Christmas at Cameron Highlands

Merry Christmas readers....
Wow, Christmas is just amazing don't you think???
Well I just got back from a chilly, wonderful Christmas at Cameron Highlands...
I'm gonna let you know what I did there in sequence of days....
But please spend some time reading it yea XD ...
Who knows, you might want to do the same too then... haha
Anyways I'm writing it in detail to remember it very well next time in the future...

So do bear with how long it is....
And yea, of late I've enjoy taking photos thus I became a photographer and took photos very often..
But I will only upload a few of it here, the interesting ones of course....
You can always look for my photos through facebook....
Haha...
So here I go... (The photos are not uploaded yet... Give me some time and I will get it done)
(The empty spaces are actually meant for the photos so please bear with it for a while)

Day 1
It was 7 in the morning, my mum woke me up. We were suppose to get ready and leave at 9 to meet up with my dad's friends at the shell petrol station which is at the first rest stop when leaving Seremban. But my brother, Kevin, had to send his college assignment that day, so my dad took him to the college and went to buy some stuffs. Me and my eldest brother, Nicholas, were helping my mum to prepare whatever is left to be taken along asides from the ones we packed the night before. Mum did not sleep long the night before because she was busy preparing our meal, as planned, for dinner over at Cameron. Dad came back with my brother and it was already 9.45am ...We were late... We quickly put everything into the car and we were ready to go.... We arrived at the petrol station and it was already 10am.... The people who were gonna go for this holidays trip were...
Of course my family...
Uncle Das, his wife, Rosemary, his mother-in-law( I dunno her name but they call her nena, well thats how it sounds like) and his daughter, Audrey.
Then we have Uncle Matthew, his wife, Lourdes, and his children Sabrina, Pamela and Jeremiah...
Uncle Das told me and my brothers to get something to eat for our next stop will be far, a 2 hour plus drive to Tapah where we will meet up with his friends Mr.Selvam who is gonna treat us to lunch before heading up to Cameron. We went to get something to eat, but we made a mistake there... Why did we order waffles?? I wonder. It was bad enough they had to wait for an hour for us then we made them wait somemore... How stupid of us... I had a burger also... Later my dad came and bought some curry puffs....
By the time this was all done, it was already 10.30....
Then we were off to Tapah, I was reading my English literature book for next year as my teacher has asked to, which was titled Step by Wicked Step...
It was around 12.30 pm when we arrived at the Tapah rest stop...
We were waiting for Mr.Selvam to come and take us all for lunch..
Soon after, he arrived and we had our lunch at this Chinese restaurant...




After that, its time to head to the top of the hill...It showed 1.30pm on the watch...
Half way through, we turned off the air-cond and opened up the window to breathe in the fresh air of the hills...
I was feeling nauseous while we were going up the mountain but the fresh air really helped...
It took at least 2 hours to get to the top...
Well we did stop halfway up at Ringlet to add petrol and go to the toilet....
It was 3.30pm when we reached Tanah Rata and stopped in front of the Tourist Centre to wait for a man to show us the way to our apartment...
It was raining... The rain made the surrounding really cold... In fact it was almost freezing...
It was almost 4 o'clock when we got to the apartment...
We unloaded our stuffs from the car into the designated room...
Inside there was a kitchen, a living room, 2 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms...
Each family took one room each.... But there are some who move here and there though...
The apartments had Astro too... (Yippee!!!)
Fogs were surrounding the the place at that time....
There were very beautifully design bungalows located in front of the apartments... I did take a snapshot of it.. haha >.<




The fog lifted at around 5+ ...
The mothers were busy preparing dinner for the night... A tasty one too... Well it is Christmas Eve... What can I say... haha...
The rest of us were either taking our showers, watching television or having a chat...
At 6.30, everyone was ready to eat and were gathered at the table...
We had pie, roasted chicken, a spicy chicken too, salad and cauliflowers...
It was really well done, except the fact that the food were cold due to the cold whether at Cameron...
After dinner, I looked outside of our apartment through the window, the bungalow across the street was simply amazing with its lights on...

By 8.30 everyone was prepared to go to for mass (prayers), we took and a group photo then we headed off....




It was a school actually, SRK. Convent , the hall was well decorated for Christmas Eve Mass....






I took photos of us all seated....
At 9.30 the caroling started, I joined along as usual (because I love to sing)
My mum was so tired, she kept dozing off while we were caroling... Then Uncle Das asked me to take a photo of my mum sleeping.....








