Feb. 15 - 16, 2014

What a wonderful country.  We flew into Penang, Malaysia (pop. 704 k, 45 mi. long) where Sarah and Yeang picked us up.  Of course we expected the heat, but the high mountains were a surprise and the amazing amount of building is incredible.  They are worried that a housing and commercial building bubble will occur.  They drove us to lunch first at a wonderful restaurant in the mall.

Then to Ch'ng's house (pix).

  

We've been eating at the hawker stalls that Lye Pheng and Seng, (Yeang's parents) know well throughout the area as well as wonderful bakeries and restaurants.  The food is some of the best, and Penang is listed as a food destination by Lonely Planet.  I cannot pronounce most of the names of the dishes but plan to get a cookbook to try and make some of the recipes.  Many are sweet which I love.  At the open market there is dragon fruit, dhurian, 2 kinds of mango, palmelo, purple taro, vegetables and fruit I cannot name, fish stalls with only the weight listed for the whole fish since everyone recognizes fish, huge sides of beef, whole plucked chickens to show how fresh and to allow customers to name their own cut.  We're surrounded with smells and busyness.  We watch the preparations for the food in large hot woks and curbside washing of the dishes.

  White Coffee is their signature coffee.  The waiter puts sugar in the bottom, adds strong thick coffee poured on top, and blends in milk.  You can control the sweetness by how much you stir the coffee.  I loved it.  No doubt we are gaining weight as much of the activity is around meals.

 Our next day we visited their Buddhist temple to pay respects to Seng's (Yeang's father) brother who died about 100 days ago.  His widow was there and children.  Each ancestor can purchase a scroll that is left in the temple on the wall.  Incense is burned as homage to the spirit.  Everywhere there are small temples or places to burn incense and candles for the spirits. Fruit is left on the tables.

  Sean, Lye Pheng's brother, then guided us around the World Heritage Site of the Chinese and Indian sides of Chullia road Area 1.  We walked to the jetties where there are homes on the piers and fishing or small motor boats used as ferries for the bigger boats in the harbor. 

  The old architecture is trying to be preserved but it is quite difficult with the deterioration that occurs in tropical climates.  He showed us many of the trades and skills that are still performed by generations of Chinese like the cutting of signs to hang with Chinese letters or forging anchors, or art in the galleries.  Restaurants are everywhere with inexpensive food.  With the heat and inexpensive food available few people eat at home.

Yeang and Sarah drove us up the west side of the island to Ferelinggi.  We visited the butterfly farm where they have a huge butterfly area but also raise butterflies, chrysalises, and cocoons as another profit center.  They sort and hang them before they change into butterflies.  We ate lunch at a Muslim town near a mosque that was having Friday service, and we listened to the minaret blaring out Arabic words over the whole town.  A variety of colorfully dressed muslims rode by on bicycles to the mosque.

We watched the hand made batik clothes process at a batik store.  Amazingly simple but requires great skill with special tools, wax then colors hand painted on the fabric - silk and cotton.

Traffic is thick in the city and out of the city on the mountain roads that are dramatically twisty-turny.

  The Ch'ng parties are going to be Saturday night and Sunday night.  The pink and white pointed tent went up on the side lawn.  Most members of the family are flying in or live here.  We are learning all the family names.  One night when 14 members came over for desert I had to go up to bed early and Drew stayed up.  I was sad I hadn't met everyone until I came down the next morning and heard about all the women surrounding (flirting) with Drew, charmer that he is. We are having such a good time.  Temperatures are about 90 every day, little breeze and instead of wind chill they have heat feel of 105 degrees.  It's hot.

Feb. 16 the large family and friend dinner the night before the tea ceremony was at the Chinese Cultural Center.

