Earworm: Shadow~~ Ashlee Simpson
Still reading: Message in a Bottle-- Nicholas Sparks

Now that I've settled down at home, I can start writing about the super fun trip I had with my friends, while the memory still remains relatively fresh in my mind...

Day 1 (or rather night 1) (12th Nov)
The 7 of us took 2 cabs to the Golden Mile, milled around for a while before boarding the bus... and we're off! A rather uneventful journey, save for when we were lining up for our passports to be checked and this bespectacled girl asked us whether we were scholars. coz she recognised my face (ha!) from the selection test and the TJ orientation (that was like waaay long time ago last dec) I'm amazed by her memory and sadly, no, i don't remember her face. ah well. Apparently she's from Ipoh and knows all the other scholars from Ipoh by name, if not personally. According to her, Ipoh is a small town... I wanted to get her contacts when we arrived but due to my slowness after rubbing the sleep off my eyes and being one of the last off the bus, she was gone. Hmmm...maybe with fate we shall meet again.

Day 1-Ipoh (13th Nov)
Arrived in Ipoh at around 6.00am, K was supposed to come pick us up. We were half frozen by the seeping cold of the air-conditioned bus, the early morning cold did not help either. So he pulled up in this Kelisa and we were left gaping. 7 girls and the amount of luggage we have?!! Luckily his mum pulled up in another car (was it a wira? argh I'm bad with cars!!!) after him and we breathed a sigh of relief.
After leaving our luggage at a corner of his living room and waiting around for a more sensible hour to go out, we headed for breakfast. The teensy problem of getting everyone to fit in his mum's car was overcome by me sitting on YH's lap and KY on her roomy's lap also, with Jol and FC squashed in the middle, with what little space was left. It must've been a damn funny (and perhaps pathetic) sight, since this auntie and her cabbie was snickering at us when we were beside them in the traffic. The cabbie was even motioning to us whether we wanted to move over to his taxi for space!
After breakfast K drove us around town with some commentaries thrown in and the mad bunch singing along to Selamat Hari Raya in the back of the car. We secured our bus tickets to Lumut at 1.30pm then stopped for some soya bean and taufu fah which is supposed to be very famous. We were then supposed to visti Sam Poh Tong but he forgot how to find it. It was a rather long drive and I felt so sorry for sitting on my roomy even tho she assured me that I didn't weigh much. But KL was complaining about KY's bony butt digging into her thighs =p
Anyway, we settled for Perak Tong instead and were wheezing when we were barely a quarter of a way up the stairs I think. So only Jol and YH persevered but there was still a very long way up so they came down with us in the end.
Lunch was a sumptious affair of his mum's cooking, which surprisingly had a chinese style to it-- mixed veg with prawns dipped in tomato sauce and some curry. After our fill, we were doing the dishes but got shooed by his mum saying that we were going to be late for our bus ride.
Made it on the bus anyway and rain was pelting down halfway thru the journey. It was still raining when we arrived at the jetty. Jol's family was there to intercept some of the stuff we didn't want to lug to Pangkor.

Pangkor
The ferry was full, expected of the Raya and Deepavali hols anyway. We were immediately pounced upon by drivers there. I didn't know that cabs in Pangkor were pink vans! So bimbo... So it took us past a beach and we were busy guessing which of the chalets were Lyana villa, where we booked for two nights. Nope, not this one nor that... Til we went up a steep hill and horrors were going thru our minds with having to bike or hike our way down to the beach and end up pushing bikes up the slopes like some poor souls outside the van were doing. After driving up and down with lots of false leads, we arrived at another stretch of beach and stopped at this disappointing looking one-storey building. Ooookayyy....
Admittedly, the room was better than how the exterior looks. It had two double beds and a bathroom, air-conditioned and they gave us a mattress for free.. although there were cockroach wings on the bathroom floor...but hey, this is as good as RM100 a night can get...
Went out to the beach to check out the activities, we were pretty excited by the banana boat we saw on our way here. Talked to one malay fella...to our dismay he said that most stalls won't be open tomorrow coz it's the 1st day of Raya. OOpss...looks like we came at a bad time. But turns out his words were untrue coz we found an operator that will open after lunchtime tomorrow. So we're all set for snorkelling and banana boat!
At night we played card games and this Name Game that made us shout til we're hoarse... esp FC with her comical war cry! =)

