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After our time in Singapore, it was back to Johor Bahru for a few days of family time.  As one of my Kiwanis friends likes to say, “hanging with the grand-babies”, four of them, ranging in age from 2 to 13.

Much of this time was simply spending time with the kids, camera put aside, just being grandparents.  

I believe I mentioned this before, but this was an amazing experience for me, this “being a grandfather” thing.  Although Kim and I had been married for fourteen years, and she had been a grandmother for thirteen of them, this was my first meeting and interaction with her daughter Jaclyn and her children.  Kim had been there when Valen, the oldest, was born, and had visited several times and met all but the youngest, Vinc.  For me, I arrived in JB just a few short days ago, and within an hour was being called Grandfather.  Probably a good thing that the kids didn’t know about someone being putty in their hands, because that’s what I was for the first while as I got used to it.  Now I quite like it, I talk with them on Facebook and can’t wait to see them again.

Now I know that folks are familiar with being able to order food and have it delivered, like calling up and having pizza brought to your door.  And I know that many people like satay, or “meat on a stick” as some describe it.  

Well, at daughter Jaclyn’s house, we did even better than putting these two things together.  We called up and had a chap come over and prepare satay right in front of the house.  It was very inexpensive and we enjoyed a grand meal of chicken satay when he was done.  As you can tell from the photos, not only did he cook some tasty satay, he provided a great show for the hungry spectators as well.

Some of you may recall a TV show with Art Linkletter called “Kid’s Say The Darndest Things”.  Well it seems that our grand kids in JB and our grand nieces and nephews in Melaka had a common thought regarding yours truly.  They said that I bore a distinct resemblance to that gentleman of KFC fame, Colonel Harland Sanders.  Now I don’t see it myself, however I guess a white guy with a white/grey beard is what did it.  So I thought I would have a bit of fun with this.

So… we took the JB extended family, including Kim’s brother, his wife and kids, to – you guessed it – KFC, for lunch.  I should mention that, in all our time in Asia, Kim and I went to a Western style eatery twice, this being one of those time (we also tried burgers in Singapore, which we did not enjoy).  The food at KFC was quite good and very little different from back home.  After the meal I then asked everyone how they had enjoyed “my chicken”, receiving a very positive response.

Our last full day in JB wrapped up with a shopping trip to one of the local malls.  The anchor store on this mall was Aeon, which is a huge conglomerate, with stores and malls throughout Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Viet Nam.  In addition to the fooderies and food courts in the malls, their department store has its own food court as well.  I have included a shot of this particular mall interior on the left.  As well, on the right, what evening of shopping would be complete without an ice cream.

The next day we prepared to head back to Melaka after about ten days in JB and Singapore.  Two of the kids were off to school, then the rest of the family readied to drive us to the bus depot, but not before stopping for dim sum.  Kim and Vinc lead the way, then we had a fine meal to start the day.  

After a wonderful visit to Johor Bahru with both family family and Kiwanis family, we hopped on the bus for the ride back to Melaka and further Malaysian Adventures.  As usual, I enjoyed the scenery during the trip, always finding something different to see.

Hope you are enjoying sharing our travels, as I am enjoying recalling them thru this blog with you.  See you back in Melaka.

The next few days in Johor Bahru were split by a couple of days in Singapore.  Threrefore this blog post will be about our time in Singapore and the next about the remainder of our visit to JB.

With son-in-law Kent’s help we were able to arrange transport directly from their house in JB to our hotel in Singapore as well as the return trip.  And for a very reasonable expense as well.  Bonus!

We stayed at the Hotel 81 Chinatown.  We quite enjoyed our time there as the location was excellent, right on the dividing line between Chinatown and downtown Singapore, making for outstanding walkabout opportunities.  The hotel room can be best described as petite, very petite.  Let’s just say that Kim found it small.  Imagine a queen sized bed, add about 10 inches to the width and 20 inches to the length – that’s the size of the room.  The bathroom was about the same size as the entrance-way.  The air conditioning was so efficient that it was necessary to have the hotel turn it off for a while a couple of times (it was controlled from the front desk).  None the less, we liked the hotel, the staff were very pleasant and accommodating, so we would stay there again.

