The Batu Caves of Bukit Mertajam

I was awakened last Sunday with a pencil of sunlight directly into my bedroom. And it left me to ponder for a while, was this enlightenment?

 

Apparently it wasn’t, it was 9.30 in the morning. So I woke up and drove my way to St. Anne’s Church (or St. Anne’s Sanctuary as they call it). Since many roads are closed on that day, I had to ride on motorcycle, my dad’s in fact.

As usual, the heap of peeps over there smelled…. (It explains the title of this post!)

And candles were a lot more expensive than last year. Not like as if we are going to light till the whole candle finishes, those collectors will blow off the fire after barely 1 cm of the candle are lighted.

The old Church.

The new Church looked very European indeed.

Noticed that the compound of the sanctuary was also very clean. Thanks to some Cleaning Up Rangers, truly well done!



   

 And with this, I will die..

 Correct or not uh?



Believer

Name : Kelvin Yew Kean Liang

Age : 25 years
Sex: Male
Profession: Engineer
Race: Chinese
Religion: Buddhist Believer

Yes, I am a believer. I do not necessary believe in one single belief because I believe each beliefs are only being categorized by human being and only to further complicate life. Fair enough?

For instance, if I were to state that I am a Buddhist in religion, again how Buddhist am I? I don’t necessary attend to all those Dharma and chanting (prayers) sessions at temples. Christian? I left Sunday School (and Church) at the age of 8. Hindu? I don’t shave my head in vow for peace and safety. Muslim? Not yet potong… So who am I?

I believe in Buddha and His existence and most importantly am fascinated with the awakening theory.
I respect my ancestors and the teachings of Tao. In fact, I do think I am more of a Taoist than Buddhist.
I comprehend (some of) the content of the Holy Bible.
I believe in the existence of Hinduism and its link to Buddhism.
I value the Islamic culture and way of life.

So yes, I am a believer. That’s all.

I was on my way home from Lumut yesterday when this road sign at Pantai Remis caught my attention. For some reason, I told myself, make a turn, have a look, and so I did.

Its just a thing with me, I love visiting holy shrines. It was a new temple set to be launched by PM this coming 4th August. So I dropped by to say ‘Hi’ and prayed for my well-being and safety back to Penang (in the case lately I’ve been driving quite recklessly!).

And tonight, heading to the St. Anne’s Feast to light a candle or two. See, I told you I am a believer!

RIP Carl Zeiss

I know he is already dead like thousand years ago, but my very own “Carl Zeiss” passed away last Saturday, while I was enjoying myself at the Bon Odori annual show at Penang.


He was a very dear friend of mine since 2007 (one heck of an expensive friend too). The cause for his death - Alzheimer. He accompanied me through the ups and downs of life and captured only the most appealing side of myself (though I have to admit that sometimes Photoshop comes into action also).

I was taking some photo of the majestically lighted Penang State Town Hall when he started to tremor non-stop, like a gas detector. And very soon after that, he just went on blank, total darkness! So I guess, I will need a very new friend soon. Perhaps, Nikon or Canon. Hehe…

Sunday? It was like a back to memory lane visit (again!).

But again, life goes on.

Sports Crap!

One word - CRAP! Full of them from 7am till 9pm. I had quite a disastrous Sunday. Reason being? Well no. 1, I've stopped "sporting" like 2 years ago (and I know its a good time to start back). Second and the most irritating one - heck, that 'guy' was bossing me around yesterday at the sporting venue. Third, its SUNDAY LAH!!!

Total frustration like a relief valve waiting to POP! I was just trying my luck as I didn’t even know the rules for carom till the competition starts.


But as the week moved on, things were definitely getting brighter. To start of with, 6 Supervisors from Sabah drop by at Penang for a visit. They reminded me of that song Anak Kampung by Jimmy Palikat.

Tiada keretaku bawa kau jalan – jalan,

Rumah pun tiada, ada pun bapa punya,
Apalagi belanja mau bayar berian,
Kawin sama kamu…

Ok bah kalau kau!

Heading to Lumut tomorrow for a meeting and thus, the only one thing that is playing in my mind right now is… KON LOU PAN MIEN at the Tronoh market! Nice nice…

A Polite Way to Decline

For the last two nights, this one guy was so keen to meet me up. He called the first night, and I told him that I was going for a bowling training (one heck of an excuse), and thus he said he will meet me up some other time.



And yesterday he called again and so I gave in. We met up at Autocity (and damn it was so packed at night!). He introduced a lady to me, who is his wife and we started chatting. I felt weird as they asked me about my upbringing and family. Since my cup of drink was quickly going low, anxiousness rushed through me. What was the real agenda? That was, we had been chatting for about an hour. Was that just really about to know me better?


