SK Batu Lanchang 02

A Little Place I Like To Remember As SK Batu Lanchang. Part 02.

2. Post-UPSR continued..


The above pictures taken at the Standard 6 Farewell Party.


Holy shit I looked like Varun.

Explanation of the couple of pictures above this: We did return soon after to receive a prize for getting 5As for the UPSR exam the year after. Short lived joy, for the life of secondary school began, and the memory of all that was was forgotten forever.

Thanks to: Ze Yin for some of the pictures and Navnith for the last two pictures.

Till then.

SK Batu Lanchang 01

Reminiscences.

The Little Place I Remember As SK Batu Lanchang. Part 01

1. Bus Life

Back in the day when school wasn't pathetic like it is now, when teachers actually thought, when there were still headmasters/mistresses that knew what the hell they were doing in office, yes. Back then, going to school wasn't a chore.

Everyday, I would look forward to getting onto C49. Every morning on the bus would be as fun filled as ever, with people like Ashwin, Goh Wei, Krishna, Wei Yan and Shiva. The 6 of us were pretty much the rulers of the bus. We controlled everything that happened. Every moment on the bus was a moment of mischief. We always pissed off the bus driver (Ah Yeow I think). But we had this understanding between us. It was just the way things were.

This lasted for a long while, until the next generation emerged and members of the first generation moved on to high school. By the time I was in Standard Six, Ashwin, Shiva, and Goh Wei had moved on. Wei Yan separated from the group, leaving Krishna and I. We lasted I guess, with the new standard ones and twos. Things just weren't the same without the original 6 being fully intact. The level of intensity of the mischief had decreased by a huge amount. Back when I was in standard one, I remember throwing chewing gum on Krishna's hair, stealing my bus driver's cane (he had a cane to use to threaten us if we made too much noise. Hah I remember all of us just shutting up when he used to bring the bus to an abrupt halt and wave that cane around like some kind of magician), among other things.

Nonetheless, I remember and truly cherish a lot of those days in C49. All I can hope now is that I'm not the only one that remembers. Somewhere deep down inside, the other 5 remember.

2. Post UPSR

For most of the 6 years I spent in Batu Lanchang, so many things happened, scandals(believe it or not), young love, adoption of a cat, the near death of a treasured fish, the destruction of the school pateo roof, heck co-curricular Thursdays can even be classified as a thing. So much happened. So much to remember and type.

Inside joke (all ex-SKBLers of the year 2004 PLEASE know what I'm talking about)

En. Cumaran: Pada 8 Januari 1941, Lord Baden Powell telah meninggal dunia-
Entire class: WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


Move forward to after UPSR now, a whole 2 months of completely nothing to do. Pictures. That's what you need to see.


More pictures at the top.

Vienna, Austria Part. 5

Vienna, Austria. Part 5.

YES PEOPLE. You are unupdated. If you haven't started reading my Vienna Story, go read Part 1 on the 6th of October. If you have followed day-by-day, go to Part 3 and read up.

9. United Nations

Atam showed us around the United Nations in where? Nope, not Vienna. The United Nations building is on no mans land. It runs on its own. Being the United Nations and all. Cool huh?

Jalur Gemilang, bitches!



10. The random things/places.

The Schonbrunn is a HUGE palace. We covered this place on new year's eve. We didn't have much time because places closed early, being eve of the new year and all. There's a huge garden outside of the palace where people just stroll around and exercise. No kidding. I didn't go in the palace but my brother did and he said it was really nice inside. I can only imagine. I made my first ever snowball in the Palace Gardens.

Sally the Snowball.

While waiting for the train to come pick us up at the bottom of Durnstein, we went into this pub and in this pub, I, being the Keshav I am, messed around with the salt and pepper. I made a face before being told off by the pub owner. Yes I named it too.

Peter the Pepper-Eyed

In Prague, I had rabbit meat for the first time.

It tasted like chicken btw.



