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Another early start to the day for our prearranged 1 - 2 hour trip across the border to Malaysia.
The previous evening Jackie had asked Sensei Brian Loi from the Malaysian dojo, how long the trip would take, his reply 1 - 2 hours. Diane's question "How long will it take if we go after 10am" REALLY !!!
In Car 1, was Shane, Frank, Jackie, Graham, Luba and Paul. On looking at the landscape whilst entering Malaysia which was quite flat, Graham said "It looks like where I live in Chang Mai" Shane asked "don't you live in the mountains?" Graham - "Yes but it looks like this with mountains" Shane - "Well in that case it looks nothing like this" Graham - "Err no it doesn't"
In Car 2 was Andy, Gary, Nick, Shaun, Rose and Diane. As soon as they got into the taxi Shaun noticed the driver had tattoos and proceeded to ask him was it done the traditional way or electric needles, this lasted a good 10 minutes. Shaun then noticed that the driver had a phone charger in his car and as Shaun has not been able to leave his phone alone all the holiday started to charge his again.
Arrived at the restaurant to be met by Brian, who would be our host for the day and evening. A full buffet of at least 80 different dishes to choose from and the juice we were given was rose water which tasted like liquid Turkish delight. All very full from the meal, we went to watch traditional Malaysian dancing, it was all clapping and smiling until the audience participation kicked in and as we were the only group in the audience they were bound to choose at least one of us. Jackie had said to Shane "keep hold of me, don't make me go up". Andy asked Rose if she was going to get up and her reply was "Am I f...k" unfortunately the dance group obviously had other ideas and all the ladies got dragged up.
Shane described Jackie's dancing as gliding around the floor with the dancers, trip trop, trip trop like a carthorse, this was because Jackie's feet had swelled with the heat but this didn't stop her entertaining everybody and impressing the dancers. We all got back into the taxis and Jackie wanting to cool her feet down used her freezing spray, this almost suffocated everyone in the taxi as she'd only ever used it outdoors before.
We then visited a batik which was a lovely open space which felt very tranquil. We were introduced to the lady who was going to look after us for the next few hours, on entering the batik we had noticed lovely paintings lining the pathways, little did we know that we were actually going to doing some of these and making our own masterpieces. We all picked our own designs and took them to the art tables, we had previously watched the display which made it look so so easy, oops a daisy, it definitely wasn't easy, well not for all of us. Paul previously being an art teacher was giving us instructions but there is always one in the class that doesn't listen properly, this was Jackie, instead of using the water and then blending the colours onto the canvas, she daubed the paint on and then using tissue tried to take it back off. Shane said that Jackie's artwork was like a dulux paint chart, putting undercoat, top coat and then gloss on top. We were all in fits of laughter. We all used the same style paint brushes and Jackie said "Sir, Sir my paintbrush is crap" and in his best teachers' voice Paul said "It's the same as everyone else's".
While our artwork was drying, we were taken to another section of the tranquil garden and watched more Malaysian dancing, there was a section where marriages could take place and we were all matched up to one another and married, this was also so funny.
These are the marriages: - Jackie to Frank, Rose to Gary, Diane to Nick, Luba to Frank and then Shane to Frank (Frank does get about a bit but then after all he is "this big").
We had a drink of refreshing mango and coconut tea, did a bit of shopping and then collected our artwork. A group photo was taken with everyone holding their own paintings.
We then met up with Rose Chesterton, who took us to a shopping mall where half the group shopped and the other half had a relaxing foot massage, well some had the relaxing one, Roses' little old granny who looked like butter wouldn't melt obviously took a disliking to her and literally beat her up, lots of ows and face pulling was going on, she said she felt worse after the massage.
The evenings training was supposed to be in the dojo but was moved due the amount of attendees to an outdoor location, which was around the hotel swimming pool that was adorned in colourful lighting and huge dinosaurs, very picturesque and very unusual, we all absolutely loved it.
Afterwards another meal in the local market area which was very atmospheric, getting a chance to mix with the locals.
Back into the taxis to make our way back over the border to Singapore.
In car 2, Andy was asked if he knew the drivers name, to which he replied "Ping Pong Pang". We did ask the driver who said that he was called Andy Chang to which our Andy said "I've come all this way and met someone with my name" Rose asked "Why is your name Andy Chang too?" Shaun then asked "Do you know Jackie Chang then" lots of loud laughter from the taxi. Nick being very tired fell asleep in the back seat and resembled a Venus fly Trap, bless his cotton socks.
Got back to the Bay Hotel approx. 12.30 and had one quick night cap and then retired to bed.
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