Because my anniversary present was given to my dear in a surprise visit, she didn’t have the opportunity to reciprocate. A week later she travelled to Penang to present me with, among others, a very lovely anniversary gift – herself.

Long distance relationships suck and her being here is wonderful gift by itself. So we thought, since I’m working here in Penang, why not tour the island as tourists? =)

I have been to Penang several times when I was very young, but somehow I don’t retain a lot of memories about it. This 2-day tour served as a great refresher!

We literally found ourselves a tourist map and drove around town, stopping by randomly to eat and visiting places that Penangnites will claim “aiya, these places only tourists will go one la…”

The greatest ‘sweet’ problem of the city, however, is the food. It is so good, so damn good, that I just realized that two months into staying here, I’ve gained 5KG!

That’s a huge thing for me, you know, as my weight had always been, err, very non-volatile!

And the most wonderful food on this island are those that are sinfully fried with tons of oil and you really can’t stop eating once you’ve tasted it.

Have you ever heard of the stalls in food courts in KL or elsewhere named ‘Famous Penang Healthy Bread’ or ‘Famous Penang Fruit Salad’ or just something plain like ‘Famous Penang Mee Hon Soup’?

Of course not. Because it’s all ‘Famous Penang Char Koay Teow’,‘Famous Penang Fried Oyster’, ‘Famous Penang Loh Bak’ etc.! ALL FRRIIIIIEEED!!

Haha of course there are stuff that are not fried too, like this unbelievably appetising jelly coconut!

My friend Ariadne’s mother first recommended us to try out these jelly coconuts during our first trip to Penang back in May, and we’ve been hooked and have gone back to the very stall to buy them every time we’re in town!

During the trip we’ve also visited tourist sites such as the Botanical Garden, which is an exceptionally scenic garden that has taken 29 ha. of Penang’s precious prime real estate.

I guess with Penang’s exorbitant real estate prices, the Botanical Garden site could be worth hundreds of millions of Ringgit. But well, I guess it’s the duty of every responsible government to allocate some land for greenery…

And this particular greenery is occupied (well I was about to say infested) by scores of monkeys! Much like one of the temples in Bali last time!

Fort Cornwallis with its Age of Empires-ish castles and cannons…

We didn’t take much photos because my camera was somehow busted. But we were determined to visit purely ‘tourist’ places!

… and so on… This is so unlike me last time where I kept snapping pictures wherever I go… nowadays I’m lazy to even bring my camera out except for travelling and events… =(

My brother graduated as a medical doctor from UM this month.

Yup, I know technically the term ‘medical doctor’ doesn’t yet apply to somebody who has just graduated with an MBBS degree. Apparently in Malaysia, you have to go though several years of public service before you can be legally called that (correct me if I’m wrong), but who cares? Just saw some letter from the government addressing him as ‘Dr. Chow’.

And that is very yeng.

You know, circumstances like these give me the kind of pressure that might eventually cause me to impulsively go and get a Ph.D in the future just so that he’s not the only person being called ‘Dr’ wherever we go. =P

But for now, whatever…

… At least I can get unlimited MCs for free! =)

August 4th is a very special day to me.

Not only does it mark the glorious passing of another happy year spent with my dear, it also highlighted the day in which I must solve the problem of how to celebrate our anniversary while I am in Penang and she’s in KL!

It would be an easy task if August 4th were a Saturday or even a Friday, but no – August 4th fell on a Wednesday!

A Penang-KL day-return trip would be unfeasible, especially in the middle of a working week where I still have to wake up at 6.30AM the next morning.

But truly, it isn’t really that hard to decide, is it?

I had to choose between two alternate scenarios:

A) To fly back to Subang and spend a loving and wonderful time with the most amazing girl in the world; or

B) To stay in AMD Penang and spend my anniversary with engineers and machines and half-made silicon microprocessors.

I made my decision like within a second but told my dear nothing about it. I subscribe to the philosophy that without surprises a relationship will die. Err… Pleasant ones, of course!

After my decision, which was several weeks before August 4th, a couple of things needed to be done immediately.

I went online and booked my return flight ticket, then took a deep breath and strolled boldly up to my supervisor’s desk to ask for three straight days of leave – August 4th, 5th and 6th – all the way till the weekend.

I was fortunate enough to have scored a remarkable discovery a week ago in the task that I was working on, and thanks to this achievement my boss seemed to be fond of me enough to not ask much about the reasons behind such a shameless request. =)

A day before the 4th, I stopped by a florist in Queensbay Mall to collect a rather fat bouquet of flowers that would later put me in the most uncomfortable centre of attention on my flight back to KL.

I had carefully placed the bouquet deep into a huge paper bag and carried it around my arms like a baby in the airport. Due to obvious reasons, I did not check it in with my other luggage, but my grand plan blew when I accidentally wet the paper bag’s exterior while washing my hands and the bag started tearing apart.

It was only a couple of minutes before boarding and I hastily found a medium-sized plastic bag and cramped the bouquet in.

Unfortunately, the plastic bag was half-transparent and everybody from the flight attendant to the woman sitting next to me, to the taxi driver – gave me wide, obviously-trying-to-be-polite smiles as they looked down from my defiant face to the plastic bag with half-protruding leaves that I was cradling in my arms.

Once I landed in Subang, I took a taxi to my dear’s apartment, only to realize that I did not have the elevator access card with me!(You see, I was determined to make my dramatic appearance in front of her doorstep as TVB-like as possible, you know, the type that makes viewers go awwwwwww to the chorus of a slow, romantic background music… So calling her to come down to get me was out of the question) so I had to wait patiently on the ground floor with my luggage, laptop and the huge bouquet of flowers (now taken out), for some resident to come so that I can piggy-back into the elevator.

When a tall African finally arrived and scanned his access card in the elevator, I zoomed in and quickly pressed the button to the floor that I wanted to go. As the elevator was ascending I took out my phone and stared blankly at the main menu, not daring to look up.

Finally, I dragged my luggage forcefully out of the elevator when my floor had arrived, and as the door was closing I could still see the African guy staring at me and my mountain of stuff…

… Like, who cares? My mission was accomplished…

… Only to realize that I was too used to pressing ‘13’ while staying in my condo in Penang, and back here in Subang my dear is on the seventeenth floor!

As I dashed up the staircase, a janitor with a lot of stuff in his hands appeared on the steps in front of me, and I will never forget his facial expression as he darted to the side to allow this strange, panting guy in smart wear with flowers to lumber pass him.

I felt as though I had just crossed the Himalayas when I finally stood in front of my dear’s door on the 17th floor. I cooked up a story on the phone about what I was ‘busy doing’ in Penang and when the perfect timing came – when she told me she missed me – I rang the door bell. I waited there with the phone still close to my ear. Her footsteps approached the door, and then the lock clicked and the doorknob turned…

-

The rest was indescribable by words. But suffice to say that all the trouble that I’d gone through to be there, at that very moment, seeing her reaction… was worth everything in the world. =)