Category: Festivals

Perfect Penang day

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Last Wednesday was a public holiday in Malaysia (it was Merdeka (independence) day and we’ve now been here for three of these holidays!) so we decided to spend the day in Penang. We left Ipoh early and got to the China House cafe in George Town in time for morning tea. We wandered around the Armenian Street part of the old town before lunch at the quiet Cafe 55 in Lorong Stewart, where we enjoyed an interesting conversation with our Filipina waitress. By then the sun was high and we retreated to the cool of our lovely room at 23 Love Lane, a beautifully restored boutique hotel (http://www.23lovelane.com/). After a rest under the whirring ceiling fan, we walked along the waterfront and ended up at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel where we indulged in an early cocktail. A walk back to the hotel in the rain, detouring to explore some of the lanes in the area, gave us an appetite for some dinner, which we had at our favourite Italian restaurant Via Pre. After a good sleep and a quick breakfast, we were on the road south and back Ipoh in time for the day’s work.

Happy Valentine’s Day

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Valentine’s Day breakfast with my daughters on a beautiful summer’s morning in Auckland – possibly the best way to spend the day despite being thousands of miles away from my valentine. Delicious pancakes with plums, raspberries and almond slivers served on Granny’s china in the garden.

Home for the summer

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Pohutukawa, black beach sand, waves breaking off the point, lamb on the barbecue, sauvignon blanc in the fridge. We are going home for the summer! After completing our second year in Ipoh, we’re ready for a Kiwi Christmas and spending time with our girls, our family and our friends. Only two more sleeps!

Merdeka

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Today Malaysians are celebrating independence (merdeka) day and the Jalur Gemilang is flying from buildings, fences, gates and even from people’s cars. Yesterday we popped into a shopping centre to get a few things from the supermarket and happened to see a charming performance by a group of children – little boys and girls, representing the three major groups that make up the Malaysian population, wearing traditional costumes. They were standing in a row and singing (or rather shouting) the national anthem with great enthusiasm.  This was also the day that thousands of Malaysians, here and overseas, donned yellow t-shirts and peacefully demonstrated their opposition to the present government’s handling of the country’s economy. As interested onlookers, we admire their patriotism and bravery.

Weddings

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You see notices like this at many intersections around Ipoh. They may include arrows to show wedding guests where to go. This is one of the more elaborate ones I’ve seen. Often they are simpler (like the one below) and may or may not involve tinsel. But they always include the names of the bride and groom and some indication  of where the celebration is being held.  ‘Majlis perkahwinan’ means ‘wedding reception’ and this is followed by the names of the pair to be married, the date of the reception and where it is to be held. I presume that this practice has arisen because finding one’s way around the city is not easy. Locals often don’t know the names of the roads, many of which now have different names from the colonial names of the past. We’ve become like locals in that we find our way and give directions using landmarks rather than  addresses.

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Tet

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Because Chinese New Year is a four-day weekend in Malaysia, we took the opportunity to fly to Da Nang in Vietnam, where they were celebrating Tết Nguyên Đán. This is the lunar new year celebration and the biggest festival of the year for the Vietnamese. Every street was festooned with flags and every doorway flanked by huge pots of yellow chrysanthemums. In the evening of the first day of the new year, we walked along the river where hundreds of people had gathered in family groups. They were taking photographs in front of banks of yellow flowers and the goat statues that lined the walkways. They had obviously dressed up for the occasion and many children were wearing traditional outfits, like the cute little boy in the pic below. There were street vendors selling food, ice creams and balloons (see pic above). It was a vibrant scene that we were pleased to be part of. Some of the children called out “Hello! Where’re you from?” so clearly we didn’t fit in at all!

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Chinese New Year

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It’s coming up to our second Chinese New Year celebrations in Malaysia. Soon we will proceed from the year of the horse to the year of the goat. We’ve just spent a few days in KL and were struck by the buzz created by this festival. The shopping centre near our hotel had stalls selling everything from baked goods to large ceramic goats in all the mezzanine areas. The crowds were dense and there was an air of excitement. Outside our hotel, musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments and dancers flourishing fans performed on a raised platform. Almost every shop has special Chinese New Year windows and promotions guaranteeing prosperity. All sorts of  things will bring you prosperity: eating a mandarin, planting a kumquat tree, serving your guests long noodles. McDonalds Malaysia even has a “prosperity burger”!

2015

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Happy New Year to all the readers of my blog. Thank you for keeping in touch via the blog and using other online means – it has made my first year living away from New Zealand less alienating. We spent New Year’s Eve on the Auckland waterfront with our children and so 2015 got off to a good start. Hope you had similar happy celebrations. All the very best to all of you!

Going home for Christmas

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Four more sleeps till we leave for New Zealand to spend the Christmas and New Year period with our girls, other family members and friends. We have been watching the weather forecasts and it seems that summer has not yet begun in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Does this bother us? No! We have had a whole year of hot, humid weather and a few cool, grey days will be welcome. We keep talking about the things we’re going to do – hug the children, walk along a sandy beach, ride some waves (wearing a wetsuit of course), barbecue some lamb, drink cold dry sauvignon blanc, revel in the long light evenings, hug the children. Can’t wait!

Christmas in Malaysia

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Because Malaysia is a Muslim country, I thought Christmas would go by without much fuss. I was wrong! We spent the weekend at KLCC and there are Christmas decorations everywhere, including a huge tree inside the Suria shopping centre (see pic). The shops are all playing Christmas music – “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” seems even more absurd in Malaysia than it does in New Zealand’s summer. One of the more unusual sights was a women veiled from head to toe in black posing in front of the tree for her husband (in shorts, t-shirt and jandals) to take a photograph. He motioned to her to move so he could be sure to get in the Santa and the pile of presents. I guess that is what it’s all about – another retail opportunity for the shop-owners. Judging by the number of people in the centre, they’re onto something!