Back to basics

So.... I just came back from a trip to Ipoh yesterday ( i can't remember when was the last time i spent a good time there already!!). I even forgot how much i loved that place :)

Anyways, the trip's main purpose was to distribute my sister's Chinese wedding dinner's invites to some of the relatives there.. Pre-trip, i used to think what are postages for. Post-trip, personally delivering the invites isn't such a bad idea after all. Nowadays, we rely too much on technologies and services provided that we hardly see our relatives anymore. I mean, i can't even recognise half of the people i saw yesterday.

Enough talking, picturessss!! I have no idea why i took so many pictures, most prolly to compensate the lack of photography enthusiasm when i entered my degree. First and foremost i have to apologise for the difference in quality cos they are all from different sources ; my BB, my mom's Ace, my digicam, my bro's dslr.

Here's my gramma holding a picture of her old home (obviously my idea lol) with my grampa before they moved to TI, somewhere in Ipoh near the hills. I only know the Hakka version of the name, which is "Sak Lung Kok". Seeing the picture my granduncle took, i can sense the nostalgia my gramma, dad, and aunt were feeling at that time, and i guess that kinda made me feel so fortunate we're able to take pictures as we like now to preserve memories of stuff we would like to preserve.. A little too fortunate, i would say :P

That's the village my dad grew up in :) I almost wished that i could live in that place!! It seems so serene, so untouched, so peaceful... Well, given the condition that i grew up without electricity and the technology we have today, i can definitely live in that place since i'm gonna be used to it. This is a 50 yo picture by the way...

And this is how it looks like now. Why oh why the limestone mountains whyyyy T___T

Dad felt so nostalgic he made a trip to the place afterwards. I wanted to take a picture of all 3 of them taking pictures but ayy my dad was too quick. Somehow the whole family got into picture-taking mood and everyone just whips out their camera/ phones to take pictures whenever, wherever (especially my dad).

And that explains why i get random shots of myself like this.

And this. There's a not-so-funny-but-i-wanna-tell-anyway story to this picture. I was driving with one hand, and my dad wanted to take a photo of me and he went "Eh two hands!". So yeah that explains the awkward position i had in the picture driving them to Ipoh.

Sorry the pictures are not in sequences. Am lazy to arrange my story in order lah hahahahaha (am currently whatsapp-ing with kshyen about laziness too! Talk about coincidence).

Wanna see something cute in the midst of the land mining shit going on at my dad's old village?

My dad's childhood play mate whom he accidentally met there told my bro (before knowing he's my dad's son) that there's a pig farm somewhere on top... Must be thinking we're some kinda city people never seen pigs before....... *slowly turns my head to the side out of embarassment cos i've never seen one before*

Okay so as we reached the pig farm these two little piglets came out and greet us wtf so cute i vowed to myself never to eat those roasted piglets at restaurants anymore!!!

 Look at the nose... The little tails... I would've taken one and smuggled into my bag if my bag wasn't white and they won't grow into.....

THIS.

Not sure if you can see it or not, but it's a freaking HUGE AND HAIRY pig!! (did i stress on the word hairy enough) At first i thought the farm was like multi-animal type they keep a bull here but as i inched closer to the gate it was clearer and clearer that it was a freaking PIG, i tell you!! I would've went closer and took a better shot but i was so scared cos it looked so big and strong that the little gate could fly open any second and that big piece of pork would devour me cos it can smell the amount of pork i had over the years so yeah ummmm moving on to the smaller harmless-ish pink ones... and a little brown ones too........

Okay i know you're very depressed cos you're eating all these cute little creatures let me show you a freaking funny picture confirm you laugh your ass off, literally.

Hahahahahahahahahaha you laughing or not???

Okay enough of pictures of pigs these should be enough to make you not wanna eat pigs temporarily (or forever hahaha).

So, that morning we had breakfast in this AWESOME place, i check-in at fb to tell everyone this is far far far better than Old Town Ipoh White Coffee. Much better concept too.

LO AND BEHOLD, Lim Ko Pi!! Prices are freaking reasonable and food is freaking good i can freaking gobble up so much food look at my gluttonous face.

Literally okay i had 2 pieces of this awesome charcoal toasted bread smeared with butter and eggs on top, and a bowl of dry curry noodles. Which is not my typical kinda breakfast cos i'm always a light breakfast person. A piece of bread, coffee/milo/a drink kau tim.

Though there were some issues with fried wan tans and my aunty and the dumb waiter and a little mistake in the bill but i'll overlook that cos the food was awesome :) You can double-confirm that from my gluttonous face devouring food (not to forget my bro's too hahahaha)

Thereafter, we went to this cave where we planned to bring my sister's in-laws and awed ourselves to death.

This should be the name of the cave since it's the only board erected with chinese wordings on it. Sorry, no translation cos i can't read this shit. Shouldn't be so proud of this cos Ton was laughing at me for not being able to read Chinese when i'm a Chinese T_____T So ummm all you Chinese people out there you'd better take your grandparents' advice and go study Chinese, make them prouuuuuud.

So.. This cave.

Has a growing stone or some sort somewhere. Apparently this stone grows..... But i thought all stones grow? Maybe this one at a faster rate than usual hmmm cos my cousin said when she was little (she's still little btw ; 12 yo) it didn't look like this. I suspect they change the stones every year or something to make people come and see the stone but since they don't charge entrance fees i don't see the purpose of them doing this. Hmmmm a case to ponder.

I have the prettiest gramma on Earth. You jelly?
(Okay actually the main purpose i took the picture from a weird position was to capture the hole at the top of the picture cos i find it amusing and i want my gramma in it lah can or not)

The inner part of the cave with me in the middle, glowing like nobody's business for some weird reasons.. If you ignore the glowing me and squint your eyes you can see a lot of old man with newspapers at the back hahahaha according to my cousin a lot of old people come here to pass time.. Which is not such a bad idea since it was sooooo cooling n the cave and the place was so serene and beautiful.. Cos beyond the cave filled with stalagtites, is a secret garden with elves and dwarfs, kept secret from the rest of the world......

Or just a well kept garden with a pond in the middle and awesome trees and lush greeneries surrounding it. Along with the noise pollution of a stone factory somewhere (the ONLY downside to this place)

Or a temple where Shaolin monks practice their kung fu every morning..

Which turns out to be a toilet when your gramma wants to go to a toilet.

With a mirror outside the door so people can take a picture of themselves while waiting for their grandparents to take a leak.

And then on the way back home (or more like Kampar cos we were planning to have dinner there since Zhi sent us a map of the awesome food in Kampar) we stopped by one of the many durian stalls by the road side.. and brought back 13 biji durians back with us :D We ate one there and it was literally mouthgasm!!! Asked my bro to take a picture of us eating at the stall macam village people but he wouldn't cos he was so pissed at the smell or at the world i can't differentiate the emotions anymore.

The thing is, for the 3 months i was in KL i forgot how much i loved nature.. And KL is seriously lacking of these beautiful places, even though they do have planted trees around but merely as a landscape nothing more nothing less. Maybe i should've accepted the offer from UNIMAS to go to Sarawak then i can jungle trek every chance i get hahahahahaha.

Actually i took like literally a whole day to write this post cos the photo uploader was acting up, like some of the photos i uploaded were like this:

And i can't view them, etc. etc. And then i paused for dinner and paused for so many stuff, and i finally finish this post at night :P

Oh yeah and i deliberately ignore the period between my last post and this one cos i'm tired of saying that for the gazillionth time already. Adios people :)