Chap Goh Mei Celebration

Huuray ~ Its the ending of bloody boring exciting Chinese New Year, unfortunately, there are a few important events being held in Penang associating with Thaipusam and Chap Goh Mei. Traffic is gonna be damn worst in Georgetown area, but blessed with good luck, there is another event happening in Setia Pearl Island which located at Bayan Lepas/Sg. Ara area, it should be less-jammed compared to the small, narrow and tiny Georgetown. So, i have opted for the event there instead, and was never bothered to visit Georgetown area. Met up with SL and JW for afternoon tea at Tea-Tac-Toe, Sungai Dua. Had some wonderful moment there as there were some games for us to play. Well, i hate to say this but sometimes we do need to act cute and innocent to preserve our rebellious energetic, young and playful days right. Went on a restaurant-find-trip later on. Since i foresaw the traffic in town area, i decided to settle my dinner nearby that area instead. Round and round and round like merry-go-round...found an idiotic restaurant at Sg. Ara named Jumbolicious which prohibits customers from taking pictures, get to know that from the eye-piercing sign stick on their cheap and semi-transparent window. I would never visit such an arrogant restaurant, nor i even meet one in Penang. 

Anyway, dinner was at Goh Teo Kee for some random chinese and thai dishes, taste was decent but the place was pretty much crowded. I think one will need to crawl to their own table during peak hours. Oh, and before entering to the restaurant, we were supposed to meet up with BS, ZC and XR. They were kinda late for no reason. We need to waste extra 10 minutes in our life to wait for them for the U-turn due to they have missed the junction turning into the restaurant. BUT all of these are not the main thing which i would love to record in my blog, it should the event itself instead. We left the restaurant shortly after the dinner, headed to Setia Pearl Island instead, car flow was pretty serious that night, we had to park at a place which required 15 minutes walk till the peak of the mountain, where the event was being held. The road was damn steep, a 60 year-old grandma might find and describe the road as "the road to hell", one might suffers serious consequences too if he/she is having heart disease. Breathing aid might be needed for obese too. They should at least prepare a medical team just in case anything funny sad happens.

Finally made it up to the peak of the mountain after some struggling and sweating, everyone looks 'sexier' especially after the sweating mountain climbing session. The place was pretty crowded and flooded with Chap Goh Mei enthusiast, but the amusing and mesmerizing part was actually the performance stage, the stage was so small that they had to erect a couple of screens to make it easier and view-able. We skipped the performance thingy and proceeded right into the hall. The main organizer has prepared some entertaining activities for the attendants too and most of the activities were FREE, which was a good thing for a poor like me. Anyway, here goes the event:

There were quite a number of kiosk/booths over there, with each and every one of them serves different purposes, there was this kiosk which gives a ticket, where you are supposed to fill in all the columns and submit, the questions to those columns were written under the Tang Lung, they were more like a riddle, particularly designed for nothing-to-do people like me. The displayed Tang Lung should at least attracted some Tang Lung-fetish like moths/flies OR MY MOM. She likes Tang Lung for no reason, which i am not going to further elaborate or give it a damn. Anyway, managed to find a couple of answers out of like 40 questions ? Gave up in the end, found it pretty meaningless for cracking my head in the middle of this event. The funny part was, the hall was so damn crowded, one mistake, stepping into a hole/stage/platform, might cause you to bonk into an unfortunate visitor, he/she might end up hitting the decorative something like the gigantic mandarin oranges, the lamest longest dragon etc....What a way to conclude Chinese New Year huh...Anyway, for english riddle, i remember there was one pretty easy, it goes like this: (Guess an animal) It jumps when walk, it sits when stand. Find me personally if you wish for the answer ;D

Carvings and doll-making were available too. Obviously the doll-making kiosk will be a hit among the stupid innocent kids. They were like so hyped for the dummy dolls as if they can be baked and eaten like candies. I bet they will act like cry babies when they figure it out that all these dummy dolls can actually be crushed in a second. The carving booth was meant for cutting for small shoes which can be stolen from the booth next to this. It was the gigantic one which you can see from the picture, the tiny shoe was sized something like a small eraser. Pretty much meaningless, as i am not a person who fantasizes about artistic sculpture or related stuff.

