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.

Memories

Sometimes in life, some instances or moments or even a period of time, affects you so deeply that, it goes deep in to your memory, so deep that it will be there forever. You may not be remembering it all the time. But all its required to bring back all those feelings is just a music or a smell or a view or a season or something like that which we usually don’t give much importance to. We may not have realized it when we were experiencing it, that all these factors have affected us so much.

Sometimes we may be busy doing things and suddenly something, may be a smell of the fallen leaves of the winter, or a piece of music which used to be your favorite and then long forgotten, it will shock you, you feel the time slowing down, you slowly come to the present, look around or feel around, your brain rapidly searching for that ‘déjà vu’ [been there, done that] feeling, what is it? I have been here or experienced something similar. Everything that was inside your head seems to vanish. You start to think about the memory of yours which changed your day.

I was driving to my friend’s place which is also near to where I did my college days. Music was playing in the car. It was winter and the trees on both sides of the road have shed almost all their leaves. I haven’t noticed any of these until the song changed to one I used to love when I was in college. I and my friends used to go for trips and this was our song for almost all the occasion. Even in the exam mornings, for inspiration, to lighten up our moods we used to play that song. Suddenly I was pulled to the past, I was riding along with my friends hearing the song. I completely forgot what I am supposed to be doing, and I became the old graduation student. I rode straight to my college. Since it was the X’mas vacation, the place was deserted. I stopped my car, walked towards the college building. I stayed there for sometime. The smell of the air, the color of the place, the calm of the mountains near, I desperately wanted to go back to the past, meet all my friends talk to them. I thought about my girl friend, I missed her. I stayed there for some more time, wishing that some miracle will happen and will transport me back to one of those beautiful moments where we all were together and happy. Only when I walked back to my car that I realized my eyes were filled with tears. Then I remembered something said by one of my best friends “Don’t be sad that it is over, but be happy that it has happened to you” while we graduated and had to leave the college.

ps: What I have written here is similar to what happened to me during this X’mas holidays.