August 11, 2007

• Tanjung Sepat

  I was like, ten minutes late and I ran to the bus to find ALL the ladies from my church’s Ladies’ Connection on board already.

  Oops.

  They forced me to sing as punishment pulak, but in the end I was asked to pray for journey mercies. Hehe..

  Turned out I wasn’t the latest. Hehe! Aunty Jeane came up after I prayed.

  I was a little disappointed cuz I was the youngest *ahem* lady there, no one my age to teman me. Felt a little lonely at times because I felt like I stood out like a sore thumb in the group. I find it difficult to relate to their conversations, though I did try to join in. Felt odd lor.

  I think that means I’m not an aunty yet. XD

  We visited a lot of places, which were Beryl’s chocolate factory, dragonfruit farm, tapioca chips factory, seafood restaurant for lunch, mushroom farm, fishball factory, pau restaurant where we had coffee and pau for tea, coffee factory, and longan orchard where the aunties were so excited over the little market there. I loved the chocolate factory the best. =) Didn’t really appreciate the fishball factory cuz I don’t really enjoy fishball. But I managed to see how they were processed though.

  Bought lotsa stuff for my family! And ended up broke. Compared to the aunties, they were wilder in their shopping. =P They grabbed lots of paus, fruits and vegetables and chocolates. i secretly wished I brought more money though. RM50 was not enough for so many places. Didn’t know we were visiting so farms and factories.

  For the later half of the trip, I was accompanied by little Jocelyn. She’s a 9-year-old expressive girl, told me about her essays and school stuff. =P

  Pictures of the trip..

  
  An orchid at the chocolate factory. It had a name tag. Meet Bulbophyllum Phalaenopsis.

  
  Aunty Gerine hiding from the sun under a dragonfruit tree. Dragonfruits are also known as Pitaberry or Pittaya. The 4ft tall plant itself is a type of cactus.

  
  The ladies listening to a worker of the dragonfruit farm. He was explaining the uses of dragonfruit skin. Apparently, the skin which is rich in Vitamin C can be used to rub on wounds (like aloe vera) and on face for beauty purposes.

  
  Dragonfruit flower. It is quite enormous, much bigger than your palm. When it blooms, it looks like a white lily. The flowers bloom at midnight. This one in the picture will bloom.. err, now, as I type this, cuz it’s midnight already. =P

  
  A growing dragonfruit. Notice the plants have thorns. My sweater was hooked here and there when I was walking along the rows of cacti.

  
  The fuss about fishballs.

  
  Cultivating white oyster mushrooms. The plastic bags contain sawdust and limestone powder.

  
  Jocelyn at a mushroom-shaped table. This mushroom is called Lingzhe.

  
  Coffeebeans!

  
  Aunty Leiwan and Jocelyn, both wearing floral hair accessories (which belonged to Aunty Leiwan). =P

  
  Longan on longan tree.

  
  Very young longans.

   
  Like this picture a lot. =) Jocelyn and I.

   
  Me with dragonfruit! The hairclip on my hair wasn’t mine.. Aunty Leiwan planted it there for me.

  As I was walking around aimlessly at the little market, I saw a Rita walking around, looking at pineapples and bananas. She didn’t have the crazy look of ‘Oh, must buy this! Must buy this!!’ so I reckoned she must be walking around aimlessly like me too. So I approached her and asked, “Not buying anything?”

  She replied, “All these can get from Tesco wert.” Lol. And she added, “I’m not very aunty yet.” XD

  I’m not against the aunties, no, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I think we’re still of a (significantly) different frequency. It’s quite amusing to observe them too. Made me think that, one day, I’ll be like them, having a common interest in wet market goods and cooking ingredients. Guess there’s no running away. I’ll just have to wait for the time to come la.

  • 12:18 pm
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