the next morning was a working saturday. sucks, but true. it was supposed to be a gotong-royong day to clean up our work areas and follow the 5S methodology. i tried, i really did, but i think i wiped at the first S. strangely enough, the person who announced the cleanup was on leave. 😛 well, at least that morning i managed to clear up my itinerary with chief medical officer (CMO)’s PA. i was to go to Kota Bharu that evening for a briefing on Sunday. Sunday! could you believe that? i’ll definitely kill someone if they won’t let me take a replacement day off. metaphorically of course.
anyway, she gave me an open ticket for the return flight. i was oblivious to the trouble that might’ve put me in, but fortunately i didn’t have to go through any… misfortune.
mom and sis were out when i got home from work. luckily they got back in time to send me off to KL Sentral. in the meantime, i got meself some lil’bro-prepared instant noodles and watched Fearless with bad subtitles. and since my mom dropped her phone again that day, we decided to give her the new 6230i we’ve kept in hiding since Friday. playing with it makes me want to get one too. 😛
it was quiet on the ERL. it was quiet in the boarding area. it was quiet on the plane. nice stewardesses though. mmm. most of my interaction with people was only through eye contact and head gestures. i managed to slip into MPH the night before to pick up a threebie of Artemis Fowl, Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident, and Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code for the upcoming roadtrips. i had the first two with me. CMO was on the same flight, but in business class. must be nice to be management.
we took a cab to our hotel, a dingy one at the outskirts of the city called New Pacific. the exterior looked nice, but it was painted in rather dark colors. the room was also a terrible disappointment compared to Sheraton. the bathroom vent could ‘outnoise’ a jet turbine; there’s a strange stain on its floor. the room itself is alright i guess. garbed in very classy, shiny but dark colors again. reminded me of a room in a big old mansion. a haunted one.
i didn’t sleep well that night. at least i finished reading my first book.
the briefing on the following day went as per normal. got picked up from the hotel to the local headquarters. parking looked like a bitch; honestly, i’ve never seen cars quadruple parked in random directions like that. not even in the visitor parking level of Menara TM. well, that was just the cars in the building. the parking scenario in the public areas were.. somewhat better. except for the schools of taxis and kereta sewas waiting for passengers.
we finished early, so there was sometime for me to go around shopping for thingies. Kelantan is famous for keropok and textiles, so there’s no point looking at anything else. well, maybe there are other things, but i didn’t care for them just yet. the locals pointed out some nearby pasars for the better shops. i just headed to one which had both items on sale. first, selendangs for mom, tudungs for cuzzies (guess where the bus money went, girls. :P), then keropok for whoever. a little more than what i’d usually spend, but the fabric and weave designs here are just fantastic. i just bought the mid range, and those looked really nice enough.
the CMO was a Kelantanese himself, so he opted to go home for a bit, leaving me alone to do my shopping. i guess that’s how i got ripped off by the taxi guy driving me back to the airport. charged me slightly less than airport taxi rates for a ride in a beat up merc without air conditioning. should’ve checked the rates with the CMO before hotel check-in.
check-in counters closed. continued reading second book. flight delayed. finished second book.
stewardesses not so cute this time. except for the head stewardess which i only caught a glimpse of on the way out.
it was around 10.30 when i finally set foot at home. both my mom and sis went out to pick me up from KL Sentral, which was nice of em. 😀 gave me to play with my mom’s new phone even further. can’t go wrong with “hips don’t lie” as a ringtone.
and when i stepped into my room, i was surprised with a brand new IKEA chair for my compy. it’s awesome, and big enough to even shadow my 24″ monitor. Merv and i will need to compare notes now. thanks you guys 😀
now, on to the third book!
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