The Trigger of the KL Meet

In the past, we had had a few classmates' gatherings that were all done in Penang.

This time around, on 18 March, this year, when Lawrence Beh generously offered two units of apartments in KL for us to stay in, we thought it would be a great opportunity to have our gathering done outside of Penang. As Penangites we thought we could now “take the back seats of the wagon” to relax and have the KL guys to plan the activities for our stay in KL.

Meanwhile, another classmate, Kang Kim Boon, thought that the apartments would be as big as the three-bedroom apartment we had stayed in Cameron Highlands, so he started to invite other classmates to join in the KL Meet.

Little did we realise, on 22 March, Laurence phoned to say he had only one apartment for us. On the same evening, Kim Boon posted on FB that there would be another six classmates from  Nibong Tebal who would be joining the KL Meet.( “高渊有六人去KL”)

The two pieces of news combined left me overcome with emotion, a feeling I have never experienced before in my life - the emotion of ‘whether to cry or to laugh’ (哭笑不得). This was because even without the addition six persons, we got to settle the accommodation of the existing members (4 men and 4 women) as we were now left with only one two-bedroom apartment to share.

After much discussion through our What'sapp group of ‘KL Meet’, we decided to book rooms at Hotel Wolo Bintang to house all the participants from North to South of the peninsula Malaysia. Initially, on March 24, we booked seven rooms in the hotel but the number was increased to eleven later with the number of participants increased.
The offer of the apartment stay by Lawrence Beh could be considered as the trigger of our KL Meet.

At around one o’clock in the afternoon on 9 April, we checked in at our hotel. I tried to  request from the hotel management whether I could upgrade my room to another one with windows. I was informed that it wasn't possible as all the rooms were fully booked.

However, the receptionist had suggested that we were allowed to merge two of our rooms into one big family room having windows. We duly agreed to that suggestion and we were assigned to Room 303.

As this room was big and spacious, it was conveniently used by our members as a chit chatting corner as well as a karaoke lounge.

In the evening, we had ‘the Battle of the Sexes’ after the buffet dinner.  Our Astro Queen, Miss Lily See Cheng Lee, who was challenged in the singing contest by our Karaoke King Mr. Stanley Khor Khai Hee.

Both of them could sing very well that all of us enjoyed the session that we let it dragged on into the wee hours of the night.

Days later, Guan Pheng made a comment on this, 

 “Without  Stanley and Cheng Lee entertaining us after the dinner that night, everyone of us would have to return to their rooms @ 9.45 pm to search for mosquitoes ( phak mang). So once again, "kam-siah" to Stanley and Cheng Lee. 👍👏"

 

Special mention has to be made here is that we were impressed by four ladies, Liau Ah Moy, Tan Swee Sim, Hooi Su Hung and See Cheng Lee, who came to stay with us in our hotel although they are residing in the surrounding areas of Kuala Lumpur. Ah Moy was so kind and generous to bring fried noodles and curry chicken for our lunch.

 

Kor Han Tong and Tan Gaik Tin were the two other classmates who sacrificed their precious weekend to stay on in our hotel so that we could all catch up on the latest news.

Gaik Tin treated us with a “welcoming lunch” on our arrival while Han Tong treated us a sumptuous “parting dinner” before we went our separate ways.

Our other meals were also been taken care of by Lawrence Beh and Beng Tuan so much so that we hardly spent any money on our food during this trip to KL.

Of course, the climax of our KL Meet was the buffet dinner at Hotel Royale Bintang in the evening of April 9, 2016. The arrangement for the dinner was well managed by Guan Pheng and Hoe Soon.

Thirty-seven people turned up for the dinner and many of them have never met one another since leaving school more than forty years ago.

As Ewe Jin put it in our What'sapp chat,

“Today is the youngest and happiest day of my life. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I think most of us did. I wish to thank the Organisers and all those present today making this event a great success. I managed to recall many childhood memories after seeing and knowing you.”

Another classmate of ours, Riani, had this to share with us,

“ To all the organising team, thank you very much and congratulation for such a warm, lovely and a memorable get together. I'm sure all of us enjoyed ourselves and everyone had at least one fond memory to share. God's willing I would like to suggest that we get together every 2 years. So I'm already looking forward to 2018 reunion. Warm regards to everyone and goodnight.”

This buffet dinner was really a sensational one as the attendees came from as far as Singapore and Penang.  All gathered in KL in high spirits. This was especially so with our friend, Gopal Krishnan, who reached KL by bus in the afternoon at around 3.00 pm and he went back to Bukit Mertajam the same evening after the dinner. I doubt many among us could match what our friend did. Kudos to Gopal Krishnan and we would not forget him if we ever have another gathering in the near future.

Until we meet again, Goodbye!