Poor mum, she was so tired because she did not sleep properly the night before and then had to help with the cooking when we got there....
Audrey dozed of too....Poor girl, she had a cough and was feeling sick that time.... And again, Uncle Das asked me to take a photo of her sleeping....(which I later used to disturb her... hehe XD )




The Mass went on till late night around 12am...But it was an awesome mass thanks to Father Eugene...
He is really a great priest... He made the mass so funny and meaningful.... He could speak in 5 different languages... English, Chinese, Tamil, Myanmar language and Malay.... Fluently... OMG!!!
He made the Gospel so interesting.... He even mentioned "Here in Cameron" while reading the gospel...
During the sermon, he took out a greeting card from some Jabatan or something...
When he tried to read the card ( it was the type of greeting card that will play a music when its opened), suddenly a music was played... Then he closed it, but then he opened it again... ahhh.. It was hilarious...
Anyways the sermon was about just one line... "Do not be afraid"
Then, later he mentioned about receiving SMS from three people in three different parts... He took his phone out... haha... It really was a laugh.. Then he said "What you think priest cannot have a phone ah??? Eh, my phone is cheap one ok?? Not like all yours RM2300 ones"
Then came the announcement at the end of Mass.... He explained about the fundraising that was going on to build the new church to accomodate the large amount of people....
Then he mentioned about the fruit cake and the french wine that was being sold...
At first he showed us the fruit cake, he was juggling it... It almost fell and everyone was like "Woahhh...." but he caught it...
Later, he took the wine from the altar server... This was the funny part... He was juggling the wine bottle too... Every juggle he did, everyone when "Woah.... Woahhh...."
Then he said " If you don't want me to drop this, then please buy it"
Haha.... he was great.... We then later took a photo with him....






Then we came home and had supper with what every food was left from dinner....
I went out a while to make a phone call to my friends back at Seremban to wish them Merry Christmas..
We drank red wine(for the adults) and sparkling juice (for the childrens) but me,my bro and Audrey drank red wine too...
Audrey and me drank a lot....
The adults were having a chat at the dining table, while the childrens were playing games over at the living room...
Soon after, the friendly couple which our parents actually met earlier , Dr.Jude (If I'm not mistaken) and his wife, Sheila came over to have a short chat....
The children (including me) were having fun at the living room playing games such as:

Murderer
In this game, we used cards to determine whether we are either the murderer, detective or the victim.
(Any type of cards can be used but we used UNO cards)
We used the number 2 as the victim, number 5 as the murderer and the skip card as the detective...
I got the detective on the first turn.... And I won easily after sharp observation...

Putoing
In this game, we move in a sequence to say " -a number- frog , jump in the water, putoing"
We must say the lines according to what the number is... For example...
one frog, jump in the water, putoing.... two frog, two frog, jump in the water, jump in the water, putoing, putoing...
It went on with the number sequence... the persone who says the line wrong or mentioned a line less or more than suppose to.... will get one "ugly" ... the person who gets three "ugly" will get a penalty...

Concentration
In this game, we all choose a name first...
And we must call out our name then the name of another person...
But the problem here is we must say the name correctly and following the beat of the clap...
So here is how it goes ...
We say together "This is the game of concentration" Then we say for example (my name was Jackie and Jeremiah's was Narasima) "Jackie , Narasima" Then is Jeremiah's turn and he says "Narasima , -a name- " It goes on till someone makes a mistake.... Again he used the "ugly" rule for the loser to get a penalty...


Ok, now I'm gonna explain what the penalty we used was.... The loser will do a very weird chicken type dance and go... Chicky Chicky Bang Bang, Chicky Chicky Bang Bang ... Breeee.... It was a weird dance that I have no idea how to explain... But luckily I did not do it.. Haha >.<
Aunty Lourdes, Pamela and Audrey did it...
When Audrey did it, she wanted to fall on the chair softly, but instead she landed hard and hit her head on the side of the sofa... I think she was drunk drinking too much of red wine...Poor girl, she was already having a slight fever and now she knocks her head...
I think I was a little drunk too, I knocked my cup of red wine and spilled it over the floor....
Later, I asked my dad to refill for me and he gave me SOOO much...
When everybody was heading for bed already around 2am... I was still awake trying to slowly finish my cup of red wine....
But I wasn't the last to sleep as I thought I will.... It was Jeremiah who was busy making a phone call to his girlfriend, Amrit...
Then I headed for bed when the clock showed 2.30 am...


