The Prai Diaries (1)

12 Dec 2009:
Took the early train to Ipoh, to meet up with my dad and then head off to Prai together. The train ride provided me with what i thought were two extremes of humanities:

Extreme 1
Elderly Chinese man (ECM) walks into the coach i was in, wandering around aimlessly looking for his seat. He approaches an elderly Indian man (EIM), who was reading the Bible. ECM (ever so politely) hands over ticket and asks EIM to help him find his seat. EIM hurriedly puts down Bible, reads ticket and points ECM to his seat.

Couldn't help but grin a little. "There's hope in humanity afterall," i thought.

Extreme 2
Train arrived at the Ipoh station after 3 hours or so. At the station, i saw a kind-ish Indian man (KIM) leading a blind Chinese man (BCM) into the station and to the counter. KIM led BCM to the ticketing counter and left him to talk to the railway staff, to presumably buy a train ticket. BCM was babbling loudly to himself, so staff member at the counter just ignored him. BCM then starts walking around aimlessly without his cane.

Enter poor naive Chinese woman (PNCW). PNCW tries to lead BCM's hands to the counter so BCM had something to hold on to. BCM then starts taking out a book from a plastic bag he was holding and made a sales pitch to PNCW. PNCW looked embarassed and guilty. She ended up forking out 10 bucks for the book (wasn't close enough to hear/see what it was). And to top it all off, she lost her place in the queue and had to go to the back of the line.

Got to Prai later that evening to look at 2 apartments - one recommended by dad's contacts, the other by the HR guy from the company i'm gonna be working for. So we went to the first apartment, and my heart sunk. The floors for each room were just cement whereas the hall's was tiled. The rooms were without fans. One of the rooms didn't even have a single plug point! The whole place reminded me of my budget place in Melbourne. Plus the guy renting the place out had an uneasy aura about him.

So on to the second apartment. Met up with the HR-recommended guy, and so we followed him to the apartment. When he lead us back to the same block of apartments as the one we first saw, my face turned ashen. I remember thinking, "Melbourne all over again". But then he brought us to a different unit, which looked waaay better than the first one. Essentially they were the same, just that this one's cleaner, has fans in each room, and is tiled all over. Just to show how small little things do make a whole lot of difference. So i'm gonna stay there now.

Got back to Ipoh the same night, had the famous nga choy chicken or something. After a long day, got back to dad's apartment and almost instantly fell asleep. That was 11 something at night.


13 Dec 2009:
Woke up at 3.30, couldn't get back to sleep. Did some push ups, sit ups, and stretches. Had a game at 12, so i thought since i couldn't sleep, might as well stretch and get pumped up and ready.

Scored 3 points.