I went for a leisurely drive with my wife to Taiping yesterday. I have not been to Taiping for quite a while so it was a welcome change of scene for us.
It was a cool day and the first place we went to was the Tai Chen restaurant which served some nice hawker food. It brought back memories of the time I spent in Taiping back in the 60s when we stayed at the late Rocky Teoh's place just above Tai Chen when we had to rehearse and do a gig in Taiping.
After lunch, I decided to hop over to the next road where the Chin Kong Optical was. This was where my old friend TA whose real name is See Kok Choo was working. His late uncle owned the shop and now he has taken over the running of the business. I walked into the shop and there he was, very surprised to see me after a few decades. The last I met up with him was way back in 1968. He still looked the same except for the balding. I used to remember him back then whenever he played the guitar, he would have a cigarette in his mouth or would stick it to the guitar head below the strings when he wanted to adlib the lead chorus. He told me that he had stopped playing the guitar and was living a very quiet life now. We had a good time reminicing about the old days, exchanged our contact numbers, and then I went on my way as I had some catching up to do visiting some places around Taiping which as usual had started to rain.
I hope to be able to meet up with him more often from now.
