As things start to unwind in old town Petaling Jaya (Fondly referred to as P. J.), where small businesses and shops close at half day (The big corporations and public services have to maintain full day), the activities start to unfold.

While I was working on a new article, Jeannie announced that she had to go down to PJ (it should be “up” as PJ is north-east of Subang Jaya) to pick some sewing accessories up as the shop in Subang Jaya closed early today, due to it being the eve of Chinese New Year and Chinese employees had to go back early to celebrate their reunion dinner with their families. (Did you take all that in with one breath?) When she said “she” had to go, it naturally meant that “we” had to go.

Red, red, everywhere. This shop sells everything for Chinese new year.  Jeannie rang (an old form of saying she called up by telephone) them up about an hour earlier, saying that she wanted to go over to get something from them. They obliged and stayed open for Jeannie until we got there.

Within minutes, we were in the car, heading to Section 1, old town, P. J.. The traffic was light all the way down…er..or is it up?, to P. J.. Traffic was a breeze all the way to P. J. Jeannie turned on the Google Maps app for directions. It was unnecessary as I knew the way, though I had not been to that area in a while. I told her that she could switch the app off. However, she still kept it on.

When we were around that area, Google Maps were giving some unusual directions. I decided to follow it thinking it may have the latest in traffic direction flow in the Section 1 area. It was acting weird, directing us to the factory area which was always leading us to a particular road with a dead-end.

I decided to follow my sense of direction. I had to go against the traffic direction to get out of where we were and go to where I think this shop was. Got to the shop within minutes.

One of the people at the shop had already prepacked the things that Jeannie wanted. The Hatted Writer (hatless on the trip), in the meanwhile, was absorbing the “Chinese New Year” Chineseness of the area. One of the shops nearby, set off a long…very long string of fire crackers. Since the area was quite empty, it created an echo which made the exploding fire crackers even louder.

I went to inspect the area after the last cracker crackered, amidst the dense smoke lingering in the air, left behind from the exploding coloured paper and gunpowder (?) like material. I suppose the louder the noise and longer that it can last, coupled with messier the place, means greater prosperity.

We were sort of glad to have had a glimpse of a Chinatown style of Chinese New Year eve atmosphere. We headed back to Subang Jaya soon after that, to pick Laura up to have tea (coffee actually) at “KUEH”, possibly the only local cafe to be still open at 4.00pm.

NOTE:
Though coffee is definitely the more popular and trending beverage in this day and age; you don’t hear people say, “Let’s go have coffee”. Its more, “Let’s go for tea”. Is it because coffee is an all day long beverage and tea…well its confined to “tea time” meaning late afternoon / early evening.