This is the first time we visit Kuching Waterfront “as tourists”. I felt the place carefully with my senses. Sieweng and I acted like tourists taking photos everywhere and we tried to be curious on interesting things such as the cat statues, and all the historical building around.

Kuching Waterfront is located at Main Bazaar (the Kuching oldest street) by the side of the Sarawak River (Sungai Sarawak). It is the golden triangle area of Kuching where there are a lot of hotels and tourists around. The riverside of the Sarawak River had been developed into an explanade which is about 900 meters in length and being given a name called Waterfront.

Kuching is called the cat city because in Malay, “kucing” means cat, and “kuching” was the old spelling. Cats are very common pets here, and we can see a lot of cat statues around Kuching area. We also found cats statues in Waterfront. This is one of the good spot for photography session. I have taken quite a number of photos for SiewPeng here with the cat statues.

We also found a real cat beside the plants.

It looked at my camera and less than a second after I clicked the shutter release on my camera, it disappeared.

We kept on walking and taking photographs on this long explanade. It was hot and we sat down for a while, then we continued walking. At any different time, when I looked at the whole waterfront from a different angle, it looked a lot different. I can see the curve of the river changed and there are different buildings across the river.

There are at least 2 ferry landings within Waterfront area and many small boats on the river. There are many residents who live across the rivers (North Kuching) too. The boats are their main transport to get across the river to allow them to visit the market next to the Waterfront. Some of them even get across the river everyday to go to work / school. But now the wet market next to the Waterfront has moved. Therefore they have to look for a new place to buy vegetables.

Finally we have gotten our first step as a tourist in our own hometown. We have more to tell you about the Kuching Waterfront.

This morning I sent my sister to the airport because she has successfully entered a local university for a Bachelor program and she needs to take a flight to get to her uni.  I suddenly think of the moment when I left Kuching and flied to Australia in 2002.  I am sure she will feel homesick because this is the first time she leaves home for at least a few months.

When I think or talk about Australia, I will miss the place where I had stayed for 18 months, Toowoomba.  I keep on thinking about the reason and I discovered that this emotional attack is not necessary.

When I was in Toowoomba, I missed Kuching very much.
Now I am in Kuching, I miss Toowoomba too.

I came across a story about an old lady who has two daughters.  One of her daughter was selling ice-cream whereas the other was selling umbrella.  On sunny day, the old lady always worried about her daughter who sold umbrella, whereas on rainy day, she worried about the other daughter who sold ice-cream.  She was always worried about everything if her daughter cannot earn a living until she met a person who told her why not to think in the opposite way round.  On sunny day, she should feel happy because her daughter who sold ice-cream had a good business, whereas on rainy day, her daughter who sold umbrella could earn a living.  This story tells us that we should see what is happening now and appreciate it instead of worried about unnecessary things.

Now I should change my way of thinking too.  I am now in Kuching, here is a good place, I will become a tourist even here is my hometown.  Everywhere is a good place, it is useless to feel sorry about not be able to stay at another location at any time, except we do not like the place where we are currently staying at.  But I like Kuching, so I should feel happy.

I hope my sister like her uni, and can study hard.  She is luckier than me actually, because her air ticket is cheaper which means she can come back more frequently than I did last time.  I had break the longest record not returning home for 18 months throughout the whole course just to save on the air ticket.  SiewPeng also miss Ipoh very much now.  Just a few months to go, so do not have to worry.

We should do what we should be doing now.  My sister should study hard.  Siewpeng and I will continue to become a tourist in Kuching.

Have you ever watched the romance movie entitled “Message In A Bottle”? Well, I’m not really talking about the movie but something about the picture shown above. However, they share some similarities such as the bottle, found in the water, both carry a certain message. I did not pick it up or find that there was a paper containing messages in it but do let me share with you why I think this particular bottle tells messages.

The picture was taken when we were trying to be a tourist in our own hometown. The bottle was floating in the river like that. It was gradually being taken away by the current of the water. The strangest thoughts suddenly came flashing across my mind.

If I were to speculate, somebody who got drunk the other day or quite some time ago might have thrown it into the river. Hmm…the liquor must contain a strong alcohol level because that person has forgotten where the rubbish bin was. Maybe the bottle has been floating in the river for quite a while. It will remain floating until it is broken or being recycled again. I wonder when will that be.

The above statement is just my imagination. It might not be true but can you get the messages that the bottle is showing us? Many of us are still not concious enough about the illnesses that our mother nature is now suffering from. A bottle might not mean anything but what if a hundred or thousands of them?

Once, I went to a museum. I saw something interesting and at the same time stunning. I saw some aluminium cans and sweet wrappers being labelled as artifacts in the future! Rubbish is going to become artifacts for the new generations! I don’t know if that’s something to be proud of. But I did not feel good about it. Are we going to tell the new generations that those were some of the…great things that our ancestors did? Doesn’t that sound quite ridiculous?

I think it is time to make a difference.

Sometimes when we are too familiar with our own hometown, we may miss out to travel around the place where we live.  You may ask how you know that.  Ask yourself a question and you will get the answer.  When was the last time you have visited the most famous travel spot in your hometown excluding the shopping mall?

I have a habit if I were traveling outside my hometown Kuching.  I always carry a camera with me no matter where I go.  But I do not think that it is a habit for me in Kuching. 

Is it because of too familiar that causes us to ignore it?  We thought we see it everyday, but we are not visiting it for decades and not even step our foot on it since we were kids (may be).  We just pass by.  Occasionally, there would be opportunities that make us become a tour guide to bring our relatives or friends who are from other places to visit our hometown.  What we can always hear from the so called “tour guide” is, “Oh…  This place has changed a lot, last time it was… …”  Some may even say, “This is the first time I have been here too.”

Another reason is we have too many things to be done in our own place, which cause us to ignore or loss focus to travel on our own land.  Our work, life, commitment disallow us to become a tourist all the time.  We rush for everything in our own hometown, but we are relaxed when we travel on other place on this Earth.  Sometimes we should slow down our steps, so that we can see more things around us.

I have noticed that our scope of vision is actually depending on our speed.  Let’s compare if you use a bicycle and a car to travel from one place to another, I believe you can see more things on the way with the bicycle because the bicycle is slower.

I was inspired by mySarawak, a blog that write everything about Sarawak.  This blog explored many things in Kuching, and when I read about it, I think about this issue carefully and find that this common mistake that we always done – ignoring our most familiar things.

Not only the place to visit, anything and everything around us, even the colour of your current toothbrush, or the colour of underwear that you are now wearing.  Can you tell yourself the answer without checking it?

We need to have a dedicated relaxed time to discovored our own hometown; we also need a quiet time, without doing anything to discover ourselves.

My brother gave me this 3D Calendar as my birthday present.  He used a piece of thick fancy card, printed it, cut it, folded it and glued it.  It’s creative and I like it.

He also gave me a small empty 3D birthday box to me which was created by him also.  Thank you, Clement.

Can you guess which day is my birthday?  Give you a tip, the day plus the month is equal to nine.