Meeting Old Friends

Manda writes:

The day started with brunch at an outdoor eatery with my uncle and auntie. Parking around the area seemed very popular today and after going around the block several times, Uncle Gary decided to leave his vehicle next to an already parallel-parked car. "It's not in a parking bay, is this going to be ok?" I asked. Gary replied in the positive and we strolled over to a vacant table and placed our food order.

As we ate our noodles, we noticed a parking attendant circling the area, looking for his next victim. He found his first prey parked in a bay opposite to Gary's car. All those that had parked their vehicles within close proximity stopped eating and walked over to the pavement, watching the attendant go about his job. Gary, who hadn't even parked in a bay, looked very calm and remained seated. "Do you think you should move your car since it isn't in a parking bay and is kinda sitting in the middle of the road?" I asked. He shrugged and strolled over to join the other car owners, who were still standing by the restaurant entrance watching the officer's every move. After securing a ticket firmly between the wipers of the first car he'd caught, the officer walked in the opposite direction to the curious crowd. In turn, the relieved car owners made their way back to their noodles. "The attendant knew he couldn't fine anyone this side of the road as he could see all the car owners standing around. They'd simply move their vehicles if he were to walk over," Gary explained calmly. This was the Malaysian way. It looked like our illegally parked transport had been let off the hook too - Gary knew the score though being a local.

Apparently, bribery exists over here and for the right price you can negotiate anything from a more lenient parking fine to purchasing a university degree (along with posing for graduation photos with a fake University don). Anything goes ... but we will not be putting that theory to the test on this visit!

Gary dropped us off at the Power (Shopping) Centre in Petaling Jaya, where we found another Starbucks. We still had almost eight hours to kill before this evening's events, which included meeting up with some of my uni friends, whom I hadn't seen for almost a decade.

I first met Peter and Fei (now, known as Kenneth) at Southampton University. We'd all joined the Chinese Society in our first year and got to know each other very well. So much so that by the third year we decided to share a flat. Well, us and four other Hong Kong Chinese guys. Yep, I was the only female living in a flat shared by seven people and was treated like an honorary male! We have many fond memories of student life and were keen to meet up for a small reunion.

Anyway, going back to the shopping centre ... we still had many hours to kill and so we made the most of the free Internet access at Starbucks. With the diary posts uploaded, I didn't have much else to do on the Web and so I started doing some research on Kenneth, Peter and their close friend, Robin (who I also know). As I did more searches in Google, my jaw almost dropped to the ground. Robin had become a chief executive officer (CEO) of one of his father's companies and Peter and Kenneth were directors working for Robin's father. They had been very busy this past decade indeed!

From Power Centre we took a bus and train into the centre of KL where we spent the next few hours watching The Incredibles at Suria KLCC shopping centre. It was a very funny film and the whole audience were laughing along. The ticket only cost 10RM (£1.40) each - I can't believe we have to pay almost £6 for the same privilege in the UK!

After the film, I still had time to pick up a few presents for Peter and Kenneth before we finally met up with them at 8pm. They hadn't changed much at all and their appearance seemed to have been frozen in time. The only difference was that they seemed more business-like. Somehow, I can't imagine them at the Student Union bar now, making the most of a pound a pint on a Tuesday night! They took us to an outdoor eatery and we tucked into some noodles. We talked about the old student days - pranks the boys used to play on each other (especially on birthdays), people we still keep in contact with, going clubbing in London and Southampton, trips we used to take to Alton Towers (a UK theme park), Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Oxford and even my home town, Swindon! It brought back many good memories.

Later on in the evening, we went to a mamak (Indian-Muslim) place for tea. Since this was near to Kenneth's house in Taman Desa, he popped home and brought his wife, Grace, and daughter, Lydia, over too. Baby Lydia is simply adorable and Grace seemed to have taken to motherhood like a duck to water. It was past 11pm and Lydia was still as good as gold.

(l-r): Manda, Peter, Lydia, Grace and Ken.

After more trips down memory lane, we realised that time was just slipping past us and it was time to make our various ways back home. Peter took us back to Petaling Jaya (the opposite direction to where he lives) before driving all the way back to Cheras. It had been a great evening - good food and drink and excellent company. Hopefully the next time we meet it won't be as long as a decade apart. So, how does this Friday sound?