Generally speaking, Singapore is a very clean city and we noticed that right away.  Another thing that stood out was that the traffic seemed to be more orderly, the vehicles were bigger and more expensive.  We spent a good deal of our time in the Chinatown area and the people were wall to wall.  Seems we were there at the peak of the Moon Cake Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival held on the 15th day of the 8th Lunar month), which is the biggest Chinese festival after Chinese New Year.  The Chinatown streets were decorated and lit up at night and the night market was in full swing the two nights we were there.

I think that it would be safe to say that Singapore is a multicultural city state.  We visited Buddhist temples, a Hindu temple, a mosque and walked along Synagogue Street.  

During our time in Singapore we saw far more interesting buildings than I can possibly include photos of here.  Everywhere there is evidence of great imagination by architects and builders.  I can only imagine what it would be like to live or work in some of them.  There were many with greenery included in the design, I have shown but a couple to the left and right.  There are many more.

We were in Singapore just prior to the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, and as such were not able to go to a couple places we would have liked to as there were road closures to set up the race circuit.  As an avid race fan, I would have liked to watch the race, however our budget did not feel that to be a reasonable idea.  As many of you may be able to identify, large events create a wee change in the economy.  For instance, our fairly reasonably priced accommodations would have doubled in price should we have stayed another night.  As we took a tour bus on our second day I was able to get a few photos of the track setup and then after returning to Johor Bahru was able to watch the race on television as it was held only about fifty kilometres away.

This was actually the first part of our current travels that it was just the two of us, with no family or friends, so we did a tremendous amount of walking around while we were here, total time was two nights and the better part of three days.  During this time I calculated that our sandals got over twenty-five kilometres of wear.  The weather was fantastic with no clouds and daytime temperatures ranging in the low to mid 30s Celsius.

In order to keep our strength up for all the walking, of course we had to have great food.  So for example, we started one day with Dim Sum and finished it off with spicy snails, chicken, spicy green beans and fresh baked buns.  Considering that one meal was about 7:30am and the other around 9:00pm, you can imagine there was a certain amount of food consumed in the interim.

We spent some nice relaxing time at the Gardens By The Bay which has some wonderful different areas.  On the left you can see what they call Supertree Grove, which are essentially vertical gardens up to sixteen stories high.  If you look you can see a walkway, about twenty-two metres up, which joins several of the trees and gives a wonderful view of the gardens as well as the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which can be seen in the background.  On the right, Kim is modeling for us on the walkway.

All in all, we had a great time in Singapore and look forward to going back.  As usual, I have way more photos than I can share here and many will be making their way to a travel album which is being put together.

Until the next post, thanks for traveling with us.

Last night the Governor’s Gala, much socializing and then a good night’s sleep.  Kim and I awoke refreshed and headed downstairs for breakfast.  It was an amazing buffet style meal, with Malay food, Muslim food, Chinese food and Western food.  Enjoying the meal were folks from all over.  Some Russian aircrew, a couple of families from the Middle East, quite a number of people from Australia.  Spoken languages overheard included English, German, Spanish, Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Korean and so on.  An interesting start to the day.

Following breakfast it was time to pack up, check out and wait in the lobby for Jaclyn, Kent and family to pick us up for the day’s activities.  While waiting Kim made the acquaintance of a new, but slightly taller, friend and I managed to find a very comfortable chair.  It was very busy around the hotel entrance and it took a while for Kent to work his way to the front door.  They arrived, and off we went for today’s adventures.

After having a brief lunch, Kent pointed the van about an hour out of Johor Bahru to a most interesting place near to Kota Tinggi.  First we chatted with some of the local residents (see left photo), then we arrived at the Tien Hoe Kung Temple which was established in 1884.

