An Incredible Journey

Every Chinese New Year spells the need for my family and relatives from my mother's side to return to Ipoh, Perak for the reunion dinner. This year's edition was more special than I could remember in my memory. Here's a recap of the events.

January 3rd
Drove up to Mentakab, Pahang to my 2nd uncle's house for lunch. What was supposed to be a three car convoy trip with my 3rd and 8th aunt's family became 2 when my 8th aunt's husband couldn't catch up with my dad's car, got lost and pulled out of the journey. Upon arrival, we were greeted by my 2nd uncle's loud, cheerful voice and my cousins as well. We had a good lunch served up by one of my cousins who works as a cook, but little did I know this meal would be the start of a nightmare for the next few days. Later in the night, after returning from KL, my youngest uncle came back from Sabah and stayed with us overnight.

January 4th
Our 2nd day started with the journey to Ipoh as early as 8.15 a.m. My family travelled with my youngest uncle, who drove the car graciously loaned to him by my 3rd uncle the night before. For the first time in my life, my dad had to drive at around 90-100 km/h on the highway so that my youngest uncle could keep up with us. Halfway through the journey, we caught up with my 3rd uncle and his family. It was quite surprising to see them actually, as we didn't expect to catch up with him because he started off earlier than us. Arriving at my eldest aunt's (who is also my godmother) house at Chemor two-and-a half hours later, me and my dad got sleepy because we slept quite late last night. We quickly grabbed fourty winks and by evening we went over to my grand-aunt's house in Sungai Siput for dinner. There I also learned to play some card games, but I still stand with my 'no gambling' rules.

January 5th
This day saw my family and a few of my relatives going to Taiping in the afternoon to visit another relativeand return to Chemor by evening for a big dinner. Everything was pretty fine until the journey back came. There was massive jam everywhere and just when I thought my family were the latest to arrive, some of my other relatives weren't even there yet! That proves that the jam was MASSIVE! Food for dinner includes yee sang, Thai-style fried chicken, shark's fin soup, steamed fish and then some. Remember I mentioned the word 'nightmare' ealier? Well, my nightmare meant that for the 3rd successive day I've been eating lots of chicken and fish. To make matters worse, I had to finish almost the whole chicken dish myself. Dinner was finished near 10 p.m and we returned to my aunt's house. Later at almost midnight one of my cousins suggested that we go and have a drink or two at the coffeeshop nearby. We had a cup of herbal tea to clear the oil accumulated in our stomach from all the food we had for the past few days, but then one of them wanted to eat burger and we walked over to a nearby burger stall for a burger and two. After buying, we headed over to the area's recreational park to feast on their food. The park was pretty dark by that time (there was a lack of lighting facility) and we just sat there eating, joking and talking about lots of things before heading back to the house at nearly 2 a.m.

January 6th
This day was my last day at Ipoh. Had to wake up pretty early to start the journey to avoid traffic jam. The way back was greeted early by a leaking left rear tyre on my dad's car. The journey home was a pretty boring affair, with traffic jam right not far from the exit to the highway to Ipoh. To avoid fuel wastage, we turned off at Bidor to use the trunk road right up to Tanjung Malim before turning down to the highway again. We arrived home in KL at 1 p.m. and had chicken rice (sigh! gasp!) for lunch.

As a summary, this year's Chinese New Year journey doesn't look like a repeat of every other years, perhaps due to the fact that I am no longer studying as of now. But this time I've had my fair share of bad and good experience, mixed emotions and inheritance of more knowledge, this year's journey is more akin to one of premier automotive show Top Gear's challenges: a road trip.