Beginning

DJ, put it back on..

A figure jumped out of bed as she heard her alarm went off on an early Thursday morning. It took her a while to gather her thoughts on waking up at 6.30a.m. during her semester break. Then it hit her; she’s going on a trip with her long-time-no-see friends that she had helped plan a month ago. She quickly sprang up from her bed and finished packing and prepared to head out.

***

‘Alright people, is everybody here yet?’

‘nope, Yaw Bia, Jia Minn and Suchata not here yet.’

‘will somebody please call them?’

‘Yaw Bia is on the way from Sg Besar, Jia is fetching Susu so they’ll be late together.’

Aigoo…

20minutes later…

‘uncle, everybody is here, we can move now.’

And so the journey uphill begins.

***

‘Why are we stopping?’

‘Toilet and breakfast stop, gather back in the bus in an hour or so.’

‘har? What’s there to eat here?’

‘aiya, just go down only la, walk around and see how first.’

All of them walked around the two rows of shops to find something descent to eat and unfortunately, they couldn’t find any. They ended up cramming into Seven Eleven buying chocolate, sweets and slurppy.

‘hey, I wanna go to the toilet, anybody wanna come with?’

‘yea..’

A few went to the toilet at the petrol station nearby while the others continued looking around and went back to the bus.

***

‘why are we stopping here?’

‘are we there yet?’

‘we’re stopping to see corn?’

‘I think toilet break la.’

‘oh…’

The 23 of them went down to what seems to be their first stop in their trip, a toilet break and also a place that sells really good sweet corn. Some even bought one and ate it raw, just like that. The rest were teasing her of getting an upset stomach later on, but that didn’t stop her from munching and finishing the whole thing.



‘where are we going first?’ one asked the event planner of the trip.

‘we’re going to Boh Tea Plantation for tea and scones first.’

Oh…

***

‘Alright guys, we’re now going to transfer into another smaller bus to go up to Boh.’

‘Which bus?’

‘That bus sekolah over there.’

It definitely had been a while since they had ridden in one of those buses-small with not a very high ceiling and seems to be meant for primary school kids.

‘Jen Na, be careful not to…’

Before she could complete her sentence, a thud could be heard and the one that caused it was sitting in her seat, winching in pain.

‘..hit your head. But I guess telling you now would be meaningless.’

The other two friends burst into laughter watching her rub her head again and again, hoping to ease the pain.

The journey up to Boh’s was quite exciting and thrilling as the road was obviously build for one way traffic and there were also vehicles coming down the slope, causing a minor traffic jam along the way. But with some honking and awesome driving skills, not a scratch was landed on any of the vehicles.

The view of the tea plantation was both scenic and breathtaking, the two words commonly used to describe views like that, but of course, simple ‘ooo’ and ‘ahh’ would have served the same purpose.

The ones on the right side of the bus was busy taking pictures of the view, causing the ones of the left to feel slightly left out and jealous of the view their friends were seeing on the right.





Cameras and their respective cameramen were busy snapping away and one happened to turn towards the people in the bus, rather than the view, as though going to take a picture of her friends sitting behind her.

Sze Hsien, who saw the camera, immediately struck a pose and was ready for a shot when…

‘Alar..as if I was going to take your picture. Perasan.’

The whole bunch of them burst laughing; leaving a quite embarrassed Sze Hsien pouting in her seat with her arms crossed.

They reached Boh Tea after around 15 minutes or so and got up from their seats to explore the place.

‘Jen Na, don’t hit your…’

Another thud was heard.

‘..head again..’

Laughter could be heard as they got off the bus, headed to the tea factory and café.

***

‘wow, this place is perfect for taking pictures! Just like in those fashion magazines!’




The group spent quite some time at that area taking photos of themselves, partly because that particular part of the cafe was quite nice.

‘oi, come on lor, let’s go try out the scones and tea!’

One shout and all of them left the area to taste the food.

‘I’ll have one scone, a slice of apple pie, a scone and a cup of Earl Grey tea.’

‘I’ll have one chicken and mushroom pie and a cup of Passion and Orange tea.’

The two of them paid and went to take their seats, together with 5 other boys.

‘Zhi, this pie is awesome!’

‘Serious? Can I try?’

‘Sure!’

*takes a bite*

‘So sweet! I like the crust!’

‘Awesome right? the scone is nice also!’

*takes another bite*

‘Awesome! I should’ve ordered it instead of this chicken pie, it taste a bit weird,
but that could just be me.’

‘let me try..’

*take a bite*

‘let’s switch, I’ll take your pie and you take mine.’

‘ar? You sure bo?’

‘yea, lets trade.’

***

‘Zhong, let’s go take pictures over there! The view looks awesome!’

They left their seats and went towards the balcony and went straight for the railings.

All the boys took up most of the space at the railings and a short brunette could be seen tip-toeing behind them, in her poor attempt to see pass the towering boys.

‘I can’t see T^T’
might as well take a picture of what’s in front of me.

With that, she took pictures of the boys’ back together with the view in front of them.



The boys had their photos taken against the magnificent backdrop and left the railings.



Finally! Wow, no wonder they stood here for so long. The view is awesome!

The camera came out right away and she was busy snapping picture of her now favourite view.




***

‘alright guys, one last group pic then it’s up the bus and we’re going down d.’

The whole group quickly arranged themselves in an orderly manner and took a group picture with the amajjing view behind them and called it a visit and left Boh.




‘Jen Na, don’t hit your head this time ya.’

Surprisingly, she sat down and no thud was heard. Her friends mentally applaud her achievement.

On the way down, Jen Na was feeling a bit ‘high’ and was shouting at random passers-by she saw.

‘hey, next one you shout I love you.’

‘OK!’

However, the ‘I love you’ shout never came.

‘Why you no shout?’

‘the person so old.’

Multiple reasons came and the next thing they knew, they were already off the hill and headed to a bee farm near the area.

***

(some of the pictures are taken from Richard and Sien Son's album at FB)