Reminiscing the teenage years in Kluang - Part 2

OK. Continuing from Reminiscing the teenage years in Kluang - Part 1 ... By the way, I'm writing this from Rawang, another 30km before returning back to Kuala Lumpur...

31st December 2007, the last day of the year. It's time to rise and shine...

I've already decided what to do for the day. As I came to Kluang to reminisce on my teenage days there while hoping to come to terms with some memories of the past and heal some old wounds more than 20 years old, I thought it apt to visit my old secondary school, Sekolah Menengah Sains Johor...

But first, breakfast at the railway station about 100 metres from the cheap hotel where I lodged at. For information, they serve such a fine home-blended coffee here that they even have special coffee shops just like Coffee Bean and Starbucks opened elsewhere...

Then it's time to do some walking... Starting with the street along the railway tracks with lots of Indian shops (can't remember the name of the road)...

Soon enough, I arrived at the railway crossing...

From there I could see the Kluang main mosque, the green building behind the greens in the background. The mosque sure hold some memory... Being cooped up most up the time during my teenage years of 1983-1986 in Sekolah Menengah Sains Johor, a full-boarding school, then the one with the smallest compound in the whole of Malaysia, it was always a relief to go to the mosque for the weekly Friday congregational prayers...

From the railway crossing, I walked up another road along the railway tracks but going the opposite way, that is to the north. The road leading to the mosque is on the left...

I had a quick look to the right and saw this pedestrian bridge across the tracks. Actually I could have taken a shortcut by using the bridge from the railway station but I went on the longer route taken just now just to remind me of the walks I used to take when on outing from the boarding school.

There, the road leading to the mosque...

I turned 180 degrees and took this picture with Gunung (mount) Lambak in the background just for perspective...

The walk is continued past the police district headquarters...

Then past Sekolah Tinggi Kluang (Kluang High School) or STK as it is popularly known, a strong rival to my old secondary school especially in the games of hockey and rugby... Oh, by the way, I was a rugby player and played up to the state level... So there's definitely loads of "rubbing around" with the equally tough boys of STK as we often represent the Kluang district in the game...

The Kluang main mosque is situated next to STK. So there's no avoiding dealing with our rival schoolboys... Being Muslims (98 per cent or so of the student at Sekolah Menengah Sains Johor or SMSJ for short, in fact most if not all students at such government boarding schools are Malay Muslims!) and under strict boarding school rules, the boys MUST go to the mosque for Friday prayers...

Then again, that's when many disappeared in action... Then's when some went looking for cigarettes to smoke or go elsewhere... Some just loitered around the steps at the mosque, all clad in white Baju Melayu with Samping (full traditional Malay suit) which clearly defined we are SMSJ boys without actually doing the prayers.

Anyway, Fridays were definitely a breather for us after being cooped up all week within the school compounds. Once every fortnight, after the Friday prayers, we went for outing, alternating between the girls... That is, the girls went outing one Friday, the boys another the following week... That's when we were allowed to spend sometime outside until 6pm where we have to return back to the reality of being cooped up again inside the boarding school.

I went inside the mosque to conduct the non-obligatory Dhuha morning prayer and reminisce the times here. After all, it's been 20 years since I stepped anywhere near this mosque...

Then the walk is continued along the same road, heading the same direction... That is towards the east.

I remembered plenty of government quarters then along this road including one belonging to a dear old friend and his family, a place where I used to stop by a lot on Fridays. Now, there's only a few quarters remaining and my old friend's are among the ones gone...

At the end of the road lies the main entrance to a military camp. I took the left turn towards the nearest main road and stopped to look back and take this picture...

The main road leads to the towns of Air Hitam and Batu Pahat... It also leads to the small road up a hill to my old school...

Ah... Finally, the foot of the hill leading to SMSJ. Plenty surely have changed. I remembered this area as full of greens. Now it is wholly developed with shophouse extending the boundaries of the town of Kluang...

A pictorial story on my old school will be made in the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU afterwards. Do have a look. Cheers! :]