Delayed Holiday Report

So...Let's see. I went to Cameron Highlands last weekend with my family. わい～！休みだ！
My "report" on the holidays was delayed because yours truly was such a genius to eat lok-lok before the trip, causing a terrible bout of food poisoning. Genius, right?　僕は　ばかだよね

Anyway, back to the holiday. We went to Cameron Highlands for a short break. You KNOW you need holidays when you start working. It keeps you sane, I swear!

So, Cameron was all nice and cooling...There isn't much to tell about the drive up....Lots of green stuff at the roadside called trees and plants. Maybe we saw a few orang asli (indigenous people) running around, but none of them were naked, so yeah...rather uneventful.

After checking in and eating a nice lunch, we went about exploring the place and visiting all the flower gardens, flower shops etc.

For those in the dark, Cameron Highlands in Malaysia is famous for its laidback lifestyle, where the main attractions are the flowers, strawberries and vegetables. The cool highland air seems to make the agricultural products grow better. And because of the cool air, you get nice strawberries and flowers/plants that you wouldn't be able to grow elsewhere in our tropical country.　花はきれい、いちごはおいし。

After all the nice scenery, we had dinner at Ye Olde Smoke House (only 2 restaurants in Malaysia) and then went to the night market. There, we bought 3 money plants. 2 with big leaves for Mom and Dad and one pot with smaller leaves for me. You see, we have this idea that the big leaves are the RM100 notes while the smaller leaves are the RM50 notes. I'm greedy, yes...but I'm smart enough to start small *wink* But I've got a trick up my sleeve. The money plant with the smaller leaves has very many more leaves than its bigger-leaved cousins, so I get loads of money as well *evil cackle* MWAHAHAHAHAHA　僕の頭がいいよね！

The next day, we went to a temple nearby. There, we saw around 15 people crowding around a koi/carp pond within the temple compound. Curious, Dad and I sneaked up on them. There, we figured out that if you can touch a koi or carp in the pond, it was supposed to be an auspicious sign. So, there was this group of people, with their hands in the pond, chasing fish. Those fishes were a wily bunch...They'd swim near, and when you reached out, they'd swim just out of your reach...

Dad and I decided to try our luck as well. After the group cleared off, we stuck our hands into the pond, letting the fishes get used to our hands before trying to swat them. Dad managed to touch 12. Pretty impressive, considering the earlier group of people couldn't touch any. Not wanting to get left in the dust, I relaxed my hand and waited for fish. Suddenly, this golden koi came up... I waited for it to get closer, so that it wouldn't be able to swim out of my reach. As it got closer, I got ready to swat it. Just before I moved my hand, it swam up and BIT MY FINGER!! Wha..wha...what?!?!?! Frankly, I was just dumbstruck. I just got bitten by an auspicious fish. A gold one, at that!! So, what does this mean? Am I more auspicious than the fish? Or is Lady Luck letting me know that luck will come to me? I'm confused.　どちがいい？

What do you think?

After that, we took lunch and went home. On the way back, all I did was sleep, because the food poisoning had began to show symptoms. After that, well...it wasn't very pretty so I'll just leave that unsaid.