Malacca Site Visit 2/10/2009 - Day Two: It's Hot, Hot, And Did I Say Hot!!!?  

Posted by Daniel^_^Chin

*Sorry for the late delay, here's the second day of Malacca site visit.

Woke up in the morning (can't remember the time) and ate our first breakfast in the hotel. Nothing special, there were local food like fried rice and noodles, hash browns, mashed potatoes, cereal, buns, cakes, fruits, omelette, etc.

At least that managed to keep my stomach full for the rest of the morning.

Time for another tutorial session before we go for site searching. Luckily I got an idea about my site already.

My site was located at the carpark near the bridge. I chose it because of the human and traffic flow around it and also the fact that the bridge is used by almost everyone to cross the river. Overall it's strategic for expanding my media empire (evil laughs), uhh...my client's media empire...^_^"





The sun was getting hot by then, and I mean very hot. I don't know what terrible things had the generations of Sultans done to deserve this curse of the eternal scorch by the golden beam. But I guess the tourists are loving it every single day.

And I had to stay at my site to sketch and take photos. It did not take a genius to note down "incredible heat during midday" as part of the site analysis.

We even climbed to the second floor of the huge red building that sells cookies to get some good views.





After that me and Jin Fong crossed the bridge to the other side to take some photos of the buildings there.


St. Xavier's

We even went into this shop that sells old money bills and coins for collectors. Both of was staring at the bills behind the display glass and as an avid collector, she was getting too excited. After some chatting with the owner, she managed get some for her collection. Yes, use money to buy money, nothing wrong there :D. I was interested in some of the Chinese coins though, but didn't get any :(.









Shop owner: I'm so happy that young people like you are still interested in collecting old money.

Yes, collecting old bills and stamps is rarely seen today. I myself didn't even touch my stamp books for years, let alone my pathetic little collection of money and coins. I'd rather collect my thoughts for now though.

But I digress.

Time for some break and cool down. So we went for some cold dessert and horrible fruit rojak. It is safer to eat the Indian rojak in Malacca instead.



We couldn't stand the heat and went back to the hotel. On the way me and Chris stopped by a shop that sells famous popiah to takeaway some for lunch.



The popiah was good, nothing like what I've tasted before. The ingredients were different and they came in quite big proportion too. Got in a bit of an accident with the dripping sauce and my pants but all was well as long my tummy was happy :D.

Time for another brief tutorial session again to check on our progress before we go out again. I was just looking forward to the night market setting up in a few more hours.

By evening, stalls were already setting up. We grabbed some snacks and were joined by a few friends for dinner.




Walked (and whined) all the way from Jonker Street to a restaurant that sells the infamous satay celup. I personally don't mine walking a few more miles just for food.



Total bill around RM60 if I'm not mistaken. It wasn't the most hygienic way of eating but as long as this not-very-clean-freak doesn't get stomach ache he's fine with it.

Went back to the night market again since we didn't have time to look around earlier. A few of them wanted to try out the fake tattoos at one of the stalls.

Jin Fong having her butterfly faux-ttoo done



Kim and her Indian inspired hand faux-ttoo



Emrys wanted his Chinese (phonetically translated) name, 恩历思 and his girlfriend's on his inner arm.



Me and Chris had to do some research to draw out certain Chinese characters that weren't in the catalogue. The font was too pictogram-ish. What we did was we referred to the radicals on other characters in the catalogue.

Remembering what my other friends did last night. I suggested that we go to the St. Paul's church around midnight for fun.

I was a bit disappointed actually. It wasn't that scary. The inside was dark but I could still see where I was going. I hope I wasn't being sacrilegious. The abandon church didn't look haunted to me, but isn't there a mausoleum nearby or something? A God knows how many soldiers had died around the fortress centuries ago. Maybe I should check back the photos I took O.O.

And so went went back and had a drink at a bar until it was closing time.





Two days gone and one more to go. Time for museums!