day trip to ipoh
I cannot believe that I didn’t break any speed limits while driving up to Ipoh last Sunday morning. I told my Mom after driving for a while that it felt like forever and we were still over a 100 km of a 180km journey! As usual, she started to nag on why I shouldn’t be driving any faster than the speed limit blah, blah, blah! Personally, I have to admit that I have grown paranoid ever since my auto accident last year that flattened the front part of the car (luckily, it still runs quite smoothly as if the accident had never happened)! What felt like an X-Wing fighter pilot maneuvering along the main trench of the Death Star now felt like a scene from those Beverly Hillbillies!
We reached Ipoh early and just in time for a particular Hakka noodles breakfast – one of my all-time favorites since when I was a kid living in Ipoh. The present premises is situated right behind the kindergarten classroom that I had attended 37 years ago!
The rest of the afternoon was spent going around the city shopping for tit-bits and eating out at old hawker stalls that we used to patronize since eons ago. I have seen some of these hawkers ever since they were skinny young men and are now old, over weight and running their businesses with their grown children! Nevertheless, the food is still as delectable as though time never progressed!
Whenever I came this way, my ritual would be to drive on my own around the city and to visit old familiar places to reminisce. This time, my cousin brother’s wife wanted to come along and I showed her some of the places that would remain special to me forever. I even took her to one of our three houses that we had lived in.
That evening, we went to a Chinese restaurant for my Aunt’s 71st birthday dinner. I would seem to be long-winded to describe how good the food was but in Ipoh, you only elaborate when the food is bad!
It was a pleasant happy evening and I am glad I made the trip. Mom would try to make her Ipoh trips every year for her (older) sister’s birthday, as they were (and still are) very close. My Aunt and her husband are the most kind-hearted people I have ever known (and I am not saying this just because they are my relatives. Believe me, I do have very mean and horrific relatives from my Dad’s side).
Immediately after dessert, my aunt insisted that we should leave before it got too late. She had insisted that we stayed a night but I cited having to work the next day. The drive back to KL was challenging at some point where I had to fight off sleep but thank god with the highway, the journey only took slightly more than 2 hours. As a kid, traveling back and forth between KL and Ipoh was a nightmare for everybody! The journey would take about 4 hours then and Dad would have to make several stops for me to throw up. On several occasions my poor siblings have to sit by the edge of the backseat where I would lie flat behind them (we were still pint-sized then) in order to minimize any more motion sicknesses that would result to more stops (and smells from after I have puked) on that journey!
Images:1) Ipoh Hawker Food! From top: Liver Satay, “Chee Cheong Fun”, Ipoh “Rojak” (Fruit sald with prawn paste) and Chinese herbal tea (where I had two bowls)! The food here is cheap with the taste a million bucks!
2) Traditional cookie shop that specializes on traditional (and some modern recipes) Chinese cookies! This is the kind of shops where you would end up buying more than you need! There are hundreds of different cookies to choose from as well as the smells that would most likely make one hungry at the first sniff as one enters the shop! I was appalled how expensive the cookies have gotten though!
3) I called the day before to order some chicken floss cookies from this shop. This is an old, old shop that my late grandfather used to patronize whenever he came to Ipoh. I think it is about a century old! Here, Mom and her Mom are not not only picking up what I have ordered but bought even more off the shelves!
4) This was the field where I used to play, “Police & Thieves”, soccer, hockey and watched marching bands. My classroom was on the first floor. I also used to play pranks with a friend by shutting off the main power switch while the afternoon classes were in progress (and never got caught while my friend did)!
5) Every time I come to Ipoh, I have to take a glimpse of my school (1971 - 1978). This majestic beauty holds so much good (and bad especially from some of the demented primary teachers who preyed on ‘weaker’ students) memories. A unique piece of excellent architecture!
6) What was a street is now a busy main road and this was taken on a Sunday! The row of shop houses on he right used to to house Ipoh’s first Coffee house (Maxim) and a popular record shop (Far East Record Shop) where my siblings and I would make annual pilgrimage whenever a new Carpenters album was released. My last album that I had purchased there was Olivia Newton-John’s Greatest Hits in 1978!
7) My Mom’s older sister celebrated her 71st birthday on Sunday, 4th August 2008. My parents, grandma and I made a day trip for the event. This was her Birthday cake!
9) The birthday girl (left) with her husband, her grandson, son and daughter-in-law.
10) The first dish that consists of four smaller ones on one big platter. The lobster was made into a salad. Delicious!
11) Family portrait at my Aunt’s Birthday dinner! Her other two daughters, their families and her youngest son couldn’t make it for this dinner!
12) My Aunt cutting her cake as Mom looks on.
13) My Aunt blowing the single candle on her cake with the assistance of her younger grandson. 3 August 2008.
14) Ipoh was a town (now a ‘city’) that was surrounded by picturesque mountainous terrain! That was then. When my cousin brother and his wife took me for a ride, I was heart-broken when I saw how these once beautiful foliage thick mountains are now being mined! They use explosives and these natural formations are fast diminishing from the vista of once a scenery no money can buy! This is just so sad!
All images taken on 3 August 2008.
