Dear masseuse, where are u?

August 21, 2007 - Posted by Melly- 1 Comment

21st August 2007

Assalamualaikum..

Bumi Brisbane basah lagi untuk tiga hari berturut-turut. This is the heaviest August rain in five years. How cool is that? At least now we can see green grass instead of dying ones.. this is one of the dryest place I’ve even seen. Miss the greens in KL..

Chop.. tetiba dgr lelaki masuk rumah. Jap ek… ooohh.. orang maintainance. Terkejut mak. Dia nak betulkan pintu bilik aku and I’m the only one at home. Cuak gak nie, but it’s alrite.

Anyways, not what I wanted to write today. I wanna share my experience with you during my trip to the EKKA.

EKKA, sounds like an animal or an insect. Huhu. It’s the Royal Brisbane Show 2007. It’s the word of the month on many lips of people in Brisbane . This annual event showcases various entertainment and performances from horse shows to cattle and cows, to canine, agriculture, food and amusement games. It was held for 10 days beginning August 8th till 18th, the day I had the chance to experience it myself. This was all after the scary CMA (computer Managed Assessment) aka Exam Online lah.. J for Crisis Management.

Emma & I were having our morning coffee when Val came over that morning at 8am. Sipping down my last bit of coffee I was imagining the excitement I was going to endure after many sleepless nights.

Funny.. I’m laughing as I’m writing this. We planned to park the car at Godna train station and take the TransLink down to the city. Believe it or not, we couldn’t find the station! We got lost even after my frequent (well, actually my 3rd) trip down to the station. Then, like tourist in our own backyard, Emma asked for directions and we finally got to the station just in time for the 9am train. Oh by the way, we paid train tickets using some money Emma and I found at the Orion a few days back. We agreed not to spend it on food. J

            We spent the entire journey picking up some sexy-sounding Spanish words from Val, who is a Mexican. It took us a good one hour to get to the exhibition centre after switching trains at Roma Street Station. We purchased a concession entry ticket and soon after we are geared for this fun-filled day. So we hoped.

            Upon entry we were given packets of hand wipes from EKKA organizers to help reduced probability of catching the Influenza A Virus that has claimed nine lives in the past month. Scary?? Neh… we are just thrilled to be there to care much about getting sick.. The three of us took out our camera from our bags (mine was a new bag!) and tuned them into the suitable mode for our click trip. Emma took out the EKKA ground map to see where we were and where we are heading first. It’s not like we are any good at reading maps anyway! J Well, I’d be an idiot not to notice where we were. The air was filled with an aroma of cow/horse dunk! Uuuwwwweeekkk! They are definitely close.

            True enough, we saw an entrance to what I call the arena where beautifully groomed horses were displayed on the field and judged for various categories. We took some shots of horses and off we went to see some other stuff. Turned our faces down into the useless map again, turn it upside down and then decided to go wherever! We couldn’t figure out where we were in the first place. Huhu.. How blessed we were with map-reading capabilities..

              After a short walk, we ended up in the amusement area where scary rides and other games are located. There are crazy rides just like in Genting. Solero Shot, Magic Carpet rides, the Airplane whatever rides, ships, crazy space ship rides, and of course mellow children games for people like me who are not so adventurous on going up all the rides just to get a heart attack. No thank you! We played a game or two but mostly took photos of the crazy Aussie going on rides and getting the hair all messed and shirts lifted up..

            We then headed of to find where the Showbags area was. This is an EKKA specialty. Many people, like us, come to EKKA just to get our hands on these showbags. Showbags are filled with many promotional items such as magazines, toiletries, cosmetics products, chocolates, food items, T-shirts, bags and many other stuff sold at as cheap as AUD2.50 to as high as only AUD20 each. This is a huge bargain for all visitors as actual prices of items per bag may be as high as AUD150. No kidding.. Which is why EKKA is a popular event.

