ManMeng's Lifepad

[Travel] Journey To the North

This 2009 Chinese New Year has been a mixed bag of emotion to me. It’s not bad while it’s not entirely good? But one thing definitely strucked me good is no matter how bad the situation tend to be, be it psychologically or financially, the Chinese would try their best to celebrate this event no matter what. The whole one week experience riding up North from the city to outskirts area has been fun. Running across from Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Perak and Pulau Pinang. Almost 4 states in total.

And first and foremost, let me introduce my little humble extra companion! The almight D60! Not all pictures taken on this post are captured by this camera, well if you still remember my good old Fuji F11.

Start of the week

Greeted with a welcome back home soup by her.

Bought some games for Kenny as well. And yes, the above two gets quite a high rating for it’s gameplay. It’s noticeable lately that there’s much more % in quality games in comparison to PSP for this type of game?

Say hello to everyone Rambo, say it! (Don’t ask me why with the name, my mum just blantantly create that for this…chihuahua?) And yes, he’s an angry dog.

Paying respects

It has been a tradition among Chinese to pay respects to not only the gods, but a lot of offerings or respects also made towards their relatives that has left the world.

One of the usual shops you will see people shopping for goods such as incense and papers that is used as offerings.

If I’m not mistaken, this is also referred to as one type of money from the underworld by the Chinese.

Inside a temple.

A lot of people can be found during these time of years. Be it young ones or the elders. As you can see there are numbers of items displayed on the shelf are actually the tombstone equilvalent for the Chinese, expect in a smaller dimension and it’s made of wood.

Bank notes of the underworld, well, you can only burn this as offering to the deceased.

The atmosphere inside the temple are rather dramatic and smoky at times.

Do you know that work of art is made out of the papers you seen earlier (on top).

What a work of art, however this is also used as offerings to the deceased.

It has been a good 10 years or more, possibly more, that the construction and upgrading of this place. Previously this place is at a much smaller scale. Due to donations from the people, a lot of upgrading took place. This majestic construction does reminds me of a palace from the ancient Chinese.

Reunion Dinner

Perhaps one of the most overlooked tradition in the recent years is this issue. While for most modern families opted for a faster solution by not really giving much concern to this, however for some conservative elders, it is really crucial to hold an annual reunion dinner for all the family members together. Unlike usual occasions, every single food presented on the table has to bring auspicious meaning, likewise you wouldn’t need to expect a watermelon (sounds inauspicious in Chinese) on top of the table during this period of time.

Give a wild guess what is this. That is correct! And please note that I had no freaking idea how it could turn out like this. And no, wine opener is not built like LEGO. I’m not even drunk yet.

And this year around it’s quite delighting to see my little nephews and nieces.

Got the cap as a present from Christmas. Camwhoring time.

Decorations from the city

It’s the last night of the year for lunar calender and I’m glad that I had chance to drop by Midvalley for some sight seeing on the decorations this year before going back hometown.

In fact, if observed closely, it’s not a bad sight.

I’d also felt that it’s way better than what they did for Christmas.

And walking across towards The Gardens, which is just right beside Mid Valley, you can see all these weird shaped lanterns. It’s really funny as you might think this picture above is distorted. 

Well on the inside of it, except in the middle concourse, there’s nothing much to be brag about the decorations. Probably the target audiences were different.

I don’t know why this papercut design behind does have certain vibe towards me.

Prosperity? 


I’m not sure why there’s so much love with this burger during this season, I personally had really bad experience of high fever and sore throat after my first meal on this previously. However, as I don’t consume beef, my girl did say it does makes a difference to have beef as the meat. But anyway, doesn’t it look totally different from the way it is presented on the advertisements? (sarcasm included) 

The journey begins!

And so then, as usual on the first day of Chinese New Year, or to some, Lunar New Year. We have the tradition to travel back to the “hometown” of our elders. This is especially a unique culture on people living in Malaysia and Singapore due to the difference of “growing up place” and working. If we are to trace back the history of how we came about in Kuala Lumpur or other cities, most of our grandparents were from a different part of the city or way further from the city when they first reached the shore from China.

