Holiday pecha kucha...

This felt like one of the most fun and fulfilling holidays ever. Christmas was great... Went to church (Trinity) for Christmas Eve Candlelight service... and Christmas morning service, as well as Wesley church for Christmas dinner (Ben, James, Xu Wen and I were the honored guests of Ben's parents :D). Spent alot of time with loved ones (on Ben's side and mine) appreciating what God has done for us through Christ... Received good gifts from friends and family. Here are some pics of my hols. Be warned. It is a very long post.

Ben's mum gave me a fat, cuddly and cutesie penguin for Christmas. So sweet. His name is um... Penguin. I haven't been too creative naming him...

Ben and I left for Ipoh one day after Christmas. It was a fruitful trip. We spent almost the whole afternoon with Pst. Jeya's family at their home. Pst. Jeya gave me a timely word from the Lord - pertaining ministry and my studies at the seminary. That night we went to Canning Garden Methodist Church for Saturday night service... then we supped with a dear friend, Wai Lim, who was back in Ipoh at the same time we were there.

...us before church that night...

...us at Foh San the next morning - for dim sum...

There's another famous Ipoh dim sum place right opposite Foh San - Ming Court. We will try that next time.

It was way crowded by 9am... So difficult to find a place to sit down. But thank God, we finally did. I have never been so gung ho in my life. Usually, I turn away from crowded places, no matter how good the food.

Time to tuck in!

Someone looked like he just woke up...

Yummy har-gou...

warm paos...and the very fragrant malaikou that I liked the last time I came...

We obviously ate more than I captured on photos... I got too busy eating that I stopped using the camera! Hehe. Here I was stuffed with dim sum to the brim...

In front of Foh San. Spot the me... :)

Our dear friends, Wai Lim and Yen Er who brought us around Ipoh...and introduced us to some good eats.

Among those, we tried 'Under The Tree's amazing Laksa with fried yong taufoo. Me likey...

Laksa tastes a little more sour compared to the one in Penang...I must say I prefer the one in Penang.

Toilet -stop on the way back to KL that afternoon...

The dedicated driver...and the vehicle (Ol' Grandfather Wira - may not look too old here, but it is old)

Was welcomed home by my lovely dad... he was especially pleased with his Christmas pressie from us too. Had dinner that night with him at a Jap restaurant dad brought me to last CNY along with Zoey... I love it that dad and Ben can have good long chats...and click well. Somehow I felt that this year, Ben's home-coming with me went much better than last year too... Not that anything bad happened last year (we had a blast last year, with Zoey around) - but I'm glad that Ben's so much more comfortable and at ease with my family now. Apparently, Ben became my home-bound uncle's good friend too, because uncle never stopped talking (very energetically too) whenever Ben's around :P

Dad whispered jokingly to me in one of those long conversations between uncle and Ben, "Poor Ben..." Haha. But Ben didn't mind la.

We drove off to Malacca the next morning. Stopped in Seremban for breakfast and to buy some green bean biscuits + the famous Seremban siew pao... yummers! Was supposed to meet up with my cousins... but it turned out that while it was Chiet Sern's off-day from ministry and STM, it was a working day for Siew Hong at the seminary... so we didn't get to meet up this time.

Then we made a trip to Port Dickson too...

It was time to hit the beach!

The sands of Port Dickson...

The beaches at Port Dickson were really much cleaner and nicer than we expected. I was in for a surprise actually, because the last time I came (dunno how many donkey years ago) it was really polluted. In fact, I was telling Ben that I didn't think we would need to stop in PD that long. I came to regret that we didn't have enough time to chill there...hehe.

We were at this nice lagoon next to Avillion Resort...which led out to the open sea.

So hot on the beach...I am surprised that I wasn't burnt to a crisp. I am glad I had sunscreen and my trusty PINK hat from Dublin :P... (you can tell that I was quite a fan of the colour pink back then)

We waded into the water... you can wade quite far out at this time of the day, and the water would still be up to your knees at most...with the small waves lapping gently at your legs...

