Odysseys of George

A new year is coming – the year 2008! It is a year, for me, full of test and tribulations. Somehow, I am happy and enthusiastic to face the coming year. A year full of events and surprises. 2007 started rather slow with a lot of hesitation. It gained momentum towards the mid year and the last few months were extremely eventful times of my life. I have managed to gain parts of me that were lost in turmoil thanks to the many friends and family.

Now, the year has come to an end and for me a new chapter begins. Come 2008 in whatever way you can, I shall face you and seize every day to its fullest. And even if I were to fall, there would still be some success within it!

To Ruban, you will always be the light of my life.
To my family, I thank you and ask for your never failing support.
To my friends, may we create more stories and come closer in friendship in the year to come. More facebook friends and pirate fights – Arrrgh!
To my diver friends, lets dive more – if I have the cash!
To the one special person, I hope that all goes well for the both of us.

So, for all you readers out there, friends and family, loved ones, enjoy this cake specially baked and decorated by my dear sister, Susan.

Happy New Year 2008

The main Christmas celebrations were actually done on the eve of Christmas. Christmas celebrations were at a small scale only among family with a homemade delicious fruit cake toast with wine! Then this followed by the exchange of gifts! The kids were excited.

If my eldest sister, Susan was around it would have been more cheerful and there would definitely be some singing session going on! We miss her greatly and her family too! I am sure her kids would have enjoyed the outings with me! She made cakes too but since we could not taste it, I will put it up for all my blog readers to share and salivate looking at it for New Year!

Mua doing the honours with seriousness! Gosh!

Dad doing the toast for a great year ahead

Tristan resembling the dinosaur

The kids toys – actually all that belongs to one of them! Ok not the magazine!

Mua cracking my head on how to convert the Transformer robot into a car!

So much for Christmas! A small simple Christmas!

Well, the next day saw excited faces waiting for their uncle to get up from bed. The moment I got myself ready for breakfast, the kids were salivating for an action day ahead! So this is what we did!

The main town – still looks the same.

Balai Nobat
This 18 metre-tall and 5 metre-wide three-tiered octagonal tower sole purpose is to keep all the royal musical instruments including the serunai (wooden flute), nafiri, gendang (drum) and gong, which is known as nobat. This nine-piece musical set is comprised of three drums, a gong, two flutes, two instruments called the cheng-cheng, and a trumpet-like instrument called the Nafiri, which produces the haunting strains of nobat music. The skills to play nobat music and these instruments are passed down from father to son, and the person who is incharged to play these instruments called Orang Nobat. Nobat are played for specific ceremonies such as royal installations, deaths and other official ceremonies.

Masjid Zahir
Officially opened in 1912, this state Mosque is an architectural landmark as it is one of the largest and grandest mosques in Malaysia, built in the tradition of the Moorish architecture.

Balai Rong Seri or Balai Besar (Grand Audience Hall)
Built in 1735 by the 19th Sultan of Kedah, Sultan Muhammad Jiwa Zainal Adilin Muazzam Shah, this was a lovely building with wood pillars, roofs and flooring. This is truly a beautiful building. I managed to get inside once when our first PM, Tunku Abdul Rahman died and his funeral service was conducted here.

The Silver Jubilee Fountain – built when our beloved King, HRH Tuanku Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah,celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his reign.

National Art Gallery

The State Museum – I must say I was impressed with this museum.

The Rice Museum – recently built

To complete this trip, we decided to go to Gunung Keriang. Gunung Keriang is a distinct outcrop in the middle of flat padi land.

It is here that they sell crystals from Gunung Keriang.

The cave opening/entrance at Gunung Keriang

The hike up Gunung Keriang to reach a platform almost atop the mountain, as shown below.

The view from the the top of Gunung Keriang

And the walk down ( My sister, Saji, her husband carrying Keisha, while she assist Pattrena down)

At the end of this day, I realized I was getting too old too fast! Was I tired! But that did not stop me from taking them to the playground with a dilapidated lake near the stadium.

