Things That I Will Miss In Palembang

It has been almost 3 years since we moved to Palembang. In my previous posts, I have blogged about things that I hate or dislike about living in Palembang. Besides the negatives, there are also positive things about Palembang and I will mention about the things that I would miss the most upon leaving.

Of course, the first will be the people in Palembang. We have made a number of friends in Palembang throughout these 3 years. We spend almost every weekend hanging out with some of them. So it will be truly sad to leave them behind because our friendship bond has strengthened tremendously throughout these years. Next will be our house and the routine activities that we do.

When I first arrived, I went looking around for a house so that we can have a comfortable place to stay when my wife and 6-month old son join me. We did not want a double storey house because it is a bit dangerous for young kids. Finally after plenty of negotiations with the company regarding rental cost and furniture, the company finally rented a semi-furnished house for Rp30 million a year (approx RM1000/month).

This is not the biggest house in the housing area but definitely one of the bigger ones. It has a garden and a fish pond at the back. My wife and toddler son spent more than 90% of their time IN THIS HOUSE after they moved here.

My wife started to plant flowers and vegetables in our garden. We have okra (ladies fingers), kecipir (four angled beans) and potato leaves as our weekly supply of vegetables. My toddler son helps my wife water her plants. Digs sand and plays with his toy trucks at the places with soil (mostly clay). Every morning, the "taufu-man" will drive past in his bike selling tofu and my son will tell him that we don't need any tofu (because we normally buy our tofu from the market). Sometimes, the lady that sells vegies and eggs will drop by. Sometimes we hear the clinging and clanging of bowls and kitchen utensils, indicating the "tekwan-man" selling noodles and Palembang dumplings is near.
In the evenings, our neighbor's kids will come out and play badminton along the road. Certain times, children will walk past our house in groups heading towards the concrete field where they play football with their bare feet. My son will try to talk to them in Indonesian with his hands holding along the fence like a monkey in a cage....;)

Besides the garden, we also spend a lot of time in the fish pond area. There's a bridge across the pond. Our son would try and help us dish out the leaves and twigs that falls into the pond. He said it is "his work". When he was still 7 or 8 months old, we used to put him in a rocker next to the pond. He tasted his first durian and rambutan in front of this pond.

In our dining room, we have some odd authentic Palembang designed cupboards that we use to keep our cooking utensils and food storage. We used to spend almost an hour every meal waiting for our son to finish eating his food! The white board at the back is used for me to draw things for him as he eats his food. He likes me to draw his favourite TRAINS.

We also have this picture of EEYORE the donkey (Pooh & Friends) from my son's 2-year old birthday party. I drew it for the neighbour's kids to play "place the tail blind folded" during the event.

Due to weight limitations, I don't think we will be able to bring my son's TRICYCLE back. I got my maintenance crew to weld together some galvanized pipes so that I could push my son while he rides along the road every morning before I go to work.

The living room in our place is quite big. It has 2 sections. One is for watching TV and the other one is for my son to play. The TV section is only used for watching TV (obviously!). In the photo you can see that the computer table has been shifted in front of the TV. This rearrangement only happens whenever my wife is not around. Most nights she will occupy the laptop but when I am by myself, the new arrangement enables me to multi-task... LOL! Another plus thing is I could get more direct A/C.

In the photo that shows my son's play area, you could still see streamers hanging on the chandeliers. We were too lazy to bring them down, so they have been left there for ages! At the right hand side of the photo is a door connecting to the fish pond. My wife spends a lot of time sitting next to the door reading to my son. Sometimes we eat there because there is a pillar to lean against and the ants around will come and pick up the crumbs on the floor (friendly black ants). On the left hand side partially covered by the standing fan is my son's playhouse. My wife used our fridge's carton box to make it into a house with doors and windows at the side. Sometimes my son and me used to lie in that box pretending that we were asleep.

The room next to the towel rack is OUR BEDROOM. It is the coziest part of the house because of the air conditioning and the foam mattresses. We do a lot of reading in the bedroom. We do not have any beds except 3 mattresses laid next to one another. We have one queen size bedsheet that has underwater fishes. So we do "swim in the sea" a lot too!

Palembang does not need a lot of fancy things for us to miss. It is the small small nostagic things that we will miss when we eventually leave this city. Palembang is my son's "hometown" despite being born in Kuala Lumpur because he spent most of his infant and toddler-hood here. Plus, he likes PEMPEK (Palembang fish-cake/dumpling)!... only a true Palembang person likes PEMPEK!!