Also in Prague, my cousin Marisha went into the bathroom of the art gallery and the sink taps are freaking GOLD SWANS.
dat' shit be tight


11. Happy New Year, bitches!


New Years Celebration on 2008 was a blast for one reason and one reason alone : Fireworks
Atam invited some of his close friends over for a party. We even met this lady who was born in KEDAH of all places.
I don't quite remember how or where he got them, but Atam had TONS of fireWORKS. Not the cheap ass fire crackers you get back in Malaysia. ACTUAL FIREWORKS. And since Atam lives in the penthouse of his building, he has access to the top of the building. From the building, we had a 360 degree view of all of Vienna.
As soon as it was 12 am, it began. The single most brilliant display of fireworks I will ever witness. It lasted TWO HOURS. 12-2 am roughly. And aren't you lucky asses grateful I recorded it? (Probably not, eh?)

So that's that people. Vienna, Austria, as I witnessed it. People talk about wanting to go to France and Italy. France is a bore. Except for the Eiffel Tower. And the chicks. I haven't been to Italy yet but seriously seriously consider Austria a must-visit place before you die a sad, painful death.

and with that, enjoy the fireworks :)

Thanks for staying around for these 5 posts.
Till the next time, xoxo.

Vienna, Austria Part. 4

Vienna, Austria. Part 4.

6. Feliz Navidad

Considering the fact that the whole point of going to Vienna was FOR Christmas, we didn't really do much on the 25th. It was pretty simple. The simple dinner, with the simple turkey, with the simple champagne, with the simple Christmas songs, with the simple Barackhristmas Tree. :D You see, Atam's a loyal democrat and he's supporting Barack Obama. So instead of decorating his christmas tree (which was a REAL tree btw) with ornaments, he just hung Obama badges and stuff. It was very the cool. I don't think I've told you in the previous posts right? Atam works in the United Nations. He's posted in Vienna so that's why he lives there. As soon as he's done there and gets posted somewhere else, we won't be able to stay at that awesome place of his. Let's hope he stays put :D

The Barackhristmas Tree

7. Prague

We hopped over to Prague for a while. My uncle's wife's sister lives in Prague so we went to visit for a night. My nieces are ADORABLLLLLLLLLLE and super friendly too. I was like hi. Next thing I know they were dragging me to go play with them and they like kissing my face LOL

Those two things are my niecessssssssssss

Anyways, we walked quite a bit in Prague. We went to the Metronome (go read up yourselves), saw the Astronomical Clock, went on the picturesque Charles Bridge ( I think you'll recall contestants from the Amazing Race Asia Season 2 having to find a route info on this bridge ) and visited Prague Castle.

Charles Bridge is pretty long and connects 2 different parts of Prague. ( Prague is split in to 7 parts I think, named Prague 1, Prague 2, Prague 3 and so on ) There are lots of statues on the bridge that depict various saints, patron saints and sculptors. There are also these stalls set up on the bridge that sell stuff (seriously) and mimes. MIMES :D

Prague Castle is one of the largest castles in the world. It's full of old ancient stuff and the architecture is yet again.. amazing. Hilarious(?) note : Nobody has anything against the likes of the Czech Republic (Prague's in CR fools) and Austria. It's so safe that even the prime minister of Prague needs no security. The prime minister's primary headquarter is in the castle itself. So when we were there, he just drove in. HE DROVE IN. He got out of the car and just walked in. Nobody paid any attention to him. He just walked in like any other person living in Prague. Now compare this to Malaysia. Even for one relatively unknown minister, there'll be like 50 patrol bikes clearing the way for him -.-

We met up with my uncle from England who came to Prague for the weekend. Walked around and visited an art museum. It wasn't exactly a museum per say buttt it was more like an art gallery! Right that was the word I was looking for. Pretty cool too. Though some of the paintings looked horrible and were still admired. There was one of a goat and two ducks. Yes, I remember that one. It was my favorite of the lot.

