my short getaway :)

hahas ;) i wanted to upload them one by one with captions. but decided that it wasnt too wise :) check http://smusg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26197&l=91df3&id=584370276 for the photos :) didn't upload all tho :) just about 40 out of the 400 we took.

the trip was a good one :) big thanks to alden for the transport and karen and aunty agnes for the affordable stay at aenon :) i like this sort of holidays, where you actually make friends and not simply sightsee, eat and shop at the common places like a normal tourist. got to know some of the aenon students and improving my spoken mandarin at the same time! (complete with the msian accent).

haha!! the four days passed by pretty fast and much as i didnt wanna go home, we had to leave. i actually wanted to extend my stay if not for ftb faci training at 8am the next day.

just a recap for my own sake :)

thursday: alden was late, as usual. haha! but we managed to cross the causeway at 5am or so. and got to aenon at EIGHT AM. all bright and sunny. it was a very smooth journey with alden tipping the 140km/h mark hahas. after breakfast, we had devotion and then karen gave me a FULL BODY MASSAGE :) complete with the olive oil and all, which was nice :) other than the fact we were short of time so it become an upper body massage. after lunch we headed out cos aunty agnes wanted to get her tau sar pia! and we went on a fruit spree. buying bananas, eating roadside coconut hahahas. cant really rem. suddenly that afternoon is fuzzy. but oh well.. we got back in time for farming! where the boys did all the work and i took photos :) and we saw the largest termites' nest EVER. it was disgusting. the more we dug the more termites we uncovered. yucks. night was choir prac and an early night :)

friday: we had our morning "exercise" by exploring the area outside aenon! i've always loved those nice cool country side kinda places. with cool fresh air in the morning, plenty wild plants and greenery and odd looking houses :) took plenty photos! then, we went colporteuring! for the uninitiated, it's the selling of christian literature. i used to scoff at the idea of selling books, cos i thought it was a terrible way of evangelising and that it probably puts people off rather than bring them to God. then i realised that's because we live in Singapore :) the mentality. i guess in malacca it works better, cos the people are not so wary of strangers knocking on their door and talking to them. with some being quite open, tho mostly closed. pingping and i actually sold two, by the grace of God :) and it was a really interesting experience. and i actually quite liked it, doing what i do best - TALKING. only wish i was more fluent in mandarin. haha. after colporteuring was lunch at aunty semai's. i super liked the fried tofu! haha, then after lunch was shopping shopping shopping! mahkota and the building opp mahkota. FOS is still the must see place in msia :) then we headed to the pasar malam behind aenon where they sold RM3 skirts and extremely yummy food :) by evening we were back at aenon, for sundown worship. then i cant rem what we did at night!

sabbath: we headed to malacca church :) and did our special song! it was really different singing with aenon choir, as compared to balestier choir. the first prac stunned me cos i never knew the song cld sound so nice hahahahahs. and we only had 10 people. i just hope the balestier youth can pull it off this week, rahhhs. church was good, sabbath school was taught by jason, who is an extremely good speaker for someone his age (younger than me!) and the sermon was preached by jiayi, who's also younger than me. hahas. and it was pretty good. you can see that all the work in malacca is spear-headed by the young people, which is heartening. what about singapore?? hahas. the afternoon was spent having a meeting about syc and then a choir prac with the aenon choir. after sundown, the five of us + jiayi headed down to jonker walk!! :) which was super fun! the car ride was excruciatingly long esp with the 4 of us squashed at the back seat but interestingly, our long journeys to and fro were actually more enjoyable than the actual shopping at jonker. haha, inside jokes. but jonker was pretty amazing. somehow singapore night markets just dont cut it. jonker had plenty food and cheap stuff! :) and the chendol was omg, HEAVENLY. pity was too full to get my own so i just stole a bit of everyone's :) shopping there was good, wish i had more money :) we got back at 12am, and found out that everyone was busy baking at night so they all just got back to slp too :)

sunday: RM1 set lunch day! so we just helped out in the kitchen, which was pretty much an eye-opener. it was good too cos there's much to learn and prepare if we wanna do it in singapore :) i made pies okay! made the dough. haha thk i was pretty much a liability but oh well :) the set lunch took up most of the day. and then we had to pack up. but before we left, we sang our special song for uncle fam and dr lee, who were very ill. and it was, touching. and what dr lee shared with us after that was really moving too. i heard alden sniffing behind me! and some ppl were tearing. but it was a nice end to the trip :) we said our goodbyes, which was pretty long. then we headed to jusco for a short while for me to get my water bottles! (really pretty!) and then at 7.30pm we started heading back to singapore. the journey didnt seem too bad for a while. UNTIL, we were 70 km away from johor, and the traffic reached a standstill. SEVENTY KM I KID YOU NOT. standstill! even at the road shoulder! aunty agnes predicted a 5am arrival time at singapore. i've never seen the NS highway jammed before. but after crawling for 20 km (took about an hour), we decided to pray and the traffic cleared miraculously! there were no exits or anything. the cars just disappeared :) coincidence? i dont thk so :) hahas it was pretty smooth. then got caught in another jam at causeway for 1.5 h then i reached home at 1am. amazing. but that sums up our trip :)

i kinda miss the people there at aenon, and their goodness and sincerity. it is nice to be surrounded by these kinda people all the time, no wonder karen really enjoyed her six months there. hmmm. it was a short but nice getaway. and i spent only slight more than 100 bucks including lodging, food, transport and shopping! :) most of the time it's because of the people you're with and the people you meet :) more than the things you do :) i wanna go on another vacation! RAHHH.