The temple, located along the river, was filled with people who had come to pray (as Vince was doing with his grandmother) or meditate.  Valen and father Kent were praying at some of the outdoor stations while Jaclyn spend considerable time trying to keep track of everyone.

Our second day in Johor Bahru (JB), begins with a serious downpour as seen in the photo to the left.  It wasn’t like someone turned on the tap, rather that they had opened the sluice way.  The amazing part was that less than twenty minutes after it stopped there was no water visible anywhere.  The drainage system that I have spoken of is extremely efficient.  As you can see from the photo of grandson Vince, the ground is hardly even wet.

The morning begins with meeting new family as Kim and I go to breakfast with Sister Hong, Niece Stephanie and Nephew Ah Kok.  He and his family are down from Johor Bahru for a visit with his mother Hong.

After visiting for a while Kim and I were off to guess where… Johor Bahru, about 2 1/2 hours by bus.  We are on our way to do a couple of things, first and foremost, to visit family.

A few posts ago I had talked about the drainage system here in Malaysia.  As we traveled on the bus I saw numerous examples of the drains to prevent erosion.  I have included a couple of them here.

We arrived at the bus station in Johor Bahru (JB) and it was time to take a taxi for the last portion of our trip.  Our driver was a great chap, long time resident of JB and he had good stories to share with lots of history about the city.  He and Kim kept up a running discussion the whole trip until we arrived at our destination for the day.



We had a welcoming committee when we got to the home of Kim’s daughter Jaclyn, husband Kent and children Valen, Vaness, Vanessa and Vince (ranging from ages 12 to 2).  It was pretty special for me as I was meeting all of then for the very first time.  Shortly after, that huge suitcase we had brought suddenly got a whole lot lighter.  Gee, I wonder why that might have been.

The reason that we came on this particular day was that Vaness would be performing in a concert at her school.  So the day I met my step-daughter and my grandchildren was the same day I got to see one of them in her school concert.  It was a day that I shall not soon forget.  When we got to the school (Valen, Vaness and Vanessa all attend here), Valen took me under his wing (so to speak) and showed me around, introducing me to his friends (and it seemed like anyone else who would listen).

This school has so many students that they have classes from 7am to Noon for one group and 1pm to 6pm for another.  Valen and Vaness go in the morning, Vanessa in the afternoon.  Not all schools are like that, however this one is held in high regard and is very popular.  Part of the original school is kept to this day.

There was much festive activity prior to the concert with a Dragon Dance and a Lion Dance, as well as a mini market with food and other items.  There was many parents and students in attendance.

Amongst all the activity, Grannie Kim got to meet with a costumed Vaness prior to the start of the concert.  Then it was time to start wending our way to the concert seating and get ready for the big show.  And big show it was.  There was a large number of performances, displaying both Chinese and Malay culture and history.



As per usual, I have many photos, many of which will make an appearance online later, however I would be terribly amiss if I failed to have one of the performance including Vaness.  Then one of proud Mum, Dad and Grannie (oh and Vince too) with Vaness in the background.

It was a most excellent day.  Tomorrow will be pretty special as well.  See you in the next post.

For this blog post I will start off with a few words about my posts for this trip to Malaysia and beyond.  You will have noted that I have not assigned any dates to the posts, and as I indicated that I was playing catch-up on our trip the dates the posts are published have no bearing on the post content whatsoever.  The posts are all in order, and it is possible (nay, it is likely) that some may span more than one day, so dating them is not necessary.

Today, first order of business was Dim Sum with Cynthia.  Quite a selection of choices and very enjoyable.  I must admit that I do have favourites, such as chicken feet, tripe and curried squid.

As we were eating and looking out the entrance, I noticed that there was a rather unusual mosque across the street.  After breakfast we walked across and had a look.  It was different and it is unique, reflecting the Malaysia composition and history.



