After trying to convince May Ling (unsuccessfully) that we wanted to sleep in this morning, being the morning after Chinese New Year festivities, we got up at 9am to be ready by 9:15am-ish. May Ling had said she would pick us up at 9am, and as Malaysian time is usually slower than the rest of the world, we thought we had prepared by getting up at the designated ‘pick up time’. We should have known better. We could have slept in until 10:30am as she did not arrive until QUARTER TO ELEVEN. Sigh. On a side note, we got chatting to an Australian brother and sister in our hostel while we waited. His feet were burnt quite badly as some bar he’d been in recently took to lighting the bar on fire and some idiot thought it would be funny to pour too much lighter fluid on his feet – and they just kept on burning. Fire and alcohol should not mix – let that be a lesson to you kiddies.
Back to the topic, May Ling arrived (rather late) and we set off to some of her former students’ houses. There was lots of smiling, lots of being talked about in Malay and most of all, lots of food. The aim was for us to experience how families celebrate New Year’s Day, and it was very interesting to the see the three different families, with three very different houses. The first family we visited were vegetable farmers and their toilet was outside of the house – positioned over a river. The waste goes into the river and then consequently continues on to fertilise the vegetables. I am unsure if I will be able to eat vegetables here again…
All three houses had the same food. They had cookies (one of which tasted and felt like sand… I discretely disposed of that one in a napkin!), peanuts, sweet and sour things… not sure exactly what they were, but rather unpleasant all the same, and my favourite of all (insert sarcasm here) was the Kuihee (a.k.a Balls of Clag). They looked like fruit, so into our mouths they went… BIG MISTAKE. Hardly any flavour, but the consistency of clag glue. Ew.
It’s a very nice tradition Chinese New Year – everyone visits their friends and families, the children all receive envelopes made from beautiful paper containing some money. It is not about the amount of money in the envelope, the theory is that the receiver will be blessed with good luck and good fortune and a prosperous future. The packets are also given to unmarried guests – which we were. We ended up getting 5 packets each in total, equalling 45RM. How Nice.
On to the Melaka Megamall. We intended to watch a movie, in air-conditioning for a couple of hours and that is exactly what we did! We saw ‘Valentines Day’ on Valentines Day, how very cliché of us. We also managed to see a Lion Dance in the shopping mall. They are cute and somewhat terrifying at the same time! They move like giant puppies but have the faces of lions mixed with clowns… a scary combination.
For dinner, it was off to an out-of-the-way Indian restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet and our hostel manager. It was delicious, we had (you could guess) Butter chicken and cheese naan. It was rather an awkward dinner for me as I was facing a table with two Indian men sitting at it… who were constantly staring at us. Like open mouthed, eye contact continual staring. Even the man who was facing away would turn around to look – not at all subtle guys! I don’t think it’s rude to stare here, but it should be! I do realise we look different, we have blonde hair, pale skin and thin noses - but it’s still RUDE TO STARE.
Back to the hostel to pack for Kuching tomorrow and sleep!
Ta ta
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