Gone To Penang Part Two

Hmm.

It was working all the way, and it kick-started off with a rather dissatisfactory breakfast at the hotel before we made our way to the factory. Once more, I was overwhelmed by the strong smell of vinegar as we entered the production area.

We managed to finish assembling the main bits of the machine before lunch, and we soon packed up our littele bits and ends for lunch. Due to the fact that we were carrying our passports, a laptop and some other important items in our laptop bag, we literally clung to it and never let it out of our sights, for fear that some itchy-fingered person would 'procure' it from us.

Lunch was relatively unwholesome: we were picking out the food as flies flew around us and ocassionally landed on some exposed food item... that took the edge off my hunger somewhat. Then came the fact that Penang was experienceing a bit of a dry spell, the temperature soared towards 40 degress celcius, and we were literally sweating in our seats, and closing our eyes in a vain attempt to mentally block out the heat. Man it was hot.

We managed to cause a short-out soon afterwards... sparks flew and the half the place was throw into temporary darkness, and the cause was not our equipment however, but rather a faulty and ill-maintained extension cord which caused the electrical current to flow from the live wire into the earth wire, thus giving me and my dad both an electrical shock when we touched the exposed metal shell of our machinery... I immediately lost some self-control and drooled. LOL.

Can you imagine that? The fact that electricity would cause some temporary loss of self-control, and under that circumstance, I actually drooled. I dunno, I figured maybe I could have suddenly understood Malay or just simply jump out and expel some expletive in German. Right.

Anyways, we finally moved to another hotel.. a somewhat better-named 'Vistana Hotel', which definitely looked much more decent, and was situated in a much more decent neighbourhod. After dinner at a nearby shopping mall (fried rice and popiah), we walked around and came across some good deals, but bought very little. I eventually found a small music shop outside the shopping mall and walked in to find some very interesting guitars:

1. A dulcimer-sized acoustic guitar which was roughly 700 ringgit. Unknown brand. NEXT.
2. 3/4 width size acoustic guitar, by Fender. Amazing sustain and rather bright tone, going for 680 ringgit.
3. 12-string guitar, of unknown brand. A closer inspection revealed years of accumulated filth, which made me feel repulsed.

I tried out the Fender, and frankly I was rather impressed with the sustain, although it did seem like a Martin copy. I decided to give those guitar-shop blokes a small surprise: I speed-tuned the instrument and within 2 minutes I was plucking out the rhythm to 'blackbird', with one of the guys tappin his hand on the amplifiers behind me. Then I switched to a quick, countrified blues run along the neck and picked out the acoustic rhythm bit for 'Layla'... after which the guy grinned at me and said: 'Not bad ah?', to which I responded with a sheepish grin.

Then it was back to the hotel.

Sleep was preluded with more work.. I had to work out the placement of a bunch of letters and numbers into a brass punch, and I had to sift through a whole bunch of little metal punch pieces (each no bigger than half a toothpick) and place them within the little brass punch holder. Considering that I only started doing it at 11pm, it should come as no surprise that I was infinitely grateful that I managed to sleep a little past 12:30 in the evening.

Two down, one left to go.


Cheers,

Crawldaddy