Penang State's 55th Merdeka Parade and Celebration (2012)

All for the sake of an assignment from Mandarin teacher to write a piece of short essay (写话) on Merdeka parade and celebration in Penang :) We thought it'll be super crowded but it's a reasonable-sized crowd. We parked at a food court's carpark and they charge us RM3. Not too bad, it's just a short walk to Esplanade where the Merdeka celebration is to be held. Even though it's stated to start at 8:30am and we're a little late, we still had to wait for the parade to start.

While walking to the main stage where the activity is, we saw that all the marching teams were ready, I think they were there since early morning. The final ones queued from the MPPP building until the first teams around the roundabout. Wow, in the hot sun too. If our children join school band or school uniformed units later in secondary school, maybe they'd be part of the parade :P Long time away but who knows. We didn't see the VIPs like TYT or our CM, but it's ok, we're here for the parade :)

Goofing away while waiting

弟弟 keep asking to take photos with policemen :P

The school bands were good, can see their discipline, consistency and sincerity. They were much better than some of the agencies :P Of course the uniform units were good too, just no music :)

Army teams and army fan

Some of the bands

Teams with mascots

The motorcyles

 See the guy behind 弟弟? He was lying on the road to take photos :)

The Proton cars (haha!) and emergency vehicles

While 爸爸 take good shots of the children, I was standing on a plastic chair at one of the tents for guests snapping away. Unfortunately none of them turned out any good. Wasted my 1 hour plus of standing :(

Since it's almost 11am, we went for brunch, again at China House. This time we tried the breakfast menu. We had their big breakfast and omelette. Both were very good! The cheese bread that is served with big breakfast is really good, yum! The rest of the big breakfast is good too. The children had roast plum & blackberry cake, and blueberry tart. But the cafe latte I ordered seemed stronger than what I'm used to, and I didn't feel well after having brunch :(

弟弟 was pouting as he felt his drawing is not nice :P

姐姐's finished plants drawing. The omelette is delicious!

The next day, we visited Book Xcess bookfair. The children attend the colouring contest there. The organizer provided 8-colour crayon and didn't allow the children to use their own. They were not used to the crayon given as its colour doesn't transfer well to paper, oops. But some other kids still manage to produce quite good results. Too bad 姐姐 and 弟弟 were not creative enough :P

弟弟 working on his colouring

Oops too dull :P

On Sunday, there wasn't much activity planned. We had one surprise during dinner. Unexpectedly we got 2 free kids meal with our pizza meal at Pizza Hut. 姐姐 requested for the spaghetti carbonara and 弟弟 got the kid's pizza. Well, he ate 2 pcs of it and hopped over to the new Super Pan Pizza with Cheese and Garlic Napoli Sauce.

Eat, eat, eat... so full!

They are just posing :)

Going around for Marking George Town and Mirrors George Town

(Long post with photos ahead)

This day, we planned food but not activity. We parked our car near China House. But as we're early for dinner (we made reservations this time!), we went around the nearby streets to take photos of the Marking George Town (or also called George Town Wall Sculptures by Sculptureatwork), and Mirrors George Town - some nice outdoor paintings around the area done by Ernest Zacharevic. In fact I only got to know the names after looking up Penang Global Tourism facebook page. How's being a tourist at your own home? :) That's us!

There are soooooo many people going around and taking photos at the Heritage area. Everyone was doing their funny, crazy poses happily. We only found several spots nearby. Loved the nice colours in the photos, they were just taken by our phone cameras. There's this charm with the markings that blended with the heritage buildings. The lanes are really narrow, so it's best to park at the main road and go around on foot. Some folks rented bikes and cycled. If one wanted to cover all the Markings George Town, it's all over the town :) The maps shared by Penang Global Tourism here, here and here (from other blogs).

These are from the iphone

The painting at Lebuh Armenian that was "restored" after being vandalized. This became very famous and had one of the longest queues for photo-taking :)

Too Narrow at Lorong Soo Hong.

Procession at Lebuh Armenian

See them so happy posing at this trishaw, this seems to be a prop and many people were taking photos here too

Yap Temple. Blend of Western and Chinese influence architecture. Amazing!

Lebuh Cannon, opposite Khoo Kongsi entrance

Escape at Lebuh Acheh

Another entrance for Khoo Kongsi, this one is on Beach Street. They look happy in photo, but were actually squabbling during taking photo about who jabbed who etc.

Lebuh Ah Quee

There's another part of the painting along Lebuh Ah Quee but the children are tired and asked to go for dinner by this time

Another batch of photos from Samsung, these are taken by 爸爸. Sigh, I think he takes better pictures la.

Lebuh Armenian

Too Narrow at Lorong Soo Hong

Procession at Lebuh Armenian

Yap Temple

Lebuh Cannon

Escape at Lebuh Acheh

Sin Kang Khoo Kongsi

Lebuh Ah Quee

It took us 40 minutes just to walk around the area and stopping for photos covering the sections of Armenian Street, Cannon Street, Acheh Street, Beach Street and a little of Ah Quee Street.  Those who can't walk far, maybe can take the trishaw ride :) We'll be back after school exams to cover more of Markings George Town and Mirror George Town, driving and walking some part of the way.

Map from China House. The street names are very useful.

Dinner at China House. The big attraction is for the children as they get a big canvas to draw while waiting for food.

