September, a busy month

In September, we had all sorts of things going on...

My daughter Mati, had a Princess Tea Party, with 12 of her kindergarden friends coming over to play dress-up, put on makeup and jewelry, and then sit down to a grown up high tea, complete with scones, hot peach tea, and real tea cups. The party was a BIG HIT! With everyone, including me, having a great time. All my pictures are located in an album on facebook, but you can get the idea by the picture below:

While the girls stayed home for their Tea Party, the two Fernandos headed to Titi Huyan for a Boy Scout Campout. They spent 2 nights camping in the jungle, hiking, and swimming in the rivers. The scout's motto (printed on their T-Shirts) is "It's all fun & games until you get leached!" which is a minor inconvenience of camping in the equatorial jungle.

Then, Fernandito had Spiritual Emphasis Week at Dalat. They would have a retreat in the morning, and then the parents and kids were invited to come back to worship together at night. Pastor Frank, from Orlando, travelled to Dalat to provide a Revival style retreat for the Middle and High School students. He is a high energy, funny guy, who was much wiser and smarter than his former drug addict, inner city persona would lead you to believe. Since Dalat is an international school, not all students are Christian, and they were proud to have 20 kids turn their life over to Jesus this week. My faith was strengthened as well. I am so happy my kids are in such a great Christian environment. The evening sessions were tons of fun, with about 350 teenagers praying, but also jumping up and down, concert style singing songs like "One Way, Jesus!" Overall, it was a great experience for all of us. This is Pastor Frank:

Peggy & Dave, some collegues of ours from work, visited us from Chicago. We were able to show them around Penang, and among other things, took them up to Penang Hill. Since the cable car up the hill is not working, we took the jeep ride, which was something else! This is one of those "Only in Penang" stories.

First of all, why is the cable car not working? Simple, under the previous government, the cable car was closed for some maintenance work (should have taken about 3 weeks). Then, there was an election and the opposition government won. Since the earmarks for the cablecar maintenance was an agreement between the federal (UMNO Party) government, and the old (UMNO party) local government, it (along with all other turism related earmarks) was naturally cancelled when the opposition won. So, the cable car has been closed since the election (in March)!

Then, how to describe the jeep ride up the mountain??? So, there is only one road up the mountain, and it is very steep and very narrow in many places. The ride takes about 25 minutes, and the driver is constantly honking his horn along the winding road notifying the oncoming traffic, which can't see us, but can hopefully hear our horn, that we are speeding up the hill at about 45 miles an hour. There aren't many 4 wheel drive vehicles, so we had to ride in the bed of the truck, which was a beautiful view, of monkeys and scenic jungle... until half way into it, the driver, apparently feeling guilty, decided to inform us not to lean too much on the door of the truck, since it often opens !!!! He proceeded to tie us "securely" in with a rope. Note how "secure" the rope looks in the picture!

Once up the hill, we ate at a lovely old English Tea House, in a turn of the century Mansion, called David Brown's at Strawberry Hill. The views of Georgetown, and the Penang Bridge were breathtaking!

We finished the day off with dinner at the Mansion at 32. One of the nicer restaurants in Penang. It is also located inside an old Mansion from the turn of the century, and is all original inside. Just beautiful.

Finally, this is the rainy season, which has brought many mudslides, floods and road closures. Luckily, we haven't been effected. The one side benefit, is the heavy rains clear out all of the haze, and you can actually have a blue sky! Which I miss so much! Hear are some blue sky pictures from Dalat, Mati & Dito's school. This is the view from the PE field:

This "Seaside Cafe" (that's what the sign above the door says) is the school cafeteria!

Overall, a good month in Penang!