The Kampong Kling Mosque was completed in 1748.  The architecture is Sumatran, with strong Hindu influences, particularly evident in the minaret which resembles a pagoda.  Looking closer you will notice an unusual blend of English and Portuguese glazed tiles, Corinthian columns with symmetrical arches in the main prayer hall, a Victorian chandelier, a wooden pulpit with Hindu and Chinese style carvings, and Moorish cast iron lamp-posts.  The mosque remains central to Malay community life.

Then we were off to do one of my favourite things.  While the ladies did some shopping (this is not it folks), I was able to wander, observing and taking photos of people and places.  I would love to put all my photos here, however will select a few to share at this time.  The place on the left is quite elaborate.  Features like these are not uncommon and do add much to the neighbourhood.  The empty street on the right was a rare opportunity, thanks to a tour bus unloading behind me and blocking all the traffic, including the motorbikes (if you can believe that).

With the tour bus gone, traffic gets back to normal (this is code for stay on high alert while walking along, or crossing, the street).  I quite like the variety of names used by businesses here.  Imagination and uniqueness are both in wide display.





While walking around, it began to rain, which was, as Kim likes to say, “cooling” on quite a warm day.  The rain didn’t seem to bother either of these two folks who were passing by me on the street.  The chap on the motorbike made me smile.  After taking his photo, he saw me, and as he went by I could hear him say “Ah-yaaaa”.  The lady on the bicycle made no indication that she saw me, and went on her way, focusing on the tasks at hand (like avoiding the motorbikes and cars).  She is so typical of many older folks we have seen in Melaka.

Next, we figured it was time to be a tacky tourist and go on the Melaka River Cruise boat ride.  Only it didn’t work out that way, it worked out better.  We got to the departure spot (empty parking lot), went up to the wicket and bought our tickets.  Cynthia’s was less expensive than Kim and I due to the fact that she was from Melaka and we were not.  Then we moved to the departure area for the cruise.  We were the only ones there.  So we waited.  Then along came two Malay boys and their father.  So we all waited.  While waiting the father approached and asked if I was a visitor (good guess).  He indicated that his son, for a school project, was to interview some visitors and ask how they found their visit to Melaka.  I obliged and was interviewed (and videoed by Dad), then we had a nice chat about the project and I gave them some interview tips and suggestions.  And we waited.

While we were waiting, I observed the monorail that isn’t.  Henry had told me about that on a previous occasion.  Seems that Melaka had built a monorail system (well, a track that went from one end to the other, then back).  It ran for a while and now sits, decommissioned I suppose.  Not sure if it will ever run again.  And we waited.

Finally, a tour bus pulled up and disgorged its load of humanity, a school group, junior high range I think.  Aha, this is why we have been waiting (we thought).  But no, we were then loaded onto one of the boats, all six of us, and off we went.  The busload were on a different boat.  The result of all this was that we basically had a private ride and had a great conversation between the six of us and the cruise boat operator, who was a most pleasant young lady.

The cruise goes quite a good distance along the Melaka River, past where Henry and I had walked, past Auntie Ming’s house, past the old clock tower and the start of Yonker Walk.  If you are in Melaka, I do recommend it. 

 

All in all, it was a very good day, wrapped up with another visit to Yonker Walk and a wonderful dinner with friends and family.

Tomorrow brings some travelling and more family.  See you then.

This morning Henry took us to a traditional Malay foodery for roti canai.  Once we had arrived and parked (parking at times is a highly competitive activity), I opened the car door and came face to face with the locals pictured on the right.  They were quite friendly and totally unfazed with happenings around them.

Once in the foodery (in is a relative term as there are no walls, only a tent type roof), we got our table and then made the acquaintance of the folks preparing the food.  They were, as has been everyone I’ve met so far, very friendly and accommodating, kindly allowing me to take photos as they prepared the food.  Breakfast was delicious and as we left we got friendly waves, not only from the workers, but from some of the patrons.  A good start to the day.