Day 2
I woke up at 7.30 in the morning... It was super cold that I could die if I had stayed still any longer...(Its a good thing I got a sweater this time compared to a few years back when I came to Cameron without one)
I came out of the room.... The moment I stepped out of the plank wood floor to the tiled floor, I felt a crazy cold on the floor....WOOO!!! Then, I saw Uncle Matthew and his wife was awake... I greeted them "Good Morning" and sat on the chair that was also super cold....
At 8.30am , Aunty Lourdes ask me to follow Uncle Matthew to get some spoons, dishwash and a sponge because we lacked the proper utensils to eat and the dishwash there was very oily...
As Uncle Matthew and I were walking down the stairs to get to his car... We could barely see the way...
It was so cold that the morning dew covered almost everything that we can barely see...






When we came back, everyone was wide awake while the mothers were busy preparing breakfast which was hotdog, scrambled eggs, baked beans, rice fried with eggs and bread... It was tasty...
After breakfast, everyone was gathered at the living room and having a chat while waiting for the mothers to clear up the table and prepare to go for our trip around Cameron...
It was 10.30am when we were all ready and went down to the parking lot...
We took photos of the fog that was starting to lift a little...




Before heading to our first destination, we stopped at the Tourist Centre to get a map...
Our first destination was Father's Guest House where the Crib was located....
It was rather big for a crib... But sadly the real livestocks were not there yet for us to see...
It was yet another rainy day at Cameron... It started to rain as we got to the crib.... The first that attracted me when we got there was this "Shhhhh!!!!" sign....








Then we took some photos of at the crib.... After that we headed for the Healthy Strawberry Farm...










The place was BEAUTIFUL!!! There were a lots of plants and flowers to see... We could see the Strawberries being planted around....














It was a long pathway to get to the shops which was much higher above...
I was really excited to eat the strawberries as it was so tasty the last time I came here and ate it...
I got the strawberries with wheat cream that cost me RM9 and 2 packs of strawberries which cost me RM10...(sadly I forgotten to take a picture of my tasty wheat cream strawberry)
My dad then got 2 cups of ice-cream strawberry... He shared one with my mum and gave one to Audrey...
I told her that her cough is gonna get worse eating it and guess what?? It really did...




Then our next destination was the Time Tunnel....
When we got there, there was a long row of shop next door to it selling strawberries also (as there was many strawberry farm around Brinchang area and it is Cameron's trademark), organic vegetables (which the mothers bought and a souvenir shop ( I bought a skeleton glove)...
After shopping a little, we headed for the Time Tunnel...
We were all suppose to go in there together, but sadly it cost us RM5 per person so only 8 of us went in... Me and my two brothers, Audrey, Jeremiah, Pamela, Sabrina and Aunty Lourdes .... Which totaled up to RM40 to get our tickets....Well it was worth it... There were many of things that we don't get to see often inside....






After around 15 minutes or so walking in the Time Tunnel, we came out and went back to the cars....
Originally we planned to go further up of Brinchang towards the Rose Centre, the butterfly garden, the bee farm then the tea plantation.... But we did not because Uncle Matthew's car was releasing gas smell due to the amount of time the car had to break due to the traffic jam...
I bought a tasty looking chocolate strawberry while the adults were planning...





After discussing a while, we ended up heading back down towards Uncle Sam's Farm as Aunty Rose wanted to get a plant and buy a shirt for her son , Adrian, who did not come along...
While she and my mum were walking at Uncle Sam's Farm looking for the plants... Audrey, my eldest brother and me went to another place nearby that sell plants too.... It was very beautifully decorated....










After walking there a while, the three of us headed to Uncle Sam's Farm.... It was also very beautiful with a lots of plants being placed everywhere...





