malacca

so i went for church camp from saturday to today, tuesday.

let me start off by complaining about the journey, there.

it took a whopping 11 hours to go to malacca. mind you, it's our neighbouring country.

i don't even..... don't even know where the hours flew to.

i know a heckuva lot of it went to waiting IN THE BUS in the jam to the malaysian arrival hall customs, that one not so bad, i slept through about a quart to half of it..

when we arrived, we thought, AHHHH.

AND THEN, the number of people there was just.... c.r.a.z.y.

bottleneck to through to the doors, throngs of people in a mob "queuing" outside the doors cause inside was full.. "queuing" because the queues are as defined as strands of hair in a hair ball.

got inside after what, one hour? and there, the person was just stamping our passports without even looking at our faces. mummy just got mine and louis' passports and dumped it on the table, along with 3454 other people who did the same thing.

basically he just grabbed passports on the table, stamped, we collected it, and left.

yupp, like 5 people at the counter at a time. never will happen in singapore.

THEN to the scanning baggage area, that one okay la. it's just that.. the people there are damn lax. the officers who supposedly check the scans were talking, and at 3pm sharp, they just left! maybe it's the end of their shift or something, but there was no one there to check the baggage, so people just came out of the arrival hall without having ANYTHING checked. 

not their identity, not their baggage.

nothing.

then it was 15 mins to lunch (at 3:30pm, we were supposed to reach our hotel at 12pm, estimated), but lunch was awe-some.

we finally reached the hotel at 7:30pm, to applause from church members who drove there. hahahahha. 

okay not going to say anything about church camp, except that i ate more coco crunch these past 3 days that i have these past 3 years.

on monday we also got to go out shopping, and the following pictures will talk. 

not so much la, uh, assist.

we got a friend's friend to drive us, and we first stopped for chendol!!!!!! ordered one plain, one durian, and it came with a bottle of gula malaka (? spelling??). MMMMMM.

 couldn't snap it before it was half eaten. no sense. 

our family's friend, aunty geraldine, said that i would like this place cause it was very rich in culture, and the shops were antique and quaint.

so true! i love whatchamacallit, themed? shops. especially traditional ones. 

i kinda prefer western traditional (think victorian) to chinese traditional (think dynasties), but i'm no expert. by far in fact. i just appreciate.. effort in decoration.

this is the place we had simple chendol at. 

which also sold laksa, but we came out right after lunch. tooo.... full........ ): pity.

it had an upper storey, but the stairs were blocked....... with antiques. 

the walls. 

pardon the sudden non-ancient-feel. but this FOOD SHOP sells real salvaged artifacts.

#funfact

POTFULLLLL OF GULA MALAKAAAAAAAAAAA

friggin huge pot.

some overpriced concept store we went into, as i snapped this, some not-very-friendly sales girl said in her shrill voice, (in chinese), miss! here cannot take photos ah!

so i said, "oh cannot ah. orh. *snap* okay *keeps my ipod*"

what, make your shop so nice for what huh.

 

 back to ancient feel mode. passing by some random shop.

it's the.. "pot" is inappropriate, "bucket" is not proper.... it's the thing they used nong ago to hold water..?

in the same shop, some scary-ass statue. would put this at the entrance of my home, scare visitors.
and myself.

 

 even the traffic light like coolios only.

 

whazzis? idk if it's a temple or what, on it's left and right it's like.. shops.

oh this place a bit like chinatown, except a lot more real, and less every-shop-also-sells-the-same-thing.

lucky enough to pass by this shop selling gorgeous artworks. hurriedly took these two photos before getting into the car.

 wow the display.

 bought sandalsssssssssssssssssssssssssss. like i want for how long alr! damn cheap, and i couldn't decide between this design or another, i ask mummy, which one nicer.

she headache (like literally) already and was like "AIYAH buy both la buy both!"

^^

 this all in jonker walk. / jonker street?

feel like this ought to be the starting pic or something.

 is it very usual for this to be found in singapore?

i don't see it much. we ate peranakan food later after the shopping, and the friend's friend said this was used in one of the dishes.

 

 bua-ku-lat??????????? idk!!!! some horrible tasting fruit, like organs, but worse. 

it's not like horrible tasting la, it's those, must learn how to eat one.

suddenly thought of how shit would taste like...........................

cause ^ it looks like..... yeah..

not that i fantasize.

my mum like super happy only, hotel food no chili cause of children.

yeah, again no sense to take picture, this one only when finished then take.

sambal kangkong, some assam-ish chicken with the fruit mentioned above, egg with shrimp paste, beef rendang.

all spicy one, like come on la i only started eating minorly

nice though. change from usual hotel food.

 

 thing about malaysia (and a lot of other countries too la, but i just haven't seen it yet), is that you can have a hotel in the ABSOLUTE middle of nowhere, like you look left look right, it's green grass.

and also a dilapidated house 50m away from a posh condo.

a kampung house next to a luxe bungalow.

like the above picture shows a very rundown building, next to a newly soon-to-be-finished office building.

like.... image?? hello??

once again i shall end of with my nails.

hello it wasn't easy instagramming all those pictures okay. before i left singapore, i had like 2 or 3 nails minorly chipped. it was like this.

 except a little chipped. i was lazy to remove them the night before i left, so i thought i'd do it on the bus. 

in the morning, i packed cotton wool, base coat, colour, top coat...............

but i didn't pack nail polish remover.

#goodjob

so i scratched the colour off over the next 3 days............... literally chipped it off. tore my nail, peeled the surface....

to this.

sometimes, just sometimes, i think i'm quite amazing.

mind you, the previous polish was:

base coat

2 coats of purple

2 top coats

one line of top coat + glitter in the middle

strong stuff.

not stronger than me,