            The we decided to fill our hungry belly with lunch. We walked around for food and how lucky, there was an international food festival and guess what! There’s food from Malaysia, Indonesia, German, Mexico, Spain and lots more! I indulged myself with a plate of Nasi Briyani dengan Kari Ayam, Kentang and 2 cucuk satay. Heavannya!! Kalau boleh nak makan banyak-banyak tapi tak nak spoil my so-called diet. I have not eaten rice for quite some time. Switched to brown rice yang takde gluten. Sumpah tak sedap. Tak macam nasik biasa. Keras, takde rasa kanji. Tapi nak buat cam ner.. nak kurus kena seksa sikit ar. Tengoklah nanti, Melina balik Kuala Lumpur dengan personality yang baru dan bertambah jelita. Amin.. huhu 

            Anyways, pas grab a cup of cappuccino we headed of to other areas of the exhibition. Pi tengok lembu. Masyallah, ada sekor lembu tuh more than 1000kg. Sangat obese! Maybe saya takkan makan daging untuk sebulan lepas tengok betapa gemuknya lembu2 kat sini dengan lemak tepu! J Pastu ada cat show. Tetiba teringat Lucky Boy yang buchuk tu. Saya beli button badge that says I LOVE MY CAT. How cool..  

            Buat aper lagi ek??. Oh ya, now and then terserempak dengan ‘figures’ or whatever you call those things yang akan buat parade later in the day. Dah lah saya takut badut-badut ni. Ada spongebob lah, ada red rooster, ada kucing, ada org yang tinggi macam galah tuh, water restriction ladies.. and  macam2 lah character lain. Tapi sempat gak tahan takut and amik picture with a few of those things. Then makan ice cream strawberry yg sangat sedap. Mana tak sedapnya. AUD4 = 12 hengget! Takpe ar.. nak rasa..makanan maa..

            Pastu dah penat jalan kitorang decide to call it the day sebab tangan Emma & I dah lenguh pegang showbags yang tersangatlah berat nak mampus.. lagipun nak ke Guyatt Park amik makanan yang pesan kat Abang Sah melalui Hilmi, sebelum balik rumah. Nak naik City Cat, Ferry on Brisbane River . Untuk yang kenal benar dengan saya nie tau yang saya benci naik pengangkutan air! Mabuk. Tak kisahlah apa, feri ke bot ke, jet ski ke. Apa2 lah. Mabuk. Tak suka. But I can’t believe somebody thought me into doing it and I did! Berdiri kat jeti tuh je dah mabuk sikit sebab dia beralun. Huh.. tapi Alhamdulillah, it was alrite walaupun tudung rasa nak tercopot dek pukulan angin yang hebat! Takut tapi siap duduk on the deck lagi.. Hahahaha. Takde lah berombak sangat seperti I assumed but maybe sebab dah psychologically kata akan mabuk, so, mabuk sikit lah.     

            Hmm we reached home at I think 4pm kot. Sangat exhausted from my first exciting EKKA. Got home, had my coffee and just sat in front of the TV for the rest of the evening with Emma.. Little did we know that the day after both of us were praying and dying for our neighbor the, Thai masseuse to come and massage us.. 

TBC (to be continued)

           

 



Beban..

August 11, 2007 - Posted by Melly- 1 Comment

12th August 2007 Assalamulaikum..

Semua kata rindumu semakin membuatku tak berdaya menahan rasa ingin jumpa..Percayalah padaku aku pun rindu kamu, Ku akan pulang melepas semua kerinduan yang terpendam

Bait-bait lagu Kangen dari Dewa menjadi teman tatkala aku memilih untuk mencurahkan perasaan dan berkongsi cerita dengan kalian. Entah kenapa tiba-tiba terdetik untuk menulis dengan bahasa penulisan novel.. Aku rasa lebih dekat dan lebih mudah melepaskan segala yang terbuku ketika asyik menekan papan kekunci laptop ku..dan ternyata sudah lama amat rasanya aku tidak menulis dalam bahasa ibunda tercinta seperti yang sering aku lakukan dahulu..

Malam ini agak selesa berbanding kelmarin. Musim sejuk yang hampir sampai ke penghujungnya mula melambaikan kain putih kepada Musim Bunga yang tidak segan-segan menjenguk kebelakangan ini..