弟弟 working on his drawing. The macchiato and cappucino we ordered. Photo is taken with iphone.

Courtyard at China House

Photo is taken with Samsung

姐姐 working on her drawing

弟弟's finished drawing

姐姐's finished drawing. She said it's her comic.

Dinner at China House. Look at the monstrous beef ribs :P

Seems like the dinner menu is not so suitable for us. 姐姐 loved the meatballs but not really like the spaghetti. It's got a ketchup taste, maybe to cater for children (it's from the kids' menu)? 弟弟 loved the chicken fingers he ordered, and 姐姐 finished up the mash potato portion and also took some of the mash sweet potato from our dishes. For adults, 爸爸 had Parmesan Chicken Schnitzel which he liked. I had beef ribs. I thought it'll be like a couple of small cutlets. Oh the biggest mistake I made. It's soooo huge and is served with a bone. I'm not sure if we're expected to taste the bone haha. I felt like Flintstone with this huge bone and huge plate on my table :D But the tangy salad and mash sweet potato is delicious. Next time we must come for breakfast or lunch as the menu seem more suitable for our taste buds :) Reservations are required at China House it seems, they don't really do the walk-ins very well (remember there is no place left for us yesterday without reservation?). We were standing around and no one directed us to any table until we spoke first to one of their staff. And how would you know if it's a staff since they are not wearing any uniforms? Upstairs they have an art gallery, with paintings and sculptures for sale. The children very much wanted to be back as they did not get a taste of the cakes yet. And so we will be back some day.

Sad to see the news that one painting of a little boy that is part of Mirrors George Town was vandalised even before I publish this post. Last week the cycling siblings painting was also vandalised but saved by two kind siblings.

Penang International Chinese Book Expo 2012 and An Evening of Lights August 2012 @ Khoo Kongsi

On the last day of school, 姐姐 bring back a discount voucher for the Penang International Chinese Book Expo 2012 which is going to be held at PISA during the August school holidays. See, that's how they will drive more traffic to their event. So of course we have to go look-see. Quite a big fair, but not very interested. There's mostly China/Taiwan books. The few stalls near the entrance is full of people, but the ones further down is so empty. I didn't realize some of the people are stall minders as no one is in uniform and no one has a tag! They should make the staff wear badges and official t-shirts. Another part I didn't like is, most stalls didn't have proper price labels, except for the ones in RM1 or RM5 pile (with the big sign only). If the book is from China and had a China RMB pricing on the back cover, they will charge that in RM, before giving the marked discount of 30% or so. I cannot shop when I don't know the price clearly, so even though some books are interesting, we decided to forgo. Except 姐姐 just had to have something since she got the discount voucher. So I got her a princess sticker book (yet again!). To think we initially came because she wanted to get a Chinese-English dictionary for school.

Only 弟弟 took photo with 乐龙龙. 姐姐 said "I already know how to draw 乐龙龙, no need to take photo"

At the Astro 小太阳 counter, both 姐姐 and 弟弟 fill up a form to get a free notepad and 小太阳 stickers. Strange thing is they are required to have their photo taken by the Astro staff with numbered sticker(not sure for what purpose??). Initially 弟弟 got a DVD and 姐姐 got a notepad, but 弟弟 wants to have the same thing as 姐姐. There seems to be no such thing as sharing variety between themselves, sigh...  After surfing around Astro小太阳 facebook page, only I found out there's suppose to be games counter, just that the kids didn't ask to play :P

弟弟's photo taken by Xiao Tai Yang team

姐姐's photo taken by Xiao Tai Yang team

At night, we went to check out An Evening of Lights @ Khoo Kongsi. Organized by Penang Global Tourism it's part of the events for last Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the month. Usually there's an entrance fee visiting Khoo Kongsi, but for this occasion it's free. However only the courtyard is open, the temple and museum is closed. There's Chinese cultural music for August 2012. We thought we'd just watch a few performance and go for dinner later, as the event is suppose to be from 7:30 - 9:30pm. We reach after 8pm, but the show has not started. It only started around 8:30pm.

Khoo Kongsi temple in its lighted glory

Oops my attempt is not good

爸爸 has takes better photo, I have to admit :P

The arduous climb to stand on the edge of the temple :P

弟弟 is that a grin?!

Oh dear, 弟弟 is making face

This looks better

No, no, children, it's not a slide. I hope you don't get into trouble for doing this!!

The stage. See, no performance yet.

Trying to be artistic here :)

After photos, we ordered some satay to try while waiting for programme to start. There's satay, char koay teow, hokkien mee and drinks stall around the courtyard (and trinkets stalls too). However even after finishing the plate of satay, 弟弟 keep pestering us for more food, and we had to cut our visit short. Only in the newspaper the next day we saw there are more shows and dances. Too bad we missed it!  We just saw the first performance of Chinese instrument ensemble :P

More photos before we leave, can't resist :)

The lion statue, there is actually a pair, but people are sitting around so not able to take with the pair

Cannon Square

Later we went to China House as a few friends mention the fun atmosphere there. Hm, they were full to brim so not able to try. The staff that attended to us recommended to make a reservation for next time. Since no one's going to cook this weekend, we ended up at US Pizza :P All the big hawker centers we passed by at Weld Quay and Sungai Pinang looked so crowded!

We took one photo at Lebuh Ah Quee, night mode. Can you imagine there's still tourists trying to take photos of this painting still?

Lebuh Ah Quee at night