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Back to College Days: Trip to Melaka, Malaysia

I was going nuts trying to crack my wireless protocols assignment when that mail popped up in my maibox. “Trip to Melaka, Organized by NUS”, anyone interested? I believe in a principle which goes like, “Never say No to friends”. That’s how it all began.
Day: February 28, 2009, Saturday
Time: 0630

No no, its not the time when I woke up to study, but it was the time we gathered in front of the sports hall (our gathering point) to start our trip. I had no idea what to expect or what exactly is this trip about and what is there is Melaka. For me, it’s all about spending time with my friends and taking a break from my hectic schedule. So I didn’t have any expectation about my first international trip except that I knew there will be one more county’s stamp in my passport. But it turned out to be one of the most memorable days in my life and I went through a lot of feelings I thought was lost forever - the feelings and colors of college days - it felt like being back in my undergrad days.

Just like a dream!

A beautiful Chinese Letter carved in a rock in a temple. I have no idea what this means!

Old drawings in the wall of a temple

Our lunch and dinner was fabulous.
There are 2 things I like for a meal.
1. A delicious meal, as usual
2. A good company to start digging in to the task
And this was one of those rare occasions when I had both. For both lunch and dinner, there were around 7-9 dishes, with chicken, crab, prawns, fish, shark, vegetables (I didn’t concentrate in this area much), and dessert. Also, I think they were authentic Malay dishes, but since all of us were Indians, we had not much choice to get clear idea about the names of the dishes. Even if there were some means to get to know the names of the dishes, I seriously doubt we would have done that, ‘cos we were all very busy ‘fighting’ across the table that there was no time to talk.

A busy Melakan Street.
Since the city is kind of an old city, the streets are narrow. The buildings were painted really colorfully and you don’t get the feeling of a city.

In front of the Church of Christ

Who we are? (Click on the photo to read)
From Right
My House Owner : Aniket (My Housemate and a very dear friend)
My Financer : Ashwin (Friends for past 9 years)
Would be Dr. : Karthik (A new guy I met on the trip day, doing PhD in NUS)
Possible Roommate : Sampath (A possible future roommate)
Shashi Sir : Robin (A great friend who is my current roommate)
From Singapore : Girish (He is from Singapore itself)
Classified : Classified (;))
The Trouble Maker : Srijith (Karakku company)
Me : Me (You put your definition in the comment section)

A busy day in the Museum

Stairs to the courtyard or heaven?

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Melakan Street: A view from the Top

An Ancient church in Melaka
This church - I think the name is St. Francis Chruch - is located on top of a small hill from where you get a really gorgeous view. It really was fun and soothing being there, enjoying the wind, and the songs of the native singers and there were several artists doing live drawing/paintings.

The Native Singers

A View from the Church

Tea Time: A Coffee shop in Melaka

Yeah, The Trouble Makers
No intro needed I guess. We went around looking for a coffee shop and had some fun and got lost from the group. We had to roam around for a while to find the group. Since it was another country, our mobiles didn’t work, we went back to the place where we started and the group was gone. Our choices were to go back to Singapore on our own - The Red Bus - or to go to the police station and ask for help. Before choosing from the above options, we asked some of the pedestrians for their mobile and called one of our friends and somehow got back to bus. And we heard some ‘sweet’ words from the ‘nice’ people who were waiting for us. The poor tour guide went around looking for us and came back exhausted to report he couldn’t find us, and we were there. Since he was a very good person, he didn’t tell us anything.


The End: The GSS group from NUS
I would like to thank all of my friends and whoever else who made that trip possible, because of whom I had one of the most memorable days in my life.
More Photos @ http://picasaweb.google.com/gssmalacca/TripToMelakaMalaysiaFromGSSNUSByManuIgnatius?#

ps: There are a lot more things I would love to write about this trip, but I am too sleepy now. Also, this was supposed to be a cultural trip.

7 comments:

Dr Ganesh Iyer said...

Nice blog. Keep it up.

Adil said...

Why is there a "classified" among you "unclassified"s??

Wandering Gaijin said...

too good one..
You had such a wonderful time and this is a grt post ...
:))
Enjooyyyy !!
Am i feeling jealous of you ??? ;)

Dragonfly said...

Thanks everyone :)
I did have a nice time.. :)

angie said...

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
awfully awesome! :) heee

angie said...

Definition of the "Me" in the pic

is pretty difficult because it looks like that snap was taken in the millisecond that they caught u standin still for a snap before u went back to 'dennis the menace' mode...

Wandering Gaijin said...

I couldn't resist but re-read the post.

The "Who we are?" pic is too good.
Its like Mischief, written all over the faces :)