I was feeling particularly hungry just now, so I decided to head out to see if there are any
more food stalls open. It was already 2:45 am by that time so I wasn’t expecting the Pedada food
stalls to be still open. Pedada is the nearest place that I can get food, and sure enough, all the
shops were already closed when I got there.
I decided to head out to town since there are several kopitiams that are 24 hour operations in
town. I found one near the Pintu Gerbang roundabout.
It’s called Orient Canteen and in all these years, I’ve never eaten there before. I ordered some
fried noodles to go. Interestingly, there was a boy there washing the plates and glasses. He
couldn’t be more than 8 years old and he’s still wearing his school uniform. I wonder why he’s
still up at 3 am in the morning on a school day. At that time, there were only three other
customers, all sitting alone. One of them sat there eating his fried noodles without once ever
looking up. The other person is clearly demented, for he held an animated conversation (complete
with waving chopsticks) with thin air. In fact, he barely touched his food, and seemed to be more
content talking to nobody in particular. The third guy, which looks like an old gangster, was just
sitting there with a beverage, looking at the road. The 3 o’ clock crowd is not what one would call
pleasant dinner companions. Heh.
