Lost?

The compass now seems to no longer point to a fixed direction. The heart could not muster strength to take a step. A seemingly endless void devours emotions and joy. Sigh. The momentary lull seemed so....disheartening, and discouraging, as peaceful as it may seems. Almost like an omen to an impending storm, a mighty disaster. But yet, if Christ is with me, who would be against me? TO pray my friends, I shall pray.

House of Ice (Horror content : Warning, Mental Images may, erm, haunt you!)

The machines creaked, the generator roared and in an instant, the factory came alive. The cranes were moving all around and the conveyor belt began its treadmill. All this would have been a normal operation at the ice factory, had it not been that the factory, was no longer in use, for a long time. The trapped students in the factory panicked. Their first day on the trip and they are now in trouble. The signed said the exhibition was past the visiting time, but they all never thought it would hurt to go for a peek. As soon as they reached the end of the factory, they saw the exit was locked. They shrugged, after seeing the condition of the factory and steadily made their way to the entrance. They arrived, only to see the last tourist vehicle leaving the compound. And the entrance door being bolted and chained. No one seemed to know that they were trapped.

THEY WERE TRAPPED !

Panic trickled in slowly, and it was at this moment, the machinery came alive. It was as if someone, or something pushed a button. The temperature started to drop drastically. Icicles were forming on the roof.

E: Look here, we have to find a way out! How about the windows?
M: All of it seemed to be erm, frozen. We cant seem to pry it open, or ..or..or even break it.
A: Relax now, let's go and erm, check the communication center, maybe there's a phone.
X: Yeah, we can't even call out from our mobiles. Something is fishy.
E: Don't freak yourself out. We'll be out in no time. What' the worst that could happen?
J: (Shivering) well, being frozen meat is not the bright side of things, ok?

They were climbing up the ladder, when the last of the group, E, was at the end of a staircase, and saw something. A scream was all that was left, when the staircase gave way, and he plunged into the deep freezing pool. The others were left hanging for dear life. Until they slowly climbed their way up.

As soon as they reached the center, they saw the control panels were not functioning at all. The phone lines were useless. M tried to lower the thermostat and stop the production of the ice, but then

PRANGGGGG

A pipe burst containing liquid nitrogen and it sprayed M all over the body. In a matter of seconds, he cracked and fell to the ground, lifeless. The group was stunned by what had happened. The burst pipe now was only hissing the remainder of the gas. It seemed there was only enough gas to freeze a person, enough to freeze that person to death, it seems.

The group took a nearby cloth and covered the remains. They had to move on. They then strategised that the best step was to check where the ice are all being transported. They went to the conveyor belts, now hoping to find a way to end their nightmare. They had to move fast. On their way there, J heard an eerie laughter. It was almost inaudible. But she also heard the clanging sound of an ice hook. She did not entertain it further, thinking it was a figment of her imagination. They were finally there. They saw the ice blocks being put on the conveyor belt and transported through opening above. They now see stars and the moon. It must have been hours when they were stuck in the factory. The old factory was still operating in the night. A terrible omen.

They searched for ladders or anything that can bring them up. The exit was bolted tight. They tried to pry it open with their bare hands. J saw a crow bar drop at the far end. She made her way through, thinking that the crow bar would bring much help in prying open the bolts on the door. As soon as she reached the crow bar, she heard a clanging of chains above.

*creak..metal clanging..THUD!*

The chain from above fell onto J with a loud thud. Only her hand is seen clutching onto the crow bar. X and A, being left now, were almost out of their mind. Having 3 friends die in front if your eyes, is nothing short of a trauma. They had to get out. But how?

Searching the factory for clues, and staying together, they found an old newspaper clipping. It told of the factory's misfortune that it was closed because a ghost seemingly haunted the factory, the ghost of the grave on which the factory was built. Silly. There is no such things as ghost? Or was there?

They thought of a plan now. The only way out was to create a big situation. Stopping the ice production should alert somebody. Or trying to destory the factory in the process, nonetheless should grab some attention from the neighbouring houses.

They approached the generator. Unsure of a way, and driven by panic, A tried to pull down the lever and the handle broke. They took a bucket and filled it with water to short circuit the generator. It seemed to work. But after a few sparks of electricity, a back-up generator came on. The two were puzzled and frustrated. And as they were looking each other eye to eye, thinking of a fatal end, A spotted an imposing figure at the corner of his eye. He took the crow bar and started to swipe around. Sure enough, a figure came out and with ice hook in hand, fought back. A villian. The Grim Reaper.

There was no time to lose. They had to shut down the factory, or die trying. As A fought the villian, X took one look at the back-up generator, and asked A to pin the villian down to the generator. She took a nearby chain and struck at the shadowy figure. It slumped, but it grabbed A and they struck the generator together, causing a short circuit, and a small explosion. The last memory of the scene was X's bloodied hand, lifeless on the pavement.

