Penang 2010

Back to Penang. It feels like home.

After having lived here for the past 4 years, I am starting to blend into the culture, people, life, road etiquette and etc of the land. My Hokkien vocab has increased tremendously from day 1 - I can sorta understand sermons in Hokkien or the conversations around me now by stringing together the handful of words I know. Of course I still get stuck when I try speaking the dialect - much to the amusement of my Hokkien-speaking friends - but oh at least, I'm taking baby steps. I am now trying to speak Hokkien to the local vendors and shopkeepers nowadays rather than Mandarin or Cantonese, English or Malay. Haha.

Perhaps this is how it feels like being a long-term missionary in a foreign land. A little. I really miss my loved ones back in KL/Subang - and I still get nostalgic revisiting those good ol' familiar places of my childhood days. But gosh - while the one week break away from Penang was a fantastic one, (oh believe me) I felt really out of place back in KL. Everything felt foreign and big. Strangely unfamiliar (what with the new roads and flyovers). I got lost many times. The shopping centres are HUGE (and continuing to grow).

In fact, I felt a little like a tourist. Dad even brought us to eat stuff I never used to eat when I lived there, hehe.

I am actually looking forward to WORK on Monday... excited too.

Having said that, it was a very refreshing holiday. I look forward to going back to Subang for the Chinese New Year hols.