Race Rituals

In a way or another, I found myself awake when we crossed the Penang bridge. I took my digicam out and started snapping. The bus terminal was not too far from the bridge and we alighted the bus with everyone still yawning and stretching. Searching around, Roti Canai seemed to be the only "logical" choice. Not bad! What's missing? "Teh tarik!" Oh yeah... perfect. Did I mention there were cockroaches crawling out from my bag?! What the ??!!! Must be from the bus!! I had to empty everything from my bag, throw it all around and pack everything back. What fun I had. TMD. We met some Red Hawk runners there as well but we went our separate ways since they wanted to stay else where.

Stomach settled?! Good! Separating into 2 groups, we took cabs to our accommodation location (notice I don't call it hotel). It is $22 Ringgit per night, per person. How "hotel" can it get?! We took 2 rooms and dropped our stuff before seeking out Queensbay Mall to collect our race pack. I bumped into Joggers there. He was with his friends. Something bad... real bad. I forgot my receipt for this marathon. I thought to myself, how bad can it be? End result - it took me to go to 5 different stations, asking around before I was issued with a receipt stating my name and particulars. Great. I can collect my pack now. It took me another station to highlight my number before I was standing at an eye power station where I was waving my receipt to catch anyone's attention. 'What size?' 'Small' 'Small? Don't have!' ..... No idea what our indication of Tshirt size is for. I took whatever was in the clear plastic and walked around the race expo area. With the rest of the guys done with collection, we shopped in Queensbay Mall before stopping for lunch at the food court. Fennel's cousins were kind enough to show us around with their cars moving us from point to point. We went to Gurney drive area for a shop at the mall and then dinner at Gurney. Char Kway Teow it was! The hum-less (no cockles), hiam-ful (with chilli - spicy) and hay-less (sounds like hairless, means no prawns) sent Eliza into a state of confusion! Shut ordered Indian rojak for us to share. Set! We can head back to base! Back at the accommodation and in our rooms, we packed and prepared for the race ahead of us tomorrow. Race starts at 3am, means that we have to wake up at 1am! Better sleep now since its is 8pm. Lights out!