Penang 2024 - Wesak Week Temple Visit Part 1

It has been ages since I attended the Wesak Day Procession in Penang. As the procession is held at night, and I don't have my own transport, it wasn't really convenient for me to attend, even when I am now staying in Penang. So I decided to do the next best thing, which is to visit all the temples around the area during Wesak Week. I invited my 80+ aunty to join me, and she was more than happy to say yes.

 

We started our little Wesak Week pilgrimage at the Siamese Temple at Pulau Tikus as this was where my paternal grandmother's urn was housed. We took a Grab there, and went in to pay our respect. I've been coming here more often now that I'm back in Penang. It used to be a place for family reunion during Hungry Ghost and Cheng Beng festival. But now, the most was just me, my aunt, and maybe my cousin coming here occasionally. 

Above is my aunt, inside the temple. It also houses one of the largest sleeping Buddha in South East Asia. And underneath it is where all the urns are kept, as well as at the back of it. My grandma's urn is placed here. There is a fortune telling machine there, and it's just a custom for me to go play with it and read my fortune for the year. 

Outside the main temple, there is also a smaller hall housing various Goddess of Mercy, as well as one gigantic one. It's always fun to come here just before Chinese New Year when they give the Goddess a bath and dresses her for the New Year.

Behind the statue are various Buddhist art pieces. I like the one above, for the colour scheme, as well as the lotus flower.

The opposite of the Goddess of the Mercy Hall, is another hall with a sitting Buddha in it. This one was more Thai influence in deco. 

The hall is decorated with various Thai art, like the above wooden window door, beautifully crafted from wood and painted gold.

Or this shinning blue mosaic piece of what looked like an old lady walking in the forest. 

We also went behind where the huge golden pagoda is. My aunt's brother in law's urn is placed here. Again, this is more a Thai influence deco.  I also love the art piece drawn on the ceiling. 

Above, the main idol. Love the space and emptiness of the hall. I sat here with my aunt and we chit chat for almost half an hour before moving on to our next temple. I like spending my time with my aunt, as I felt that it was easier to talk to her cause most of my cousins are all hard of hearing. My aunt also loves to walk, so that made her a good companion for me. However as she ages, I am more careful of where I took her, and often include Grab rides in our outing. It wasn't that she can't walk long distance. I was more worried about her rushing across the roads in Penang and falling down. I wonder how long more I would be able to spend my time with her....

Penang 2024 - Bukit Mertajam St Anne Church Compound

Last post of St Anne Church, would be about what you can find around the grounds of the church, besides the obvious two churches.... 

Right at the front, hard to miss, would be the fountain. Great place to go and cool down in this hot weather. The colour is the same themed as the new church, so kudos to the designer for making everything look so balance! As you can, there is a huge grass area around the church, walk around it, and you will find many interesting feature of Jesus. 

 

Here is one of him in white robe looking over the town of Bukit Mertajam.

One of him hanging on the cross. This one is on the lane between the old and new church. 

Roman soldiers? Jesus collapsing after carrying the huge cross? 

There is also a pilgrimage path up the stairs and into the small hill behind the old church. I would have loved to explore it, but my cousin wasn't a fan of exercising, especially in this heat. I guess this is where all the St Anne devotees come and do their pilgrimage walk during the St Anne Feast?

And before you embark on the walk, there is the Ten Commandments, strategically written on the giant rock to remind you. And so here we end our adventure blog of my day trip in Bukit Mertajam. 

Penang 2024 - Bukit Mertajam St Anne New Church

 

Right next to the original St Anne church, is the mega huge new church. It's still in the same compound, but the size of it as compared to the original one is huge! So I guess that kinda gives you an idea how popular this church is.

Here is the main entrance to the new church. I always find it strange when religious places need to lock up their doors, even during day light hours. But while we were there that day, they were doing some lighting maintenance inside. I like the mosaic piece on top of the main entrance. And I like the simple colour scheme of the whole place. It felt very medieval. 

Before entering, both side of the door has an angel placed there. I wonder if this is where they put the holy water. Actually, what are holy water made of to make it holy? I think I got to google that up.

Inside the church, a simple modern design. I didn't step in, since the gate was closed. I zoomed in! It looked really like some new age church inside. Almost an industrial feel to it.

Side view of one of the segment for worship. Yes, there are a  few segments....

And outside, the beautiful corridors really takes you back in time, and perhaps even to a different place. It felt very western, specifically very European. Like some church I saw before in England :)

A lovely walk around the corridor. It didn't feel hot even though it was a full sunny day that day.

The full front view of the new church. This was the view before the fountain! Yes, there is a huge fountain in front of it. Next post will be on the surrounding compound!

Penang 2024 - Bukit Mertajam St Anne Original Church

 

St Anne Church is a very popular church, especially during the St Anne Festival where people from all over will come and pray to it. It's a Roman Catholic church, so people mainly come and pray for miracles, and return to thank St Anne later. I've never been to this church before even though my father used to come yearly for the festival. That was until he got his wallet pick-pocked, lol. Note, not all religious people are holy, so please be careful when you are visiting any festival where there are crowds. Above is the original St Anne Church. It isn't very big when it started, but now, it's a gigantic church covering a large area. This post is focusing only on the original church, which is charming by it's own means. 

The first place I ran to was to the grotto. Note to self, grotto is not the same as a ghetto! Lol. It was a nice area, with a cave that looked rather man-made, with Mother Mary inside a small cave. You can also go under it, where there is some water features. Nothing fancy. But I think the compound was a rather nice place to sit and contemplate life. It was super hot when we visited, yet it was beautiful here.