Loved it...

Before we left the beach... *Sigh* We had a lovely time indeed!

Drove along the coastal road for a change (instead of the NS lebuhraya). Arrived in Malacca in the afternoon... Most pictures were taken by Ben except for those which he posed in (obviously). Since we only spent one night and one and a half day there, we didn't try out too much funky food, except for the famous chicken rice balls - hehe... but we focused more on the tourist attractions. We honestly think that 2 days weren't quite enough. We didn't even finish visiting ALL the museums (and there were many interesting ones indeed). Oh well, might return to Malacca some day :)

Our first meal in Malacca was at this small, roadside Chinese coffee-stall, where they served awesome fried rice... Yum! Obviously, I am not a good food blogger :P I don't even remember the place's name. I just remember where it is.

So pale, tired and hungry...

The streets in Malacca town...We walked along this one alot...

Still waiting for food...but it was worth the wait.

We walked alot in Malacca, because it was difficult to find parking lots. We mostly parked our car at one spot and walked till our legs were wobbly the next few days. Haha. Above and below: Ancient buildings along Church Street...beautiful, beautiful...

Part of Christ Church...

Queen Victoria fountain

In front of Christ Church MalaccaWe seemed to be doing alot of climbing all of a sudden...

The Stadthuys...

*huff, puff*

From Bukit St. Paul looking down...

A little more climbing and we've arrived at Porta de Santiego! (the only remaining gatehouse of the A'Famosa fortress which happens to be amongst the oldest European architectural remains in Asia.) You can read more about it here.

Lotsa uneven brick walls, tall structures and frankly, holes...

Doesn't the pattern of bricks on the wall remind you of a Giraffe? :)

...monuments and engraved tombstones. Couldn't make out what the words meant. *Grin*

I was wondering how they carved stones so nicely and delicately in those days... Give me a flat stone like that and a paraphernalia of carving tools, and I'd probably just make one unflattering pothole in the middle...

The tallest girl in the Fortress... ya rite!:P

...Peering down memory lanes, perhaps....

Sedepa :)

Interesting texture of the fort's walls... due to centuries of corrosion. I think if Trinity's walls had holes like that, we would be invaded by bees...One hole was bad enough.

I am not sure what this used to be... perhaps part of the cathedral...

At the main entrance of A Famosa fort.

Can't believe this used to be a ferocious weapon of war...

Bukit St. Paul...bustling with tourists even in the evening.

We took it into our heads to go for a boatride down Malacca River...even though the water was smelly. Here is Ben holding his nose. No offense to Malacca people :P but he wasn't exaggerating, people. The water was smelly in our opinion la. I can't imagine how some people can sit on the benches, enjoying the scenery and having to put up with the smell at the same time... Or eat in the open-air restaurants along the river:P - But then again, perhaps it's an acquired taste. I mean, acquired smell! You either like it or you don't.

Ben dreaded the idea of getting sprayed with the smelly water - but oh well, he was convinced to brave it with me :P

Before we went on the boat-trip... the Windmill...

Before the boat-ride started...

The jetty where we started off from...The boat-ride up+down Malacca River takes about 45 minutes. Not bad.

Some beautiful scenery along the banks of the river... Restaurants, houses, etc.

...and the walkway all along the river...At night, it is nicely lit up by lamps.

Another boat like the one we rode on coming in the opposite direction... we got smelly water splashed in our faces of course...peeeEeewwww.... We were fortunate that we weren't sitting front most...we had some 'shield' from the row of excited kids :P

Swamp

Nearing the end of our boat-trip...(Here, Ben heaved a sigh of relief:P and thought 'no more smelly water'. I heaved a sigh of relief and thought, 'I am starving!') But all in all, it was a good boat-ride.

After all that smelly water adventure, we rewarded ourselves with dinner at a Nyonya Restaurant somewhere off Jonker Street. The food was good!!! I am starting to like nyonya food. (And the pineapple tarts sold in a shop near this restaurant were awesome too!)

