07.07.07

Ah.. what an auspicious date. Took a short break from my hectic work. Me and 7 fellow city slickers drove our way up to Awana Kijal, Terengganu for a 3 day 2 nite escapade.  Ann had managed to book us an apartment owned by her company, for a minimal fee. It was about 4 hours drive and I decided to change my routine. Instead of just heading straight to dreamland, I stayed awake to keep the driver company. I guess they wished otherwise, for I was soon singing along to the radio particularly to Gwen Stefani’s Sweet Escape… “Yee haa.. I wanna get away.. Hoo woo.. To my own sweet escape…” for at least 5 times J  Even SY looked confused when I was trying to sing this tune..

We made a stopover at Kuantan around 1 pm for lunch and paid a visit to Terrence’s parents. I reckon there are many short-sighted and/or elderly people there as the road signs seems have extremely big letterings as compared to Kay El. I bet if you were to stand within a feet of them, you’ll probably can’t read the whole word. . I’m serious.  Anyway, lunch was alright. Had our first stuffed crab at this Restoran Pak Su. After finishing around 3 pm, we adjourned straight to Kemaman town for this famous coffee at a little corner shop Kedai Kopi Hai Peng (www.kopi.com.my) . This is probably by far the best non-Nescafe coffee I’ve tasted, even better than the Hainan coffee at Imbi market. However, its kaya & butter bread pales in comparison to the Imbi one.

With our stomach stuffed, we were ready to check in to the Baiduri apt, which is just next to the Awana Kijal (AK) hotel. Horror of horrors, the 2 room apt looked and smelled like some low cost apt back in the city, with dirty floors and even dirtier bed(sheets)? Without hesitation and with the speed of a bullet, we zoomed to AK hotel. There goes our low budget trip. But it was still not too bad, cos we managed to stuff 8 people into 2 premier room! Had a dip in the pool and jacuzzi thereafter. And in line with our “over-budgetted” trip, we opted for a variety of fried rice at a nearby mamak that nite.

08.07.07

Was really looking forward to catching the sunrise and enthusiastically woke up at 6 am. Dragged 3 of my frens along, only to find out it was raining outside.. Sigh, back to bed everybody!!  Started out our activities for the day by playing ping pong until I felt like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump.   Headed to the beach after that for a first time canoeing session. Only me and Angie went while the rest just laze under the shade playing cards. The paddling was really energy zapping and to reach the jetty at the other end took us nearly 45 min to and fro. Half way thru, I started feeling sea sick and fed the fish as usual with a trail of my vomit.. God, I’m so weak, weak, weak!!!  Feeling better 2 hours later, we rented the beach ball from the hotel for little fun on the beach. Tried football and ended screaming like pigs whenever anyone got the ball. Bunch of loonies.. the hotel staffs must be thinking.. Adjourned to volleyball next (with the same ball) where I tried to ‘kick’ it instead of hitting with hand.. (Hey, I was still not over about the football mah)..Dark clouds started to form around 6 pm and we managed to scuttered to our rooms just in time before the heavy downpour.  Luckily for us, rain stopped 2 hours later, and we managed to drive out to town for a nice dinner (more stuff crabs!) and a durian makan session after that.. (yikes, we are really gluttons!)

09.07.07

Yahoo, finally got to see sunrise courtesy of the clouds clearing after last nite’s rain. Nothing ever looks as majestic to me as seeing it rising slowly beyond the horizon the colour of an egg yolk. At that point, to me, all our troubles seemed so tiny. Not even worthy of a drop in the ocean. No matter what we’ve done or not done, there’ll always be tomorrow to look forward to coz the sun will always rise & shine.. J Headed back to reality after checking out and having breakfast at Kedai Kopi Hai Peng again.  

It was a much needed breakaway for me despite the ‘cost overrun’….