I had not stepped into the cinema since Chinese New Year in February. Although I was not a movie fan, I was very glad with this offer. I planned to watch three different movies with my new colleague XW, my mentee John and my brother Ah Yu's family when they came to Melaka for holiday later.
I surfed the GSC website to check the movies and showtimes at Jaya Jusco Bandaraya Melaka. My first interested title was "The Adventures of Tintin" because Tintin is a very famous Belgian comic character in France. I invited XW to go with me last Tuesday afternoon but she had a class. I thought of John but he had gone to a youth camp. As the movie was not shown at night, I decided not to change my plan. Instead of going to the cinema alone and wasting another seat, I prayed to God to give me some names. Grace and her two children appeared in my mind. I remembered she had told me they would be back to the Philippines during the Christmas season. Nonetheless, I immediately SMSed her to see whether they were around and free. Her response was prompt and positive!
I drove to pick them at the meeting time and place. Niger and Melissa were very excited as soon as they got into my car. Grace explained to me that they had cancelled their trip back to the home country. And she told me the two children had never watched a movie at the cinema previously, so they were looking forward to this experience. We arrived at the shopping mall half an hour before the showtime. There was a huge Christmas tree in the middle and beautiful decorations were everywhere. When I showed my two vouchers to exchange tickets at the counter, the employee told me that I could use them only at Dataran Pahlawan. How careless I was to overlook this important information when reading the vouchers earlier.
I was not sure if the same movie was also showing at that hour at Dataran Pahlawan, but I decided to go there even though I did not like the place because of the traffic jam. So I apologized to Grace, suggested that she took some pictures with the children before we left the mall.
There were many vehicles on the way there probably because of the school holiday in Malaysia and Singapore. We finally approached the shopping complex. We were hoping to catch the 3.30pm movie and praying for an available parking space. I turned into a place but the parking was totally full. So I had to make a big round to return to the area. With the terrible traffic if we did not miss the 4pm movie we would be very fortunate. The children began to grow impatient. This time I decided to pass the vouchers to Grace and drop them first before turning to another direction for parking. I told Grace to use the lift to go to level 4.
Praise the Lord I managed to get a small parking space nearby very fast and rushed to the mall. When the lift was open, I saw Grace, Niger and Melissa! They had gone to level 4 but it was a Karaoke. I checked the signboard and realised that the cinema complex was on level 5. Finally we went up together!
Since I had no idea what movies were available, another thing I was praying in my heart was that we would have something suitable for the children. Grace accompanied her children to the washroom first. I looked at the screen. It was a pity that "The adventures of Tintin" was not (or no longer) showing there at all. Among all the titles, my eyes zoomed into "Alvin and The Chipmunks 3".
I had watched "Alvin and The Chipmunuks 2" with the Calvary Care Home gang last year. I did not quite understand the story line especially in the beginning because I had not known the first episode. This time although I was not very keen to watch this third episode, I knew it was the best choice for all of us.
Finally, not only Grace and the children enjoyed this adventure comedy very much, me too. And I was surprised to hear French words spoken by one of the characters. When we came out from the cinema complexe, Niger and Melissa were all smiles. Then I brought them an ice-cream each. That was my humble Christmas present for this family. All of us went back satisfied. Praise be to our Lord!
