A Family getaway that brings good old memories.

December 15, 2013 - Last weekend, like any other weekend, I’ve spend a day with my wife and Little Dina going to the zoo in Johor Bahru. We went there somewhere at 9am in the morning. I didn’t know that there’s a Zoo in JB until my wife tell me so. it does bring excitement to Little Dina as this is her first experience to see animal other than her ‘atuk bakhtiar’ cats and kittens. She’s enjoying interacting with the parakeet and the birds along the way. My personal view about the zoo, there’s not many animal you can see, as there’s not many animal being displayed – the tiger being lazy and stay on his bed – (public holiday) and the elephant went out for training in Pahang J. The visit is worth the money as you need to pay RM2 for an adult although you need to pay more in the National Zoo. However, despite of the ticket worthiness, the bad smell from the animal cages and poorly managed animal is one of the things that the zoo keepers need to address. Sadly, I’ve seen a few animals were not well taken care of in which I’d say they’re probably had a financial burden to upkeep the zoo and the animal welfare. It’s quite obvious that you can see skinny tiger or lions, snakes which have ‘begok’ on the face and the smelly and dirty monkey cages.

Next after our visit to the Zoo, Since we still have plenty of time for a get together, without any plan, we moved on to Legoland in Nusajaya, Johor. The journey takes us approximately 45 minutes from the heart of Johor (JB apparently). The ticket prices for adult is somewhere around RM140 and RM 110 for 3 years until 11 yo.. The prices itself is quite reasonable although it is consider as expensive to local though. Based on the figures, we’d pay RM 280 for both of us since Little Dina is Free as she still not reaching 3 year olds. We’ve a discussion over this, not because of the ticket prices but the ticket worthiness and the fact that Dina wouldn’t play without us sitting next to her in LEGOLAND, we moved on to discover what’s happening in Puteri Harbor.

Well, not much happening in Puteri harbor as there’s a lot of construction happening. Along the way to Puteri Harbor, we’ve came across the Johor government complexes in the making. My best guessed that this will become the new state government offices.

We reach Puteri harbor at nearly noon. There’s not much happening there, the harbor seems quiet as there’s not many people travel from/ to Puteri harbor. Next to the harbor, other than newly built Traders Hotel, there a few development going, there are few hotels, shop lots and condominium being built next to it. I’d consider this as an exclusive zone for the tourist or the local to shop. There’s RED Cube, Toys r Us, and other theme park available where your kids can meet Barney, Bob the Builder, Angelina, Hello Kitty mascot and the other in which I’ve never known. Dina seems not happy with the mascot as she’s quite scared with them as she’s probably think that they are monster rather than cute…

The most interesting part for me in Puteri harbor, the Lat’s Place. A theme restaurant from the infamous Kampung Boy, Lat’s by Dato’s Mohd Nor Khalid. The interior was amazingly setup to resemble the kampong environment with live screening which provide diners and engaging an interactive animated experienced from the Lat’s kampong boy storybook, filled with a story line driven content potraying the life as a kampong boys and the community activities in a village. All these remind me of the good old memory days.

I’ve experience a lot of the games played in the kampong such as

Konda kondi
A fascinating and enjoyable game. Batting stick under projectile and flick the stick as far as possible as to not let the opposing team to catch the projectile stick.

ceper - bottle cap

Game based on the use of 5 pieces of bottle caps – normally from the soy sauce bottle cap. Where you need to weight and flip up the bottle caps together with other rules which needed to be followed.

Galah Panjang
The game usually played on the badminton court or DIY column and rows made to suit the number of players. The game is basically like a gate or controlled field game, where the opposing team will try their best to prevent you from going to the next court.

Guli
Marble games which involves aiming the target and throwing marbles accurately.

Nenek kebayan
An interesting games played by boys and girls. ones need to be a ‘nenek kebayan’ – old lady with a stick to caught and guessed the person…it quite interesting game to play as it does come along with a song –

‘nenek nenek si bongkok tiga,

siang mengantuk malam berjaga,

mencari cucu di mana ada,

nenek ku kahwin dengan anak raja’...

then all the player except the nenek will be asked to sit. With the ‘nenek kebayan sing along he/she will try to caught the player when they’re sitting and trying to guess who he/she managed to catch.

