Back from JB

Was in JB the last the last two days with two old students to eat & relac. They were from my first, yep, my very first batch of students which I'd taught. One's in training to be a teacher and the other is working in the army. It's kinda scary when I come to think about it... yeah, I'm that old. Sniff... My first batch are already working and I know of some who have already gotten married and have kids. It's scary for time has passed. On the flip side, it was great to hang out with them in JB, almost like old times when I was still teaching them.

We stayed at Puteri Pacific hotel, not far from the Causeway itself and either walked or took the taxi around the place. Taxi fares were certainly cheap, ranging from 2 to about 5 singapore dollars. While I don't really like travelling without the meter, I must admit there is beauty in the simplicity of the 'how much to _________' when taking taxis.

I don't know what attracts us Singaporeans to food in Malaysia. Price? Taste? Atmosphere? Yeah, I think food in JB was reasonably cheap. We ate at seafood restaurant, a Hong Kong snack/food restaurant, a roadside hawker centre and a chinese dim sum restaurant. Overall, definitely cheaper than eating in Singapore. Taste-wise? Not bad really. It was kinda oily at times and the drinks were a little too sweet for me, but on the whole, quite good. I enjoyed especially the satay from the hawker centre (only less than 20cents a stick! and the meet was succulent.) and some of the dim sum from the chinese restaurant (the prawns in the siew mai and chee cheong fun were crunchy & sweet - very fresh!). Atmosphere? I think I'm quite spoilt lar. As much as I liked the food, I can't help but wished some of the places were cleaner.

On the first night, we went to catch a movie. My friends decided we ought to catch something different, so we caught a Malaysian movie... CICAK MAN! (Lizard Man). I can't say it was the wisest decision we made... but it was certainly quite an experience.





Pic of the Cicak Man movie advert with my two former students










I think when you have a movie about a Lizard Man, you don't really have much subject matter to work with. It's set in a fictional city, Metrofulus, where the currency is... the 'fulus'. Hairi (super loser & weird clown-type guy) and his friend Danny (handsomer & cooler guy) work in some secret lab where they are testing a virus vaccine on some animals... including... the house lizard! Hairi accidentally releases a cicak which climbs into his coffee cup which he drinks and.... VOILA! He becomes CICAK MAN!

Ah.. but the owner of the company he works for is also the culprit for releasing the virus so that he can earn from the vaccine! Oh no! So now, loser Cicak man and his cool friend has to expose their boss.

What power does cicak man have? He can climb walls, shoot out his tongue to catch insects and people (it's really gross) and he can heal himself! Wow! Super right?

Anyway, there's the requisite love interest who falls in love with the cool friend rather than Hairi (oh the irony!) and at the climatic fight, the cool friend.. DIES to save Cicak Man. Believe me, it's not as dramatic as it sounds.

OK. Let's get to the chase. The movie was bad. So bad that it was actually watchable. I can't help but keep my eyes on the screen just so I could find out if it could get any worse. And yes, it was hilarious. I couldn't believe that people could make a movie like this in this day and age. But oh well, as long as it makes money, I guess people will keep producing such stuff.

Back to my JB trip. Bought some cool stuff there, all related to Death Note! lolz. Have a nice huge Death Note Poster mounted on a board, a whole complete set of Death Note comics for less than 30 singapore dollars and Death Note anime dvd. Very happy!

On the whole, an enjoyable getaway - good food, good entertainment, good accommodations, great company!