CNY 2007: PENANG 16-20th FEBRUARY

We headed to Penang on the 16th February night or I should say early 17th February morning. Our bus which was an extra bus was suppose to depart at 9:30pm. The massive jam caused it to arrive at about 1:00am and the journey to Penang took us 20 hours! A normal trip will take 8 hours but because of the massive jam as serious as bumper to bumper all the way with rain and accidents here and there, we reached Penang at almost 5:30pm. I went there to celebrate Chinese New Year for the first time as I failed to obtain air tickets back home. The price for the available tickets are so disgustingly overpriced at around RM400 per trip, it is ridiculous to buy them.



Uncle and auntie have 3 boys, Joshua, Mark and Malcolm. We spent our time in Penang with them fully. Surprisingly it was quite quiet during Chinese New Year. Auntie told me they were very strict in catching all those firecracker and firework sellers. We ended up playing some small scale children fireworks with the kids. Uncle did bring us around town to scout for some. We failed to find any from some of the prominent areas but finally managed to find one selling in front of a motorcycle repair shop. We went down and we were just 1 step slower. Up came 3 custom officers who asked the seller to put all the stuffs into the boxes! We were parking just 2 meters away from the shop. I was sure then that they knew we were potential customers. Haha!



We had breakfast all the time at home. Uncle always prepare some nice breakfast. This for example is a pasta meal he cooked up.



It looked so attractive that everybody wanted to take photo with it.



They just could not control their delight seeing the nice dish. It did not just look nice but tasted great!



The children just wanted to pose differently with the dish.



Auntie has this nice flower at the front of her balcony at the top floor. I saw it when we were there as we discussed some ideas for the extension of the car porch rooftop which is linked to the balcony.





We went visiting relatives mostly at the mainland at Bukit Mertajam. It was a nice experience since they have some of the best traditional recipes for titbits. One example is the love letter or kuih kapit. House after house the quality just got better. One of the best was so thin that when you put into your mouth, it just melt into pieces as it released its nice aroma as you eat it down! Oh my goodness! My wife stole some back and I shall take a macro shot of it and show it in the next post. Those traditional made titbits put all those mass produced commercial ones in the market to shame. I assure you that once you take that kuih kapit, the rest in the streets you bought are of terrible quality.



My wife took the chance to take photos with the kids.





Mark is the most enthusiatic one among the rest as he posed for many photo shots. He even wanted to take a photo of me on his own. You just could not stand him as he adjusted the camera with his hand, asking me to shift left and right as he rotated the camera in landscape to portrait profile as he looked at the scene behind me to take a shot! My goodness, this boy took like 1 minute to compose a shot! People will think that he is a pro!



We went to this 'Genting Highlands' of Penang. Auntie told me this place was mostly crafted and built by the Thais. You will see many great craftmanship work done all over the place. The details you see and how they used all the timber from the site cleared to build this place creatively just keep me amazed.









Mark posting with the rocket!



This is the watermill where they have some nice connecting parts. You will be fascinated by how they make use of the materials around to build the whole place up.









Uncle was relaxing himself in one of the creations fully built in timber with some bolts and nuts as joints.











The roof detail is nice too. The arrangement of the leaves was very well done.





They use anything to create anything. Even the soft drink aluminium cans.







The elephants were made of some thin fabric. They looked like lanterns to me.



The scenery is breathtaking too. You will see the beautiful blue sea and islands faraway in the horizon.



The kids were just so excited to pose with all the manmade insects and animals around the place.



We were at quite a high altitude from the sea level.



Finally, this giant rooster we posed with at the entrance.