(Blogger's note: This story was dedicated to the time when we really got stuck in the ice factory. Well, always read the signs *wink*)

Alor Star- Kaki Bukit-Sungai Petani Trip, Day 1

I have been delaying this post for quite sometime now. Finally, I now get to start on it. Actually, I had another post on my mind, but then again, erm..I seemed to lost the pics for that one. So now, it's this one.

Ok, Matt began to tell me about a trip to Alor Star and Kaki Bukit during the weeks before the exams. It was to be during the exams. I checked my schedule and I felt it was entirely ok to have a break, because there was a gap about 4 days between my second last and my last paper. And after a few exam papers, I packed my bag and followed the gang to Alor Star..Wuhooo!

(At matt's aunt's place, in Alor Star)

We took Juliet (lynx's car) all the way up to Alor Star. We had some praise and worship session in the car. As soon as we got to matt's place, we were famished! we only had erm, curry mee and some pork for breakfast (hey, I'm growing, k?) Well, we put our bags and off we go to get some food.

(awesome assam laksa!)

So matt brought us to a place to have a great plate of assam laksa, and it's cheap too. It's just RM 1.80 for a plate. The broth is just right. There were two choices, one with lemak, and the other without. Needless to say, I tried the one with lemak. Well, the broth is just creamy and the noodles are good.

(fried yam with glutinious cake)

Matt also bought us some fried finger food. We had fried yam with glutinous cake and some friend corn with flour (below). The fried stuff was a god combo. And it's fresh too! Real crispy and nice.

Well...we then washed down the assam laksa with a bowl of ais kacang. I shared with Alex. And imagine that, a bowl for just RM 1.70. I don't think you can get that in KL nowadays. Well, it was refreshing, although the taste could have been better.

After the meal, we wanted to visit a famous tourist place, the birth house of the ex-Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir. But being there on a Friday noon was not a good idea, as the place was closed for Friday Prayers. So, we went back to watch "Wanted". After that erm...violent and parental guidance advised show.lol..we went out to the place again.


The place is not just a home now. Most of the original structure was preserved and there were additional buildings built around it to tell more of the leader's past. About his childhood, his writings, his marriage, his lineage, his practice and for sure, about his political involvement, prior to him being a Prime Minister. However, as my friend noted, there were only information before he was Prime Minister, not during his rule. Well, I guess there was something to be said, eh?

Anyways, there are no admission fees, but you do need a few hours, if you want to go through the exhibits in the other buildings. The original house were seen to be preserved well. The architecture brought back memories of a village life. It struck me on how a leader can always be born, no matter of the circumstances, or the origins. True, good tree bear good fruits but you can never say that the tree does not bear good fruit, when the time has not yet come to judge *wink*.

No photography or any other form of recording was allowed in the house. So, matt took a pic from the outside. well this pic does remind me of the four kings and queens of Narnia. Well, go figure. lol. We then made a trip to the fort in Kuala Kedah (I think*scratch head*) The fort was an old remnant and we took quite a number of pics.

The setting of the sun in the nearby see signaled the coming of dusk. We got one final picture there before we left. ^.^v

(group pic, especially loved this one !!)

There were much more pics and crazy stuff that we did, including erm a run from one end of the fort to the other.hehe. But too many pics may take a long time to download this page. Anyways, with our visual, and hearing sense satisfied, we proceed to feed a very important sense, the tummy (hey, I think it's a very important sense, you know?)

So, our stop was in one of the food courts (ask Matt). We spotted a stall that makes claypot chicken rice with charcoal, how cool is that? We immediately ordered one pot for each one of us. And lo and behold, it did not dissapoint. Although, we underestimated the size of the pot. It seemed tiny, barely able to have one plate of rice. But when we scooped it up, it was almost 2 plates.
The gravy was thick and the flavour and aroma was top-notch. well, matthew went to get some fried stuff and we had it before hte claypot came in. The claypot did take sometime, as the charcoal needs a longer cooking period. Well, good food needs time and effort, right? So, the fried stuff was good. Real crunchy and tasty. Mouth-watering.

(erm, I forgot about not asking for plastic bags)

Located next to the food court, was a peculiar sign that caught my eyes. It was a club for blood donation! How cool is that?! I had been an advocate of blood donation (but I slacked off recently) and organ donations, so seeing the sign was akin to rabbits seeing a horde of rabbits ( or something like that..lol..) So, that is a totaly cool club. I wonder what is the membership fee? Hmm..maybe a blood donation? And the club activities? Hmm..something to think about eh?

So, after a hearty meal, we returned to matt's place, to bathe and then take turn on the Playstation. After a few rounds of Tekken and Need for Speed, we settled for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. I did stay up late to watch Mamma Mia after that and tried to erm appreciate Cats, but my tiredness got into the way. Hehe..I think I slept around 3am, or something.

The first day was a great one. The only regret was that it ended all too soon ;)