Day 2: Pangkor (14th Nov)
It was a late morning for us (actually it was Jol's idea to wake up at 1pm to save on breakfast money!) But it was 10am when everyone was awake and we had special burgers. Then changed into our swimsuits, Mel had a lil mishap coz she left her swimwear in S'pore! Ended up borrowing KL's two-piece to wear underneath a sleeveless tee and shorts coz she's too 'conservative' =p
On the way to the snorkelling area, another operator was showing his boat of passengers a sea cucumber then when he saw our boat passing he just flung it at us. We screamed and it landed on Mel's leg. Yucks!
There was nothing much to see at the snorkelling area, just dead corals and colourless fish. And we all got varying degrees of cuts and scratches on our legs and feet coz of the sharp rocks near the shore. I swallowed tons of seawater for trying to breathe underwater with my snorkel gear. After we got tired of snorkelling we lazed near the shore, searching for seashells. and we actually worried whether the guy just took our money and left us there coz it was getting quite late. Eventually he came and we were soon on the banana boat, which was great fun and excitement. He threw us into the sea on purpose and when I hit the water the sea water went straight into my nose and down my throat. Lovely. Had to catch ahold of Jol who seemed to be drifting away by the current and KY who was hydrophobic. the 3 of us finally clambered onto the banana boat and we were off once more. But the jetboat ran outta petrol! So potong stim... haih... So we were like stranded in the middle of the sea haha... When we finally got going, he threw us near the shores and this time I pinched my nose but I fell atop of KL...so sorry!
Later we had ice kacang while the wave crashed down on us...ah....so relaxing... tho the sand that got stuck in our swimsuits made us look like we had cellulite--except worse!
Dinner was at this roadside stall that had ikan bakar. Downer was that it was crawling with cats..and the food took a long time to prepare. The cats are damn manja and would not go away esp since our table was the first served therefore the only table with fish... The cat had FC screaming and making a commotion, turning all heads to our table..er....even after YH, Jol and Mel tried to entice it away it'll still come back for more. Pesky!
At night we were mostly tired out so had an early night. Except for Jol and FC, seriously the two of them should be separated they really try to out-lame each other! were playing the name game among themselves and doing crazy things like somersaults, sit-ups and push-ups on the bed, all the while giggling non-stop. Me and KY were like (-_-)"'

Day 3: Pangkor (15th Nov)
In the morning, only me, Jol, KY and FC were game for kayaking. Jol kept asking me whether i wanna capsize the kayak...No thanks! I don't fancy losing my specs again after what happened when i went kayaking in Singapore.
At noon, saying our goodbyes to Pangkor, we hopped onto a ferry and later hailed cabs to Jol's house in Sitiawan...

Sitiawan
I can't believe that Mahjong is so addictive. We can sit there for hours playing it...Oh no...this is so auntiefying! We watched half of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen later. Quite unbelievable I've watched all but half of Lindsay Lohan's movies..
After dinner with the family, Jol's mum asked us where we wanted to go. and mel was like is there any night life in sitiawan? So we ended up in Billion haha...us hanging around the toys section some more. At night was...as I recall, more Mahjong...

Last day: Sitiawan (16th Nov)
Next morning and all afternoon was you guessed it, mahjong wahaha...before we know it, it's time to head back to KL...
The journey back was horrible. Firstly the bus was terribly rickety, later we realised it was prob caused by road condition but at 7pm we stopped at teluk intan and the driver said we can even go for dinner coz a new bus is gonna come an hour later. Apparently the bus we were on could not make the whole way to KL..shucks! Then when the bus finally arrived, the 3 of us got on late so we almost had no seats...had to sit separately then.... Top that off with heavy traffic, what with everyone back from hols... reached jalan duta at 12.30am. whoa that was a sufferable ride that I would not wish to go on again! Glad to be home, but i chatted with my sis til maybe 2 something in the morn...