Then it started to rain! Yahoo! Time to go home!

Thank God the next day was Christmas!

Wow, it has been years since I wondered around my hometown like this. This time, I was taking my niece and nephews to show them around the place I call home, the place that made me who I am, my beloved birthplace, Alor Setar.

They, were happy to see me arrive but angry that I arrived late. There were four of them, Ethan and Tristan, my second sister, Saji’s kids were in Alor Setar a week earlier. Now, they had Pattrena and Sherman,my third sister, Sherly’s kids to join them. ( Saji and Sherly are twins!)
The house suddenly became noisy and loud. My mom so used to peace and quiet was getting a little irritated. Solution to the matter – take the kids out of the house! It was great! I manage to savour my fond memories.

We did many things in two days. It started at our Menara Alor Setar, a mimic to the KL Towers.

Going up the lift and giving them a preview of what to expect from Alor Setar.

Tristan(Spidy T-shirt), Pattrena, Ethan and Sherman(standing in front)

Boys will be boys!

Then, I took them to a playground just before the Royal Golf Club, in the vicinity of Taman Lumba Kuda.

They played their hearts out and got thirsty, so we stopped at a nearby stall to have some drinks.

Before we head back home for a late lunch, (made sure they were extremely hungry), it was time to show of my Alma Mater, Sultan Abdul Hamid College , the college that breeds scholars, sportsman and gentleman, since 1908.

One of the many reasons why I love my College is for the many beautiful old large trees growing alongside the road as if cozily welcoming you in.

Our canteen area

Our Library named after one of our ex-headmasters which is also the name of my school sports team. There were other sports team but Stuart wore the red tee!

That afternoon, I took them for a swim at the public swimming pool beside the stadium.

That is Keisha standing at edge of the pool. The youngest in Ethans family.

I was beat by the end of that day! It is not easy entertaining a group of kids! I slept soundly and happy with those memories. Little did I realize that my special friend, was also going down memory lane as she journeyed her way back to her parents village in the depths of Sarawak!

Left to Alor Setar at 10.30am. My sister, Sherly and her kids were in the car with me. It was a going to be a Christmas reunion with some members of the family missing namely my eldest sister, Susan and her family, Raja, Suraj and Sara and just another person, Ruban.

I am not good at long distance drive and have difficulty keeping my eyes wide open having to stop many times before reaching destination. Thank goodness my sister drove part of the drive back home.

We met some Harley bikers and later some antic bikers.

Then we hit the lush green padi fields – my home state, Kedah, which is the rice bowl for the country. The calmness of the padi fields is what I miss the most of my hometown. As I drive down to the capital city, Alor Setar, the air gently whispers into my ear, “Welcome home, my son!” I raise a smile, and memories of those golden days came back. I still love my hometown.

As Christmas was heading along, there was an invite to see the famous Juwita Suwito perform at Bangkok Jazz, KL. The invite was from Wagner, if I got his name correct, Marlene’s cousin, a drummer for Juwita. But before I continue, who is Juwita Suwito? What! You really don’t know!

Well, Juwita Suwito is a Melaka-born, Indonesian-Singaporean descend jazz singer who is also the vocal coach in Malaysian Idol. She recorded a demo which ended up being Akademi Fantasia’s theme song, “Menuju Puncak”. Juwita Suwito has also just been announced as the country winner for the 2007 International Music Awards in the Best Female Solo Artist category. Her recent release “Juwita Suwito for Real!” is set to be a hit!

So how was it? Well, I enjoyed it. She sang well. I have always loved to go for such things. And at that, I was thinking about my eldest sister, Susan, who loves this form of entertainment too!
I would miss her for Christmas reunion.

Here are some pictures and hopefully a video!

That is Juwita

Wagner, the drummer.

Part of the band

Wagner, Marlene’s cousin. Thanks for the invite, Wagner.

And a video clip I took. Did not do justice to the real thing!

And this is from her webpage