After everything was done there, we headed to the food court that was located nearby the Central Market....
We were suppose to eat at the food court but instead we looked for a Chinese restaurant because the food court sold only Malay food and everybody did not wanted to eat there... (No discrimination but we were hungry for Chinese food)
It was 3 o'clock when we found a Chinese restaurant....
We all ordered individual meals so that we would not waste the food as we did while eating down at Tapah (the children not the parents who wasted the food actually)
But things did not turn out the way it should have... The individual meals came out very big and again the food was wasted... I and my brothers finished ours though... Audrey shared hers with the rest of us to finish it... Jeremiah finished his too... Nena did not finish it because it was too much for her...
Again it was raining heavily, the hot afternoon suddenly turned into the same freezing cold weather we experienced on the first day but only colder....
We stayed at the restaurant for a while to let the rain settle down...
Later, we borrowed umbrellas from the shop owner to get to the cars and get our own umbrellas....
Aunty Rose and my mum headed for the Central Market to get the shirt for Adrian.... They finally did after going around so much... It was cheaper compared to the other shops they went to earlier....
When we got back it was around 4.30pm, I took photos and you can see how much colder it is now after the rain compared to yesterday....








We are gonna have our Christmas Day dinner at the apartment with Dr.Jude and his wife.... It was gonna be western style....
The parents were busy preparing the food with Sabrina's help (actually it was suppose to be the fathers) while the rest of the children were watching television... Again... haha....
Spiderman 2 was on and Spiderman 3 was next on the list with Jurassic Park later on the AXN channel....
At around 7.15, Uncle Das went down to call Dr.Jude and his wife over as the dinner was already prepared...
Half an hour passed and he did not came back yet, so I was sent down to call him...
At first everyone thought he was having a chat a totally forgotten about dinner, but actually Dr.Jude was busy feeding his (don't know mother or mother-in-law) before coming over....
It was 8 o'clock when we got back and it was time for a VERY VERY TASTY MEAL!!!
We had French Fries, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, fishballs and well prepared burgers...






After that tasty meal, we opened the last bottle of red wine and sparkling juice... There was gas drinks too this time....
The children were not suppose to drink red wine but again Audrey and me took very little of the red wine...
After an hour or so of the adults talking and the children watching Spiderman, we went down to have a walk around the cold chilly streets of Cameron Highlands as Pamela suggested....
It was almost 10 o'clock when we went down....
The moment we reached the parking lot of the apartments, we could feel that chilly breeze of the night...
It was VERY COLD!!!
First we headed for the bungalows on the other side of the apartment....
We took some photos there...












The bungalow was so beautiful I did not believe we were actually still in Malaysia....
It seems more like England or something....
Later, we decided to walk down the the pathway down to the main road to see the beautifully decorated tree... ( so the children thought)
But halfway through Uncle Das stopped us and said "We are not gonna walk down all the way then later we have to walk back up" (or something like that)
So we stopped halfway and walked back up....








And so we went to the other area of the apartment....
We saw some shophouses there which we did not know was there earlier and then we found a playground...
We stopped there and took some photos and of course play with whatever was there haha...

By around 10.30pm to 10.45pm, we headed back to our apartment....

Most of them headed for bed early after such a long,tiring day and to get well rested to go to Church the next day....

But my brother Nicholas, Jeremiah, Audrey and me stayed up late to watch Spiderman 3 and then Jurassic Park which was broadcasted late that night....

I stayed up till around 12.30am and then I headed for bed...

My brother continued watching....

Day 3 ( The Final Day)

I was tired because I did not get enough sleep. While I was sleeping I was woken up by my mother who tried to take her stuff while my mattress on the floor was in the way. Then my brother, Kevin, woke me up too when he accidentally kicked my leg while making his way to the bathroom. It was early that morning around 7am that I woke up. It was at least an hour away from when I was woken up earlier by my mother and brother. I came out seeing Pamela lying down on the sofa. My mother had told me that she got asthma during her sleep. Pamela said that she already felt uncomfortable being going to sleep the night before. At around 4 she woke up from her sleep unable to breathe properly. She was afraid to head out to the sofa by herself. Luckily she heard my mum waking up to make a drink then only was she brave enough to head out of her room. Thank God my mum went out to make a drink. Otherwise who knows what might had happen.

Soon after when almost everyone was awake and prepared to go to church except Uncle Matthew's family....

Pamela was taken down to be checked by Dr.Jude....

Dr.Jude said she was alright but was adviced to be taken to the hospital nearby to do a check-up...

He personally took Pamela to the hospital before heading to church....

It was 9 o'clock when we got to the church (the same one) and we took some very beautiful pictures there of the flowers and the tiny crib there....

It almost seem like overseas when I took the photo of my mum with Aunty Rose...

Mass started and as usual it was funny thanks to Father Eugene....

After mass, we stayed back to help clear out the hall...

We moved chairs take out the decorations and stuff like that (Although we were not locals there)....

But because we helped we were able to enter the school chapel which was very beautiful...

