Sunday, November 30, 2008
Today. We hiked up a fricking mountain for one hour at Balik Pulau to visit my uncle’s uncle who had decided that the “bare necessities were best” and built his own house up on a mountain cum hill. Most of the road was inclined uphill, so we were all half dead after the one hour trek.
I was wearing sport shoes with socks, being the sensible person I was. My sister, however; cleverly listened to the advice of my seventy year old grandmother on which slippers to wear and ended up hurting her feet. Feeling sorry for her, I switched - with her wearing my shoes and socks, and me trudging with granny slippers. Literally.
The thing about the entire situation is that my grandmother’s shoes are one size too small for me. Soooo... I ended up with TEN blisters, five on each foot. And I am completely NOT exaggerating because my feet had undergo-ed inspections from various parts of my extended family. And they kindly counted for me. I think I broke some kind of family record. Of course, they’re the small kind; no bigger than my thumbnail.
My brother once had a worse blister, it encompassing the entire sole of his foot; caused by his strange obsession to play football barefoot in sandy/muddy/grassy areas of which I do not understand. Of course, it happened quite a while ago.
My blister count beat the second highest’s, my mother’s, of which is five; due to the fact that she wore the ballerina type of shoes to hike up a trail as she had no other available footwear.
And yeah, it was just my luck that it rained just as we reached the top. Which meant we walked downhill under the rain. Lovely. I was expecting lightning to strike at some point, but I guess there was only so much suffering one could endure in one day.
Which is why, once again, I MUST emphasize I. Hate. Nature. I’m fine with it, in parks and reservoirs and caged behind metal bars; but not the sort that seem to surround and suffocate me. For nature as such consists of small creepy crawlies, slithering slimy reptiles, various vicious insects and lots and lots of MUD. Especially when it rains. And yeah, I was wearing slippers. So my feet was quite splattered with slimy globs of goo of which I hope only consisted of sand and water.
Also, I had the bright idea yesterday to take the stairs all the way in my grandma’s apartment to the eighteenth floor just to look at the view. The stair climbing part was actually kinda fun (strange, I know. but graffiti is kinda entertaining, especially when it contains words you hardly understand) but at the top, looking down at the many balconies of sixteen other floors, well, it wasn’t pleasant. And I was reminded of my mild fear of heights. Feeling slightly dizzy, I proceeded to use the stairs back down to the fourth floor where my grandmother stayed.
Till then it was still okay. However, by some freakish stroke of luck I discovered that I pulled the calf muscles of both my legs today. So, including lousy slippers and pathetic weather, I had also the strain of dragging my entire body up the mountain with trembling legs.
When I got back, I had therapy in the form of grandma’s lovely cooking though... =) And I bought a new pair of shorts.
11:26 PM