Our next stop was the Cheng Hoon Teng Chinese temple.  This temple is the oldest in Malaysia with its initial construction in 1673.  It is equally devoted to three doctrines – Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese-Buddhism.  When exploring the temple it tells a story about the Chinese in Melaka, covering their lives, their beliefs and their concerns.

This is the temple that Kim went to when she was a child and growing up so there is a lot of Gee family history here as well.  We didn’t just go to visit, we went there to pray as well, as there is great meaning for Kim there.

While exploring around the temple we saw many different, and interesting, people from all over the world.  There was an East Indian lady and her daughter, who was deaf, and they kindly let me take their photo.  There were a number of monks, likely from a variety of places, who were busy taking pictures of the temple, and each other, with their cameras and smartphones.  There were Westerners (besides me) sightseeing and locals praying.  It was quite a place.

Then, across the street, was a “new” version of the same temple, built to replace the original at such time it might become unusable from age.  This had definitely not happened yet as those who care have worked very hard to keep it in very good condition.  Both temples seem to be in continuous use.

Later, Henry took us to the Portuguese section of Melaka to show us some of the old Portuguese buildings.  When we got there, lo and behold, there were no old buildings but rather a new hotel.  A bit disappointing to say the least.  We understand that there is another way to get to the old Portuguese buildings and we will do some more exploring.

Off we traveled then to another example of what I consider to the be big inconsistency of Melaka.  We visited a beautiful beach area (certainly in my opinion) that is unused, complete with a very nice bricked walking area between the road and the beach, lined with trees.  The beach is littered and the walk is falling into disrepair.


There is a ship docking area close by, which may give people second thoughts about swimming, however for the area to be unused totally doesn’t seem to make sense.  On top of that, there is a hotel, and not a small one, across the road which is entirely abandoned.  There was some activity at the front entrance but is was not hotel related.

This blog post had been delayed due to Wi-Fi issues, hopefully they have been resolved so the next post will appear shortly.

Thanks for reading, comments are always welcome.

Today is “D-Day” – Driving Day.  This is when I hit the roads in Melaka behind the wheel.  We will see how I do driving on the wrong side of the road (to me that is).  

First off, some observations about driving in Malaysia in general and Melaka specifically.  Some of these observations had been made prior to my first day driving, others are the result of experience and observation (more of the latter than the former) in the days since then, not only in Melaka, but in Johor Barhu and even in Singapore.


Berhenti (Stop) signs and speed limit signs are merely suggestions, usually not to be take seriously.  Speed limit signs do not seem to be all that prevalent, other than on the primary highways, which also tend to be toll roads.  Berhenti signs, on the other hand, are all over the place, and appear to have a number of meanings.  On rare occasions they mean stop, usually they are treated as we would a Yield sign (to hopefully exhibit caution), and the rest of the time they don’t seem to mean a damn thing.

Now traffic lights, they are a different story entirely.  For the most part they appear to be quite strictly adhered to, with only a very occasional vehicle driver not obeying one.  A large number of the traffic lights have a very interesting feature as well.  If you look over the vehicle to the right, you will see a red light with the number 109 beside it.  That is telling everyone that it will be 109 seconds until the light turns green.  When green, there are green numbers that count down the number of seconds until it turns red.  Also, the lights are set in such a way that it is very rare anyone would have to make a right turn across traffic (readers remember, here they drive on the left side of the road).  Although the wait at lights may be longer than those in North America are used to, it seems that the traffic light system here works extremely well, likely why there seems to be no great impatience at the lights (especially when compared to the rest of the time).  Another aspect that one can find at traffic light intersections (and to a lesser degree at other intersections) is a built-in, fully configured U-turn.  Quite a number of the roads here are at least partially divided and the structured U-turns make getting somewhere somewhat simpler.

In Malaysia they do have legislation about what you can, or can’t, do while driving.  Back in Canada it is commonly called “distracted driving” legislation.  For instance, here one is not allowed to use a cellphone while driving, for talking or texting.  However, distracted driving laws also seems to be more of a suggestion than anything else, as demonstrated by the photo on the right (and yes, that is the driver).

