Malaysia Trip Pt.1
Just (more or less) got back from a three day trip to Malaysia. As it's my first trip out of the country in like 18 years, I felt I ought to document it. If only to preserve my prespective of it at the time. =P
Dec 2
The trip began quietly enough, I met a pair of friends at a game store (board and role-playing games, not computer) before taking a cab together down to the departure point. A hotel that a Malaysian coach company based its Singapore stop at. We were going to Gamecon 1, South East Asia's first and biggest game convention (or so the line goes, there were actually mini-cons held in Singapore before, though they were more just tabletop-wargaming-with-a-side-of-anime cons) as volunteers. At the hotel that was our departure point we met up with the others that were going to the con, volunteers, visitors to the con and CCG tournament players.
The Coach was cool, double-decker with a lounge, mini-toilet and infli-err.. indrive(?) movie. Way better than what I expected it to be (I was expecting just a more comfortable version of a standard air-condidtioned bus).
At the point when I began taking notes (about 6PM; 3rd hour of a 5 hour trip), there had been one hitch (well, two counting my realisation that I forgot to bring my camera). At the Singapore departure checkpoint in Tuas (western part of the island), a passenger also going to Gamecon 1 (a VS CCG player) forgot to check his passport during his preparation for his trip. It was already expired. Because of that, he had to drop out of the trip.
Anyway, we got through Malaysian customs with no problems and shortly after, the coach staff served the meal. I wasn't expecting much (low expectations from years of living in Singapore =P), but the actual food was way better than I'd imagine. I was told to expect rice noodles (bee hoon to us locals). What I expected was the noodles in a plastic lined (folded) paper packet with a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks. What I got was plastic utinsils atop a plastic tray with like 5 partitions (with veggies, mini-spring roll and fried fish fillet).
After food time was game time, a game of Modern Art. A pretty okay game of buying and selling modern art pieces. In between the meal and the game (and during each as well), I spent a bit of time looking out the windows at the countryside. There is a -lot- of countryside. =) I was also mildly surprised to see quite a bit more palm trees than I was used to.
The highlight of the trip was a game a bunch of us played called Werewolf (not the one from White Wolf), well highlight to me anyway. =P There were three roles in the game, Werewolf, Villager and Seer. No role-playing was neccessary, it was more of a guess-the-culprit kind of game. In the three games we played, I was a Werewolf, a Villager and then the Seer. Whoo, pretty fun! =)
Anyway after the third game and a bit of writing it soon got too dark to see much of the countryside. It was a short while later that we started seeing suburbs and I thought that we were getting close to our destination. The journey continued on for a bit longer than I thought and along the way, I saw another thing (well, things) that was stood out from what could almost be another part of Singapore. The very large advertising billboards. There're hardly any in Singapore, the only one that I remember clearly is a large old Coca-Cola logo painted on the side of a building, I can't recall any freestanding ones.
During the trip, a friend mentioned that the city layout in Malaysia seemed like something from Simcity (i.e.: 'Hmmm, I think this looks good over there.' 'I wonder what does this do?' 'Does this work over here?' etc...) To me, it just seemed like Singapore, just less strictly planned out (I would later revise my opinion of that).
We reached our debarkation point fine and from there it was a short hop via mini-van to our actual hotel (actually serviced apartment (I think)). There was a bit of a mess regarding our room assignment but that was straightened out pretty quickly (I was to later find out that the CCG tournament playing/Gamecon visitors group had their own far larger share of problems). After a light supper and an hour or so of (board)gaming we all turned in as it was already midnight. In what was to be a recurring theme for the trip, time passed quickly when we weren't paying attention (that and lotsa time wasted waiting, the other recurring theme for the trip).
Well, that's it for the moment. Part 2 tomorrow or something.
Dec 2
The trip began quietly enough, I met a pair of friends at a game store (board and role-playing games, not computer) before taking a cab together down to the departure point. A hotel that a Malaysian coach company based its Singapore stop at. We were going to Gamecon 1, South East Asia's first and biggest game convention (or so the line goes, there were actually mini-cons held in Singapore before, though they were more just tabletop-wargaming-with-a-side-of-anime cons) as volunteers. At the hotel that was our departure point we met up with the others that were going to the con, volunteers, visitors to the con and CCG tournament players.
The Coach was cool, double-decker with a lounge, mini-toilet and infli-err.. indrive(?) movie. Way better than what I expected it to be (I was expecting just a more comfortable version of a standard air-condidtioned bus).
At the point when I began taking notes (about 6PM; 3rd hour of a 5 hour trip), there had been one hitch (well, two counting my realisation that I forgot to bring my camera). At the Singapore departure checkpoint in Tuas (western part of the island), a passenger also going to Gamecon 1 (a VS CCG player) forgot to check his passport during his preparation for his trip. It was already expired. Because of that, he had to drop out of the trip.
Anyway, we got through Malaysian customs with no problems and shortly after, the coach staff served the meal. I wasn't expecting much (low expectations from years of living in Singapore =P), but the actual food was way better than I'd imagine. I was told to expect rice noodles (bee hoon to us locals). What I expected was the noodles in a plastic lined (folded) paper packet with a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks. What I got was plastic utinsils atop a plastic tray with like 5 partitions (with veggies, mini-spring roll and fried fish fillet).
After food time was game time, a game of Modern Art. A pretty okay game of buying and selling modern art pieces. In between the meal and the game (and during each as well), I spent a bit of time looking out the windows at the countryside. There is a -lot- of countryside. =) I was also mildly surprised to see quite a bit more palm trees than I was used to.
The highlight of the trip was a game a bunch of us played called Werewolf (not the one from White Wolf), well highlight to me anyway. =P There were three roles in the game, Werewolf, Villager and Seer. No role-playing was neccessary, it was more of a guess-the-culprit kind of game. In the three games we played, I was a Werewolf, a Villager and then the Seer. Whoo, pretty fun! =)
Anyway after the third game and a bit of writing it soon got too dark to see much of the countryside. It was a short while later that we started seeing suburbs and I thought that we were getting close to our destination. The journey continued on for a bit longer than I thought and along the way, I saw another thing (well, things) that was stood out from what could almost be another part of Singapore. The very large advertising billboards. There're hardly any in Singapore, the only one that I remember clearly is a large old Coca-Cola logo painted on the side of a building, I can't recall any freestanding ones.
During the trip, a friend mentioned that the city layout in Malaysia seemed like something from Simcity (i.e.: 'Hmmm, I think this looks good over there.' 'I wonder what does this do?' 'Does this work over here?' etc...) To me, it just seemed like Singapore, just less strictly planned out (I would later revise my opinion of that).
We reached our debarkation point fine and from there it was a short hop via mini-van to our actual hotel (actually serviced apartment (I think)). There was a bit of a mess regarding our room assignment but that was straightened out pretty quickly (I was to later find out that the CCG tournament playing/Gamecon visitors group had their own far larger share of problems). After a light supper and an hour or so of (board)gaming we all turned in as it was already midnight. In what was to be a recurring theme for the trip, time passed quickly when we weren't paying attention (that and lotsa time wasted waiting, the other recurring theme for the trip).
Well, that's it for the moment. Part 2 tomorrow or something.
posted by Roderick at 12/07/2005 07:13:00 PM
2 Comments:
Sounds like you took some good trip notes! Looking forward to the next installment!
Unfortunately, I passed out from sleep halfway through writing my notes on the second day, was too busy on the third day and too tired on the fourth. ^ ^ The first day would be the most detailed. ^ ^
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