The girls had a long wait at the Tarot session asking for future fortunes, well, since its free, i guess there was not any harm trying. The guy was pretty patient especially when it comes to explaining the meaning behind the cards drew from the whole deck of cards. But something strange....i saw that guy was smirking all the way, probably he was hiding something negative ? fishy....suspicious....shady....questionable....uncertain....

Meanwhile, there were 3 Fu-Lu-Shou-wannabe floating around the hall too, giving red packets, or rather letting others to snatch the red packets from them. Kinda pity them for wearing such a hot and bulky costume under such a congested environment, and letting others to RAPE take away their red packets. Anyway, i managed to get a red packet from them too, it represents some 'fortune' i guess....inside the red packets, there were 4 pieces of gold coin chocolates....decent enough for kids, but not me sadly.

Two of the ladies proceeded to the chinese calligraphy kiosk right after the Tarot session, it makes me feel retarded for them for toying/playing with kids, as most of the participants in this booth were kids, as in real kids, aged from 4-10....Well, the ladies do enjoyed themselves from the Blind Contour Drawing session i guess, but i do have to admit they have written better calligraphy than me tho. The master of calligraphy from the booth then helped them to finalize and beautify the whole masterpiece, which i have no idea what he was drawing after all.

Move on to the mandarin oranges throwing ceremony, *YAY*....sadly, the main organizer has failed to arrange more mandarin oranges for the participants, causing shortage of stock, bloody kids see it as a game, as if they need to hit bull's eye every time, they then keep going back to the booth and asked for more oranges. Most of them were ruined and damaged...stinks, smelly, yuckish, faints* Anyway, i managed to grab one from the booth, but failed to throw in the stupid pots, they should have made the pots much bigger, at least to give better satisfaction to the participants. There was also a sloth-like OR sea lion-like malay male sitting near to the pots, which i presumed to be the security guard, whom will clap his hand whenever one gets to throw in the mandarin orange. It kinda irritates me whom cant make it to the pot, i should have at least, get myself an additional mandarin orange to throw at him :D, then clap my hand away ~ HUURAY ~ 

Anyway, we left before the fireworks show begins to avoid massive jam....the road was smooth and safe all the way, glad that i had some weird fun experience during the event, might consider to join again next year :D

Vacation Runaway- Hong Kong Trip 2012 (DAY6&7&8)

So this is gonna be the final post for my Hong Kong trip (yay, clap clap hands!) Since i was flying back on Day 8, (Day 7 was about last minute shopping so pretty much pointless for me to write) so i guess i shall make it a post for both days. Day 6 was definitely one of the most exciting day throughout my trip. After breakfast (we went back to the Gui Lin noodles house again), we went to Lantau island for sight seeing and Disneyland on that day :D. The journey to Lantau island was very long, my neck went 2 inches longer because of that....upon reaching to the cable car counter, there was a shopping mall with hell lots of factory outlets....more shopping of course, but not for me sadly, i was broke ;(, any kind people would like to donate some to me PRIEST ?

Sooner or later, we bought our tickets, both ways of course, for HKD 305 each....normal cabin was chosen instead of the crystal cabin. Crystal cabin allows their passengers to look through the transparent floor ground for the breath taking view ~ MY ASS. I will definitely pee like a dog, imagine you are hanging like hundred feet in the air, and down bottom of the cable car was deep blue sea and mountains. I am not smart but i would not be too stupid to waste extra hundred dollars to scare my ass off. Anyway, here is how the crystal cabin looks like (they have a flowery design around the cabin)....

Thanks to some random ang mo for the photos, she was very kind after all. The cable car ride was okay, but kinda long enough to make my ass feel numb. Weather turned warm for no reasons, but yea, i guess it should be a good sign.

Meet the great Buddha!!! The place was very comfortable and peaceful....the weather was just nice as well....we did pray so that our whole trip went smoothly and can safely finished the whole trip. Paid HKD25 for the so called package to visit the museum and a free lunch meal at the canteen. Took hell lot of photos and proceeded to the canteen for yummilicious meal.