Now I’ll say a few words about traffic lanes.  Once again these seem to function, to a great extent, as suggestions.  As I believe I mentioned, the vast majority of cars here are small, of the sub-compact to mini-sub-compact variety (and I don’t mean the Mini Cooper or Smart Car, as these are both very expensive here).  I have found it amazing the number of cars that seem to fit into one lane side by side on a great many occasions.  The expression “if my car had been dirty there would have been contact” springs to mind.

Now you will note that I have not said a word about motorbikes.  The reason being, the actual rules pertaining to motorbikes seems to be completely unknown, particularly to motorbike riders.  I actually believe that the number one rule is that there are no rules.  Therefore when driving a car it is wise to expect absolutely anything.  Not only do car drivers appear to utilize all of their mirrors (shoulder checks are pretty much unknown), they actually put little convex mirrors on their mirrors (both sides) to increase their field of vision.  You have probably noticed the photo of the mother and daughter on the motorbike.  This is a very usual happening.  I have seen a family of five on a motorbike and seeing a parent (or older sibling) with one or two children is commonplace.  Another thing, helmets are required by riders on motorbikes, by law.  The majority of riders wear them, although it seems many do not fasten the chinstrap.  Others carry them (go figure) and quite a number just ignore the whole concept.

Now I know all my readers will like and appreciate this (said in words dripping with sarcasm).  Malaysia is the land of speed bumps, sleeping policemen, traffic calming devices, whatever you want to call them.  When driving in any area near (notice I said near, not only in) residential areas there are at least one or two speed bumps every (I will say that again – every) block.  At least one or two.  I think you get the idea.  It is the land of speed bumps, some of them moderate, some of them pretty darn big.  Everyone really slows down when going over the bumps, however not everyone drives slowly between the bumps, making for some interesting traffic at times.

So, how did my first driving day go.  Well I did much better than I had anticipated.  The one thing that I try to keep in mind is that the driver sits on the side of the car closest to the centre line.  That seems to work quite well.  By the way, I was driving an automatic, the challenge of a standard is still to come.  Interestingly, some of the cars have the turn signal stalk on the right of the steering wheel and some on the left.  The can result in un-necessary windshield wiper activity when changing cars.

I likely will have more to say about drivers and traffic in different cities in a later post as there are some distinct difference between Melaka, Johor Bahru and Singapore.  A trip to Kuala Lumpur is in the works.

After the excitement of driving in Melaka for the first time, there was a need for a nice relaxing dinner.  Henry and Cynthia had just the location in mind.  They took us to a lovely place called the Sunset Bistro, with a beautiful ocean beach, just on the outskirts of Melaka.

We got to enjoy our dinner as we watched the sun go down, wrapping up a good day.  Good food, good company, good view, what more could one ask. 

So long until my next blog post.  Still trying to do a couple a day to catch up before we leave.  Once again, I hope you enjoy reading.  As always, comments are welcome.

The morning started as many a morning could start.  Doing laundry and some cleaning around the house, although not quite in the way as would be done in Edmonton.  Where we are staying has an old washing machine but we usually only have a few clothes (from the day before), so we do them by hand.  Then is the cleaning of the area around the doorway so as to deter ants and other critters from hanging around.

Then it was off for breakfast with Stephanie to another coffee shop.  During our trip we seldom make return visits to any fooderies, not because they are bad, but because there are so many good places to try.  We have developed a couple of personal favourites however, which we will keep to ourselves so as not to influence any other visitors.  Of course, no surprise, Kim ran into a lady that she had known for years.  The photos here are of the coffee shop and then a look down the street, to give you a flavour of the area.

