Pesta Tanglung, birthday party and Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration 2012

姐姐 received a memo from her school teacher there's an event the children could attend. It's Pesta Tanglung 中秋提灯晚会 organized by the local DUN. Since she wanted to go, we decided to join her too, all four of us.

It was only after that 弟弟 got invitation to his music class friend's birthday party. Since he wanted some social life, it's decided I will bring him to his friend's party and 爸爸 will bring 姐姐 to Pesta Tanglung.

Wah, on this day our logistic is really exhausting. 姐姐 going to tuition, bringing  弟弟 to see Chinese physician (Kang Min at Batu Lanchang), 姐姐 to ballet class. Phew, we're late here and there due to heavy traffic.

弟弟 at Alicia's birthday party. He had lots of fun, and it's good that he's not shy around other kids he didn't know. Alicia's parents had a Mr Clown to entertain the kids and they played games too.

弟弟 with Mr Clown, and 弟弟 with music class teacher Ms Sherlene and her bf

Playing musical chairs. All the kids got cute stickers as reward :)

Birthday girl got a beautiful Hello Kitty cake, wow :)

姐姐 at Pesta Tanglung. It's considered a school related event, so all the children are requested to wear the school event attire, which is school t-shirt, school shorts and school shoes. Start point is at Sum Sun primary school.

She got a red lantern from the event, and eating the bun given.

They walk from Sum Sun primary school to Taman Free School. Wah!

Lion dance 舞狮，猜灯谜 Lantern riddles. I love these 2 猜灯谜 photos!

Dragon dance 舞龙 at the temple at Taman Free School

Later she told us they walked from Sum Sun primary school to the temple, crossing a big big longkang as someone asked them to take shortcut. Luckily it's not me taking her. We went to fetch them at 10:30pm and it ended ~10 minutes after we reached. 爸爸 say luckily they didn't drive and park at the school, otherwise have to walk back there since the leaflet didn't mention they will gather at Taman Free School :P

Not forgetting the mooncakes we had throughout the week. This year we bought a box from Baker's Cottage brand to try. These 2 kids finish up all the mooncakes whenever we put them out. So no photo except borrowed photo of the special snow-skin mooncake done by Thung and JH's mom :) Yummy! We got both the red bean and lotus paste filling with Hello Kitty and Doraemon designs hehehe! 姐姐 loved the lotus paste filling, 弟弟 and I loved the red bean paste filling. Thank you for the lovely dessert!!!

Delicious cartoon snow skin mooncake done by Thung and JH's mom :)

On Sunday it's their last class at the art centre's main branch. 弟弟's kindy was closed for 10 days due to HFM prevention. So their class was moved to the main branch temporarily. Luckily it's temporary as I would have a hard time to drop them or pick them up as the traffic around main branch is heavier. They take some photos as momento as we won't be back so soon :)

Both of them with wall mural of Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story) and White Rabbit (Alice In Wonderland)

One of 弟弟's favourite wall mural - Mater (Cars) and Captain America

Last but not least, a drawing by 姐姐 (her homework, drawn at school and coloured at home) about Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节. Oops, when I crop the drawing to size, somehow the word "快”was cut out :P

Mid-Autumn Festival drawing

Met Hapeebury and Cadbury Happiness Crew at Penang Perfect Livin 2012

Oh Hapeebury is sooo cute! Hapeebury is the mascot for Cadbury and the Happiness Crew visited Perfect Livin at Penang just as we are there. 弟弟 is so excited to see Hapeebury and nearly pushed him over,  luckily he didn't. Seems like the Happiness Crew is at PISA for only 30 minutes. For taking photo with Hapeebury, the children get extra chocolate samples hehehe.

Hapeebury :)

This photo was in Cadbury's photo album in their facebook :P, taken by their crew

The children joined colouring contest again. This time the organizer had them use colour pencils provided. They didn't do very well, the other kids turned out really good work :P Their reward for participating - chocolate bars when Hapeebury visited :)

Their completed colouring

As for the Perfect Livin fair, it's a surprise there are so many mattresses and beds that are displayed. And direct sales stuff like pots, pans, electric stoves. The stoves section are doing really hard-sell until we couldn't stop them talking. Inside they have all sorts of electric appliances. It was raining when we reached so there's not that many people as published in the newspaper, not much of a queue at all to register.

Somehow the children loved the sling bag we got at registration counter. Now it's the bag they drag around the house collecting toys and other stuff :P

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.