Coolcat's Jottings

This was no smooth sailing, easy-breezy kinda trip. At least, not for me

Firstly, after surviving a bumpy and most uncomfortable bus ride and boat ride to Perhentian island, I survived being stung by a mysterious creature. It happened while I was floating back to shore. My feet brushed against something and it bit me so hard that I yelped in horror. There were about 5 black spots on my foot. I had absolutely no clue what had bitten me. My only thought was to get to the shore and avoid as many sea creatures as possible. What once looked cute now appeared to be hostile enemies in my sight.

Man, I thought that I was a goner. Visions of me mumbling incoherently due to high fever and being carried away to the mainland on a stretcher swam before my very eyes. My friends and I quickly sought the medical advice of the seasoned locals.

Our chalet owner, Encik Azmi took one look at the bite marks on my foot and heaved a sigh of relief. "It's just a jani bite. You are lucky it wasn't a lion head fish - the pain from that would be so excruciating that you wouldn't be able to sleep at night."

And the remedy for a jani bite?

"Just hit those bite marks with something hard until they disappear," was his advice. "The pain should be gone in a day's time."

He was right. In less than 15 hours, the bite marks were gone and so did the pain. Yaay, thank God! I still dunno how a jani looks like though. Some kind of sea urchin perhaps?

But Jani bite aside, the trip was rock-awesome! The four of us were shutterbugs and so we understand the need to photograph almost everything we see and nearly everything we eat. There were so many photos on my side to sieve through. But here are a portion that would best describe our trip. I can truly attest that having my baby in my life has brought joy that is incomprehensible. I'm so so glad I didn't manage to leave it behind, thanks to bezzie

I'll let the pics and the captions do the talking.

Children of the Sea





















The Visitors



















Creatures of the sea






Apparently, this ultraman green snake is poisonous. *gulp*






Relics of the sea









Plants of The Sea






Never thought dew could look so much like snow






The Sea

Lillian's reflection

This time yesterday, I was woken up by the rhymitic sound of waves crashing upon the sand. I felt surreal. Refreshed. So far removed from the cares of the life that is mine on the other side of the shore.

Now I am back. The familiar barking of the neighbour's dog has replaced the sound of the waves. The breeze from my faithful Panacycle box fan of many years takes the place of the air of the sea. Instead of my toes sinking into the lushious and warm, soft sand, they now grip the cold hard cement floor.

And yet, I'm glad to be where I am. In the here and in the now. For indeed there is no place like home.

Ariel
7.30am

p.s: More stories and pics to follow after I catch up on some backlog Missed you guys!

I've seen some bloggers taking spoony pics like this one here below:

A fleeting thought did cross my mind to pose that way. But no one offered to take a pic of me until Joe crazily suggested it over dinner with the E06 folks.

"Eh, want to take a trendy pose pic ah? The one with the spoons placed on your eyes."

Always gamed for trendy pics, I enthusiastically said yes. Ha! Now I can be at par with the rest of the trendy spoony-eyed bloggers.

So I placed two teaspoons dutifully upon my eyes. Wah, I really couldn't see a thing behind them!

I look like Ultra girl hor? Wheee!

I was so blinded by the spoons that I was totally unaware as to what my surrounding friends were doing to me. Aieeee!

The spoon gang at work! This is what happens to people who harbour envy.

You can tell what my newfound friend KS thought about the whole thing.

Aiyoo... what is wrong with this girl/people???!

Nah, do not be deceived. He was actually part of the spoon gang that sabo'ed me.

The pic above was taken just after I told him that I was not a lawyer.

I kid you not

I have this mental checklist everytime I pack my bags to go somewhere.

In recent days when planning for this holiday trip (yes, I'm on the way to the beach, people - YAAY!), I have always put my baby as the top-most thing to pack along with me. Numero uno on my vacation checklist so to speak.

I've been happily saying this everywhere I go and to everyone I meet, "I'm going to bring my baby to see the sun, sea and sand for the first time! We'll have so much fun together!"

My baby has become to me what American Express is to errr... Americans. I'd never leave home for hols without it.

So there I was, packing away last night and carting off my luggages to my car this morning. Drove happily to work with tranquil visions of me sipping coconut water while munching on some keropok lekor on a lovely, lovely beach. Aaaaah.

Fun at the beach with my baby

As soon as I parked in front of the office, I discovered that I was one bag short. The most important bag of all. I left my camera behind. My baby's home alone! My heart felt like it stopped for one short second. My eyes started seeing stars of the other kind. If there was ever one moment where I felt like kicking myself, this was it.

Going back home and coming to office during lunch hour was rather out of the question as the traffic would be horrendous then. But I couldn't bear to leave my baby behind and only having my Ixus to capture the lovely beach pictures with.

Gah, why did I have to take everything with me except my baby??!!

Thank God that bezzie came to the rescue. She hadn't left for work yet and offered to collect my precious bundle from my house and drop it to me on the way to her office.

Suddenly the sun shone a bit brighter and I could breathe a little easier. And when she come over to pass my camera to me, I bet no sun could rival the huge smile plastered on my face.

Good ol' bezzie! You saved the day

Thank you, bezzie!!!

Pssst... while I'm away, one or two random posts may be placed for your entertainment. Enjoy, be jolly and be good!

To the beach, I go, I gooo!!

Some of my dear friends from KK are down for the E06 conference. Oh, what joy it was to reunite with them again! Never thought I'd make such amazing lifelong buddies in that trip last November. The KK folks think that the DUMC folks were crazy and wacky. And on the flip side of the coin, we DUMC-ians think that KK people are way crazier than us. But the truth is, I think that it is the combination of both particles that bring out the gilerness in each other.

I arrived early for dinner with MF last night. When our food came, I quickly whipped out my camera and snapped a photo of my Unagi Bento. "I don't want them to tease me about taking food pics mar. Haha, this way, they won't be seeing the blogger in me in action!"

My yummy foodie

But my KK friends knew me too well. The first thing that Alice asked when she arrived was, "Wow, nice food you are having there. I bet you took photos of it already!"

Fooman who came later took a while - after ordering food and all - but he still asked the ultimate question. "So, how did your Unagi food pics turn out?"

Bleh, can't fool 'em!

Behold Alice, one of the Chopstick Sisters

Apparently, I wasn't the only blogger on the table. Alice and Julia whipped out their cameras to take photos of their foodies. Not only that, when Choon's delicious mountain of an ice-cream dish came out, Alice, Joe and I rushed to take paparazzi pics of it. Poor Choon! I think she looked rather stunned and traumatised in the picture below.

After that, we kept staring longingly at Choon's bowl on the other side and made many comments about her ice-cream. Fooman suddenly decided, "Tell you what. Let's have one bowl to ourselves." To which we said hearty ayes to. But having the dessert at our table brought the ice-cream monster out of one of us. Eeeks.

To be continued...