i can't wait to wake up tomorrow and find out this promise is true

It's been the most awesome chinese new year so far, as far as I can remember. Why? Cause for the first time ever, we(my family and I) balik-ed kampung to KT(kuala terengganu not kajian tempatan) for cny! A lotta things happened so I think the best way is to do it one day at a time.

Day 1

We left in the wee hours of saturday morning, as in 5 am. I slept at 3.30am, woke at 4.30. You get the picture. This early departure(fuyoh) was to beat the traffic and to have one day to just go around. We were planning to stop by kuantan for brunch at a famous curry noodle store that we used to go to when we stayed in kuantan for about a year or so(when we were still kids). The curry noodles in this store has memories to me(though i obviously cant remember). When I was about 2, I somehow in someway took my mum's packet of boiling curry noodles and put it on my right foot. Big mess, long story short, it's scarred till today.

But I digress.

The shop was closed as we should have expected I guess. We(my dad haha) were hungry so we settled for mcdonalds', by teluk cempedak!(er, a beach heheh)

Inilah wajah budak-budak bangun pukul 4 pagi tak breakfast lagi

After breakfast, we walked along the beach and the bridge there to digest the breakfast so there'll be room for more at terengganu, which is the main attraction haha.

Parents at teluk cempedak(no, there werent any cempedaks there. Got mcD and kfc)

It took about 3 hours to reach kuantan. Moving on, it was gonna be another 3 hours to terengganu but I dont know what we did in the middle, we only reached KT at 3pm.

First things first, we had to check into our hotel. My dad booked 3 hotels, cause we dont know which is clean and stuff. So we stopped by the first one and my dad, mum, and hannah went in to survey the room. Dont know why bekah and I were asked to stay behind.

Making full use of the space to stretch- for a limited time only

The team came back and reported a failed cleanliness check so we headed for the second one, grand continental, where we stayed before so basically it was sort of settled that we're gonna stay there. Still, parents went in to check check first. Nope, no pictures this time haha.

After checking in, we wasted no time. Full of adrenaline and excitement, my parents started the tour for our benefit around KT(where my dad grew up, mum lived, and hannah and I were both born. Bekah 100% budak kajang haha) We were scouting for- what else- food! Dad was really excited to take us around a tour to gain weight, which I am sad to say, worked. We attacked the keropok lekor first, at the losong street which is like lined with keropok lekor stalls. It's crazy. Why dont we get these in selangor?

Looks can be deceiving haha

Of course, we(I) fell for the sales. You would too, trust me. At night, we went for dinner eating all the famous nasi(s) and then hannah went to shop for her birthday present from bekah. While they were trying on shoes, kamhing(my uni mate also from terengganu) came to meet up and say hi.

Day 2

Second day! Reunion dinner was at night and we were excited to meet with people who all share the yang surname. We've never experienced that. Usually we're the only yangs. But before that, there's another whole day in front of us so in the morning it was nasi minyak! Terengganu is famous for nasi dagang, nasi minyak and keropok lekor la to name a few. So that morning our dad brought us to have the famous nasi minyak john.

No, i'm not majoring in photography.

Then it was the famous batu burok beach. It's amazing.

Dad's guard objects.

We went to walk around chinatown to get something for hannah's kai ma(stepmum?).

Showing some love

I started out wanted to post in detail *semangat*, now malas ady haha. So after visiting her kai ma, we went sightseeing at some place I cant remember the name.

And THEN,(fuh) it was the famous pasar something something(also can't remember the name). Note that through all these we did considerable amounts of eating.

I have NO idea.

Finally, it was time to go back and freshen up for the reunion dinner! And the first thing we noticed when we got there was that there were four tables labelled 'Mr. Yang'. How cool is that?!

One part of our cousins haha. It's a pretty big extended family. A professional photographer actually took a picture of the whole family on the first day of cny. Hopefully we'll get it soon.

This is why I dont upload a lotta pictures to iring my blogging. Cause it messes up the layout everytime I upload a picture. Anyways, moving on moving on.

Day 3

First things first... breakfast! You get the picture now right? haha. This time it's nasi dagang.

Jalan Banggol was where my dad grew up so while waiting for our uncle to get the nasi dagang my dad walked around the place and met some people who remember him from when he was still a kid growing up!

This was before 9am! By 9.30, they were packing up to go home.

There was some time before we had to 'assemble' at our granduncle's house so my dad brought us to the beach again since we love it so much! Bekah decided to set a fashion statement.

Cheongsam at the beach

When we got there, my mum said dont get ourselves wet. Guess what was the first thing I did?

I got myself wet.

It's the waves I tell you.

She sells seashells by the seashore

Skip skip and then it was truly Chinese New Year time(aka angpau time!) We went, saw, and collected! Haha, it was really fun the cny atmosphere in the house. There were more nasi dagang and keropok lekor there. What else? Attack!

