Malacca Field Trip

I cannot stress how much fun the Malacca field trip was. It was a BLAST! The journey there alone was quite an event. We pulled over at the Nilai (South) R&R for breakfast. I purchased two donuts from the Dunkin' Donuts stall in Shell and a Twix candy bar. After that, we pulled over again as several kids had to go to the toilet. I have no idea why they didn't go at the first stop. Unfortunately at the 2nd stop the other bus overheated. So about 10 out of 60 of us trooped to Baskin Robins and bought some ice cream. By the time the bus was up and running again, it was 9:00+. But then about 6-7 kilometres out of the stop, the other bus overheated again so all 60 had to cram on one bus. It wasn't what you'd call a pleasant ride but the atmosphere went to quiet and not very friendly to party in a heartbeat, as soon as everyone was seated of course. We arrived in Malacca around 11:15 or so.

The first stop was Stadhuys Museum and my, what a sight we were greeted with. We entered the museum and immediately i whipped out my C902 and starting taking pictures. Mr. Durai had asked us to stay with him as much as possible but other than that, we were free to roam. After going around Stadhuys, Liyana, Michael, Sofea and I, climbed up St. Paul's hill to visit St. Paul's church. It was quite a place. The view was also rather commanding. I could see the Malaccan Strait and the Flor De La Mar (I think that's what it's called).

We walked around a bit and then we followed Mr. Durai to Menara Taming Sari. I decided not to board as the admission fee was RM7.20. So while 36 kids went up, 24 stayed behind. By the time they got back down from Menara Taming Sari, it was lunch time. Mr. Durai let us go anywhere we wanted for lunch provided we got back to the square in front of Menara Taming Sari by 1:30. Liyana, Sofea, Michael & I went to eat at Burger King in Mahkota Parade. We rushed through our meal and managed to make it back by 1:30. Irritatingly enough, the teacher arrived at 2:00.

Then we proceeded to Flor De La Mar and we had to take our shoes off to step into the museum. We had to cross the ship to get from the museum to the map room and then climb up a steep flight of steps to get from the deck to the captain's quarters. In socks. It was so hot. the Muzium Samudera a.k.a Maritime Museum behind the ship wasn't the greatest. In had some interesting events though. Half the kids including Liyana got spooked by something on the 2nd floor. Before boarding the bus, I managed to buy a souvenir; a simple rectangular orange resin pendant. At least I think it's resin.

We were asked to choose between Taman Buaya and Zoo Melaka for the final destination. Too lazy to pull a vote, Mr. Durai split the field trip. I had been to the Crocodile Farm before and was greatly disappointed so I decided to go to the Malacca Zoo instead. And I wasn't disappointed with the zoo. It was a great place. If I wanted to list down what I saw, I'd be wasting my time and energy and besides, it's a zoo. But it was really cool to see the Clouded Leopard. We headed back to the bus at 6:00 and arrived at the bus at 6:30 so you can imagine how far we were.

During the course of the field trip, we had walked 7 hours+/- straight. We were so bloody beat on the bus. Everyone was panting and sweating. But we had a blast. I snapped 126 pictures throughout the course of the field trip. A new personal record! By the time we wanted to go home, the teacher managed to find a replacement bus, thankfully so we didn't have to cram like sardines again.

I've uploaded some pictures but the rest & best I have uploaded to my MySpace and Facebook

Au revoir, merci tres beaucoup