Art Gallery

Uncle H and family stayed at the Hilton Prague. So we just went along for a while and said our goodbyes since they were leaving the next day. It is here, that I finally got around to using the net properly and I messaged Chong on MSN. ( Chong this is for you. You better be reading this )

So they left. We went back to Vienna. It was the 30th of December.


8. Vienna lol

Gosh I've just realised how I have hardly told you ANYTHING about Vienna. Vienna's old. The buildings are old. WELL PRESERVED. It's beautiful lah. I don't know what else to say. It's just beautiful.

People travel around in carriages pulled by horses, hot dogs can be bought EVERYWHERE, special delicacy : hot chocolate mira schlag (hot chocolate with whipped cream), full of museums ( history museums, art museums, weapon and armory museums, nature museums, most of which I managed to go to) and two major palaces (one of which I went to, called the Schonbrunn which I'll cover slightly later)

Not forgetting choir performances and orchestral performances. Vienna is where the great composers Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were born. Music's always been a major part of Vienna. There are a couple of major opera houses that lay host to many weekly performances by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. We managed to go to one of the shows. Personally, it's not my cup of tea but the other enjoyed it and it wasn't HALF bad (for me that is).

Austria, Vienna. Part 3

Austria, Vienna. Part 3.

So I won't waste time.

3. Driesden Durnstein Castle

This place is located just outside of Vienna. In the late 1100s, Richard I of England a.k.a Richard the Lion Hearted was captured by someone... his brother I think lol. No no no wait I'm thinking as I type. The Lion Hearted dude was on his way to MEET his brother and was captured by this other dude called Leopold of Austria :D

Anyways, from the most unreliable source of information, Wikipedia, : Richard and his retainers had been travelling in disguise as low-ranking pilgrims, but he was identified either because he was wearing an expensive ring, or because of his insistence on eating roast chicken, an aristocratic delicacy. ( btw what the fuck @ eating roast chicken ) *Wikipedia explanation ends*

In his solitude, he wrote a couple of songs and wrote something in French. yeah. Feel sorry for the man.

So NOW, the castle is in complete ruins and is open to everyone. There's a small town at the bottom of the hill where the castle is perched up on and it's called.... Durnstein Town. (original aren't they?) But just being around there, you could kinda imagine what it'd have been like way back then. Living in a small town and having a mean dude ruling over you, like you see in the movies. Woohoo picture time! ( FEEL HAPPY >:( )

The road up.

Durnstein Castle Ruins

from the bottom.


Highest view point.



4. The Town of Melk

I don't remember much about this place. I remember it being home to some really old monastery. It's located right next to the river Danube. Surely you know what that is right? No? Well then kiddies, pay attention. The Danube is the second longest river in all of Europe flowing passed TEN countries, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and something else. But yeah, that's pretty long, no?

The architecture of this monastery is simply stunning. Inside and out. There was a tour that took us through most of the monastery except for the monk headquarters LOL. So many beautiful tapestries and it didn't feel like I was anywhere recognizable for a short moment. I don't have pictures unfortunately. Sorry folks.



5. The Austrian Alps (aka Look ma, snow everywhere!)

Sorry I had to. This place is sooooooooooo high up. SO HIGH UP ABOVE EVERYTHING. And there was snow everywhere! We had to take a train up to a certain point. Then we had to WALK. It was an awesome walk though. I remember carving my name on to one of the trees. Someone else's name too :P . So as soon as we reached civilization ( because most of the houses on the way up were vacated because of snow ), first thing we see? Skiers! There was this large square opening packed with flat snow and people were skiing. The place even had a bubble lift that took you up to a higher part of the mountain and you could ski down from there on a slope! It was so amazingzinggg. So naturally we didn't have enough time to ski which SUCKED beyond all suckiness. BUT we took the bubble lift up anyways and the skiers were like 'wtf'. I thought I was high before, but at the top bubble lift station.. WHOA. At the top, we saw a lookout tower which was EVEN higher then where we were! My mum didn't follow my bro and I for some reason or the other. So we walked passed the daredevil skiers and walked up the hill that took us to the tower. Then we CLIMBED the tower, which was like 6 stories high. I remember there were cubes of ice at almost every step so it was hard to climb and I fell once or twice :D Finally, at the HIGHEST point any human could go without putting him/herself at risk, the view was 'HOLY SHIT WHOA' . My bro and I took it all in. Everything. The view, the atmosphere, everything. Then we walked down the tower where I fell again. Thrice. bitches. anyways we got down and had some hot chocolate and hot dogs ( which was our regular meal in Austria ) and went on home.

