James Mok’s Soliloquy

Day Five 23/08/03 Sat

Day 5 was another free day for us, as we decided not to go for the trip to the hot springs and the mountain. Stanley decided to go with the hotel tour to white water rafting this day instead of going with our tour the day before, in which I didn’t go either. That ended up saving him RM400, about HKD$850 in total for the four of them. I didn’t want anything happened to Alec, so I decided to skip anything remotely dangerous.

There was a fellow tourist in our tour, who kept asking the local tour guide during the bus trip back from the rain forest on Day 3 if that particular white water rafting trip was safe enough for his 8 year old daughter. He spent over 10 minutes asking over and over if there were any possibility for this and that kinda of accidents. Which, at the time, kinda gotten into my nerves. If he worried about it so much, why not simply don’t go. I mean, what could any tour guide possibly say that would absolutely prevent all accidents from happening?

Magellan Wing

From Magellan Wing Over Looking the Marina Club

On the other hand, we went swimming again after breakfast. Instead of heading straight to the fun pool, we took a detour and walked around the Magellan Wing just to have a look see.

Alec by the Goal

Alec Took a Shot

Alec Diving

When we got back to the pool, we played some water polo. We also had lunch and banana splits by the pool. Once again, Alec order chicken wings and he seemed to enjoy them very much.

By about 3:30pm, we went back to the hotel room to shower and had a short rest as we waited for Stanley to come back to have dinner with us. By 5:30pm, Stanley came back and needed some rest, and we decided to meet at 7:00pm for dinner.

By 6:40pm, Melinda and I wanted to go to the souvenir shop at the hotel to do some shopping. Alec wanted to stay in the room to rest and watch TV, so I explicitly told him not to open the room door for anyone for any reason. I wrote down the phone number for Stanley’s room for him in case he needed anything.

It took us a bit longer than I thought it would at the shop. So I called Alec and Stanley at 7:00pm to tell them we would be about 15 minutes late. When I called Stanley, Florence answered and told me that Stanley had called Alec twice, with the first call noticing we were out, and the second call he pretended to be the room service asking Alec all sorts of questions in English with a Malaysian accent. At the time, we were in a rush, so I said I would talk to them about it later without knowing how Alec responded to the call.

We rushed back to the room after finishing shopping. As I was about to put in the card key to open the room door, I decided to ring the door bell instead just to see how Alec would react. As soon as I rang the door bell, heavy and rapid foot steps came towards the door and Alec opened the door right away! As I asked him why he opened the door even after my explicit instructions for him not to answer the door, I noticed Alec was both smiling and had a little bit of tear in his eyes. He then told me someone had called and that he didn’t know what the caller wanted.

Short Gathering Before Dinner

We went down to meet with Stanley’s family for dinner right away. On the way to the Magellan Wing for a buffet dinner, Stanley told me about the phone call. He said to Alec that it was room service, and Alec asked him what “room service” meant. He asked Alec if there were any adults there, Alec asked him what “adults” were. When he asked Alec if his parents were there, again Alec asked back what “parents” were. When he asked Alec where mom and dad was, he answered they were downstairs. That ended the call, and actually, the called wasn’t all that fun for Stanley either as Alec kept asking him back what all the terms were.

As it turned out, the white water rafting trip wasn’t even a bit exciting for them at all. Stanley said there was ONE splash of just a few drops of water on his face the entire trip. The raft was very slow where even Sarah thought it was kinda slow. So, afterall there was probably no danger to it, but I was glad that I didn’t go, and in the end, it worked out for me just as well.

Dinner was quite good except that there were too many Hong Kongers there. And you’d know the scene when you put Hong Kongers in a buffet - line-ups and pig sty. Especially at the sushi/sashimi counter. The poor girl was slicing sashimi and making sushi on her own, non-stop, all night long. Yet there were omly Tuna and Salmon, and nothing else.

Soup and salads, deserts and sushi were indoors with BBQ outdoors. A huge line-up for the lamb where it took Melinda a good 45 minutes to get a only few pieces of. I went to have Prime Rib instead where there were just three of us waiting. After the first person, I saw the chef sliced a small piece, so I let the other person to have it first. Just as my turn came, I asked the chef if I could have the rib instead of the meat. The chef took a look at me, gave me a smile, and he sliced off the entire slap of the bones and then slice off a big chunk of rib for me. As the person whom I let in front of me saw what the chef did for me, he stayed and ask for a rib as well.

Melinda came back with her lamb after I had a bowl of soup, a plate of salad, two servings of sushi/sashimi, and the rib. I was ready for ice-cream by then.

Alec Demonstrates the “Break and Burn” Maneuver

After dinner, we headed over to the bowling alley where they had bowling in the Dark with UV lighting as well as glowing in the dark everything including the bowling balls. It was packed with people but we managed to get a lane almost right away as someone was about to leave. Sarah bowled 100 points in her first game which beat both Jessica and Alec! Both Sarah and Jessica played with utmost attention, while Alec was practicing his GiGi Leung’s “Break and Burn” shots, which didn’t worked out too well for him point wise though.

After two games each for the kids, we headed back to the room and packed for the check out the next day, and called that the night.

Continue on to Day 6 - the last day of the trip.