Home (Part 2)

Part of calling a place a home is not just the house that we stay in, but also the places nearby that we regularly go to. I'm referring to places like the church, hairdresser/barber, kopi tiam, etc that give us a sense of belonging to the place.

When we moved to Puchong almost 5 years ago, my wife and I had stayed in PJ for more than 7 years, and it took us quite a while to switch to the equivalent places in Puchong.

Our hairdresser in PJ was this chatty lady from Penang who loved to talk about everything under the sun, and all her customers seem to know her well. She used to boast that people still drove all the way to Section 17 to look for her long after they have moved. Well, we were one of those people, until a few years ago :)

SS2 and Sea Park being food paradises, we still had our dinners and even our weekend lunches and breakfasts in PJ until Cynthia was born. The stall owners at Chow Yang (now Lim Mee Yoke) used to remember what I like, and often I even automatically get served my usual drink (teh o ice) whenever I go there.

Alas, in Puchong most coffeeshops and stalls are run by foreigners, so there is no sense of belonging to speak of.

Even for pasar malam, we still went to the Thursday Chow Yang one. The usual routine was - get the fishballs and siew mai from the Hokkien auntie in front of OK restaurant, followed by jagung, then paper wrapped chicken, then Anson chee cheong fun, and finally the peanut kuih. I remember all the stalls so well that I could recognize which stalls moved or didn't turn up.

We now go to the Saturday one at Kampung Baru Puchong which, although a bit dirtier, also had a good selection of comfort food.

The only holdout until today is the PJ church we go to. Somehow, the Puchong church just didn't click and we continue to make the 25 km journey to PJ every Sunday.