AN OVERDUE POST

Its been so long time since i came back from Redang Island, and so far i've been too lazy to even bother to update. But i guess its been abit too long, so as to increase the popularity and number of patrons of my blog, i might as well blog about my trip to Redang ( and maybe start to post pics).

DAY 1, SATURDAY 17TH OF AUGUST

Woke up at 8:30 to find my parents are already dressed and ready. They have this habit of waking me up only after they're ready, whenever we're going on trips. Why? Simple, so they can NAG, and PUSH, and HURRY, and COMPLAIN about how slow i am and why can't i be more like them, and eventually LOSE THEIR TEMPER. They ravel in it, they are addicted to it, i swear. But that day, things were more subdued, merely because of the fact that we're carpooling. Courtesy of the Thengs that live near us. When they arrive, i see to my dismay that im not gonna have the whole back seatsof their seven seater dunno-what-car to myself, instead, i'll be sandwiched between their 7 year old son Nixon, and their 11 year old, Nevin. God, somehow i just knew that today was gonna be a fucked up day, and i was right on the spot. Lemme tell you what i have against those kids, firstly, there's nothing really wrong with Nixon, just a very cute, big eyed average little standard oner. But Nevin is a complete nightmare. ( I will now divert from the main topic for a long rant, warning: contains explicitly ''mean'' and ''rude'' content. Not suitable for underage or naive losers.)

The first annoying thing you'll notice about him is, he STARES. And not just an inconspicuous sideways glance or anything. Just an obvious turn of his head and a long, blank, open-mouthed, dead on stare. And if you turn and stare back ( clearly to indicate its annoying ), his underdeveloped child mind still cannot comprehend this and he continues. Damn bloody annoying. And it doesn't help that he looks like someone stepped on his face while in the womb. Seriously. He also keeps snapping unflattering photos using his bloody motorola razr. He also seems to have no shame or self restraint, typical of stupid kids you find in shopping centres and such, screaming and talking loudly and asking me an overflowing river of intrusive and personal questions. And if i say dunno, he'll turn to my mom and ask her! FUCKING CHILD! Take all that childish behaviour, and put it into a roughly 6'5'' 50kg body, and the result is HELL amplified a thousand times. Its like some mega loser who never grew up with the rest of us.

Anyhoo, back to the car ride. I expected us to be there by lunch, and i was wrongly assured of that too, by dear ol dad. But as the day dragged on i just went on to sleeping, staring out the window, and watching a movie on their portable DVD player.(Resident Evil: Extinction). Finally we reached the the stinking hotel at Kuala Terengganu by twilight, only to find the nightmare has just begun. The damned place was a dump, the type you normally wouldn't even go into, let alone spend the night. Actually it wasn't that bad, but still it sucked. The toilet was difficult to flush like hell. And the bathroom door couldn't lock. Others had problems like dusty floors, crumbling plaster, and front doors that couldn't be locked.....Went for dinner in a seaside restaurent which served mediocre food. Saw quite a few white tourists, and as usual felt embarrassed that they have to see the state of the......well, the not-so-picturesque places in Malaysia, shall we say. I hate living in a third world country....After dinner we returned back to the hotel, and i watched tv till i was sleepy.

DAY 2, SUNDAY 18TH OF AUGUST

Had breakfast at the hotel. The toast was average, but damn! the nasi lemak was terrible, and this is Terengganu for God's sake. We got kinda lost trying to find the jetty, after going in circle a bit, we finally found it. When we finally got in, it was already packed with other holiday goers. I spent the whole ride watching some Roman movie that was okay, but didnt get to see the ending because the ferry has already arrived at Redang. The first thing i saw was a OMG fucking grand resort. But i later found out when we came ashore that we'll be staying at the resort next to it. That i failed to even notice before, thanks to the fact that i was too dazzled by the upscale one next to it. The room are not in a large building like normal hotels but instead are banglos with 8 separate room, that are heaven compared to what i slept in last night. But for all its clean and comfortable accomodations, there was something it clearly lacked, a tv. Anyhoo, the gardens surrounding it was landscaped with the usual tropical trees and palms, most notably large flowering bauhimia trees, full of pollinating bees, wasps and plain sunbirds. After we got settled we went to the snokelling shop to rent some snorkelling masks. Normal ones costs RM 1o, powered ones cost RM 2o, quite a reasonable price considering you get to keep them the whole trip. And my dad forced me to get a stupid life jacket too, even though i can totally swim, thank you very much. I didnt feel that embarrassed about wearing them after i saw everybody, including those not in our 30 or so group wore life jackets too, except a German couple. We got on a boat with about 50 or so people and went for a short ride out to some island, and off the boat we went. My mom went into the water and freaked out just cause she couldnt feel the bottom! She got back on the boat immediately. I just drifted around without any effort thanks to my life jacket, and stared at all the coral and fish. Saw parrotfish, damselfish, clownfish, even barracuda. One of the boatmen caught a seaturtle, and everybod went to have a closer look at it, and even touch it. I obvoiusly did so, and found the flippers to be quite plastic like. After about 2 hours, we got back on the boat due to strong currents and went back to the main island. After a short break to rest and refuel, we all went to the beach to snorkel again. The coral there were mostly dead, not unexpected, as it was in close proximity with so much tourists all the time, saw more fish and baby sharks about one and a half feet long. Dinner was provided by the resort throughout the whole stay. After the okay meal, we all went to the projector at the side of the resort to watch ''the most one sided match between the two'', as it was called. Im talking about Lee Chong Wei again Lin Dan of course. When the match finally finished, there was much to do, so i just went to bed at around 11.