Cutting the crap on history, the day itself are meant to be damn heaty and hot. Sunny.

And out of nowhere, I’m shocked and happy at the same time, there’s a bunch of fresh flowers growing near my grandparents house! So that means it’s experiment time and snap snap time with my camera.





But the last time I remembered this place has been abandoned to nothing. 

Outside of my grandparent’s house. I guess they did built these houses from nothing. It’s a really short trip for me back to Teluk Intan, Perak. Well, this year around I’ll have to pay a visit as well back to my girl’s hometown! Taiping! Sounds and feels different, and it does.

To Taiping

And in case you are wondering, there is actually a lot of route you can take from south (Johor Bahru, Malaysia) to up north (Kedah/Thailand borders). In this case, while some uses the “slow-way” instead of highway, either to skip the traffic jams, or the tolls. This is the way to Kampar, Perak.

 

The highway to Ipoh, Perak.

Cloudy and fluffy day.

The “heritage city” as it translates from Bahasa Melayu.

 

My girl’s grandparents place.

This is known as “Face-2-Face” by the locals here. Do not be fooled by the picture above, I think it will be very hard for one person to finish this, by the end of the meal itself, I think you might want to find someone’s head and bang on it.

I’m told that the Taiping Lake is famous for its beauty and scenery. However this place is also unique due to its landscapes and surroundings that makes it receives more rain than any other place in this country.

It’s as almost you are living in the northern winter country. Such atmosphere is created due to the hills is formed around the area.

To Penang!

While the stay in Taiping has lasted for almost 2 day, we felt that it’s also time to pay a visit to my friend in Penang, an island which is away from the main peninsular. 

While we are not rushing towards the destination, she suggested that we should drop by this interesting place called “Jawi” for its famous “Chai-Kueh”.


It’s right in between the border of Perak, Kedah and Pulau Pinang (Penang).

Here we are!

While the name of the place itself might not be mind-blowing, the actual place itself is rather even calming. It’s only one stretch of road from one end to another.

One angry man.

“Can I have that please…?”

I’m really surprised they are vending water this way?

The name of the shop.

Inside the shop.

The making of the ”cake?”

It’s the famous dish here where it’ll be freshly made and will always go out of stock few minutes after it’s out of the cooking pan.

Hot water ahead.

This is the ingredient that is made inside of the food.

The star of the morning! Well, it’s certainly better if you could reach this place early for it.

And there’s 2 type of flavour to choose from.

Inside. However if you would to ask me to compare its resemblance, it would be the Hong-Kong dimsum, but it felt more silky than the ordinary dim sum.

And they do have dim sum!

A very tasty vermicelli! (Dong Fun in Chinese) 

Very tasty Salted Vegetable Fish.

Postbox.

This is one of the things that intrigued me during my visit to this place. The warning plates on the wall suggests that this template doesn’t seem to welcome visitors, and they are not friendly at all. On the other side, if we are to translate the Chinese words literally, it means that ”you shouldn’t try your luck here”. But it’s definitely sounds funnier in Chinese. 

Coffeeshop. Good ol’ chilling between old friends.

I call him the bubble boy.

Continue to Penang!

And so the journey continued…with a lot of traffic jam.

It takes a bout half an hour to 1 hour to go past the bridge during this period of time.

And surprisingly, most of the times this is caused by the traffic diversion issue from a 4-lane tolls to a 2 lane bridge.

Right in the middle of the bridge, and according to some source, also known as one of the top 5 longest bridge in the world!

If we are not wrong, this would be the last school in the country that hosts a “female-only” secondary school.
And so we are in Gurney Plaza, and I’m really amazed by how much this placed has evolved to the last 12 years I wasn’t here.

 

 

Lunch time.

 

G Hotel right beside the plaza.

The main entrance of Gurney Plaza.

On the way to visit my friend in Penang. Met this uncle bread. He looks angry.

And at night, we paid a visit to the southern part of the island, namely the newly-built Queensbay Mall. 

