the best prick

if you don't go back to the past, how do you enjoy your food? don't you notice, your taste depends on memory? when you taste something, it bring backs memories of your childhood. or you judge whether something is good tasting base on the benchmarks set when you were very young. reminiscence puts perpsective in life, makes it more dimensional, makes you appreciate it more. life is only real when you have lived it. and if you don't fall back to something real, there's no way to go forward. recalling the past doesn't mean you live in the past, doesn't mean you avoid the presence, avoid facing reality. it's just a way life is.... you may deny doing it, but you cannot deny your past, and you cannot deny living it everyday, as you talk, as you eat, as you travel, as you smell, as you hear, as you touch, as you work..... the past is what we are, the present is when the past begins, and the future is when the past is yet to come.

jogging in donwtown penang brings back a lot of memories. penang road, campbell street, carnavon street, chulia street, burma road, macalister road..... and he takes his makan break whenever he likes it - having koewtiawtng and duck-meat koawtiawtng in campbell street,charkowytiaw in macalister road, white coffee in burma road and chendol in side street of penang road. but no memory when marathon man enters transfer road, argyll road, hutton road...which don't look diferent from other parts of downtown, but which are quieter, not so busy.

the mingood hotel at argyll road is where tourists want to stay, mean(cheap) and good, but strictly no extra helpings in pillows, towels.... no tooth brush, tooth paste... marathon man's fren ah chee who stayed there one week before told him to bring his own slippers also. he checks in the hotel the nite before. now he's at the 5th floor cafe for his breakfast after the jog. he orders two eggs, which is outside the room-charge menu. he seats beside a tourist. she greets him, and he greets her back.

meeriam said, "hi, do you know where to find penang durians?"

"in the streets, everywhere."

"i mean the durian in the plantations."

"oh... that you have to go balik pulau. the back of penang....eh... since i'm also thinking of eating durian, why not you follow me?"

"thanks..."

they go baosheng durian plantation, and pick the best durians, but miss out on the "red prawn" as they are already sold out, that day. they eat the "holor", the "chehpui angbak", d101, d6.... the kimhong. the view from the hill-side kampung house is fantastic, facing the indian ocean, and a big stretch of sloping greens all the way to the sea....

meeriam, "i bet with my fren, that i am going to take durian in this trip, and i'm so glad i just i did that. it's the best food and fruit i ever had.... the smell, hmm at first was very yakky, but once i bit and tasted the pulp, it was umghhh - heaven. the problem is how am i going to prove to my fren who is in america, that i have done that?"

"easy - take a video of you eating the durian."

"ok. good idea. and i'm going to put it in youtube. and label it - the best prick i hv had."