DAY 3, MONDAY 19TH OF AUGUST

Woke up early for we had an early snorkelling trip today, at around 10, we all gathered only to find most werent going. Why? Because it was raining bloody cats and dogs. But i still braved the rain and got into the boat to go to the marine park-with-no-specific-name. The people there were alot more numerous, but then again, so were the fish. They gave us lots of old bread with mould growing to feed the fish. There were so many fish it was scary. Saw some jellyfish too. Mom still opted to stay in the shallows, but it was further out that most of the fish were. By about 12 we decided to leave, and i was the most relieved of all, what with the cold rain and the sunless sky deprived of warmth, i was shivering my balls off. So i gaily(wtf) swam to the shore and thats when it happened. Just as i was reaching the shore, i felt ths stinging jolt on my right arm. I immediately reacted by grabbing whatever was on my arm, and saw there was a transparent tentacle in my hand. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKKKKKKKK!!!! We all know what that means, JELLYFISH. Was i gonna feel unbearable pain? Will i go into epileptic shock? When will the poisons start to take effect? Paralysis?!?! So obviously i stayed in my little panicky moment for a bit, too bad there wasnt anybody around for me dramatise it all. So i just discreetly told someone i got stung, and soon everybody knew. The people at the information counter or whatever it was didnt seem too worried about it, good sign, they just gave me some spray that can be used on ant stings and such....It was really painful, more like annoyingly itchy and burning, similar to ant bites. But still, my right and some of my left arm turned first red then purple and swelled abit, with the line where the tentacles stung expecially obvious. Nevin's mom tried to cheer me up by pretending to scratch it, just for laughs. But she would stop doing it and i was like what the FUCK is wrong with you?! It was barely any funny the first time and its not getting any funnier! sheesh. Anyway no biggie, i survived. Went for the second trip of the day after lunch but im too lazy to elaborate....spent the late afternoon doing a lonely almost romantic walk on the beach if not for the fact it was with my parent. Dinner was a lil different tonight. Besides the food prepared by the chefs, we had a barbecue. They had corn, and fishballs, and lamb and satay blahblahblah. Since my parents we lazy to do it, i went with a buch of aunties and such and well, barbecued. The corn was really dry, but everything else was fine. Once again, the lack of tv forced me to an early bedtime.

DAY 4, TUESDAY 20TH OF AUGUST
The ferry to take us back to the mainland was coming at 11, so after breakfast, we took some last minute pic(not me), and tried to collect as much memories as vividly as we could, before we leave the clear aquamarine waters back to the dirty smelly green waters of the port back in terengganu. They played the same movie as before, so i didnt pay any attention. Instead i listened to my brother's mp3. It was only after we left the ferry that i realized i left the cover in the ferry.....too late to do anything about it. Luch was at some chinese restaurant that was extremely secluded. The rest of the day was filled with the miseries of being trapped in the same car with Nevin again. Other things happened, but im too lazy to type......so ill just summarize it. I reached home at 11 pm. FINISH.....

And found a sms from Nevin, giving me his number. *shivers*. As if ill ever call you! I proceeded to happily deleting it, like i just triumphantly exterminated some vermin that has been terrorizing my house. No actually i didnt, not that bad a person. just added him to my phonebook and hope he never calls. And he never did ;)