this must have sounded foreign huh... i also did not know we were heading to Klang until we reached KL train station.
I was one of the 12 youth to represent SSA to head up to Klang to watch the Human Revolution musical that the youth of SGM-Selangor had put up. we left singapore on 11th Jan. We were to meet 7am at the Copthorn Orchid hotel along Dundern Road. Coz we were to board the 'Nice' coach bus. the trip will last for about 5hrs. I was thinking perhaps i can do some reading or 'rest' my eyes. but i was not so lucky afterall. Coz i took the last row of seats with Jiayang and Derui. I must say the bus trip was a little bumpy... it was hard for me to take a nap. Hence most of the trip i was either talking to the guys (jiayang, derui, lenoard, chye long & Terry) or read my book (The empty chair by Jeffery Deaver).
the back of the bus
when we were reaching the Malaysia custom, there was some traffic jam. Hey, how can u enter M'sia without a traffic jam at the customs? tat would be a rare sight. anyway in our queue, suddenly a guy ran across the road and hid behind a big pillar... guess what he was doing??? he was doing his 'business'... guess the wait was too long. yeah the wait was indeed long... it was about 1hr.but once we cleared the customs, the traffic on the expressway was light and it was around 9.30am (i think). about 1.5hrs later we stopped at a rest place and there were stalls selling food and drinks. but the one thing that all of us were relieved to see was toilets!!! muhahaha.... some of us got noodles but me & qiuyi we got some curry puffs which we can eat along the way. Coz i wasn't hungry then and i thought perhaps we can take our lunch when we reach KL. the curry puffs were pretty gd u know... hahaha... maybe because i was not expecting it to be good. it was another 3++hrs before we reached the KL KTM station.
Our baggage
Finally we reached there at around 1.30pm. hahaha... and i thought we were going to take our lunch... but we did not...in fact we went for toilet again! hahaha.... then after that we decided to take the public train to Klang. it was at this point that i realised that we're not going to downtown KL instead we need to travel to a town outside of KL. and to get to Klang from KL, the train ride was about 1hr. as we were waiting for the others, me and Qiuyi were taking photos... hahaha... machiam like somesort of mountain tortoise (sua ku). well... can't help it. =D
@ the KL train station
Ticket machine
Train tic that we bought
so we bought a ticket each (ringitt 3.60) from KL Central to Klang. I must, the train condition is pretty bad.... coz there are only 3 carriages!!! and we were to take it for 1 hr in order to reach Klang. and the train was sooooo jam packed with people. along the way we juz talked to past the time. 
In the cramped train. left to right: Jiayang, Derui, Leonard
finally we reached Klang train station. pity i did not take picture of the train station. coz i thought that tomorrow i will be able to have an opportunity to take pics of the train station. hahaha... but anyway... all of us had to get out the gentry... and i feel that there is something wrong with the malaysia train system. i mean there were quite a no. of gentries... but they only activate 1 gentry!!! yeah so all the passengers had to squeeze through 1 gentry and most of them did not want to queue and they kept cutting into the line! really fustrating! once we got through the gentry, we were greeted by 3 YMDs, who had driven there to welcome and pick us. they were going to drive us to the hotel where we were staying. and when we reached our hotel, really amazed coz the hotel was soooooo new!!! yeah it was only opened for 3 months. really posh. because the hotel was new, it had some sort of promotions so we were able to stay in the hotel at a pretty cheap rate. As all the non-smoking rooms were taken up, we were assigned to smoking rooms.
Our room
but it was ok... coz u can't smell any cigarette smoke in the rooms. i shared room with Qiuyi. after changing, we head to xue ting & kinda's room. coz we had to do up the souvenirs for the SGM members & leaders. 
Combining forces to make the souvenirs
really amazing that in a short time of 1hr, we were able to accomplish all the work and even wrote a short note and stick it onto the flowers that we'll be presenting to the SGM leaders later tonight. hahaha... talking about this flowers.... Raymond (1 of the kaikan staff) helped to purchased it and we hand-carry it all the way to Klang. hahaha... and because we had to indicate on the flowers that its from SSA to SGM-Klang, a couple of us went around searching for somesort of stick for attaching a short note to be stuck into the flowers. but it was to no avail. in the end, someone with the wisdom, wrote a nice congratulatory note, decorated it and stick it to the basket! hahaha... talk about innovation... this is innovation at the last min. =D
Derui examining the flowers. To check if anything's been damaged. lol
once we were done with the souvenirs, it was time for us to meet the SGM leaders who will be bringing us for dinner. when i reached the hotel lobby i was really surprised to meet my friend, Keiko. She managed to take time off to come and watch the musical. hahaha... coz she was there in Malaysia to collect certain water samples for her final year project. I asked her where she was going to sleep that night. Coz piror to going to Klang, I've exchanged emails with Keiko and she had asked me if she can stay over in my hotel room for that night. I told her its ok with me as long as Qiuyi was ok. After all the hand-shaking & greetings, we headed to a row of shop houses and were treated to 'Ba Kut Teh' (chinese: 肉骨茶). Ermmm... when I heard it was this, i was not very enthusiastic about it... hahaha... reason being i'm not a fan of Ba Kut Teh. coz the soup has too much pepper. With every mouthful of the soup, i'll hiccup once. it can be really irritating and i can't really enjoy the food that i eat.
