Ipoh

Went to Ipoh on Saturday for Ching Ming (a Chinese traditional day on every 4th / 5th / 6th of April to pray the ancestry and mostly ancestral tombs cleaning).

Well, I had a very enjoy weekend at Ipoh with my clan, I get to eat many many delicious local delicacy, I did lots of photo-shooting, and most importantly, I get to meet up with my family and had few nice trips!

My dad born in Ipoh, therefore we need to go to Ipoh for Ching Ming. Whenever he's at Ipoh, he'll show us some places such as his schools and tell us about his childhood stories. However, he's not been living in Ipoh since he was 15 years old. He told us that he came to K.L and worked at 15 and he was staying at his aunt's house.

I love to listen to my parents' childhood stories, their times were really amazing and interesting! What they had mostly are not existing in our current life, because there are disparities in our generations.

We started our journey to Ipoh in the afternoon on Saturday. We had our lunch at Lou Wong's Chicken Rice and not to be surprise, their restaurant was full with customers compared to the same restaurant at the opposite of Lou Wong's Chicken Rice.

Succulent bean sprouts, I love it sooooo.... much!

After our lunch, my dad brought us to have a nice soybean drink for dessert.
And we tapao-ed ten cans of tauhua (jellied bean curd) for other family members. This soybean stall is one of the popular stalls at Ipoh, buyers are willing to wait in a long queue and I think it's a must-try drink at Ipoh!

Then, we went to Perak Cave and had a walk. Honestly, it was my first time visiting to this cave even though we went to Ipoh so many times and we passed it by a lot of times! The cave was quite large, and it was full with cave drawings and cravings too!

We found MANY monkeys on the top of the hill!
And here are some cute and 'handsome' ones...^^

Nice 'emo' pose, lil' monkey! ^^





The statue of Buddha.

Lit a light for blessings.


Lanterns in the wind.


A rock statue of lion.


Beautiful day!

The weather of the day was pretty good and we got to feel the heat in the sunny afternoon! The first thing we did when we arrived at my relatives' house was getting prepared with the praying stuffs that we were bringing to the prayer the next day.

These colorful papers were to be burnt. This is the tradition for the praying.


Same stuffs, "paper hell-money"...

And there were some things to be burnt. The Chinese community believes that the people who already passed away are able to 'receive' the items we burn to them, and of course the 'names and addresses' of receivers need to be noted.

I really agree with what my mom had told me.
"If everyone is burning these things (some are burning even more such as paper houses, cars, buildings, maids and so on), then what could happen to our environment? What we all actually need and have to do is to treat our parents or the people you love nicely and appreciate them when they are still ALIVE, not burning so much and wasting lots of money fictitiously and polluting the environment."
She said, actually we don't really know whether this kind of thing is existing or not (means burning paper stuffs to our ancestors or the people who passed away) and how sure we are that 'those people' can actually 'receive' our burnt items?



After preparing these things, I took my DSLR and 'explored' around the bungalow for photo-shooting. It's been so long I carried my baby camera since I took it for camera cleaning.

I really enjoyed in the windy afternoon, even though it's somehow hot and sunny! I just love to see the bright sky with a lot of white-softy-marshmallow clouds! I explored so much at the yard and I love the yard while I could enjoy eating my tauhua with the flowers around me, a land of grass, a small fish pond and two cute doggies!!

Evening, after having our dinner at a restaurant (seriously, I only liked the Tofu they cooked, others were not so well...), we went back and had a nice sweet family chat, as usual! =)
We enjoyed listening to gramophone records before we went to our beds, the oldies were just simply the best!

He's my uncle.






These are my favorites.

The next day, we woke up at 6 in the morning and went tombs cleaning which belongs to my great-grandmother. And after that, we had Hakka-Mee as our breakfasts (as usual) and Hakka-Mee is one of my must-eat food whenever I go to Ipoh.

Hakka-Mee, I really love it! o(^O^)o

Then, we had a visit to a pomelo orchard and bought some pomelos from there!

The flower of pomelo.








A mini pomelo.


The orchard's owner was demonstrating on Cane Exersie.








My auntie was showing the special promotion of a brochure.


Pomelos

After visiting the orchard, we went to a temple (quite a big one) where nearby the orchard but it's not fully opened to public because it was Sunday so we did not get to visit to the tall statue (not sure it's a statue of Whom) behind the temple.

And not long after the visit, we left Ipoh after a lunch.
(A very funny event happened on the way back to K.L, my dad's car was running out of petrol on a highway, all of us were so nervous and we were so happy when we saw there's a petrol station at Slim River. =_=''' Scary... and dad promised he will never want to fuel in at the last minute!)



p/s: Many relatives said that I'm putting up my weight. Yes, I admit that (since CNY)... T__T
And didn't you notice that the only thing I did the most at Ipoh was EATING?!
Oh gosh... Now I seriously HAVE to come up with a diet plan and I swear I must stick with it!

It must be a FRUITY diet plan! v(^^)v