Weirdly enough, he suddenly said, “Well, Mr. Kelvin…”. You see, the reason I said its weird because for the past one hour, he called me Kelvin. Then out of a sudden, he called me MR. KELVIN. And then came out one pile of documents and files. INSURANCE & SAVING PLANS!!!!


It lasted for another hour before I finally left the café. I straightaway called Guan and seek his ‘expertise’. I asked him, is there a way to politely decline these insurance and saving plans salesman? He said NO. So I went on a research by myself and I found this interesting blog that apparently did write about tackling salesman.


http://www.vyvy.org/main/node/103


Any better ways?

C&P

I know, and I clearly remember that we use to condemn one of our uni-friend that he foolishly (and consistently) copied and paste internet resources into assignments without any further alteration. We told him (or rather just gossiped around) that if he really wanted to make copy and paste legal, use lah citation! Damn, he was such a fool back then!

 Since last week was well spent for the ferry outing, this week’s documents on my table top were slowly piling up. Then only to know that I have one task left to be done before 5 p.m. today – design a freakin’ banner for the sports competition this Sunday. Since such banner require 2 days to be printed, I was rushing to at least design something out from Visio for them. Worst case, today was also packed with meetings and engagement session. So I started drafting…

And then translated into png…

So where should I place the citation uh since this is a pure C&P crap!

Its not a break (II)

So the company decided to rent a whole ferry to ourselves. But the one single thing after yesterday’s event was that, we do need an event planner in the next whatever event. Handling 150 adults and 50 over kids proves to be overly tiring, especially the “working” committee comprises of only 5 of us! The other “idle” committee members are merely idle through the whole work process and got themselves a brand new t-shirt. Yippie (nuh)!!!

Never have I thought that these ferries can actually ride below the Penang Bridge, of which we did. Crossing under the bridge, cruising along the Esplanade and then finally back to the Butterworth wharf, it was all over within 4 hours.

But the worst thing was that, I had to return to work immediately after the outing. And I thought I was so fortunate when I saw Dinesh was online in Lync. He was apparently moving his stuff from level 24 to 18 (turun pangkat). And he reminded me this:

“If you xde, the company can find a new fella in 1 minute
but if u xde, can ur mom n dad find another son?”

True rite?

Its not a break.

Merry Ferry

Renting a whole ferry to myself huh? Crazy enough of an idea, but I usually believe the sky is the limit. Say ‘YES’ before ‘NO’! Yes, that’s the spirit.



So after a few calls made by my colleague, we had our arrangements made to meet this man of Penang Port – the MAN. We were treated like super duper VIP lah in short. We were allowed to walk in one of the ferry, which was delayed for about 10 minutes so that we can have a view in it.


The very last time I went on a ferry was like 3 years ago, without actually realizing it. The ferries were just newly renovated and had refreshing colours painted on them.


As of now, only 4 ferries are in service. Pulau Angsa was… quack!

Pulau Payar was looking quite pale. Maybe some other day.

Pulau Rawa MUST be avoided! Its not my camera, it is the ferry which is tilted! Dangerous la weyh…

So that leaves us with Pulau Talang – Talang. Blue, calm, charming! Ding!!

Half a day spent on selecting ferry. I know I can be bit*h at times complaining about work, but this was a break really needed after some long hours of work. But the best part of today's visit to the jetty was, I remembered as a child riding on the ferry, I used to ask my mum what are those yellow thingy? I used to call them robotic-giraffes. Long long time ago...

How much to rent a ferry? All I know is that I can't afford to rent one!

Early Sunday

Yesterday was a fine day, though I was awakened by a bad nightmare early in the morning. Waking up that early gave me the advantage to move to Penang Island earlier.



From the bridge, the whole island was not even visible due to the bad haze. But the ease of the traffic allowed me to drive even slower than usual and as I cruised down the bridge, I found this loving couple with their “vehicle”. I must get one of this someday, one fine day.

First destination, Grove St. My guys were having their First Aid Competition, and I wanted to be there to support them. Support apa? I became their cameraman pulak. But OK lah, since I can play around with someone else’s Canon EOS DSLR.


At noon, I moved to my cousin’s house since my aunt is at KL. We had lunch at Burma St.’s Ko Cha Bi (sounds like “Kau Chubby!”). Well, it did mention Taiwanese food, but it left me wondering why was kimchi served? My recommendation, Paper Steamboat Set. I found myself more and more into small restaurants serving niche cuisines, especially located at old buildings with affordable prices. Sweet!

Bla bla bla… It was already 3 p.m., so I headed to this one old shop at Padang Tembak (or the Hokkiens called it Pak Cheng Por). Mission? To get a bottle of Snake brand talcum powder for my Supervisor. Accomplished!


So yes, it was such a fulfilling Sunday. Next week? Perhaps renting a whole Ferry to myself. Just wondering…