Today was the wedding reception of an ex-student, Nazmi, and I could not track back from which SPM batch he is from. I had another colleague being invited, Mr. Masrizal, and managed to see quite a few familiar faces of students of the present and the past.
The problem of reading a good book is that you will abandon other work which is more important, like marking exam papers, oopss! And then there is this need to write a review of it.
Then, we went to Cahaya Bulan Beach, which is actually a famous tourist spot. However, the beach was badly eroded and the were large rocks arranged by the sea side to at least slow down the damage done by the waves. But I wonder, how long will this last?
And once we were there, we had to sample its well-known delicacy (from what I had read from other people's blog), fried squid and prawns coated in flour. But the one that got the highest rating from us would be the refreshing and cooling coconut water.
Miss Zalina then took us to a graveyard which was different as the length of the graves was longer and narrow in size. The plot of land was large but then it was divided into smaller lots and the smaller lands were fenced which was already booked, I suppose, by certain family members. By looking at some peculiarities of the tombstone as well as the structure of the graves, this could be the burying ground for royalties.
Lastly, we went to a significant spot in the local history, the first place where the Japanese Army landed in Malaya during World War ll, that was Sabak Beach. It was another fishing village by the sea and not much remnant of the past could be found here though.
Pengkalan Chepa Mosque
We managed to see a real Japanese Fort that was situated by the roadside in Pengkalan Chepa. Just imagine the number of people who had been killed here during the bloody war about 60 years ago.
Since I was in town, I took the opportunity to get in touch with my old friends. Nevertheless, there was only one person available, Miss Zalina Ismail. I was glad that she decided to take us out for dinner or else we would end up at the same Food Court in KB Mall. The last time I saw her was back in 1993, during convocation but it was easy to spot her as some people they did not change (a lot).
So we went to this exclusive looking dining place by the name of "Wau" and at that time, there were a lot of customers. Only after ordering did we realize that the proverb "never judge a book by its cover" applied here. The service was VERY slow and when requested why Shamsul's order of "belacan" [shrimp cake] fried rice did not arrive, they simply switched his food to "kampung" fried rice, to our amazement.
Nevertheless, thanks a lot to Miss Zalina for the time spent. Maybe next time, the TESL group members should have a gathering here in Kota Bharu.
touring the city, foreigner style
The first museum that we set foot in was the Kelantan State Museum. After all the museum visits, now all the exhibits looked more or less the same to me. But it was a relief to stay for quite some time. Other then drowning ourselves with the sea of knowledge, the cool air-condition was a bliss before we had to be exposed to the hot weather outside.
This was a jetty for the sampan [boats] that are using the Kelantan River. From its name, the facility was only for the access of the royal family members as there was not a single boat in sight.
This should be a new landmark for Kota Bharu, I supposed. The construction of the clock tower that was overlooking the Kelantan River had just been completed. Once it is opened to the public, then people can go up the tower and get a view of Kota Bharu from a higher level, which could be a tourist attraction.
This is Muhammadi Mosque that was located at the centre of all the tourist spots visited. We were there twice to perform prayers.
The last museum visited was the Arts and Crafts Museum, the smallest one. There were displays of the local arts and crafts which included batik and songket, as well as silver and brass products.
All in all, I learned a lot from this excursion. Apart from learning something new, some very old knowledge was refreshed like the story of Cik Siti Wan Kembang and Puteri Saadong.
This was the book I finished reading in Kota Bharu. My second Ahern's novel, this is actually a Christmas story. The central character, Lou [Aloysius was the full name] was an extremely busy man who was successful in his life but he was not satisfied with what he had. Isn't money is the root of all evil? He had already ignored his wife, kids and family members as he was to occupied with his work. One day, he met a beggar by the name of Gabe and amused by Gabe's talent of identifying people just by looking at their shoes, Gabe was employed as one of the staff working the mail room. He did not know that Gabe was, I think, some sort of an angel as he one day gave Lou magic pills. By taking the pills, Lou would be able to duplicate himself thus enabled him to be at two places at one time. It was a blessing in a way because he managed to make many people happy as he was needed simultaneously at the same time by different group of people. And the pills should be the gift as suggested by the title of the book.