Diaphanous Memories: Chapter 5: Seremban - The Land of 'Siew Pau' (Part 1)

Well, it's time to wrap up my Cuti-cuti Malaysia report. I've procrastinated too much, so it's now time to finish what I've started.

The last leg of my Cuti-cuti Malaysia revolves around my trip to Seremban to meet my dear friend, Calvin, who has been a great source of inspiration and support for me throughout my studies in INTEC. The following is a narration of what happened in Seremban, written so that you may know the truth of all that happened.

14 December 2007

Picking up where I left off, I left Ipoh at 2.30 p.m. and began my 4-hour journey to Seremban. The journey was long and tiring. Nothing eventful happened throughout the bus ride, which in a sense, is a good thing. I arrived at Terminal One at approximately 6.45 p.m. After alighting from the bus, I met up with Calvin's dad at the Dunkin' Donuts shop at Terminal One.

Prior to my visit to Seremban, Calvin invited me to watch his church musical, called "From Heaven's Throne", which was from 14 to 16 December. That's part of the reason I arranged to be in Seremban on this day.

As the musical started at 8.00 p.m., I sensed the urgency to arrive there sooner in order to get a seat. So, Calvin's dad immediately sent me to Calvin's church, Agape Gospel Assembly. When I arrived, I was greeted by Calvin. He was one of the choir members in the musical, so he could not accompany me. I found settled down in one of the chairs on the fourth row from the stage. I realised it was still quite early, as there were not many people in the auditorium yet. I was quite fortunate to get a front row seat, as I could get a better view of the musical.

At 8.00 p.m. (+15 minutes), the night's event began. It started off with a session of praise and worship, comprised of 3 songs. This was followed by the first-half of the musical.

The musical started off with a short video clip, depicting the beginning of the universe. The first man, Adam and the first woman, Eve, had the choice to obey or disobey God. They chose to disobey and from there, sin entered mankind and it gave birth to all sorts of evil like murder, pride, lies, deception and so on. But God had a plan to redeem mankind from sin.

The first act of the musical was the crucifixion of Jesus.

This was followed by a narration of God's perfect plan to save mankind from sin through His son, Jesus Christ. The scene shifted to a portrait of heaven, just before Christ's descent to earth to be born of the virgin Mary.

Then, the story continued as follows:

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and Joseph and tell them about the child that they will be born of Mary, who will be the saviour of all mankind.
A censer is issued by Caesar Augustus, and Mary and Joseph went to the town of Bethlehem, the town of David, to be registered as Joseph was from the line of David. They find no place to stay in the inn, so the plead with the innkeeper who finally allows them to stay in the stable. This scene includes the archangel Michael singing about how Jesus is worthy of more than such a humble birth.
Mary gives birth to Jesus in the manger. She sings "Go Change the World".
The shepherds encounter the company of angels, as told in the Gospel of Luke, singing their song of praise, "Glory Glory!" (This is the song Calvin got me addicted to. Lol!)
After the angels left them, the shepherds journeyed to Bethlehem to worship the new-born King.

That was the first half of the musical. Pastor Benjamin then showed us a short video clip about a young man named Patrick Henry Hughes, who was born blind and who had a muscular degeneration that prevented his limbs from straightening. Despite all this, he quickly developed talent in music, playing the piano dexterously and showing equal adroitness with the trumpet. His father gave up his work as a programmer to work the graveyard shift just to be with his son.

After the video clip, Pastor Benjamin shared with everyone the word of God. He preached about the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24). He said that despite whatever sins we have committed, God loves us and will forgive us if we come back to Him. Like the father in the story, although the son had squandered all his fortunes, he "ran to his son" although his son was still a long way from home, "embraced him", ordered "a fine robe to be put on him", "a ring for his finger" and "sandals for his feet". If that's no enough, the father ordered "the fattened calf to be killed" and a "celebration be held" because "his son was dead but now alive".

