Beyond Travelling

A short escape that was, we drove up to Penang with the kids as Patrick needed to attend the recent Malaysian Film Festival 2007 (he was one of the judges for one of the categories). We had a room at the Penang Hotel Equatorial. Going to Penang each time made me realized how fast this island changes. I almost find it hard to catch up with her developments - the latest additions of mega malls which include Queensbay Mall, coastline highway which bypasses the old tight lanes of Jelutong Road which I once used to travel on my old Yamaha (and later Honda Cup C70) motorbikes whenever me and my roommate Kim wanted to go down Georgetown, the one University that I attended which had some sort of face lifts now (Where had the tennis courts relocated to? Those familiar courts which I used to train in under the scorching heat of the afternoon sun day in and day out are no longer at the same spot...). I missed those days in uni, days of the wild and the carefree, the best time to get to know yourself a little better, the person you were and the person you aspire to become one day, you were full of hopes and dreams. You felt as though the world is yours to conquer eventually. Each corner of the campus brings a different sets of lost memories - the delicious food of the REDHOUSE, the vast green football field and race track, the hill slope where my old friend and I lied on, gazing at the starry night sky, the grand piano at DewanA up the hill, a sanctuary of mine whenever I feel like playing my heart out in the middle of the nights/days, the swimming pool where I could check out the cutest guys in campus, gosh, so much more. Do we miss the things in our life or do we miss the feelings that these places bring with it, with the friends and company we had then? I believe, places become distinct and vivid characters and the people associated with these places brought life and formed meaning for you, meanings that you could only recapture in the book of life I called love and gratitude. Why do I feel like the wind of change has blown my old memories away and turn them into dust, suddenly? Now I have become the silhouette to my own shadow, standing here, haunting myself - a familiar stranger.