Hectic Friday

**LOOOOOOOOOOONNGG Post ahead....** Please estimate at least 15 minutes reading time.

Sleeping for me seems to have become quite a difficult task nowadays..... After tossing and turning on my poor creaking bed, keeping the whole neighbourhood awake the whole night, Friday morning finally came.

It had been a week since I arrived in Miri, moved into my 'new' room/house, had a 'gotong-royong' for our house...... And today, we had plans to go downtown to settle our bills and also stock up on foods and get some household stuff we needed.


Having arriving in town at about 12, my stomach was throwing a concert since I haven't eaten anything since 9.... wow... I felt like I was about to have a gastric, so we decided to stop by KFC and fill ourselves.

Ordering a dinner plate and some cheezy wedges.... Oh My...... I was wondering whether chicken drumstick the cashier gave me was from the chicken tigh or from its wing........ The drumstick was NOT LONGER than 10 cm, maybe 9... come to think of it...... and its diameter was barely..... I can't put it into words, lol. I had to decide whether the chickens in Miri were just born smaller, or some farmer was too poor to feed them properly......

Anyway, next was the cheezy wedges...... as soon as the cashier turned around and placed it on the tray, I think I let out an all too audible "HUH!??" that the cashier looked up at me with her head angled to a side........ then I quickly added "could you add some more of the cheese" so that it sounded like part of the sentance. Luckily...... she answered a "sure" and took it away........... and when it came back....... I suddenly felt that they might have been having too much cheese 'cream' (or whatever you wanna call it) to spare...... I could barely see any wedges anymore..... All I saw was a splash of yellowish-orange cheese cream covering the WHOLE box...... I quickly thanked the cashier with a "Thank you"..... maybe I sounded a little more excited than I expected.

2 pics of the flooded CHEEEEZZZYY!!! WEDGES,
I'd actually eaten a couple of pieces to the left coz I

After the yummy dinner of wedges and the pieces of dwarfed chicken.... we started shopping for our household items, "wok"s, pots, containers, plates, table fans, and some other stuff..... Considering the amount of items we bought....... it took quite a long time due to our pillow-testing-&-choosing session. I think its safe to say that we'd picked, tried and hugged every pillow available in the whole supermarket...... well, a pillow is important for everyone's beauty sleep after all......

Soon, we were downstairs buying food stuff. I wandered off buying the easy to choose items while the girls did their 'jobs' peeling and choosing all the veges and garlic, onions..... About an hour later (I guess).... we were about to check out at the counter..... when.....


Have you ever experienced an evacuation in progress?? I mean like something happened and everybody had to evacuate. No? Me neither.....


While my mind was pondering whether I should get some milk for cooking or drinking.... I saw people starting to walk out towards the exit. (Btw, imagine we're in a place something like pacific ngiukee, at the basement buying food stuffs, the building is somewhat like that...) Next thing I realised, one of the 'managers' I would guess, was shouting and rushing towards me while pointing all around her in every direction possible "Tell the Customers to Get OUT!!"

"WTF?? Is that ME she's looking at??" Seeing her glaring at me... pointing towards the exit and saying "Go out, go out!!"...... "Why!?" I said ..... "There's smoke coming out on the other side..." she replied.

Oh great ...... .... and we were just about to pay.... well, I tried to get a look of what was happening on the other end of the supermarket.... but all I could see was...... white...... mist like..... smoke??


Shucks, seconds later people were starting to work their way towards the exit.... with me standing in the middle thinking "Hey hey...... c'mon that doesn't look too serious does it??" But I guess only people like me would think that, haha.... I thought that even if there really was a fire or explosion.... I might stick around to see how it really was in real life.

And sooo..... we also had to go out anyway...... so we were in the main building of the shopping mall now.... But what surprised me was that.... now EVERYBODY was starting to have those odd, staring faces..... And they were all staring towards the supermarket we just came from.... within moments....... EVERYONE in the building was rushing towards the Exit!!??

I was like.... omg.... someone inside must've said something stupid to make the whole shopping complex panic. Soon, shops were closing down, the going DOWN lifts were filled with people going DOWN, while the GOING UP ones......... were ALSO filled with people GOING DOWN......... it was quite a funny scene to behold...... Adults RUNNING!! (well, jogging maybe), haha....... thats a rare sight..... a child fell, pity him, while his parents hurried to get him back onto his feet....

Here are some pics.... but they were taken with my phone and the quality isn't so good, pardon me.... and there were so many things to see so I guess some pics were blurred.... but anyhow....

This was an "UP" elevator.... but somehow people are going Down,
The elevator was turned off by someone earlier.

Speedy Video Closing....
More and more people coming down....
Some people running.... or was she chasing after her son, I dunno....
People outside... waiting, watching, expecting.... for something to happen

The closing Sugar Bun, and the nearly empty Shopping complex


Some scenes taken from upstairs.... well, I couldn't resist
from taking pictures, hehe... And the situation didn't seem very
serious to me.... So I went back upstairs....

The Aftermath....
Supervisors, managers and other workers clearing the mess
and re-ordering the goods that some customers threw around.

Well, since I haven't mentioned it.... it was actually a gas leak of some sort for, I'm not sure whether its the air conditioner, or was it one of their freezers.... And probably some moron who didn't know what it was made a huge fuss out of it and made it seem like you could die if you breathe in the gas...... well.... maybe you could, but not to that extent that the whole mall had to be closed....


But well, to sum it all up, we spent RM800++ in total on our goods, received 40 lucky draw coupons thanks to our spendings, hope we hear from them soon that someone won a prize, haha....

And last of all.... we finally got to go back home.... safe and sound.....

Friends Melissa and Emily napping on the way back.