And the guy above are performing on top of these 3 person is looking inside the box. I had no idea what it’s all about. Some performance art that is brought from China. I guess this is how the ancient “cinema” looks like.
It’s really surprising how big this place is with all the different shops that offers a lot of things we can find back in K.L.

And of course, on the other side of the island, which is before going inside Penang, there is this place known as AutoCity, which has tremendously evolved over the past 10 years from a car selling industry to a city?

Back to Ipoh
While our visit to Penang turned brief due to some issues we had with the car I drove. It switches itself off when the aircond is turned on, and when the car is not moving (stationed). Initially we thought it would be from all the traffic jams we had back then.

But I think we still looked pretty happy. (Until something happened later on…)

The town of Ipoh.

Buses of Ipoh, yes these are still operating.

Kids from Ipoh.

And of course being here, it would be a sin to leave without even have a taste of the local delicacies here. It’s well known that the noodles and chickens from here tastes deliciously different from any other place around the country (I had no idea why). And this is the junction of the street with all the famous brands of the same type of food.

This is where we had ours. Known as “Onn-Kee”

Another shop right beside it looks crowded as well.

And almost every passing minutes, more people are anticipating it. And of course, due to limited spaces, they will need to wait for people to leave after their meal before they can sit down! This is such a case in Malaysia, when it comes to food.

Of course we are delighted to find a place, and ordered the food right away.



The noodles, silky as air…or milk? Anyway, it took approximately 1 hour for these 3 dish to arrive a 2-person meal.

And guess what, right about 8PM, everything sold out!

That of course made a lot of people prepared to have dinner at this place…pissed off and leave.

The legendary White Coffee…from Ipoh, Perak. 

And so we are brought to this place in Ipoh that it is famous for it’s another thing, the white coffee. I never had craving for coffee and never also understand the hype behind this thing. However I was proven wrong on so many level!

Do not be fooled by its tame look. One sip, and you’re brought to another level of heaven. It’s really hard to describe the taste, but it’s definitely EPIC.

And I was also surprised by how different the Loh-Mee looks in comparison to K.L/Klang. (This looks the same as in Singapore)

Right not long after the meal, we’re brought to this suburb primary school. Looks really cozy.


Classroom for childrens from 7-12 years old.

This is what happens when I have no zoom lens.

Going Back

Perhaps it has been quite a fruitful journey from bottom up the country.

We took on the “slow-way” route to avoid jams during the end of the week cars-stuck-in-highway-jam.

And at the same time, it came to us that we can visit the famous Kellie’s Castle that is located not far away from Ipoh, Perak.

On-location.

That is the half-built castle, right behind us.

That is the operating hours.

And suprisingly, you need to pay! And if you are not local, expect to pay even more.

Tickets

This is where they are supposed to be a lift, that would be the countrywide-first-lift if it’s built.

Top of the root. yes, you can walk on it. Be careful not to fall over.












There is this particularly funny encounter between me and the guy on top of this photo. It strucked us that both of us were using Nikon’s camera and he stared at me for a while before start speaking. “Where are you from?” he asked. I went confused and thought he asked if I’m from Perak. But then I realized only he asked if I’m on any Nikon/Photography club. Duh.

Going back, really.

And after much sunbathing, we left the place and head right straight to home.

Note the logo on the bottom right. I think they just got a hater, or maybe 2. Me and my girlfriend.

And this is what happened after we went across a ‘small’ bump. Note the SMALL. Great. It ended up that I need to use my belt buckle to tie the damn thing up and head to the nearest grocery store for a stronger strings/rope to hold this on.

And then, we decided to go back to the expressway instead. Looks gloomy and dark as our heart.

Accident happened as well.

But all well ends well. There’s sunlight after the rain.

Back home!

Huh?

Nom, Nom, Nom

This is known as Yu-Sheng. Where raw fish and other materials are put together for a symbolic and auspicious reason.

Some used salmons.

The infamous watermelon-pork?




Wass’up

Epilogue

Had a dinner with my friend before I left back to work. It’s IKEA in Malaysia.

Off-topic : 

I felt like want to strangle people like this for spoiling the web design markets.