"Yer! You look like a pondan"

Not much has recent days.
I take that back; much has happened lately, but none of them is of earth-shattering importance. Unless you count the time we bluffed our way into Shangri-La’s Sandy Bay in Penang and nearly got hauled out by ‘secu’.

I’ve got a polarizing filter for my camera, haven’t got round to doing proper shots with it save for some experimental glare reduction tests and a bit fiddling.
I’ve also regressed back to obsessive nail-buffing. But fortunately, only on the left fingers. Obsessive not like in a “wah so pretty so pretty must rub more!” kind of compulsion, but more like “ooh its so shiny lets make it more shiny!”

“Hah my nails are buffed, not polished. More sophisticated than yours,” I boasted to May, and bared my reflective finger tips.
“Really? Put them down and let me have a look.”
And then she started giggling, “Yer! They even reflect light, you look like a pondan!”


The more interesting story would probably be the incident in Shangri-La.

By a stroke of misfortune that came with the uncooperative bowels of a cousin, we needed to find a toilet immediately. We were approaching the resort-lined stretch of Batu Ferringhi, and decided to plough into Sandy-Bay’s car park, since it was a Shangri-La managed multi-star resort which we had considered staying but was double of what we were willing to pay.

The one with the rebellious bowels hopped off into the lobby and disappeared in search for the loo while we slowly locked up the car and took our time.

“Let’s go look at their pool and the beach,” May suggested.
We headed in the direction of the pool.

A hotel employee came up to us and asked if we were staying with them.
“Yes,” replied May.
He asked for our room number, May looked lost for a while before turning to me, “What’s our room again?”
“Erm, erm… 225,” I plucked an arbitrarily integer.
It was not a convincing show, and he asked for my name.
“Mr. Tan.”

He let us past reluctantly, and we went along our way to the poolside.

Yee Hou spotted him speaking intently into a walkie-talkie.
“We better go now, he’s checking our details with reception.”
“Quick, back out!”

We turned around and went back through the lobby in single file. It was quite embarrassing to feel the employee’s eyes stare at us, especially since we lied about our tenancy just to look at their pool.

Out of the hotel, we radioed the one with the difficult bowels on our own walkie-talkies, told him our story and arranged to meet somewhere in the Batu Ferringhi pasar malam.


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