Monday, January 02, 2006

goodbye 2005... welcome 2006!!!


spending christmas and new year back in malaysia is like an all-new experience. there's so much i miss of newcastle. and our days at hotspur street is on the very top of my list. those were the golden days...
*sigh*
anyways, i also miss the christmas decorations in newcastle. especially fenwick's ever-unique christmas displays. and the snow. and the cold.

BUT...

this year.. well, last year's christmas to be correct, was an altogether different one. firstly and most importantly, it was a HOT HOT affair. and then there's the complete lack of christmas decorations with the exception of midvalley's which was superb... no boxing day sales to look forward to... AND the fact that 2 hours of christmas day was spent on a lil' fokker aeroplane! *lol*

yeah... i flew back to me hometown for the christmas weekend holidays.


scene in klia at an ungodly hour of 6am... air asia queuesssssssss........!!!



can u figure out which airport that pic above belongs to??? *grins*


nah, i guess not... unless of course u're from S A N D A K A N, SABAH.
yeaps, that's sandakan's airport. it still looks the same save for some changes here and there. and when i say STILL looks the same, i really mean it considering i haven't been back for almost a decade.

soo... i was in sandakan on xmas eve. and my uncle and cousin brother came to pick us up and we headed down to town to the 'pasar' (market) to meet my aunt @ 5yiyi, who's my mum's younger sister.
yesh... sabah is maternal side!
and... along the way, came across this road sign...


"jalan buli sim sim" *LOL*

now... back to pasar... 5yiyi was waiting for us there. she runs a stall there and we had 5 bowls of roasted pork kuey teow soup waiting for us. *grins* yummy!!!


5yiyi's stall, the kuey teow soup, duchess of kent hospital... my place of birth!

after pasar... we headed back to granpa's house. and just after the roundabout, i saw a kinda-familiar structure... my p.o.b!!! it's onli kinda-familiar cos they've done extensive renovations to it and now it looks bigger than i remembered it to be.

can u believe that my xmas eve was spent cleaning up, sweeping the floor of dust and cobwebs, AND mopping the floor 3 times over??? granpa's house was seriously dirty since no one's been living in it for ages and it's even more ridiculous that we cleaned up almost the WHOLE house even though we were going to stay there for the night only!!! *lol*

but it was fun being back in granpa's house... and i even found this...!!!


my granpa's glasses!!! *grins*

for dinner, 5yiyi and her family took us out for dinner and we had the only food u should ever go to sabah to eat...................................

SEAFOOOOOOOOD!!!


*lol* sorry for pic of half-eaten food. i only remembered to take pics too late! and the pic on the right is a dish full of scallops!!! FRESH!!!

seafood is cheap cheap cheapo!!! can u believe that u can buy crabs at the market in sabah for only RM5 a kilogramme??? and compare that to buying crabs in peninsular malaysia for rm20-30 a kg!!! *nosebleed*

counted down to xmas in granpa's house in pyjamas and rummaging thru old old pics of my mum and her sisters and granma & granpa!!! how fun eh??? *hehehe*

xmas day dawns and it's off to the airport again to fly to tawau where we are going to see my eldest aunt and granma!!! and it's this miserly plane that we took from sandakan to tawau...


fokker...

there isn't much to say about tawau but i spent a good whole xmas day and boxing day there. urm, went to a philipino lady's house for xmas lunch... had xmas dinner at home... had boxing day breakfast in this shop... and had boxing day lunch of instant noodles!!! *lol*

nah... wasn't all that boring. spent most of my time with granma anyways. gee... i missed her so very much and it was a shock to see her using a walker for assistance when she moves around. but she's numero uno. unlike my paternal granma, who i see every single year, i hardly get to see my maternal granma and it's almost a decade since i've seen her. and believe it or not... she recognised each and every one of us sisters without making a mistake!!! paternal granma on the other hand mistook me to be my youngest sister... *grr*

all the same... eldest aunt took us around tawau... and these are what i saw... among a lot more...


the largest pasar in malaysia???


one of the road signs in tawau...

then on the evening of tawau, it was back to the airport and back on transit to sandakan.... in order to get to...


kota kinabalu!

and 2nd yiyi and uncle and couzzie took us straight after picking us up to... seafood restaurant!!! i think i got high blood pressure in sabah from all those seafood... *lol*

anyways, some sights of kk...





AND... meet 2nd yiyi's doggies....


guiness, zen, tongtong, dandan@feizhai!

and yeaps... that more or less wraps up my christmas trip to sabah... it was back to work for 3 days before rushing up to penang to celebrate new year with my smoomoo!!! and what a long 3 days of work... reason being i was looking forward to penang and also cos i completed everything the day i got back to work after christmas and there's was NO MORE work coming in... but...

... it was worth the wait...

NEW YEAR WAS ABSOLUTELY GREAT!!!

considering it was my first time out of the house counting down. and that includes when i was in newcastle. i've never been out on new year's eve pushing thru, rubbing against and even squished amongst sticky sweaty stinky people; getting my toes stepped on countless of times by different people over a period of 2 hours; stepping on, tripping over and kicking used spray bottles of soap suds and stringers; going almost deaf from the numerous times my ears took direct hits from whistles; saying hello to people i cannot for the life of me remember their names; getting sprayed with soap suds and stringers; getting all hot and stinky and sticky myself; feeling like some aunty amongst the crowd full of kids; and... counting down with so many people!!!


the crowd at gurney...


5... 4... 3... 2... 1...!!!


fireworks!!!

*gasps* *sputters* *coughs*


HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

missing u edi my smoomoo...

1 comment:

YU JIAN said...

I had a great time too. New Year wouldn't have been the same without you. This year has been one of the BEST new years I've had so far.

Seriously sufferin' from Dilys-withdrawal symptoms already. 8 more months... can we do it?

* sighhhhhh *

KISSES & SLOTHHHS.

Bed's gonna feel so empty tonite...

Even Owen's feelin' a lil down ...