After breakfast Stephanie took us to pay respects to her sister, and our niece, Ah Yong who passed away in the Spring of this year at age 42 after having polio since she was age 2.  Her older sister Ah Kim still lives with her polio, since she was age 1.  In addition to the three girls, there are also three brothers, two living in Melaka and one in Johor Bahru.  Both Ah Yong and her father, who passed away in 2004, were cremated.  This is an indication of the change from the age old Chinese tradition of burying the deceased.  In a later post I will be visiting a three cemetaries, two Chinese and one Malay.  

These facilities are quite an efficient use of land, while at the same time are fully equipped so as to provide for the traditional ways of praying and respecting the deceased, including many aspects of the tradition of the Ching Ming Festival (also known as Grave Sweeping Day, among others) every Spring.  This is an event that Kim and I participate in every year in Edmonton (regardless of the weather) as it is considered to be an important family and cultural event.

Now it was back to the home front as Stephanie headed to work.  Off to lunch with sister Hong for a delicious plate of Ho Feng (noodles, vegetables, pork & prawns in a flour and egg sauce).  At this point I find it reasonable to remind my readers that seem to be always eating, we actually eat quite reasonable portions and there is no snacking along the way, well maybe the odd mango or coconut or some such item.

From lunch Hong took us to a real supermarket.  Wholly mackerel, what an interesting place.  When one hears a person use the expression “soup to nuts” this would very well apply here, and it is not restricted to foods, but includes clothing, household and cooking items, and so on.  A great selection of fresh vegetables, fruit, fish & other seafood, chicken, pork and so on.  And then, wouldn’t you know it, Kim bumped into another old friend who works there.  Sometimes I think she knows half the city, but then again she did grow up here and live in Melaka until we met so it really is not all that surprising.

Later on, in the evening we went with Henry and Cynthia to the night market.  This is the largest night market in Melaka and stretches for what I estimate as close to a kilometre.  Want to buy food, fruit, vegetables, household products, clothing, watches, jewelry, DVDs still in the theatre, and oh, did I mention food.

I could include dozens of photos here, however I am only posting a few.  Many more will be available when I get my photos up (should be sometime in the next 57.35 years).  You will notice in the photo on the left, this hawker has his cooking stove firmly fastened to his motorbike.  This was by no means the only example of this sort of mobile kitchen that was on site.  On the right, “wanna buy a watch”.

Overall, the night market is a fascinating place to go, and we will return at least once more while we are in Melaka.

As you can tell, once again the day has been very busy.  As we move further into our trip some of our days are much more laid back.  And then again, there will be a few jam-packed ones.

I hope you are enjoying these blog posts.  Feel free to give me any feedback if you like.

Most of today was Henry and I.  In the morning Kim had some personal business that she had to take care of, and in the afternoon, well I will explain later.

We dropped Kim off in downtown Melaka and then went to find a parking spot on the edge of Old Melaka.  I should note that there are no parking meters in Melaka.  Other than many areas which have free parking (or should I say a parking free-for-all) there appears to be three methods of pay parking.  For malls, there is usually a push button, get a card, and pay at the machine when leaving the store type of parking.  In government controlled lots there is a swipe card system, where one places funds on the card, swipes upon entering the lot and the appropriate amounts are deducted when swiping upon departure.  The same card is used for paying road tolls on the highways between cities.  For on-street parking the motorist purchases books of tickets (in various denominations), which look similar to lottery tickets.  When parking an unused ticket is selected, the driver scratches the appropriate areas for the date, time, and length of parking time anticipated and then places the ticket on the car dash.  An interesting system which seems to work quite well.  No meters, no maintenance.  The parking patrol serves the same function as the meter readers in Canada.

The car now parked, Henry and I set off on a walk along the river.  The plan was to walk a good distance down one side of the river, cross over a bridge at some point, and walk back.  There are river walks on both banks for the full stretch of the river in Melaka, making for quite pleasant strolls.  However, our plan did not quite work out the way we had anticipated.

As Kim and I did a river cruise a week or so later I will use some of my river descriptions here and some when I get to the post about the cruise.

As I had mentioned in a previous post, Melaka can be considered a study in contrasts.  At one point on our walk we went by brand new housing in a Malay housing development.  We also went past dilapidated buildings that are surely empty and abandoned, except they have people living in them, quite often older Chinese.  We passed one such place which must be the home of a hawker as we could see them preparing chickens in the entrance way and loading them into his car.

We reached our turn-around point, and as we crossed the bridge we noticed a number of folks sitting along the edge of the river walk drawing or painting the scenery.  I stopped and chatted with one, learning that they were a group of art teachers from Singapore on a professional development field trip.  They, and their artwork, were quite interesting.  I know that because we stopped and chatted with every one of them.  It was so interesting.

Off we went, down the boardwalk along the river.  On the way, we discovered that we were not alone.  There is lots of life along the river, including the fellow to the right here, who hardly batted an eye as we stopped to observe him.  I am sure that he finds folks like us kind of a boring diversion from watching the construction immediately on the other side of the boardwalk.  Unfortunately, along with the life along the river, there is much garbage along the river as well.

As mentioned, there was construction right beside the boardwalk, in the form a tall building, which could be a hotel or an office tower.  I suspect the former.  As a result of the construction we found that the boardwalk had come to an unscheduled end, quite literally,  about 3 metres past the metal wall.  As there had been no signage indicating we had been traveling down a dead end, we got to subject dead end only to find out that we “couldn’t get there from here”.

So, we had to walk pretty much all the way back to where we had chatted with the Singapore artists, and then work our way around to our destination by determining the correct streets to follow.  Not a wasted trip by any means however.  When walking up the boardwalk we had passed what looked like an old abandoned industrial type building.  On the way back we chose to follow the metal fencing around the construction, which had us pass in front of this building.  I was quite surprised to see that it was actually the temple shown on the left.

The building remnants shown in this photo have been identified as the ruins of Rosary Chapel which was built in the year 1700.  This Catholic Chapel was built as a substitute to St Lawrence’s Chapel which was constructed in the 16th century.  The Saint Lawrence’s Chapel is an epitome of Portuguese chapels that were build outside the Malacca Fort.  All told, it was a very interesting walk.

In the afternoon was something completely different.  We went to visit the Melaka Butterfly & Reptile Sanctuary.  Once again, it was just Henry and myself.  You see, Kim has an extreme aversion to snakes, so much so she doesn’t even like to say the word, referring instead to the “S’s”, accompanied usually by a wiggly motion with her hand.  So, it was Henry and I.

When we entered, I noticed that the skies were getting a little dark, but really paid little attention, we were going into a building, if it rains there will be no issue.  We entered, going past some beautiful, and interesting birds, and came to a room with some lizards in it.  Of course I had my camera and was taking lots of photos, when a young lady came up and explained to Henry that there was a fee for taking photos in this area.  He passed that on to me, and apologized to her and stopped taking photos, heading out of the room.  When outside, sure enough there was a sign that I had missed indicating there was a fee for photos.  I am not really sure why, as that was the only room in the entire facility where that rule applied.  Next stop, the butterfly area.  By this time it was raining, actually not raining, it was pouring.  Lo and behold, the butterfly area is open to the elements.  As a result, the butterflies were scarce as they were sensible and in shelter.  I, on the other hand, was not in shelter, but rather was looking for butterflies.  Moving forward, it turns out that considerable amount of the sanctuary was open to the elements.  Got lots of photos, managed to keep my camera relatively dry.  Myself, not so much.  Soaked through, top to bottom.  Sensible Henry, not having this desire to take good photos (or any photos actually) remained pretty dry by staying in the sheltered areas.

It really was a fascinating place, and I got a good number of really decent photos.  I have two that I wanted to share here.  The first is of a snake, the way it loops over the branch and looks out, being aware of all that is going on.  The second is a pair of Lovebirds which were preening each other.

All in all, it was quite a day.  Stay tuned for some of our other adventures.