A night at a charity event.

Now that we are in our final weeks in China our sister Siew Yih invited us to a wine tasting / charity event. They were working to raise money for an orphanage, so we dressed up all nice and headed over to hang out with Yih and Allen and support a good cause.

Yih and I at the start of the night.

They had a sampling of wines from the Hope Estate in Australia, and one of their wine makers came up to explain how their wines are made and what to pair with which kinds of food. The followed this presentation with some dancers.

Then a quick raffle of items - wines and a wine fridge, and back to the dancers.

After that the organized a auction of more wines. Overall they ended up getting about 30,000 RMB (4,400 USD), and one of the guys that bid on a magnum bottle of a nice wine just popped it open and shared it with most of the guests. It was a good time.

Nice, Sara, and Tina enjoying the evening.
A photo of Sara, myself, and Nice.

After that fun, Tina and I decided that we needed to head over to the Oriental Pub, since it was one of the places we used to go when we first moved here and there is not a lot of time remaining for us to visit all of the places we still want to see.

Well, that sounded good but when we got out of the taxi we ran into some of Tina's friends that we hadn't seen since the night before at JJ's heading over to the Londoner Pub. We ended up at the Londoner...

Brunch

Sunday morning we wandered over to sister Siew Yih and Allen's place for brunch. Yih had just come back from an extended stay with family in Malaysia a few weeks ago. Seeing as we hadn't had a chance to catch up with her when she suggested coming over to their place so she could cook for us we jumped at the opportunity.
It was a small group of us, and the food was some good tasty.
They've also got a real good view from their place of the lake and park, it's just too bad it wasn't a clearer day that would have allowed us to get some nicer photos.

More Ipoh...

So after seeing Alex play in Kuala Lumpur we drove back up to Ipoh the following day with Landis and Ying, so that we could see the rest of the family. We stayed in Ipoh for two nights and got to spend some good time talking, enjoying wine, and bothering all of their kids. It was nice and relaxing since this time we weren't there for mom's birthday or Chinese New Year, just a few days in the middle of a normal Malaysian week.

Because of this nice relaxed nature we were able to do some more sightseeing, some touristy items like the Lost World of Tambun, and some not so touristy, such as telling Hong to pull over so that we could climb through some abandoned houses to snap photos.

Lost World Photos, with a scared Hong in the hall of snakes

Run down homes that were for rent

Seemingly abandoned homes, complete with bats.

Overgrown cemetery

Our last night we had planned on waking early and going to the bus station to take the 03:00 bus back to Kuala Lumpur so that we could catch an early flight, however luck was on our side and Alex had a work meeting down there first thing in the morning so he allowed us to tag along with him. This meant that we spend our last night staying over at Alex's impressive bachelor pad and being allowed to sleep in a little later and not leave Ipoh until 04:00.

Overall an excellent extra bit of holiday and a good last chance to see our family for what may be a while. Alex has promised to come and see us in Chicago within the next two years, and if we are lucky Ying and Landis may come along too.

It's holiday time.....

As I'm sure that the whole world is aware, October 1st is the Chinese National Holiday and this year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the current version of China. And the few of you the have been reading this blog for a while know that whenever a billion people get a holiday in China we opt to leave the country.

But this year is the 60th anniversary, and thus different plans had to be made. October 1st falls on a Thursday so almost everyone is off from Thursday to Thursday, working last Saturday and on October 10th to make up for some of their holiday time. We planned to head to Laos for the holiday, enjoying a few days in Hong Kong at the end of the trip so that we could go on an electronic spending spree, and so we booked a flight out on Friday the second - the best of both worlds, a chance to see the celebrations and then get out.

Then our brother called, the one we had promised him that we would come and visit him in Malaysia again when he was putting on a show in December, and he had some news. Due to timing constraints his concert was going to be in Ipoh the last weekend in September and for one night in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday night, September 29th...

Change of plans then, and so we adjusted our plans and left first thing in the morning for Malaysia (by the time this posts we should be enroute to the hotel so we can freshen up before heading out). We will go and see Alex play at No Black Tie in Kuala Lumpur, click here to see a much younger photo of Alex in the write up about him and the people he will be playing with.

From there we will once again travel the road to Ipoh and spend sime time with sisters Hong and Yih and the rest of the family before returning back to our originally scheduled trip, flying up to Hong Kong first thing Friday morning and then onto Laos.

Due to computer issues beyond my control, and which has made my life incredibly tough these last few days, we will be without a computer this trip and most likely will not be stopping into internet cafes to type in a quick post. However, this time we have pre-written a few posts that will post during the time we are gone, we hope that will hold you over until we return on the 12th...

Ipoh - Mom's birthday party

Saturday night in Ipoh, the reason that we went to Malaysia, was for mom's birthday party, and once again it was a great night filled with all of the family friends and too much food...

