Malaysia Votes 2008

Today I exercise my duty albeit as a second-class citizen to cast my vote. As I had not changed my voting address to Petaling Jaya, I had to return back to my childhood home of Gombak. But first I had to drive my mom to her polling station at the Puay Chai school in SS2.

We picked my mom at about 10.30am and promptly went over to grab our breakfast. There was a steady stream of people going in and out of the polling station. The cops were there to make sure everything was in order especially traffic. Good job Mr. Polis!

The four (my mom, Susan, our kid Nicole and me) of us then left for Gombak. It was kinda nostalgic for me as I spent 20 years in Gombak and to have my daughter with us there for the first time made it even sweeter.

The drive was smooth until we reached Sentul (St. Joseph church) where it was a crawl for about ten minutes due to idiots obstructing traffic flow and cops not present to prevent it. It was slow but moving up to the exit into Jalan Gombak and as the place had changed so much I had trouble locating my polling station at Nan Yik (Lee Rubber) Chinese school.

As traffic was slow I decided take my mom visit her old friend from way back in Setapak Garden. We spent over half an hour there and Nic had fun playing with the family dog, Rocky a Jack Russell.

At about 3.30pm I made it to the school which incidentally was attended by my brother George although it is now rebuilt into a decent school compared to back then.

The process went smoothly, first to the 'checking counter' where I was given a slip which showed for me to head on to Room # 10. Once there the clerk checked my NRIC and shouted out my name to his colleagues. Next I goit my 'ang pow' slip and marked it and squeezed it into the ballot box. That's it!

After that we went on a tour to see how much the old place had changed for my mom's benefit. On the way home, Susan commented that the main road (Jalan Gombak) was in terrible condition. Yeah, more like roads in a strife torn African nation we watch on telly.