Unexpected!

Yesterday , my family and I went to Johor Bahru.We left at 9 am and reached the Singapore custom at 10 am. We went through the Singapore custom and took a 20 minutes bus ride through the Causeway to the Malaysia custom.

Usually , there would be a huge crowd of people queueing up to pass the customs but today there was like only 5 people!We took it that school had reopened and no one wanted to go shopping at Johor Bahru. We passed the Malaysia custom without even having to queue up! I was glad that I did not have to queue up until my legs were wobbly.

We walked over to City Square Mall.It was about 11am as we entered the shopping centre. It looked the same as last week when we also came here for shopping so we did not suspect anything.

I was pointing to the ground floor and telling my mother that there are many stalls selling new year goodies. My mother , a shopaholic, gleamed at the sight of the number of stalls and rushed down to shop for New Year stuff. After walking through all the shops for food samples ,  my mother went to the stall with most sumptious new year goodies and bought 2 boxes of pineapple tarts , 2 boxes of love letters , 500g of chilli cuttlefish and 3 boxes of spicy prawn rolls.

After all the shopping , our stomachs were already growling. We went to a restaurant to have our lunch. The food came after 30 minutes which seemed like eternity as we were really hungry and I was like drooling when the aroma of the food pierced my nose. We gobbled up the food and was about to order dessert when the waiters were closing the doors.My father asked the waiter what was happening. She replied that the Johor Sultan had just passed away yesterday and he was to be buried at 2pm , hence all shopping centres had to close at 1 pm to pay their respects.

Upon hearing this news , we went back to the customs and returned home as they would be closed for the day.When returning home , I dawned back and realised the reason why the customs were so empty.What an unexpected day!