**The following is my own analysis: The Bible tells us that Heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents and turns to God. Before we receive Christ, our spirit is dead due to the sin committed by Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But when we return to God by accepting the salvation prepared through His son Jesus Christ, our spirit is renewed and alive! Surely, this is calls for great celebration, for we are made alive in Christ and assured of a place in Heaven.

Pastor Benjamin also said, "Sometimes, we have this unsettling feeling within us - a void or emptiness or vacuum that begs to be filled. Only Jesus Christ can do that." He then invited those who want to accept Christ as their saviour and everyone prayed together after him.

The night resumed with the second-half of the musical.

The story is as follows:

King Herod was greatly disturbed when he heard of the birth of Christ, so he called the chief priests and teachers of law to ask them where Jesus would be born. Herod then sends his soldiers to kill Jesus and ends his singing with "I won't stop till I know He's dead..."
The Three Wise Men saw the star and followed it until they reached Jesus. They went to worship Him and brought precious gifts.
This was followed by a medley of Christmas carols sang by the choir and the audience was invited to join in.
The flag bearers carrying the banners with the words "King of Kings", "Lord of Lords", "Worthy is the Lamb" came in as the second last song played.
The musical wrapped up with the song "Go Change the World" and the whole cast came in.

Overall, the musical was awesome. This was the first Christmas musical I've watched and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I met up with Calvin. We grabbed some refreshments and he showed me around the church. At around 10.45 p.m., Calvin's dad arrived to pick us up and we returned to his house.

That night, I spent time surfing the Internet and chatting with him. Soon after, we turned in. I was exhausted after a day of travelling in and from Ipoh.

15 December 2007

The day started off with a breakfast of "lou shu fan".

After that, we began our journey to Port Dickson. It was quite far from Seremban, taking about 30 minutes to get there. Here are the sights of Port Dickson.

We stopped near a bus terminal. Calvin and I went exploring the place by ourselves, while Calvin's parents went shopping somewhere else.

We came upon this arcade.

As well as this tourist information centre, similar to that which I encountered in Ipoh.

We walked a while and came to this shopping mall called "The Store". We went in to have a look.

After thoroughly exploring the place and finding nothing of interest, we walked back to our rendezvous point but met up with Calvin's parents halfway. Then, we got on the car to our prime destination - Teluk Kemang, the famed beach of Port Dickson. Here are some more sights along the way.

Finally, we're here at Teluk Kemang.

There sure are a lot of people going to this place.

Calvin brought me around the place. He said he used to come here, but says that the beach is really dirty. He claims to have come across a diaper while swimming. Yikes!

The stage

The public bathrooms

The beach - at last!

Speedboats

The canoes
We wanted to ride on these but due to the lack of time, we were unable to do so.

The gift shop

The marketplace

Some of the stalls there

After exploring the place, it was time to leave. Too bad we didn't get to go canoing or water skiing. Oh well, I left my mark there, which I'm sure would be gone by now.

Then, I said good bye to Port Dickson.

We went back to Calvin's house for lunch.

Here're some random shots of Seremban along the way back. Lol.

The railway station

Tenaga National Berhad

After lunch, we had some rest. Then, Calvin had to go to church for his musical practice. Tonight would be the second showing of the musical.

The banner advertising the musical

Two more friends were coming over to Seremban today - Jeremy and Jia Ji. (Jia Ji, oh, Jia Ji, why do I always see you geh...Lol..btw so many J's). I estimated that they would arrive around the same time as I did the day before. But when I called them, they said that the bus had a flat tire so they were delayed a while. So, at around 6.30 p.m. Calvin's dad and I went to Terminal One to wait for them. We went to Parkson and had a look around the place.

Calvin's former school, just opposite Parkson

First pic: Exterior view of Parkson Subsequent pics: Interior view of Parkson
(Christmas fever is sure gripping it, like many other shopping malls)

We went to Popular Bookstore for a while.

Jeremy and Jia Ji arrived around 7.15 p.m. We went straight to the church to watch the musical. Basically, the same order of events applied so I shall not elaborate further. However, here are some photos of the atmosphere of the auditorium.

Before the musical: