Bonding Weekend

Finally, I sent my brother to board the 9p.m. bus back home yesterday after a series of brotherly-visits (brothers of different ppl) to Penang.

He arrived last Thursday and Leonard bought us a nice Chinese dinner at Four Seasons restaurant, Sunway Tunas. Leonard was also kind enough to heave his nice, thick mattress over to my house to let Bin sleep on. Later that night, we followed Jules along with Kelly to Batu Ferringhi to buy DVDs. This is the first time I've actually taken a walk at the stalls there since I came to Penang! And I was shocked to find that the abundance of things sold there actually bear a similar resemblance to the things sold in Bangkok! Little bright lamps, pretty necklaces, fake Guccis, logo tees... remind me, I don't have to go to Bangkok to get my fix ever again! That night, I bought RM32 worth of DVDs... "Da Vinci Code", "The Break-up", "The Holiday", "Deja Vu", and "House - Season 3", but didn't get to buy my audio CDs :(

The next day, I went to work while Bin lazed about at home reading martial-arts novels and playing computer games on his laptop. During lunch hour, I brought him out to eat Thai food with my colleagues at Cherry Blossom's for Trupti's farewell lunch. At night, Leonard came to fetch us out for a nice hawker dinner at Northam Tower. We ate Phillipine food, German sausages, corn mua-chee and oyster mee. Scrumptious!!

On Saturday, kesian my brother had to stay at home for the most part of the day as I went to help out at EPCC church's kids' sports day for the whole afternoon. At night, I bought Leonard and Bin a splendid meal at the cool new hangout Chilli's at Gurney Place. The portions are American-sized, so if you ever do go there, remember to order 1 for 2, and 2 for 3 etc. I totally forgot all about the giant-sized portions, so at the end of the day we took away the fajitas for our breakfast the next day (pity Leonard didn't get to eat the fajitas he reheated...)

1. Mushroom Jack - Leonard's order (sized for 2!)
2. Free-flow of Tortillas for Mushroom Jack
3. Combo (Beef+Chicken) Fajitas - my order (sized for 3!)
4. Lamb Shoulder - Bin's order
5. Free-flow of Nachos dipped in Salsa

Fruit juices and soft-drinks are free-flow, service had its pros and cons (Pro-handed umbrella to us to walk out in the rain; Con- not so attentive when asking for refills), food is superb, all-in-all, one-heck of a yummy-licious place to dine out with friends!

The Leo & I

We also caught Ocean's 13 that night. Me and Leonard were trying hard not to fall asleep (I succumbed...) Guess our late-night days are really over...!

On Sunday, I skipped church to go hiking to Pantai Kerachut with Bin, Kelly and Leonard. Kerachut is located at the far end of Batu Ferringhi and is Penang's National Park, I guess, because of turtles landing there. To get to Pantai Kerachut, you can choose to either hike across the forest trail (takes about 1 hour) or take a speedboat there (15 mins). My main motive to go to Kerachut, was, of course, for turtle-sighting. Too bad that when we got to the turtle sanctuary, the latest batch of baby turtles had all hatched and had been released into the sea. Leonard and Kelly had both got their fix of baby turtles a few weeks ago. And Bin saw turtles already during his Pulau Redang trip. Well, as they say, 人生中有遗憾总是美好的。Not to worry, I'm sure I'll still be seeing turtles next year! ;-)

While Kelly and Bin sat under the shade, Leonard and I ran off along the white sands to the rocks at the other end of the beach where I got my toe cut by thorned leaves. Otherwise, it was just so nice, just the both of us, sitting on the rocks beneath the azure blue skies and white cotton clouds listening to the sound of the waves lapping below and looking at little critters scuttling amongst the rocks. I asked Leonard to pose like Simba on Pride Rock and told him I love him as much as there are crabs baking on the rocks while I forced him to tell me he loves me as much as there is sand on the beach... hahaha...

In the waters I also saw the most number of jellyfish that I'd ever seen before... as well as the most absolutely HUMUNGOUS jellyfish ever... it was as big as my head, brownish, and stuck to it underneath were these baby jellyfish like little rockets going to launch from the mothership... so so so yucky!!! And many white ones bobbing around with their 1-metre long tentacle... imagine if those tentacles were to wrap around ur neck, you would itch and boil to death...

Kelly and I at one of the nicely-made bridges at Kerachut National Park.

Bin and I at the hanging bridge
I love this photo!!!

Whoopee!

The four of us *smiles*

For lunch, we went to the famous Hainanese chicken rice in Georgetown. We ate lo bak and yau char kwai there too. In the evening, Bin and I went gadget-shopping at Bukit Jambul complex where he bought himself a new SE K550i handphone (cost RM740 for AP), 512MB Sony M2 memory card, Logitech optical mouse and earphones.

Although Bin and I don't talk much, but it's the joy in doing activities together that make us bond so much... Anyways I'm happy that he left with smiles on his face and a brand-new phone. And lotsa thanks to my dear because I know that he's very busy with his work, yet he was willing to spend a great deal of time to bring me and my brother around... I just wanna say I really appreciate it :)