Feb. 17  the day of the tea ceremony.  Everyone wears red.  Yeang's parents are honored first and the people of his family.  Then us as Sarah's parent.  We sit and they serve us tea simply saying here is your tea.  We honor them with red envelopes with a little money and everyone who is in the tea ceremony gives them jewelry that they put on Sarah or envelopes.  Yeang wore a red brocade mandarin collared shirt as did all the men.  And he also had a cap with long Chinese braids.  The party was catered with all the best Chinese food again. 

Feb. 18

Sean, Lye Peng's brother took us around to the Botanical Gardens and two of the large temples, lying down Buddha and standing Buddha.  We ate at lunch at an Indian restaurant drinking delicious iced sweet lime tea.  When we came home we found Vivien, Lye Pheng's sister, and others preparing an amazing dinner, abalone, spareribs, fish, duck pate, Chinese sausage, vegetables,  and more.  Definitely we will be making a trip to Chinatown in Boston when I get home now that I sort of know what to buy.

Feb 19:  Wednesday our last day here -- we tried to pack up including some of Sarah and Yeang's gifts to bring back since they are on their scuba diving honeymoon.  We went to lunch and had pink, blue, green, orange, yellow foods and drinks.  Can't even tell you the names of the delicious cakes, meat pies, and vegetables.  More later. 

Feb. 20  In Weihiki Island, New Zealand with our friends Hilary and Will Jandl.  Slept until 2 in the afternoon after a 15 hour trip from Singapore to Sydney to Auckland.  In the Singapore airport we visited a butterfly garden where they dumped out a variety of chrysalises that were sent from the Butterfly Farm we visited in Penang!  They reglue the cocoons or chrysalis  to metal bars and hang them in a netted cage until they hatch.  The butterflies go all over the screened garden.  We also visited the cactus garden with a nice bar.  It was a nice 6 hour stopover.

In Weihiki we took a walk along the beach, swam, body surfed, and had a nice dinner - Hilary is an excellent cook.

Feb. 23 -  down to the South Island to Queenstown near Milford Sound.  Again a wonderful place to stay - Queenstown Park Boutique Hotel.  Climbed up Queenstown hill gaining a 360 degree view of all the mountain scenery.  These are huge new spiked mountain - rugged and rocky.  The next day we flew to Milford Sound, a fjord in a large national park.  Lots and lots of pictures from the plane and boat.  Hundreds of waterfalls.  Then we were flown to Glenorky to take a speed boat ride up the Dart River along a valley that again is out of a movie set.  Much of Lord of the Rings, Hobbit land, and other movies with stunning scenery are filmed in this area.  We took a walk in the woods guided to a tree where 10 of us got inside a still living hollowed out tree. 

Feb. 27  flew back to Auckland, picked up a rental car and drove up to the Bay of Islands in the North Island, took a 2 minute ferry across to Russell, New Zealand to stay at a BnB Onarunu Harding House.  This Victorian house was moved 185 Km and restored here in this quaint town.  Ate a great meal at the Wharf on the waterfront overlooking Paihia where they give you a very hot stone with a steak that Drew cooked himself exactly the amount he wanted it cooked.  Of course Drew likes it super rare - so another perfect meal accompanied by New Zealand sweet potato mash and horseradish.  I had tempura calamari and salad.  The next day we walked the beautiful beach, had beach side crepes and experienced a beach natural.

  Today we ferried over to the place where the English hoodwinked the indigenous  tribes into signing a treaty in 1840 to begin the country of New Zealand. The tribal show was fun and the sticking out of the tongue in a show of ugly force (they were originally canibals) was well done. Throughout the country there are tribal names and Maori words like our Native American names.  As we eat out each night Drew named this part of our trip "traveling on $700 a day."

Tomorrow, March 1, we go back to Weihiki.  This writing is the quick one so I have the itinerary loaded down.  I'll go back and edit with pix and better writing I hope.  I haven't described the flowers and birds and quiet and wind and beach sand and hill walks and mountain tops and weather and views.  Down under at 35 degrees south the temperature is 70.  At 45 degrees south it was about 60.  It is a great celebration of our 10th year together.  How lucky we are.