A Week without Sunday in Kuchxng - Day 1

5/10/2009

I shall save the details on our flight. In brief, I traveled to Melaka to meet the girls, took a bus up to LCCT, spent a night at the airport and took off at about 7.30 am.

Smiley-looking Chan, the owner of B&B Inn picked us up from the airport, holding a card with my name on. While walking out of the airport, I thought the Pajero was his as he walked to the driver seat (which in fact, he was just crossing the road). I waited at the Pajero and they were looked at me and said: “what are you doing?” The answer from me was surely, “Nothing~”.

He took a detour around the Cat city, telling us what place is this and that. After checking in, we were led to our room by Lily, one of the workers whom we are not close with. We had a double-decker and a queen-sized bed which can accommodate 4 persons in the room.

Chan introduced us a place near the Carpenter streets where we can taste one of the famous hot spot for Kolo noodle (it's at Bishopgates lane if I am not mistaken). He warned us: The boss does not take order. He might be infuriated if he is disturbed. The next thing you will be seeing is his ladle knocks on our foreheads and possibly banishes us out of the garden of Meeden. So, what we did was waited outside for our turn since the petite shop only accommodates 11 tables. We waited ½ hour because some aunties are really good at cutting cues and we, city idiots, were clueless how rules were played.

After seated, a lady came to take order. Then food was served. The soup filled with pig-intestines and other parts smells great. It tastes great if you fancy this kind of gourmet. That’s so much about it. After lunch, we got back to our hostel. Nobody checked in that day so we had the whole house by ourselves. We tried to catch up some sleep in the afternoon.

By the time we woke up, it was already early evening. We decided to walk around few shopping plazas. First, we went to the Sarawak Plaza. Wendy bought a Dragonball paper fan. Then we proceeded to Tun Jugah, another building opposite it. I told myself next time if anyone ever mention Kuching is a shopping heaven, I am gonna gun him down myself. These two plazas are not fit to be called shopping centre at all! (But then after a few days, the local told us if we want to go shopping, we should go to the Spring or Boulevard instead, which is a driving distance from the city spot).

Filled with despair, we must have some meal for dinner to compensate our emotional loss. We came to a restaurant called Sambal. I ordered a plate of Dabai Fried Rice. I didn’t know what Dabai was. Neither do the workers. One of them even said that day was her first day working and she doesn’t know anything so I ‘kindly’ requested another waiter to check it with the kitchen. It turned out Dabai is a kind of fruit which looks like dates. The food was just fine, nothing special.

After dinner, rain started pouring. We walked under the rain back to the hostel. Watched a comedic movie and toasted bread for supper (bread, marjerin and kaya were meant for breakfast), while flipping through some travelbooks displayed on top of the table by the television. I turned in quite early because the next day, we are going to the Bako National Park.