Redang - quickie Part 2

Day 2

1. Had a great time snorkeling in Marine Park area. Huzaifah joined the trip to Marine Park but since he could not wear the snorkel mask, he just sat and played with the white sand on the beach while hubby and I snorkeled and fed the fish to our heart's content.

2. I didn't buy the bread-for-fish-feeding sold at RM2 each pack at the hotel - instead we 'tapau'ed some bread from breakfast. Shared the bread with other cousins - just so they too could experience the wonderful feeling being surrounded by different schools of fishes.

3. Hubby and some male cousins were lucky to take some photos with a live huge starfish. Maybe I've watched too many Spongebob Squarepants but I never thought starfish could be as huge as that (pics to be posted later, insya Allah)

4. Mini drama 1 - My cousin Hanim lost her snorkel mask in the sea. I think Hanim's family spent more time looking for the mask rather than marveling at the coral reef and colorful fishes. Poor Hanim. Poor Chik and family...

5. Mini drama 2 - Huzaifah 'lost' the life vest. He had it on all the time as I checked on him from time to time - until it was time to go back. I asked him where did he put the mask, he pointed to the general area of a bench, but there was no vest there. I saw a vest nearby but a Chinese lady quickly came to me and claimed that it belonged to her child. Oh well... for each lost equipment - we had to pay RM80 (RM15 rental for the mask and RM15 for the life vest, all through out our stay there). After looking and asking around with no promising clue, we just joined the queue back on the boat and I thought - "there goes RM80 for nothing..."

6. Were told that a Chinese family mistakenly took an extra life vest when we checked at the equipment counter back at the hotel. Immediately asked if it was a child life vest because we could not find ours. The guy behind the counter confirmed that the extra was a child-size life vest and let us have it. Fuuh, alhamdulillah!

7. Drama during lunch - Humaidi went all by himself to the beach and was 'rescued' by a hotel staff who brought him back to the restaurant on the 1st floor where the rest of us were having lunch. We lost sight of him for one minute - and the next thing I knew, he was there at the stairs with a hotel staff...

8. The beach was a big no-no for kids without supervision during this time of the year. We were told that just a few days before we came, an 18-year old had drowned on the beach, due to the 'pulling' strong currents.

9. Thought of going to the open-sea snorkel trip in the afternoon, but if we went for the snorkeling trip, we would miss the telematch. And since it was after all the company's family day, we thought it not be nice to miss the telematch. So we didn't join the afternoon snorkel trip.

10. Hah - but both hubby and I still ended up missing most of the fun part of the telematch as we overslept during our evening nap. So we didn't join any of the games, despite my early intention to take part in one or two. and were told off by Mak because we didn't win anything and Huzaifah wanted to have a present during the present-giving ceremony and pestered Embah about it

11. Having (sharing) mango ice kacang (RM8) on the beach front is recommended.

12. Ayah Tam's (the company's CEO) closing speech brought some tears to his - as well as to some of the audience's - eyes as he reminisced on the old, difficult days... Those old days when he asked Mak Tam if she could bear with him having little or no money while embarking on a new business, when his family stayed with us in Kampung Tunku while Mak Tam was doing her post-graduate teaching diploma, when he sometimes took with him only RM1 daily - 50 sen to pay for BMW (Bas Mini Wilayah) ride in the morning and another 50 sen for another BMW ride in the evening, when Ayah Jang had to sell popiah in night market... I remember those days well because I was already big enough to comprehend - in my early teenage years - when it happened. And yes, the family have came a long way since then...