That's us and my grandaunt with my great grandma. She's a pretty awesome lady

We hung out, played with the kids, took pictures, and after the official photography session with the pro, a few of the families headed to my great grandma's sister's place. Hung out more, and then we went back to the hotel to get some rest. We met again for dinner at a japanese steamboat place. I have never felt fatter.

Day 4(LAST DAY!!)

It was pretty sad that we had to leave already. We really wanted to stay but there's family here that we gotta celebrate with as well. In the morning, we had breakfast with hannah's kai ma's family first, checked out the place again(the one that i dont know the name of) and then headed home.

Family pic(the crazy one). As you can see only the kids conceded



We were supposed to be jumping together.

On the way home we stopped at kemaman(which is still terengganu but 3 hours away from KT, and halfway home) cause my mum wanted to drink hai peng coffee which we didn't get to do on the way there cause it was packed. Well, it was still packed(haha) but we went anyway. I was(am) so addicted to the teh ping there I had two cups. Wanted more but didn't wanna risk having to go to the toilet in the middle of the highway. *sedih*

This is addictive stuff

Fed and watered, we journeyed home. Got stuck in a jam on the karak highway for about an hour! Got home at about 11pm. Missing terengganu and the people already, but no time to mope! It was hannah's 21st birthday an hour later. She spent the first few minutes of her birthday in the shower. What a way to start!

We 3 sisters learnt more hokkien in one trip than our lifetimes. They all speak hokkien. We even have an malay cousins(aunties i think but younger than us haha) who speak hokkien, english, mandarin and of course malay, fluently!

I'm so patience-less now after all the picture moving and layout arranging haha. Next update probably on hannah's birthday. Watch this space.

editted: i have no idea why the fonts are like this, and i've played around for quite some time but can't get them to synchronize.

You're everything good in my life

I find myself spouting words in no sensical order, trying but failing to string these words into sentences that properly phrase what my heart is beating. The feelings, desires, struggles all racing each other out, wanting you to know. Trying to make you understand me.

You already do.

no way to take it all back

SO. My finals are finally over, no lame pun intended. I've spent days dreaming in between tutorial questions, nights rolling about unable to drift off, all these sweet escapes, waiting for this day to come. So tell me why I don't feel that euphoric explosion I was confidently expecting, much less a relief from this tight constriction that seemed to have wedged itself somewhere in between my left ventricle and my aorta(read: biology) since this war began(while you're at it, look up exaggeration).

I'm sorry if those two don't correspond with each other, I spent biology classes with ever faithful friends at the backmost of the class sketching the teacher's face. Needless to say, our drawing skills didn't go much farther than that of biology. Trust me, that alone can fill blogs, NOT that it's necessary to publicise every classroom escapade.

Anyhow/hoo/way, this absence of anticipated joy has a reason behind it. The last paper was a tough cookie. Biscuit, cracker, whatever. Sorry for my sudden transformation into a bad quality thesaurus(transformers, clarence?) C programming has always been my weakest subject, one I wage war against, and today was no exception. Okay, to be fair, I could run a few programmes. But running them and getting them the way the questions wants it is different.

So after the paper, I wasn't really in any mood to celebrate. My classmates went jolly happy to KL, but I didn't feel like it. I had lunch with my friends from different engineering courses whose last paper is tomorrow, sadly. Haha, and with some secret concoction, they picked up my mood a little.

After two weeks of spending every single day except sunday here--->

Holed in from 10am till 5pm, one hour lunch break of course, suddenly you feel a little lightheaded. Not knowing where to go and what to do(but of course, this unacceptable feeling will only last for one day tops haha). Coming home, after dinner, there is no notes waiting to be carelessly flipped through, tutorials to be dutifully dreading, or past year papers that are one of those little accomplishments that give you the permission to feel like you've 'upgraded' and are almost ready for D-day. Only for a little while.

Hold your fire, I don't miss the exams you-gotta-be-chocolate-covered-nuts to miss em. It's the routine, yeah, that's it.

I will be going for my first dental appointment to tighten my braces since I put it on a month ago. Thinking of changing to red, cny ma. But I mean who gives up green for red? And what if I look like Edward Cullen after his meal?(No sirree, I didn't watch the movie or read the books but the hype surrounding it is enough for the katak hiding under the tempurung to know who Edward is. He is a vampire)

How now brown cow?

but you've already figured out

How is it that the equations that will be given I can't help remembering, but those that won't be I can't seem to remember? Too many concepts to master in too short a time. Why oh why did I never try when time was a luxury I could afford?
The lamentations of a typical student, or not.

I've only just realised the one thing that can keep putting on weight through vigorous exercise is my brain.

See y'all at the end of the tunnel.