Namun, disebalik segala kehangatan malam ini, hati dan dadaku ibarat terlampau sesak dengan perasaaan atau.. Entah, aku sendiri tak bisa mengenali ‘beban ini’. Apakah ianya perasaan yang sudah lama wujud dan aku tidak hiraukan? Apa ia baru sahaja mengetuk hati ini? Atau apakah ia bukan perasaan tapi sekadar unnecessary pressure yang tak sengaja aku undang ke dalam diri ini?? Sesekali terasa diri ini kejam kerana membiarkan hati kecil ini merana lebih lagi. Tapi tambah memburukkan keadaan, ‘beban’ ini terasa asing bagiku..

Esok, genap sebulan aku di bumi asing ini. Kadang kala masih tak percaya aku berjaya sampai ke tahap ini. Who would have thought, anak yang sering gagal dalam pelajaran di bangku sekolah.. anak yang sering dimarahi papa kerana membawa pulang buku laporan kemajuan sekolah dengan tulisan dakwat merah, anak yang sekadar lulus SPM, anak yang masih sahaja gagal semasa pengajian diploma dan anak yang aku kira masih belum membawa apa-apa kebanggaan untuk diri sendiri dan keluarga, kini berada di tempat asing melanjutkan pelajaran ke peringkat Sarjana.. Percaya atau tidak, aku rasa semua ini masih cebisan mimpi yang panjang.

Air mataku mengalir tanpa dipinta selancar jari jemariku yang asyik menjamah susunan abjad dihadapanku ini. Aku mula mengenali beban ini.. Rindu…. That’s it.. Rindu pada Papa, Misha, Linda dan keluarga yang lain..Rindu pada arwah mama yang sepatutnya barada di sisiku yang masih mentah dalam mengenali dunia ini. Berdosanya kerana mempertikaikan Kuasa Allah.. Astarghfirullahalazim.. Al-Fatihah…

Sehari sebelum berangkat ke Australia, pada pagi Jumaat 13th July 2007, aku gagahkan diri menziarahi kubur arwah mama yang telah aku tinggalkan hampir berbulan-bulan lamanya. Sebasah hujan yang membasahi bumi, sebasah itu jugalah wajahku dengan air mata kerana tidak ketemu kubur arwah mama. Aku benci diriku ketika itu. Entah kenapa hari itu aku terlupa nombor batu nisannya. Telefon bimbitku pula sengaja ku tinggalkan di kereta yang ku letak agak jauh dari tanah perkuburan ini. Tanpaku sedari sudah hampir 45 minit aku meredah semak dan berpuluh-puluh kubur. Aku berhenti. Aku mendongak ke langit seakan meminta simpati dariNya. Aku berdoa pada Allah, kalau pun Dia ingin menghukum aku kerana lalai sebagai seorang anak, don’t do it this time. Let me see my mom for the last time! And I cried to my mom, please don’t be mad at me.. I came to share with you some good news.. Belum pun lima langkah aku bergerak semula, aku terbaca nama mama di sebuah batu nisan. Rupa-rupanya, it has always been in front of my eyes. I knew I wasn’t far, tapi alangkah butanya hati ini.…     

Hari yang sama aku terpaksa ke Putrajaya menguruskan wang pendahuluan bersama Hilmi. Pada petangnya aku ke Money Changer unutk mendapatkan matawang Australian Dollars. Papa Misha, Linda, Abang Saiful dan Aunty rupa-rupanya telah mula menabung untuk membantuku berangkat. Sedih aku terpaksa menerima bantuan mereka yang aku tahu lebih memerlukannya. Wang yang diberi masih bersisa. Alhamdulillah. Hanya doa yang dapat aku panjatkan sebagai ganti kepada pemberian kalian. Semoga Allah mengandakan rezeki dan pahala untuk setiap satu bantuan dan pengorbanan kalian.

Sepi & Rindu.. dua perasaan yang meracuni diriku ketika ini. Allah hanya menduga kerana Dia tahu aku masih mampu menerimanya. Sesunguhnya Dia Yang Maha Pengasih lagi Maha Penyayang.. Alhamdulillah, aku telah ketemui jawapan kepada ‘beban’ ini dan telah kuringankan dengan mencurahkan airmata dan bercerita.. I feel much better..

TBC (to be continued)