Go Visit Malaysia Year 2014 peeps..

I really feel like I should be more adventurous and spontaneous in my life. This being safe thing is I guess an old habit that just got worse. In a way, I've always been the person who likes to keep it safe and by the book. Contrary to what some might think about my actions when I was younger, you don't entirely know how I think.

So I just came back from an out station meeting in Lumut today. This is my 3rd time going up to the yard, but it is my first time going with my peers. I had colleagues coming in from all parts of the country and specifically 2 from Sabah was travelling to Lumut with me. At the same time, I managed to persuade another colleague to tag along just so he could be the designated driver since the company was short on drivers and I am not adventurous enough to just brave the road to Lumut myself.

Generally it would take about 4 hours to get to Lumut from KL. But since we had to make a pit stop at KL Sentral to pick up the Sabahans and got lost on the way to KL Sentral (yes..the designated driver sucks at KL roads but he did well in Lumut :P), we started out our journey towards Lumut about an hour behind schedule. But we made good time and managed to arrive in Lumut around 8pm  and checked in safely in our hotel rooms by about 9pm.

But I suck at sleeping in new places on the first night of my arrival so I ended up watching some Running Man and tossed and turned in my hotel room. I managed to doze at about 4.30am only to wake up at 6.30am (damn you body clock!) and with my non-recovering flu..I had to drag my groggy head and legs to get ready for the day since my meeting was going to start early.

Site visit before meeting - sleepy, groggy, major headache and nerves!

Thankful that the meeting went well..much to improve and more work piled up on my never-ending list of work task, we headed out back to KL after the guys finished their Friday prayers.

It was getting late when we started out our journey back, but our designated driver suggested for us to take our time and give the opportunity to our Sabahan colleagues to enjoy the trip since they had to endure almost 13-hours of travelling the day before and it was their first time in Lumut.

So we stopped for a little bit in Lumut, gave the opportunity for the Sabahans to get some souvenirs then slowly made our way back into the city. Only our timing wasn't so lucky as we were approaching Teluk Intan. We were stuck in traffic for almost an hour because there was some construction going on at the bridge just outside of Teluk Intan and only one lane was open. Who knew you could be stuck in traffic for that long in the middle of nowhere eh?

Hafis, the designated driver was stressed out from the jam and in the spur of the moment decided to stop at the Teluk Intan's Menara Condong just so we could stretch our legs for a bit and be touristy.

Acting touristy and googling where to find the best kopitiam in Teluk Intan. Couldn't find  and didn't bother to consult anyone else. Need to try that again next time.

The Malaysian Tourists - Hey it is Visit Malaysia Year 2014 anyway!
We looked like we are leaning towers ourselves don't we? :P

Well I'm glad that we did. Though we only stopped for less than an hour to take some pictures, perform our prayers and had a drink before we continued our journey, I felt that it was productive.

We discussed on our journey back that we never go and visit the landmarks that are at our place. My Sabahan colleagues who are based in Kota Kinabalu admitted that they have never been to Gunung Kinabalu, while Hafis and I admitted that we've never been to KL Tower even though it's located literally down the road to our office either. Pretty common that we seem to take for granted what we have near us. People come from all over the world to visit these places, but we don't even bother doing so and yet we dream of seeing the world.

Menara Condong, Teluk Intan Perak. Our very own leaning Tower of Pisa

So this year, I hope I can be more adventurous and learn to appreciate what I have near me (applies to both the tourist attractions and my personal life) and to just make a quick pit stop here and there sometimes just to check and appreciate them.

So KL Tower anyone?