By the time we were finished helping (not 100% because we had to go back to the aparment to check out at 12 o'clock) it was already 11.30am, we took another group photo at the church together with Father Eugene....

After that we headed back to our apartment.

We packed and everything before leaving...

But as we were about to leave, we saw Dr.Jude and his wife in their house...

They invited us in and of course the long chat begins....

Sheila gave us some ginger cookies and some fruit cakes....

One of the fruit cake was plain and the other one of the fruit cake was with a white icing... It was sugar I think, not so sure...

And again we took one last group photo with Dr.Jude and his wife, Sheila this time....

Not forgetting Dr.Jude's mother (or mother-in-law...Again, I'm not sure XD )

By 12.30pm, we made our leave to head back home...

On the way back, we decided to head to the tea plantation and the bee farm as we did not go to it the day before....

Anyways, we will pass them so we might as well make a stop at these two places....

It took at least 15 minutes for us to get to the tea plantation, Cameron Valley...

The plantation was huge!!!

Just looking at it makes me kind of wonder how they pluck everything manually....

It almost seems crazy!!!

We headed inside to have tea....

While the adults were waiting getting a place to sit and ordering the tea, the children headed down to the plantation....

Namely myself, Audrey, Pamela, Jeremiah, Sabrina and my eldest brother, Nicholas.

It was not easy walking on the plantation's pathway....

It was muddy and kinda steep...

It makes me wonder even more how difficult is it to move around and collect the tea leaves...

We took some photos halfway down the plantation...

After that we headed back up to drink our tea...

After drinking our tea, we were off to our next destination, the Bee Farm....

It was around 1.30pm when we got there....

The place was in quite a rural area and was not as beautiful as I expected it to be...

But it was amazing seeing the bees flying around the places and not getting stung by it... haha XD

There was one very amazing thing though, it was a casing that looks like a beehive...

It had lots and lots of bees in it moving around...

It was simply amazing just looking at it...

And as usual I took photos of it....

I was enjoying myself there trying to scare Audrey using the bees....

And I managed to scare her twice...

When I tried it on Uncle Das it did not work though...

Then he asked me to try it on Sabrina and it worked.... hehe >.<

By around 1.45pm to 2pm we left the bee farm....

Before leaving we decided to stop at the waterfall on the way down the hill...

But Uncle Matthew did not approve of it....

So we headed down...

Even though stopping at the waterfall was disapproved, we stopped there anyways....

The place was packed, there was hardly any parking...

After driving quite far away from the waterfall, we finally found a place to park...

My family along with Jeremiah, Audrey and Uncle Das headed for the waterfall while the rest stayed back with the cars....

It was almost three when we got to the waterfall...

Only me, Jeremiah, Audrey, Uncle Das and my eldest brother, Nicholas went down to the water.

My parents and my second brother Kevin stayed up and watched...

The water there was just amazing...

The moment I put my leg into the water I felt so relaxed...

Its natural water, what can I say??? It's natural.... Haha XD

And of course we took photos for memories...

After all the resting and relaxing, we continued our journey down the hill of Cameron Highland...

It was a long one and a half hour down the hill....

We finally got down at around 4pm and headed to Mr.Selvam's house to have our lucnh (It was almost tea time... haha )

We did not stay there long....

After eating the delicious meal prepared by Mr.Selvam's wife, we sat for a while to have and chat....

I was talking with Mr.Selvam's children and got to know this cute son of his, Praveen...

I took a photo of him while he was playing with Audrey's handphone...

He just loved playing handphone games that he went around and asked almost all of us to borrow our handphone to him...

After all that, it was time to leave and we thanked Mr.Selvam for the meal....

It was time for us to head back home...

There is to be no stop....

A long 2 hours (more or less) drive to get back to Seremban....

We did stop at the Tapah rest area to buy some fruits and fill up the car's petrol....

Again, I was reading the second half of my English literature book on the way home...

And as usual there was a traffic jam on the highway...

On the way back, we saw this weird view in the skies....

It seem like as though there was 3 different parts....

Finally we got home....

It was almost around 8pm when we got back....

Ahhh.... What a holiday trip....

I never thought that I would experience something so nice for Christmas....

I wanted to stayed back home at Seremban at first because I wanted to go to church and meet up with my friends...

But I do not regret going there...

It was fun and memorable....

I hope that everyone gets to enjoy their holidays and hope that it will be a memorable one....