There was probably 10 tables, 8-10 people at each table. Shortly after we arrived the food started coming, the first round was apparently a Chinese birthday cake - a giant dumpling type thing filled with smaller ones that had a sweet sugary center.

The start of dinner - cutting in the birthday baozi.

We had a lot of great food, below is a photo of Tina and Hong enjoying 佛跳墙. This is a famous soup, for it is so good that it made Buddha jump over a wall.

Somewhere between the second and third servings of food people start traveling table to table with celebratory cheers and drinking of wine and brandy.
Then after we've eaten more then you think possible and shared drinks with everyone but the kids table a full sized birthday cake is brought out...
Cake followed by more socializing and drinks....
Afterward most of the family went back to the house where we opened up a few bottles of champagne...
...and eventually Yih decided that we had all stayed up long enough and were enjoying ourselves too much and gave us the big "Alright, that's enough.. everybody out."
Ok, that's not what she said - I think it was more of "Ok, enough with the camera. No more photos..." or something like that. We enjoyed a few hours more of talking and joking around with everyone before we finally headed off to bed.

Weekend Home…

Thursday we departed to Ipoh for what’s becoming the annual birthday bash for mom Goh. We arrived late in the evening and went to bed shortly after arriving.

The next morning, we were allowed to sleep in, and so we did, until 8:30am. Sister Hong took us to a boutique hotel, called Indulgence where we had breakfast, except the food that was given to us, was very little in the way of indulgence and more for the minimalist look. If that was the case, they succeeded. The coffee, on the other hand, was pretty good.

After breakfast we had a tour of Ipoh, with sister Yih, brother-in-law Allen, Wilson, and Yvonne, who were also visiting from Xiamen. The first stop was a temple dating back to 1926 that was built in the side of the mountain just outside of Ipoh. The contrast of colours made it quite handsome. Across the way we stopped to feed the turtles, where Allen demonstrated how this was to be done. Quite the form he has!

Allen in fine form!

After the tour, it was time for lunch, yea with all that walking we worked up an appetite. We went to a local restaurant, to try some traditional Malay food. The menu consisted of satay, which was close to our favorite, but it lost out to this wrap which was delightful, (Yih couldn’t remember the name of it, though I'm sure if I asked Alex or Dr. Lim they would have known) chicken with rice, noodle soup, sausage, and bean sprouts. While the rest of the gang continued eating, Mark and I wandered around the area to check it out. Though Ipoh doesn’t have the glam of K.L, it has some amazing older buildings that are quite colourful, similar to the Caribbean.

Wilson, Yvonne, Allen, Yih, and Mark attacking lunch!

Downtown Ipoh

Downtown Ipoh

Later on, it was time for some shopping, and so we headed to one of the better malls in Ipoh. Here Mark and I purchased the usual, wine and magazines that one can't get back in China, while the first time guests, Yvonne and Wilson bought souvenirs. The rest of the day was spent at leisure, catching up with Hong, Ben and Daniel. Daniel and Ben both missed Mark, up until Mark made Daniel cry. Being five, he got over it pretty quick.

Mark and Deklin playing cards

Daniel playing with my camera!

Sister Hong

The agenda for the evening was dinner at an Indian restaurant, followed by dessert in another location. Alex, as always did an outstanding job of picking out the dishes which included nan bread, curry lamb, peas with mushrooms in a curry sauce, tandoori chicken, eggplant, and a few other dishes that I forgot. It made Mark and I realize how much we miss Indian food.

During dinner, Alex inquired as to when we thought we may be heading back to the U.S. since he would be holding a series of concerts, in Ipoh and K.L. and would like for us to support him. You see, Alex is a classical pianist, trained in England and in Canada (he actually has a real job, CEO for the family’s company) and plays beautifully, naturally we agreed to come back.

And here we thought this would be our last trip to Malaysia before we had back to the U.S. Ah, Alex you’re good!

After dinner, we went to another restaurant, where dessert, coffee and wine would be served. We sat outside enjoying the lovely garden, catching up with everyone. The fun came when trying to settle the bill. Our family is extremely generous when it comes to paying, so one has to be a little sly. I slipped the waitress our credit card, not realizing our little gal was a good friend of the family. The gal wanted to speak to Alex first, but I convinced her (or so I thought) not to say anything, to put the credit card through and would sign at the end of the evening. I was so proud of myself until the time came, and the waitress spoke to Alex about us trying to settle the bill. Of course the family didn’t want us to pay, so it took some sweet talking before Alex relented.

Sister Yih and Dr. Lim

Brother Alex Ying, Landis, Mom, Min, Shi Xian and Pow

Back at home, another bottle of wine was opened before retiring for the evening. Ah, it was good to be back home!