same as the ones in Singapore.


But we did discover a new place to shop. Mustafa is located in Little India in Serangoon Road and we were just SO awed by both the quantity and variety of goods for sale there. And they are opened for 24 hours! No kidding. And, no, we didn't shop for 24 hours for the simple reason that everyone were already tired out after an afternoon of window shopping at VivoCity and bowling at the SAFRA, courtesy of Lara's hubby. We were looking for a Turbo Broiler for my mother-in-law at Mustafa and once we bought it, we were out of the place in a jiffy.

Much of our time were spent at home, just eating and watching cable TV. Mostly just catching up with Lara and her hubby while Little Bkworm had a whale of a time, playing soccer and basketball with her cousin at a nearby park. I also had a chance to talk to Stay At Home Mum

(SAHM) over the phone and chatted with this nice lady for a few minutes, knowing that it wouldn't have been possible to meet up in person this time. Next time, SAHM, yah?

Also, Papa Bkworm learnt a new skill this CNY in Singapore.


He is so 'Mat Salleh' in his ways; a total banana (yellow on the outside but white on the inside, mah!) and such a blur when it comes to something so traditionally Chinese as playing mahjong. But the other three players at the table were most patient with him and took pains to explain to him the different characters engraved on the mahjong tiles and how the game is generally played. I was his 'wu so kwan si' - advisor, sitting by his side and trying to teach him the little that I could recall from the three legged mahjong sessions that Lara and I used to have with our mother during our school holidays years ago!

We left Singapore for home on Sunday morning. Traffic was smooth, hitting almost 110 kph until we reached Port Dickson where cars started to slow down and traffic was reduced to a crawl all the way until Nilai. I thought I was going to claw my way out of the car in panic (we were stuck in a jam with no end in sight!) but I was somewhat much calmer than our earlier journey down to Singapore. Maybe it does help to sit at the back.

The short holiday's over and we are all back to our daily routines. Back to work and back to school once again.