Kuching:Day 5

Day5(18-4-2004, Sunday)

*rise and shine*......for the first time all of us, maybe only me la....woke up before the sun rose! we had to be up by 5.30..... coz today, we were attending Gerald's church, St. Joseph's Catholic Church for thei morning mass....the mass starts at 6.30, so we had to be up and kicking ready by latest 6.15. so here we were all dragging ourselves out of bed.....and we did it! we manage to reach there on time. i decided to go to mass out of curiosity. i've never been for a catholic service and i thoguht it'd be a great chance to see how it's like.

it was a nice service. an eye-opener to me. never been to a catholic church before, and i was a bit lost in their customs, liek when to kneel...the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit thingy.....when to say Amen.....all i could do was sit there and watch.....one thing that caught my attention, was how the organs sounded so beautiful, resonating off the walls. i really felt like i was among angels....missed the serenity.....in an hours time, it was all over......we had planty of things to talk about after after church, about how the priest spoke in that tone of voice, about the communion, about the confession rooms, about how boss had to go to those confessions and confess the many sins he has done...... it was a really memorable experience.

about being holy-holy on sundays.....we went for 2 services today....after the Catholic mass, Charis had pre-arranged for us to visit Calvary Family Church, a church lead by her dad's friend. it was in another part of Kuching....forgot what area di. it was a big church...a more familar setting to the chruches i attend. halfway through the worship i got a call from Ravin telling me about the pasing of Sandhya:( i was pretty shocked and sad.......didn't know she was battling cancer.....she died a strong person. anyways, the church was a touch of the usual service.....but we were lagging from the lack of sleep and the early wake up call....so we were pretty relieved whenit was over.

after service, we headed back to our guesthouse, and made up for our lost sleep.........*tidur in process* ..............

we woke up around 1pm.....Gerald had intended to take us to the Cultural Village near Santubong.. so we shouldn't be late. of we went again.after lunch....chunted tang hoon soup with meatball......we headed for SAntubong.

At teh Cultural Village, we manage to cehck out a few types of houses of the various tribes in Sarawak....the Bidayuh, Iban, Orang Ulu, Melanau, Melayu and Cina houses.....they were real houses...in which people really lived in. saw their dances....their culture....almost everything.....unfortunately, we were short of time...so we had to rush thru all the houses.....missed the 'tuak', so sad:( however, i manage to get the chance to use a real blowpipe. it was powerful enough to send the darts ripping throuhg a Coke can! and i manage to see this Orang Ulu playing his 'guitar' looking instrument.......it was hooked up with Humbucker Pickups, and jacked into a Peavey amp....how modernise can this instrument get? the sound was really amplified and sounded really nice! after all that rushing, we manage to catch the ending show that they had everyday, a show to close the visitation. lots of dancing and singing......and some blow pipe performance....pretty interesting. alot of 'armolangs' were there.

after the show, we went to the Santubong Beach, the beach facing the South CHina Sea....Awesome! really nice place....no swimming though...jsut playing in the low-tide and catching crabs...lots of crabs.....and just walking around. a really nice feeling with the wind blowing against ur face.....i manage to catch the glimpse of the sunset....within 5 mins, the sun was gone....so we were all rushing to take a photo.....most of the guys, except boss was out there hunting crabs the whole while....quite fun also......

after the beach, Aunty Helen took us to this place where they had sea-food! Great food dudes! got lots of nice stuff...eat till cannot eat anymore.....poh yee was talking so much.....the rest all diggin into the food......food food and more food! what more to ask;)

and as usual, after a great meal.........sleep la........hehe. we headed for home....we had the usual, group bath-time....with ppl making 'investments' in their respective cubicles...after all the food intake, there had to be an outlet of some sort:p...we still went together coz after so many days, we were getting used to it, but it still looked a bit intimidating. .....after all that...........zzzzzz