Wedding In JB

My youngest sister held a wedding reception for his eldest son in her house in JB. This is to welcome the bridegroom to the family after the wedding ceremony in the East Coast state. All of us were looking forward to the occasion, not so much for the wedding as the solemnization ceremony had been over a couple of weeks earlier, but for the opportunity to meet and catch up with friends and kinfolks of near and far. It is usually at weddings that we get to meet them all at one go, those living in KL and PJ inclusive.

The reception was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. We had no other commitment the few days prior; hence we took our time to go down to JB. We left PJ on Wednesday and stopped overnight in our PD house. We have not been there for quite a while now and we thought that this is a good occasion as any to check it out. The house was ok. We need not put in much effort to clean it this time. I like it here very much as it is in a sparsely developed part of the outskirts of PD, with very wide open grounds and by the seaside too. We go for morning and evening walks either to the seaside or just around and by the marina within our housing complex. We also go swimming in the pool or use the sauna sometimes.

The next morning we took a slow drive to Melaka via the coastal road. It was nostalgic. We went around the Refinery located at Tangga Batu some 30 kilometers before reaching Melaka town, and looking at it brings back memories of the hard work, the tough negotiations and the problem-sorting in starting up of the refinery in its early project development, construction and commissioning stage. I was involved in this refinery project from greenfields to its start up. Going on from Tangga Batu, we continued on the coastal road to the town. There have been quite a lot of changes and I found it rather confusing as the road systems have changed. Many streets have been made one way streets and that threw my bearings haywire.

It was almost lunchtime when we arrived in the town of Melaka and I was going round and round looking for that favourite restaurant I used to patronize but could not find it. I settled for another restaurant that is equally as good and I later found out that the first restaurant I was looking for had moved to another location because of some development work in the area.

We moved on after lunch to the town of Muar and stopped to buy some local delicacy that we called ‘kuih jepun’, made from wheat flour with red bean paste fillings. Its one of my favourites and have been buying them from the same vendor, one or two generations removed now I guess, since my younger days. The kuih is still made the same way, same size, same taste but the price is now four times what it was when I was a small boy!! We went around the town a bit and then moved on towards Batu Pahat.

Before reaching Batu Pahat we stopped at a village off the main road, to visit our former live-in house help when our children were small. She has her own family of four grown up children now, the eldest had just got married and the youngest one is now in college. We have a small plot of land planted with fruit trees near her place that she helps to take care. After catching up on the family news and chit chats, we moved on to Batu Pahat. Took a drive through the town and noticed that the town has also changed quite a bit since the last time we visited, which was more than ten years ago. From Batu Pahat we drove through to JB.

All throughout the drive, I noticed that the roads have been widened, the winding ones have been straightened, and the surface nice and smooth to drive, and drive at high speed too. It is no wonder then that there has been an increase of accidents on the trunk roads. These trunk roads have side roads and turn offs all along its length, and with vehicles speeding along, other vehicles coming in and out of the side roads and turn offs, a slight error in judgment can be disastrous. Usually the motorcyclists are the one causing most of the misjudgment. Apart from the good roads, there have been new developments, new buildings, replanting of rubber and oil palm estates and various other economic activities. A lot of changes have taken place.

We arrived in JB at dusk and headed straight for Ram’s sister’s house where we usually stay whenever we go down to JB. After dinner and a short rest, we visited my mother. Mum was anxious to know of the medical check ups I went through, especially of the aneurysm problem I have. I explained the details and the monitoring schedule the specialist has set and she appeared relieved hearing it or was she? …………………… I was not!!......................

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Petaling Jaya