Touristy stuff

So, as I was saying about taking my man's friends around.

It started off fine, I guess. They weren't those over-enthusiastic Iwannaseetheentireislandtoday kind of tourists. So that was a lot of pressure off. But then again, the just never seemed particularly enthusiastic about anything. Taking them out for breakfast was a bit weird. They didn't want to say they wanted something they were familiar with like I don't know...McDonald's breakfast or something. But neither did they seem to be particularly keen on trying local food.

Next, we headed to the Pinang Peranakan Mansion. I'd been here once before with my friends, but we didn't take the guided tour that time. Admission to this place is RM10 for adults and RM5 for children below 12. The last time I came with my friends, we managed to ask for a student price but I think that has to be arranged beforehand. I absolutely enjoyed this place both times I'd been there. Although not everything is original to the house, the collections are quite authentic to the culture and era and the guides provide an entertaining commentary and explanation about the displays. Visitors are allowed to also walk around freely and take photos as they like.

Like anywhere else during the holidays, though, there are always horrible monsters called children-raised-by-lousy-parents. These are the ones you find stomping down the wooden staircases and jumping around the wooden upper floor while their parents ignore them until the rest of us scowl or the staff try to stop the kids. Then their parents just absently tell them "Stop it" which is doesn't actually stop them. Gosh I hate parents like that.

Next we went to the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. This was also on the list of places my friends and I wanted to visit on our own little heritage tour the last holidays but we always ended up not going. Why? First of all, the website it self already seemed a bit like those stuck up places that just aren't that great but seem to think they're awesome. This was even more confirmed by the fact that they did not want to give any form of student discount when we emailed them asking them about it, and they weren't very nice about it in their reply either. They also only have 3 tours a day and at other times, you can't go in. That made fitting it into our schedule a bit tough. Anyways, this time J, our friend from KL wanted to go. So we did. Everything about the place screams anal. There are like signs and people repeatedly reminding you that you're not allowed to take photos inside the building, once inside the waiting area, Emily and I went looking for someone who could tell us where we could buy some drinks...only to be shooed out by staff who didn't even bother being nice about it. I mean, it seriously felt so unwelcoming. They charged us RM2 for each bottle of water without any price signs or anything of that sort.

Tourists were repeatedly reminded not to take photos, and the staffs' light 'humour' that it would cost them RM250 to arrange a photo session to be able to take photos inside the building just became really annoying sales talk after like the third time. Seriously. Once the tour started, the annoying little tour guide who reminds me of a toad basically spent like a quarter of our 1 hour tour talking crap about the original owner of the place and painted what I thought wasn't a particularly flattering picture of his descendants who sold the place to the current owners who run this business.

We then moved to the screen dividing the waiting area from the rest of the house. One of the main carvings on it was that of Fuk Luk Sau who represent wealth, health and prosperity. The tour guide continues with her really misguided talk on Feng Shui, proclaiming that yin energy is BAD and yang is GOOD. (Anybody who knows anything knows that it's not a case of good or bad, it's A BALANCE OF BOTH!) But ok we shall not debate feng shui here. Point is..she was saying all sorts of crap like telling these tourists that to Chinese the most important kind of luck is wealth, that made me realise this it's morons like this that always puts all these weird ideas in foreigners' heads.

As we move along the tour which by now is already half over before we even enter the parts of the building that we're only allowed to enter if we pay RM12, she continues to give really twisted inaccurate nuggets of information, sometimes strangely telling stories about how awesome the original owner of the house was then dissing his descendants, and most annoyingly constantly reminding everyone that there are some rooms for rent and the place is available for rental for meetings, events...blah blah... At one point she was like "We don't cook for you. If you want caterers, we will only give you a list." First of all we were all tourists not interested in looking for a place to hold meetings, and second of all, if I were a person looking for a place to hold my corporate events and she spoke to me like I'm such a moron? I'd just cross the place off my list.

The upper floor was pretty bare. There were hardly any displays or furniture up there save for one room. The rest had been turned into what looked like conference rooms. The cut and paste porcelain work? She couldn't even explain to us what they depicted. All she kept going on about was how unique they were and how they had to hire people to restore them. She basically gave some crap answer to a tourists who asked her what the scenes depicted were about.

It was all just really annoying. There was nothing to see there, you can't take photos and they've basically removed anything worth taking a photo of anyway, the staff were all annoying vultures just waiting to tell you not to take photos or touch anything and to remind you that you can take photos for RM 250 and they have 16 expensive hotel rooms and the upstairs is for rent for corporate events. ugh.

For all the same kind of architecture and all, I would definitely go to the Pinang Peranakan Mansion. We also visited the Khoo Kongsi which wasn't all that much but we were allowed to take our time to enjoy the displays and appreciate the intricate carvings and paintings. For similar stuff, you could also visith the Yap Kongsi and probably any of the other clan houses.