After that, we went inside the original church. The place felt really old. And there were little retro signs and deco everywhere. I'm not religious, but I don't mind going into any religious places to see how the other people live their life. I do often find such places beautiful and peaceful, mostly.

The main and front of the church was beautiful and classic.

And behind, the beautiful simple stained glass, and wooden structure of the old church captivated me. An old indian guard inside told me that I was free to take photos, but I didn't take many. Just these few.

Exiting from one of the side doors, I saw some interesting wordings on it. And an even more interesting QR code there. Actually these days, QR codes are everywhere for you to scan and find out more information. Problem was, people like me who hates turning on their data and camera to scan things, we tend to take a photo to scan it later, and eventually forget about it. I still appreciate actual words and info being placed there, rather than a blunt QR Code....

Side view of the original church, looked like something out of a French country side. Simple, and lovely.

And just next to it at the back, it where you can find the Holy Water area. If you have a container, you can filled up here. Else, please go to the office and purchased an empty bottle in the shape of St Anne. Very commercial looking, as most RC items are. I can say that, cause I've been to the Vatican! Lol. Anyway, I didn't have a bottle. My cousin decided at the last minute to bring me here, else I would have brought a nice glass bottle here. 

Penang 2024 - Bukit Mertajam Day Trip

Taking a break from my global travel blogging to blog a few post on my hometown Penang. Just got back from a trip to Kyoto and Hiroshima, and life in Penang has been rather hectic, with hospital visits and friends' visits. Travel blogging takes up too much time to do in this hectic period, so I'm gonna do a few short ones on Penang instead. 

Although Penang is my hometown, there are surprisingly many places I've never been to before. For most part of my life, I've remained in my own little town. I used to tell people that I only know the area from Tanjung Bungah to Georgetown, and maybe up to Air Itam. Other parts of Penang is foreign to me! Luckily I have a cousin who loves road trip, and sometimes on her day off, she would bring me around Penang, or even over the seas to the mainland. And on this particular day, we were supposed to go to Bukit Mertajam, a small town in mainland Penang to eat some nice pork noodles and some nice cakes. Yeah, nothing went as planned, although somehow, cakes are always there :P Above is where we eventually ended up visiting, the St Anne Church. It was my first time visiting, and I'll blog separately about it in the coming post. 

So turns our, the pork noodle we were supposed to go to was closed. So we ended up in a Taiwanese shop where we had noodles. I ordered the spicy Chongqing noodles. Was expecting it to be spicy like mala, but it was below my expectation. But it was editable, although a tad expensive for me considering there weren't much ingredient that went into it. 

We also ordered a side of gyoza, and some pig ears. The pig ears were surprisingly delicious! I was expecting something crunchy, but it was soft and gummy. Love it!

Here is the menu and the price of things. As you can see, it's cafe pricing. I don't mean to sound cheap, but in Penang, I rather eat the local food which is cheaper and delicious. 

The side dishes. Cousin wanted to try the sticky tofu but was too afraid to do so :P

After our road trip exploration, we actually went back to the town center for cakes. This was the cake shop I selected, mainly cause they have houjicake cheesecake. But guess what, it was not on sale on that day :P

I ordered a matcha tiramisu instead, which was kinda bitter and 'jelak' to eat after a while. Cousin's rose lychee cake was a lot nicer, light and fragrant. Each cake cost around 15rm range. I wouldn't mind trying their other cakes, but I was kinda on a  budget this trip.

The cafe was retro in deco, but it had a kinda 'trying-too-hard' feel to it. Maybe cause every segment was a new themed, which kinda makes the whole place feels very rojak-ky.

Do Good Things Take Time? If so, how long is it going to take before I get my good things? 

Some section of the cafe, which looks pretty for instagram, but wasn't really practically. We tried sitting on those chairs but they creek and made so much noise that it was almost embarrassing to enjoy your time there. We shifted to a new seat. There wasn't anyone around since it was a weekday afternoon.

Another corner which I like the feel of food furnishing. If only the owner just kept to one uniform theme, perhaps it would feel more in balance. I just feel very disturb with the deco. But the cakes were nice, even if I did pick a so-so one. But if I had my pick, I'd rather go eat the white wantan mee and yam rice that BM is so famous for, lol.

Korea 2024 - Incheon Airport, Bye Bye Korea!

Our final morning, more and more people started checkout out and making their way to the airport. Most of the ladies have so many luggages from all the shopping they did through out the trip! At the airport, we even helped some of them carry their duty free items into the plane cause they just went overboard with their shopping! Lol. 

We were at the airport quite early, sharing an airport transfer with the rest of the group. So early that we had time for a nice lunch, and also explore the airport.

My last Korean lunch before flying off. I also had some leftover side dishes I bought from the Lotte Mart with me, so we finished that up with our lunch as well. Bye bye Kimchi, I will miss you!

On board flight Asiana back to Singapore, we both picked the bimbimbap meal. Careless me totally missed out the sauce that came with it and actually ate my bimbimbal without it, lol. 

We even got a snack before we land, a nice pizza.

Wow, and just like that, our Korean trip ended. A lovely sunset as we reach Singapore. It was a lovely trip, and I'm glad I went because of my husband. I am not sure if I will join again in future. I love Korean food, and the outskirt of Korea and it's people, but I find the language challenging. It's weird I know, but in order to go outskirt of a country, it's always better to know at least some of the language. And I wasn't interested to learn Korean if I can easily get the same experience in Japan, or now, even in China. So I guess we'll see :)  Anyway, so happy to completed this blog series! By the time you read this, I'll probably be back from my Japan Autumn Trip 2024. But for the next series of travel blog, I plan to blog on my Kyushu Trip 2023 instead, so stay tune!