Tired, tired...but very satisfied.

Day 2 in Malacca - day of visiting MANY museums... We almost covered 'em all, including the tortura exhibition (pics not included).

At the Education Museum - this is the kind of bicycle teachers used to cycle to school - as they could not afford the more expensive modes of transportation back then. See the cane strapped to the basket at the back of the bike seat?!:P

I think it would be awesome if it was still safe enough to bike from Greenlane to Batu Feringghi for classes now. I'd definitely save alot of money on petrol.

Of course we had to take some pictures with Admirer Cheng Ho's statue outside the Malacca Cultural Museum...

Christian exhibition at Cheng Ho Museum. Thumbs up for this - it exhibits a gallery of pictures and information about the Christian movement in China, Christian missionaries who were martyred for their faith and other amazing stuff. One thing though - there was so much to see that I nearly fainted from hypoglycaemia (after all the walking throughout the day too). I'm serious. Had to sit down to keep myself from a black-out. See how pale I was in the picture?

By God's grace, I survived sucking on mints. One word of caution: Eat lunch before going for the exhibition next time.

I can't remember what this was - but I think it was to grind something. LOL.

Grinding rice...with the mortar and pestle...

buffalo that helped farmers in the paddy fields...

an ancient sewing machine

How the traders used to look with all their tea and spices... back when Sg. Melaka was used as a port...Brings back memories of Sejarah Tingkatan satu? :)

A sedan-chair for your typical bride in those days...lifted upon strong shoulders...

I am not sure how the bride exits the sedan chair... but it's definitely not in shorts, slippers and sleeveless tee, with handbag and mineral water bottle...and without a veil for the face :P

...trying to draw water from the well... (Perigi Hang Li Po?)

Yeeaaay! Succeeded.

Puppet show...

A gigantic sculpture of the giraffe, Admirer Cheng Ho brought from Africa to China...during one of his overseas travels... The sculpture was many times my height.

I can't remember how many storeys we had to climb just to see its head.

See how tall the sculpture was?

more history lessons...

Nice miniature ships...

Time to go home..

On our last day in KL, dad brought us to Duck King for lunch...It was our first time there...so none of us knew what to expect. But the food was really good. Hong Kong style... I liked it.

After lunch... it was time for some physical exertion to use up some energy before dinner...Ben decided that he would go and hunt for lizards in my garden :SAHhhhh.... Gotcha!!! (me shuddering behind the camera)

Lizard calmed down after a while...

...till Ben 'creatively' tried to make it climb up the bamboo-like plant... Lizard fell off when he tried to climb and was in shock for a while...

...Traumatized... After all that ordeal, Lizard did not even want to budge when he was put down... I guess he just wanted to feel the firm ground beneath his feeties...

Dad brought us to this marvellous seafood restaurant @ Wai Sek Kai, OUG... on our last night in KL. I at first balked at the idea of eating fish-head (have never been a fan of it) - but I decided after that night, that I might as well change my mind...

Ben and myself :)

The place was crowded with eager diners... we had to sit near the kitchen where all the exciting activities were happening :P

my beloved, handsome daddy...

He was chatting with Zoey online... (on his superb Nokia phone) - so I decided to ask sis if I could 'steal' away some of her belongings to take back to Penang with me. Hehe..thanks sis!:P

Ben: Eat, eat, eat...

Sorry to be gross... but the food was so good that I forgot to take any photos till we had finished attacking the food. The humongous fish-head steamed with garlic and ginger was fresh and delicious... and unlike any restaurant in Penang, the price for one meal was extraordinarily cheap. Only RM30-40 (somewhere in between). Dad, Ben and I were very satisfied. *burrrrp*

Anyways...we had a safe journey back to Penang.

Back in Penang's traffic jams, polluted air and hot weather...

Sunday: To Trinity church we go again...with rounder faces this time.