The weekend

So we did dress up that night. I think it went perfectly fine as far as kicking ourselves out of our wardrobe comfort zone was concerned. The party,however, was just a totally weird mashup of all sorts of themes though. We had the usual circle of people playing drinking games, though I thought starting right at the beginning of the party was a bit premature. We had the people sitting down to play Playstation...they brought the monitor and everything to the hotel. The host and her besties were all dressed up in tiny dresses, too, and yet we were asked to take part in a game of Twister. The host strangely didn't seem to want us to know she had a new boyfriend (who was around) and we ended up leaving fairly early after witnessing a bizarre downing of some JD and champagne straight from the bottle that lacked the ease of someone who's genuinely into doing these things every Saturday night. She just seemed a wee bit too determined to prove several different things to several different groups of friends.

The next day, without having fully gotten sufficient 'me time', I agreed to spend the day with my man showing his friends from uni around. I'll have to write about that next time. But rest assured, I have more to say. Most important of which is: The Cheong Fatt Tze mansion is a complete rip off. They suck. I totally don't recommend that place. There are lots of more awesome things to do on this island and many more things depicting the actual 'heritage' that are more worth seeing than that crummy place staffed by very anal people who are just trying to get more money from you at every turn and they're not even smooth about it..it was all just so crass and *shudder* Some of the things the tour guide said were even so twisted and unrepresentative of the rest of us locals that even our friend visiting from KL felt compelled to turn to the Eastern European couple next to us and tell them the stupid tour guide speaks for herself.

Time to go get dressed for what will probably be something for me to blog about next.

The wardrobe rut

Jeans and a cute top. That's about as dressed up as I know how to be. Oh and some accessories here and there. The worst part is I don't see why some girls go to class all dressed up and with loads of makeup on. It's bad enough trying to make it on time to 9am class as it is, and everybody's too busy trying to figure out what the lecturer is saying to give a damn about what you look like. And so during the semester, I usually end up not buying any pretty clothes. I'll go to the store, find something, then wonder "When would I ever wear it?" and then put it back.

Then when every holiday comes around, I tell myself it's time to get out of this rut and start dressing up. I really don't want to be that girl who just looks semi decent all the time. So this Saturday, I decided I'd finally be the girl who actually does show up in a little black dress. Except that I started worrying about the possibility that everyone else might show up in jeans. On this little island, there's no telling when you'll be under dressed or over dressed. We have women wearing prom dresses to the mall sometimes, people wearing slippers and jeans to wedding dinners (no, these were not themed weddings...they were regular formal wedding dinners!). There are also times when you go out to dinner with friends and the guys are in their usual attire - t shirts, shorts and flip flops- while the girls will range from those in jeans and a t shirt right to the girl who thought everyone was dressing up and turned up only to find she was over dressed.

So, while I very much do want to stop looking so drab, the idea of being the over dressed nutjob is terrifying. Thankfully I think I've found two others who are attempting the same thing. I'm such a dork. At my age, most girls probably know how to use their little black dress and think of it as the weapon they're most comfortable with in the wardrobe arsenal. No, make it they all seem to have a million dresses that always seem to look just right for the occasion. And here I am...needing the assurance of two other friends that we're all going to show up in LBDs together.

A little improvement

So the one day without criticising was.....somewhat successful? So I managed to stop myself from being so judgmental, verbally at least. And yes I do feel less 'toxic'. So okay I'll be trying more of this. But first let me just say...AGH!!!! TEMPTATION IS EVERYWHERE!

This morning as I was minding my own business just leaving the house for the day, the Jerk stepped out of his car and headed in to buy breakfast at the coffee shop just outside my housing area. That huge, white face and unmissable forehead thinly veiled by fringe came at me and just...AGH! It already took a lot of self control no completely ignore him and that perpetual smirk he has on his face when I saw him while I was out for dinner a few days ago...but this morning it was just...having cold water dumped on me. Why is bloody Facebook also suddenly including him in my news feed?

For anyone who doesn't quite get why some random jerk on the street gets me like this...he's not a random jerk on the street. He's the Jerk. The guy who wanted to cheat on his girlfriend. With me. And the girlfriend? My non-biological sister's (read bff's) biological sister. Which I guess kinda makes us sisters by association? Okok irrelevant. Point is...the guy makes my skin crawl. *shudder*

Then there's this other ex classmate of mine who's always been super skinny but is whining about how fat she is. No, it's not an eating disorder because she eats. She just likes to feel skinny by telling people fatter than her that she feels fat. But since I'm trying not to be so mean, I think I'll leave it at that.

Judgmental

I know I am. Very much so. Perhaps the week before the fact that I'm judgmental would be put to good use, isn't the best time to do this...but I think I should. I've decided I'm going to try being completely not judgmental all day today. That means no saying anyone/anything is stupid, dumb, any advertisement is dumb, including laughing at any public services advertisements that repeatedly mispronounce the word 'cervical'...no being mean...no rolling my eyes and calling people morons.....ok...I can do this.