Bloob bloob bloob…

So here’s what my beloved Fisheye captured during my travels. Too cute.

I’ve another roll to send in; will see how that turns out.

On the road again…

As promised, here are some of our (long overdue) Penang/Kedah roadtrip photos!

I stole all these photos from Noel as I have not developed the black and white film yet. I didn’t take a gazillion photos as I was driving a lot and couldn’t quite concentrate on taking very many shots. No biggie. As a result I’m now stuck with half a roll of film in the camera, which I will use up in good time.

The road trip this time around was a little different in nature. Previously all road trips were centred around the word Holiday! With the Penang/Kedah trip, it was a mixture of holiday and work; Noel had to meet his supervisor up at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) while I made an appointment to meet my future supervisor, also based at USM.

And yes, if you are wondering, I’ve been pondering about the possibility of pursuing a Masters in Ethnomusicology late next year. I’m trying not to jinx things at the moment so I’ll be staying pretty mum on this subject until a few more details are confirmed. Either way, there is a big chance that I will be studying again, albeit on a part time basis.

Noel on the other hand will be pursuing his Masters in Archeology in the middle of next year. Details are still a little sketchy as to where he’d be based (either Kuala Lumpur or Penang) but either way he’d at least be in Malaysia. Yay to being in the same country! (For once..)

I easily drove more than 600km during this road trip. Even though most of the time was spent in Penang, we drove a lot. After attending our respective meetings, we drove around the island of Penang (not very large but very winding) and with trusty food guides we located many great, yummylicious eating places.

Of course, most Malaysians will be able to tell you that motorists in Penang are plain mad. Well, I will be able to tell you that they are plain mad. Think KL city driving x 10. Thankfully we survived and I think the next time I go back there I’ll be more than ok.

On the third day (macam the book of Genesis like that..) it was off to Kedah. The Bujang Valley to be exact, to look at the cutest Ganesha of all times! Look at him! Isn’t he the cutest?!

Ahem. Sorry. I meant to say we were off to visit the historical complex of the Bujang Valley. I won’t go into detail as to what we saw as Noel has already done so on his blog here and here.

I have to admit, after visiting Siem Reap I was rather disappointed with the tiny structures that littered the complex. Nevertheless I comforted myself knowing these complexes were even older than Angkor.

After the rocks and stones (and picking up a couple of books to boot), we made our way out of Bujang Valley. The weather looked good and being pretty gung ho, I decided to drive all the way up to Alor Setar Star. Unfortunately, it was puasa so we had to settle for Chinese food there. My secert mission there was really to see if the Malay stalls were open. But it’s ok. Better luck next time.

I think I was on the roll that day because after Alor Star Noel suggested we drop by St. Anne’s church at Bukit Mertajam. You know, to pray and stuff.

Now, I’m not big on churches. I’m bad with praying. I don’t get all the saint-y-halo stuff and all the asking for petitions thing. But my mother had influenced told Noel about visiting this church that was known for its miracles and what not. So since we had time on our hands Noel navigated me to the place.

And boy, was I sorry. The above picture is only a fraction of how beautiful the place is. I felt like I was in Italy or at some Spanish mansion.

Anyway, we had to climb the hill of St. Anne’s to pray to, well, St. Anne herself. After the climb Noel helped himself to some holy water while I helped myself to two gulps of water as I was dying of thirst by then.

It didn’t help that my Mum and Godma later told me that St. Anne was known to grant childless couples babies and drinking the holy water even out of thirst upped my chances of falling pregnant.

Thankfully my period arrived in good time.

Moving on…

My personal highlight of the trip was the discovery of a tiny cafe’ in midst of a garden. A Spice Garden to be exact. Very romantic, garden-y like thing with little trails littered all over the place. They even had a large swing and hammocks lying around. I couldn’t resist taking a shot with Noel’s camera.

Aah…

Exciting week ahead – we’ll be going on a road trip to Penang and Kedah!

Unlike all our previous holidays, this one is going to be different in that we’re going to settle some university/study stuff in Penang before heading off to Bujang Valley.

More photos and stories to come!

I figured Sammy wouldn’t be very happy if he knew that I was feeling under the weather. I’ve accepted that he is free of pain now, and perhaps much happier now that he is no longer suffering.

Let’s get on, shall we?

So last weekend it was my turn to make my way to Singapore.

And guess what! We finally watched Ratatouille! (very backward, I know.)

It was soooo cute, so believable and incredibly inspiring!

So inspiring in fact, that we ended up cooking the ratatouille together. It turned out to be a yummy, very hearty, healthy vegetable stew.

Go check out students on a budget for more details!

(Yes, we are very couple-y and domesticated.)

As promised, here are some (scanned) black and whites from Cambodia! Apologies in advance for the funny croppy bits here and there – I’m still no good at the scanning pictures thing.

I love film cameras.

Update from previous post: I had an orange cupcake on Saturday evening. After that, all was right with the world again

On another happy note, the black and white photographs from our Cambodia trip have been developed! I had to get it done in Singapore, believe it or not, because it’s so damn expensive to develop them here. So far, I’ve peeked at the photographs over the webcam; will post it as soon as I get my grubby fingers on them!

Cupcakes I gorged myself with a few weeks ago. Needless to say, I was greedy and had a bad sugar rush after that.