Time & It's Tale

Went back to Muar, Johor this Saturday, to celebrate Mother's Day with Grandma (Dad's Ma, that is) . Left at 4pm. Can't remember much about the journey except telling Mum about the geodesic dome on top of the hill nearby the KLIA PLUS exit, then next thing I knew, we were already in Muar City.

Yes, Muar, Bandar Maharani, the City of the Empress, once the place that nearly got the chance to be the spot for hosting one of the greatest empires in Malay history, but the founder Parameswara has his eyes on Malacca instead.

The moment my eyes opened, the scenary of streets, cars and people filled in. It's always good to see such a lively scene, much more alive than a modern city like Kuala Lumpur, at least.

Streets that are crowded with slow-moving traffic, people walking around the place, motorcycles, bicycles, and old shophouses with zinc roofs and pillars with Chinese signboards on it. Ah... what a sight.

Since we reached Muar earlier than we expected, the 5 of us went to a coffee shop to get some drinks. The coffee shop was splendid; a corner lot, interiors decorated simply with a mirror and a glass rack filled with medals and trophies, with a nice view of the traffic of cars and people, resembling the Chinese version of a sidewalk cafe. The customers in the shop, guys who sat alone drinking, were trying to kill time by watching the flow moving around.

Dad & Mum ordered coffee while my Younger Sis and Bro had barley, and I got myself a nice cup of tea. I observed the paintwork on one of the walls of the shophouses at the opposite - for a shophouse that has stood for at least forty years, it was painted with cyan to make it look new; yet the rough surface beneath tells another story - a story about what it has witnessed during it's younger times.

"Since when", Mum suddenly asked, "was the last time we had evening tea?"

"Well, we're too busy with our lives for evening tea." I replied.

She smiled. "Yeah, try to think what we normally do at this time, 6:30 in the evening. We're working..."

"Or either," I interrupted, "we're stuck in the jam right now." All of us laughed.

Yeah, it's no longer the age where people still have the time to breath anymore. Everything has changed - and nothing changes except for Change itself...

Anyway, we didn't stay for long, as Time doesn't permit a pause in it's journey. We finished off our drinks, and proceeded to the car and moved on to the restaurant where we're supposed to have dinner with Grandma and the rest of our relatives.