Seremban Trip
Day 1
Woke up super early in the morning to travel to tanjong pagar railway station and caught a train to the place where we are heading to which is seremban, Malaysia. The journey was like 6 hours, so long that we were almost bored to death, but thankfully we didn’t cos cards saved our day. Played murderer, the game was so fun; named myself the "silent killer", assassinate people with a blink of an eye. =) Upon reaching, villagers picked us up at the station and drove us to the community hall for allocation of our families.
I was allocated to one of them and was already dusk when we reached their place. Had a light dinner before returning to the community hall for more discussions about the interviews, filming and stuff we’re supposed to do the next few days. Had an early night that day, more to come on the second…
Day 2
It was great in the morning, weather was perfect, enjoying every moment out there in the open, felt the breeze of the cooling wind and the amazing sunrise was perfect to kick off with the day.
Had a hearty breakfast, was real happy that food found so common back home like "Nasi Lemak and Roti Prata" were served, that I can have some even when abroad. Sigh… I'm starting to miss home!
Next, we set off to some museum which was told that it was used to be the sultan's palace. Got stuck in this stuffy van for 45mins throughout the ride, though the heat was killing, chatting and crapping and high school musical 2 make us gotten over everything.
Walking in to a palace, it doesn't seem as grand as what I've thought. Everything in there was in royal yellow, and lots of item was on display, and so the Minang cultures we're researching on well better off understand. Not forgetting that spooky roof, heard noises coming from there, was said to be bats or rats, whatever it is, it's kind of scary to even step into that place. Well, so much for that palace, we moved on and arrived at a pit-stop, as told there is a huge waterfall somewhere in the mountains, didn't have time to reached the submit, so just hang around the bottom of the river. Bought some light snacks there as we head back to the village for more lessons.
After dinner, being in team B, dance was our first lesson and was learning some traditional dance that night from those young Malay girls. Some of the moves were hard and complex and it's also hard to catch the beat but after much practice, we were able to dance to the groove.
Returned back home, I was so exhausted that after bathing, I fell asleep on my bed.
Day 3
Nothing much on the third day though, since morning was just doing interviewing, filming and some photo shooting of the village till about slightly over lunch time. It was kind of cool when you know you are doing all this for the production of a documentary, some sort like Mediacorp. But when it comes to handling of stuff, we are so noob as compared to those professionals. Besides, everything has its first time too, no exception for all this either. However, we had to call it a day after two interviews as we were too tired to carry on.
Returned home for a nap and we were off to someone's place for traditional dinner. Everyone was in their traditional clothes and I too was in my sarong. In that dinner, villages taught us the traditional way of eating and stuff. It was kind of a new experience for me, as we people always use utensils for our meals. Next, we were off to the hall for some talk conducted by an adat specialist. Like what Sha mentioned, it was very poetic which in turn makes it so boring. And despite all that thoughts that were going through in our head, we must admit something is learned out of it, a lot of questions answered too and that indeed brings a great help to our project. That was all for the third day.
Day 4
Have been always looking forward to the fourth day cos the term "river trekking" makes me so excited about that particular event, like some sort of excursion thingy where you can get to explore and at the same time experiencing the nature of wildlife. And indeed, it was fun. The five Musketeers at the back of the pack were the coolest among us all, singing along the way as we slowly make our way to the final destination. Anyway, Kavidah lost her slippers on the way; the whole team had to stick our hands into the pool of sand searching for the lost slippers. It was not an easy task for us as the gushing water kept flowing towards us and perhaps that might be a possibility that it might be flushed away downstream already. In the end, we gave up as with so much effort and still couldn’t find that missing slippers. The personal then brought us to the first pit-stop where we find ourselves surrounded by boulders of clay, applied some onto my face as it was said to have facial purposes.
Finally arrived at this place, where there is a small pool. Everyone was so happy that we jumped inside. Moved a log into the center of that pool and had games too. Several people suffered bites from leeches, I was lucky to escape from all those pain. Those creeps are disgusting man. Shoots! We headed back to the village on foot as there wasn't any transport available.
Night time was chaklempong class for my team which was a swop from the dance. This time round, instead of working physically, we had to work mentally and that is to memorize the rhythm and the melody of the song. Playing the Malay instruments isn’t as simple as what I'd thought. But for my case, having a musical foundation indeed helps a little and I'm able to pick things up faster than the rest.
Had a small accident on the way back, as I knocked against sha's bike, and fortunately there were no injuries.
Day 5
More group discussion and interviews today, everything looks more organized now as information gathered are complied and were drafted for submission.
Handicraft session in the afternoon as Keann was missing among us because of a pretty bad fall on the way to the hall by bicycle. Anyway, wasn't really very good at these things as I could recall, took days to finished a bottle of origami stars the other time.
More of dancing practices in the night for the upcoming performance on the last night. Rehearsal throughout the night did brushes us up and we looked set and ready for tomorrow's performance. And for your info, I was appointed to be the lead dancer, so excited about it. Together with me, two friends of mine taught the village girls Latin in exchange and had some bonding session after it to sum the day up.
Day 6
Today was great as finally, we will have some leisure time to ourselves for shopping. Went to nilai 3 and some other places to shop, didn’t buy much though.
Had a late lunch and were off for some touring around the village where we'll have a chance to experience rubber tapping and the visitation of the goat farm which we seldom see back home. Sigh man, Keann fell again. This time round it hurts big time, you could see scratches all over the body and the bleeding just never stops. He's in a terrible shape I should say, and were so unlucky to have so many unfortunate things happening to him. It's very painful i guess.
Moving on to cultural night, it was fun. Kavidah was made the bride and Xiaolong the groom. We had a traditional wedding for them and a ceremony too. The dance, Chaklempong, and Chan Mali Chan performance by us was the highlight. After everything's over, had some light refreshments in the hall and photo takings, went back home right away to rest as we were so tired after such a long day.
Day 7
Last day came; we had a sending off ceremony in the hall and more photo takings. We had exchange of gifts and hugs, handshakes too from all of them as a farewell to us.
I would like to say a big thank you to my foster parents and people who had brought me joy during this trip and those whom had help me one way or the other, really enjoyed the stay there. And from the bottom of my heart, I would say you people are great. Would visit your someday next month with people of the trip, perhaps during Hari Raya? So till then, bye!!!
Photos to be uploaded pretty soon after compilation.
Signing off with much love.
=)