‘cucu cucu xdpt lari,

nenek tua banyak sakti,

sekarang nenek nak cari ganti,

siapa yg kena,

dia yg jadi (nenek kebayan)’

Hide and seek
A game where the chosen ones being the seeker, after counting of number, he/ she will find the rest which is hiding within the field boundaries. The first one get caught will possibly being the seeker after that.

Fighting spider
You’ll need to find a spider – usual place to look one are somewhere within the lemongrass or the pandan leaves. As there will be spiders in the area.

Once caught, the spider will be kept inside a matchbox and the owner will setup a fight match with their friend to see who’s spider is the strongest.

p/s: don’t caught the long legged spider you found on your house wall as it’ll be easily die before fight!- animal cruelty here..

Gasing
Spinning tops, made out of wood, nowadays made from plastic were used to test the individual skill and challenge each other with a duel by whose tops spinning will lasts.

Layang Layang
Kite war played when wind blowing strong throughout the year. Its either you buy or DIY the kite, having the glass embedded thread will make you the strongest person to fight against.

Remind me, my late father – the gurus who teach me how to make one.

‘one two som’/ lalalitamplom – rock scissor paper game
A games where you need to predict and think the possible outcome from you opposition based on recognize the pattern of the random behavior of the opponents. Another sort of game like tossing coin and rock, scissor paper.

Lumba upih
A games of palm frond sledding, where the lucky guys get picked up during the lalalitamplom / one two som, will sit down on the leaf while the one who’s lost will pull him along on the ground while on a race.

Fishing
Common kind of activity you do aside from swimming on the river.

Batu seremban
Usually played by girls. It’s the games of juggling the ‘batu’ made out of rice, sands etc. wrapped and sew in a cloth bags which totals of 5 pieces to be made.

Ting Ting
Games which involve chalk or other means, drawing a box pattern on the floor or the ground. You’ll on a one leg jump to complete the games, the rule? I’ve forgot myself

Tembak Tembak
At that time – the NERF gun wasn’t available. We make our own but it doesn’t mean that we’re terrorist..duuuhhh!... the gun and the trigger were made out of wood with rubber to hold it in place and projectile mechanism made by rubber to shoot out. For the bullets, made by plucking the green cherries off the tree of if you get nasty, you could try the young areca nuts (buah pinang muda) which will make your opponent get itchy if get shot.

Rounders
Another version of softball/baseball where you play with a group of people. The tennis ball was used and the baton was made out of wood.

Baling Selipar
A group games played with selipar or slippers. The games will started when you arranging the 3 slippers horizontally and then aimed it down, building it against while avoiding the opponent to hit you with slippers.

Oh well, there’s a lot of games in which I couldn’t remember, back in the days, we played outside and not online, your parent called your name and not the cell phone, and when you don’t eat what mom’s cook, you don’t eat. I guessed I’m getting old and all this memories will soon go with my age.

For all the memories, I thanked all my uncle/ auntie . Pak and Mak Andak, Pak and Mak Lang, Pak and Mak Chik, for the wonderfull memories who let me experience of it the live of a kampong boy although not being most of it but worth of experience. Among the countless memories, I’m thanking you guys for the sweet memories -Ateh – or ajoi, being the kind of ‘macgyver’ in which we admired him so much during our childhood along with his ‘mancis cannon’ wrapped on a aluminium foil found from cigarette box. Musa- who teaches us playing golf/ hockey with the court soup attached to a stick. Kak jah – who’s always being our baby sister when our parent not around/ going out to the orchard. Ayob – who tell us that’s not an issue having hula style/ ‘rambu- rambu’ on your trousers in which we find out it is not true… hahaha. Uda – who teach us how to rubber tap and collect the stinky gutta percha – rubber scrap from the rubber trees. And to the rest of the family members, relatives neighbours who’s always nurturing us and cared when we growing up to what we’ve become.

It’s a nice thing to have. We’ve ended up at a place which reminds us to the good old days. I really miss the days when I used to idolize mcgyver, when I would finish all my homework so I could watch the new episode of A-team or werewolf. Time where you can push your friend into the river or a pool without worrying about their cell phone.

Oh my, power puff girl,korean idolize things, high five and Justin Bieber don’t even get me started. This generation has no clue what they’ll miss out soon.