The restaurant where we ate Ba Kut Teh
u maybe wondering what exactly is Ba Kut Teh. literally translated to english its "meat bone tea". At its simplest, consists of meaty prok ribs simmered in a complex broth of herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, fennel seeds and garlic) for hours. A dry form of bak kut teh has become increasingly popular within Malaysia, especially in Klang town. Although called dry, the broth is in fact reduced to a thicker gravy, to which other ingredients such as wolfberries, dried dates, dried chillies and dried squid are added. Unlike the original rib soup, the dry version has a tangier, sharper taste and is more akin to a herbal stew than the classical broth. It is often recommended locally in Malaysia as an excellent hangover cure. Yeah this was what we had for our dinner. 1 pot of the dried Ba Kut Teh cooked with dried chillies & dried squid, another pot was more soupy with tofu puffs. and we were served chinese tea. i must tell u i was surprised by the taste of the Ba Kut Teh. It was really nice... unlike the ones that i've had which were too peppery. Over dinner, the Malaysian members shared about how they went about preparing for this musical and also shared a little about the members movement in Klang.
our dinner!!!! left = dried ba ku teh with chilles & dried squid. Right = soupy ba ku teh with tofu
Group photo taken after we cured our stomaches
With our stomaches cured of the hungriness, we headed to the Klang Soka Cultural Center. Wah... when we enter the gates, I must tell u all the Singaporean leaders were awed! Coz the Soka Center was so HUGE!!!! I mean comparing to the soka centers in singapore, Singapore's soka centers really cannot fight with the size. When we reached we were ushered into a room to meet some leaders before going to view the exhibition. And it was there that we had some exchange of gifts.
Exchange of gifts
They also shared with us that they've got a new kaikan being built at the moment. I cannot really remember how many stories will that be. But definitely there will be 1 level which they will used it to show-case all the things that Sensei had used or did when he visited Malaysia.
We learnt that the exhibition was put up by the student division of Selangnor. It was really very well done. And the exhibitors, they were fantastic! I mean each one of them know the contents which they were to share with the viewers very well. But the most impressive thing was the spirit in which they tried to shared with us.
Exhibition of the Human Revolution Novel
Exhibition. This shows the picture of the bottle-cap beads Toda Sensei made & used while in prison
The characters: 人间革命 (Human Revolution). it was made using wooden pieces
Group photo in front of the 人间革命 characters
As time was limited, we only managed to view 3 panels and we were ushered into the auditorium to watch the musical. My thoughts on the musical?? FANTASTIC! hahaha... we were not allowed to take any pictures in the auditorium, hence, u can view any pictures of the musical. I must really applaude the members & leaders in Klang. the musical was really good. they showed case the novel, 'Human Revolution'. Unlike the Soka Youth musical that was put up by SSA, the musical put up by SGM-klang focused more on the mentor-disciple spirit between Makiguchi Sensei & Toda Sensei. Coz 1st 1/2 of the musical was focusing on Makiguchi Sensei & Toda Sensei. Second 1/2 was on Toda Sensei & Ikeda Sensei.
A quick group photo in the main hall
it was later after the musical when we had a dialogue session with all the senior leaders & also the main cast & some of the backstage people that we learnt that the actors for Toda Sensei & Ikeda Sensei were pretty new in faith. It took them almost 1 year to prepare for this major event. Everyone has never done musical before. Hence, there were lots of challenges met. But with all these challenges, it made the SGM-Klang members & leaders even more determined to win no matter what. Lots of daimoku was chanted. For this musical, think they put up a total of 9 shows. All the shows were chinese based. And I must say even though everyone was inexperienced, the musical was really very touching and excellent! I felt it is always very heartening to hear about members from other countries sharing about how they overcome their struggles through faith and the numerous encouragement. its really very encouraging to me... coz it make me realised that the members and leaders are not the only ones struggling for the kosen-rufu movement. But all the Soka members and leaders all over the world are also working very very hard. we dialouged until midnight, then we were transported to our hotel.
The cast members & backstage workers for the muscial
The 2 main leads. (left: acted as Ikeda Sensei, Right: acted as Toda Sensei)
Back at our hotel, the 3 of us washed up and got ready for bed. but we talked about some of the recent happenings in our lives and shared some other things. before we knew it it was close to 2.30am. we decided to call it a night and sleep. hahaha... coz tomorrow oops... not exactly tomorrow, its later, we'll need to wake up at 7.30am to wash up and head down for breakfast. coz we'll be catching the 10am bus back to singapore.
2nd day:
decided to write the 2nda day here here... coz there were not much happenings on the 2nd day. i was disturbed by the phone ringing at 7.15am!!! urgh... one of my friend, Jih Yang rang all of the rooms to give us morning call. So after washing up, we headed down for breakfast around 8am. and u kno what? only 2 other leaders were there for breakfast, the rest were not down yet. They only came down like around 8.30am-8.45am. thinking that we may not be stopping for lunch, i decided to take a super heavy breakfast. hahaha... after yesterday's episode, i dared not take the risk and juz filled my stomach.
The roomies
I really eat a lot... to the extend that Qiuyi & Keiko were really surprised at the amount of food i consumed. hahaha... think my stomach seems to be made of rubber... to be able to expand easily. 
Breakfast photo. Food had been consumed
Group photo taken during breakfast
anyway after our breakfast, we collected our bags and were transported to the KL's train station by the Malaysian members. It over here that we'll be taking the coach back to Singapore. Pity we did not take the train from the Klang station... hiaz... i missed the chance of taking a photo of the train platform.
Group photo taken @ the hotel lobby
Along our way there, I got to know about some of the activities that the SGM youth engaged in. in fact it was more about the Student Division movement and activities that they engage in. really encouraging... and also how the SGM youth acquired the honourary award for Ikeda Sensei.
We took this in front a historical looking building. not sure what's the building.
Qiuyi is behind the camera, So can't see her in the photo. Ready to head back to Singapore
All good things must come to an end. This had been a really short wkend. But i must say this wkend is one of the most fulfilling & educational one for me! Thank you SGM-Klang members and leaders for showing me the strong mentor and disciple spirit, the ever advancing spirit! =D
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