Pictures:


Skiing.

This was the view from the base bubble-lift station. High right?

This is the view from the lookout tower.

It was absolutely amazing.

Vienna, Austria Part. 2

Vienna, Austria. Part 2.

In case you aren't smart enough to figure this out on your own, read part one before reading this.

So before I go ahead with more places I visited, I need to introduce a few more people.
Uncle H ( whose full name I have unfortunately forgotten ), Aunty Shanti, and Rithu. They're close friends with Atam and they stayed at his place for Christmas, like we did. Rithu's 22 and she's in to literature and art and stuff like that. It was pretty cool meeting someone like that... hardly find any in Malaysia. The three of them arrived on the day after us and the first place we visited together was...

2. The Vienna Woods

This place is the shit, people... especially during winter. To get to the woods, you need to take this metro train from somewhere in the Vienna Town underground. It takes you to the outskirts of Vienna. From there you need to take a bus on this winding road that goes upwards... pretty cool. This woods is placed up high on a mountain. This mountain also lays host to many vineyards and old houses. When I was there, temperatures were as low as 2'C or 3'C. The woods was covered with snow. Damn thinking back now, the place looked like it was from a fantasy movie or one of those animation movie things with umm snow.. yeah. That. Anyways, you can look at the pictures below this after you're done reading. The woods has many different trails all over the place with each trail bearing it's own personal attractions. We took a couple of them (according to Atam, we took the better ones so that was good). Both trails took us passed different vineyards and several houses that were vacated due to the snowfall. Some houses were even completely covered with snow. We didn't really get much view of the vineyards because most of them were kinda ...well.. dead. Winter.. remember? That kinda sucked.

After a couple of hours of walking in the woods, Atam took us to this shack-pub-ish place for late tea. Oh gosh it was brilliant. Let me try and give you a mental picture. It's an overcast evening. Imagine a shack made of wooden planks just a story high. Inside the shack, candles are the only source of light at each table. There are one or two proper ceiling lights only, so it's kinda dark. Tables and benches made of wood as well. Arty paintings on the wall, mostly abstract. This place wasn't a high class place by any means. It's run by this Austrian lady who makes the BEST HOT CHOCOLATE EVER. Seriously. It is by far the BEST I've ever ever ever ever had. And and and she sells this large sausages right, and it's filled with hot sizzling cheese. And picture relaxing in this small warm cozy shack after walking around the woods in such an algid condition. Absofuckinglutely brilliant feeling.

Here are those pictures, with captions to help explain them :
(for the most part you can ignore the people in the picture and just focus on the background :P )

Shut up.

Brilliant, right?

Ignore the people please :)

Seriously it makes the picture much nicer lol

Vineyard

I just realized how awesome these pictures are. AWESOME RIGHT?


Outside the shack.

Remember when I said it was dark? This was taken without flash enabled.

Inside the shack (with flash)

So I think I'll leave the rest for tomorrow. I'll let you people absorb all this in first. Come back tomorrow for Part Three.


Till then. ;)

Vienna, Austria Part. 1

Vienna, Austria. Part 1.