Everything served here will be vegetarian, so i had to lowered my expectations, oh well, the meal comes with  a plate of fried bee hoon, a bowl of tau fu fah, 2 pieces of kuih/cakes. Tau fu fah was nice, smooth texture like my skin *winks*, the fried bee hoon was bunch of electrical wire stir frying together, i believe i can do a better job*blush*

We proceeded to our next plan right after that, we opted for the train, instead of the bus since its pretty much easier. The trains at Sunny Bay was cleverly designed with the mouse head, making you wondering if you taking trains to mouseland, but okay, i'd appreciated the effort tho.

Walked into the main door to discover there was actually a monkey parade going on, people were every where, surrounding those ships, as if they have never seen slow-moving cars and thick make-ups cartoon character-wannabe. Bored till the max, went for some walks instead. Long queue was every where, the time  in Disneyland obviously moves faster than you thought, i have a feeling as if i have walked into the past and i turned into a small kid (my actual size can be a dinosaur tho). Basically you need to queue for at least half an hour for a single game, time-consuming. Bumped into these few snobbish cartoon characters, a female mouse, and two dogs. The dog that put its tongue out was trying to tickle me, my passport and my wallet was hanging in front of my neck, he was trying to sense it out, it should have smelled it instead ! Anyway, the rebellious dog needs a lesson, so Ken decided to poke it back, look at my POKER face and the DOG face, poke-d the dog like no tomorrow and it keeps on poking me back. Stupid and annoying dog. I rest my case.

Dinner was at Disneyland's canteen while waiting for the lame fireworks, meals were expensive but its how the people suck our blood anyway. Food was okay, portion big which makes me feel like worth back the money.

More food hunts continue during Day 7, shall not elaborate into the shopping part, else, people will think i am actually a shopaholic and encountering some psychological problems (well, i may have ?). Tried the steamed egg, was pretty smooth, as smooth as my ass thigh. As for the roasted duck, was pretty shocking to know that it actually contains more than ten tonnes of oil/lard. Too oily that it might make a car move, instead of using the normal petroleum. Fats generate more energy anyway. Tried the roasted bird as well, texture sucks, great to know that. It tasted something like chicken's liver, awfully gross. It has some unpleasant smell as well, people might consider to use it as decoration during Halloween, at least it chases me away :D. Roasted BBQ pork was very good according to my friend, sadly i do not take pork, so yea.....pork here pork there, every pork pork ~

My Last day (Day 8) at airport was lonely :(, my friends left before noon. I have no choice but to follow them to airport as the hotel's check out time was 11am and i do not want to drag my luggage all the way to this bloody isolated island (where Hong Kong international airport located) all by myself. Waited for like 8 hours before my flight. Settled my lunch there, i must be possessed to be so generous (or my loneliness took over my consciousness!) and spent HKD 200 for lunch at airport. I must admit the food quality was very good and the service was impressive either. Fresh salmon sashimi just make my saliva dropping non-stop. Well, since it was my last meal in Hong Kong, so yea, why not ? 

Air Asia's flight was horrible again, it took few times for the pilot to actually "lift" or take off the plane, so bouncy that i can actually puke all the meals i had in airport (obviously my precious and expensive salmon sashimi) but luckily i did not. I did not pre-order the meal and they introduced me some weird wrap again, it has a smell of my socks for no reasons. So yea, i was like chewing my own socks instead. Slept like a sleeping beauty and snore-d like a pig. Arrived in Penang shortly to discover that there was no camera, as in those detecting body temperature cameras around. How can they be so lazy to even erect the thing ? Should have asked the customs, but i might get some weird answer like this: Ohh, sawwlly sir, we kennot erect the camera as we are having ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION here......................

I guess my blood pressure will shoot until sky high, pass me a fan before i hyper-ventilate, well anyway, the whole trip was a pleasant one i guess, especially with my friends around, would definitely love to have another similar experience again.