Christmas out of Malaysia isn't something I experience very often, believe it or not. I didn't know I'd be going to Vienna for Christmas until about a week before the actual trip itself. I remember that getting over the fact that PMR was over was a hard thing to do seeing that all my work had led up to that point and that point was now in the past. I had nothing to do. I was free. I want to tell you guys about the actual trip itself, therefore I shall skip the minor details leading up to the trip.

Firstly, I'd like to warn you that the trip to Austria can be a bitch. Since there aren't any direct flights from Malaysia, you'll have to take several transits before getting on the plane that does take you to Austria. The way I had it was, Penang to KL, KL to Dubai and Dubai to Vienna. We were stuck in KLIA for close to 10 hours and we were stuck in Dubai IA for close to 12 hours. That's one day gone right there. Trust me, staying in Dubai IA for 12 hours is a grooling task mainly because the place stinks. Literally. Dubai hosts many transit flights and this means that you'll get loads of different people from different countries sleeping on the floors of the airport with their shoes off and such. Disgusting really.

I remember being awoken by the voice of the captain saying that we were approaching Vienna Airport. I remember it snowing partially. That was the first time I saw snow fall for real. But it was just a momentary thing for as soon as we landed, the snow subsided. Vienna Airport is ancient. When I first got off I was like umm wtf. It looked like it was stuck in the 90s. It sort of reminded me of the Penang IA before it was renovated. We were met there by Atam., our host living in the heart of Vienna. Temperatures were close to 4C when we got out. It was only 4PM! To get into the town of Vienna we had to take a bus. Gosh I remember that bus. Windows were open and that gush of wind that constantly blew in offered that sense of lasciviousness. The bus dropped us off near town square, which was walking distance from Atam's place.

In fact, one of the many beauties of Vienna was that everything is walking distance from each other. Fitted with wide sidewalks and WORKING lamp posts, many of Vienna's residents opt to use their feet to travel around instead of cars and buses.

It is this lack of vehicles on the road that makes Vienna such a pleasant place to live in. The pollution rate is at a level so low that even I didn't deem it possible (since I'm Malaysian, right?). When I was there, there was nothing much to look at in terms of greenery apart from underbrush. A majority of the trees and bushes were dead and packed with snow all set for winter.

On the other hand, an obvious hobby for many of Vienna's teenagers (presumably) is graffiti making, not to be mistaken with vandalism. You don't find spoiled phone booths and bathrooms in Vienna lol. But I don't know... I guess it's still kinda like vandalism but not really ah whatever you get the picture. Almost every other back road in Vienna had at least one form of graffiti. Took some pictures :



So that was a little introduction of Vienna. I haven't even told you about the places I visited yet. So getting back to my story... Atam's place is amazingzing! He lives in a penthouse perched on top of a building which offered a view of pretty much all of Vienna's town. Once settled in, we visited loads of places.

I'll cover one of them in this post and some more in tomorrow's post.

1. Vienna Night Markets

For Christmas, many areas around Vienna town open up night markets that sell various handmade and manufactured items at discounted prices. Items sold range from dolls, Pinocchio-like toys, sock puppets, drawings, mugs and tapestries. The dolls sold aren't your average dolls. They are the most messed up creepy dolls you'll ever see. I don't know what kind of imagination these doll makers have but yeah. I don't have any pictures of my own so I found some online:

yeah very 'wtf' right?

There were a number of stalls that sold stuff like hot dogs, burgers and pastries which were absolutely scrumptious. Also, specially for Christmas, stalls sell hot wine (red/white). It's actually pretty tasty ( I thought it'd suck because I'm used to chilled wine ). You can't really feel the heat because of the coolness around you. Here are a couple of pictures:

The central night market (the one we visited)

Happy people. (Ignore the three individuals in the center of the picture)
Another pic at the market.


So that's it for part one. My fingers hurt from typing this much. If you've read all of this then thanks for sticking with me lol. Come back tomorrow for part two. I'll be covering the Vienna Woods ( you don't want to miss this ), Driesden Castle and the Austrian Alps.

Seacrest out.