16.05.2009 - Taking a BREAK

It is not as easy as I thought. I am not sure if I am too sensitive or it is the fact the mom's myasthenia resurrected. I cannot sleep for the past 2 nights worrying about her sickness and hoping so much that it is me that over react rather than the true of resurrection of her past disease. To ease both of our worries, I decided to take a break on Saturday going to places where we can have peace of mind and relaxing moment. I choose Kek Lok Si the largest Buddha temple in Penang island. We started off our journey from our house at 1130am, taking our lunch at Bagan Luar and then crossing over with the old double deck ferry service. Ferry is the first transport that connect both the island and mainland residents since early 70s. The ferry services that managed by the Penang Port Sdn Bhd is the only ferry that operates through out Malaysia that connect Penangist since old days for trading, tourism and employment. The image and perspective of the ferry services was affected since the 1980s incidents that takes hundreds of life of the passenger during the biggest Chinese God of Mercy's celebration, where the terminal structure collapsed due to improper preventive maintenance and old wooden structure that is not being scrutinize from time to time. We are lucky during that time as the structure of the terminal collapsed right after the ferry we boarded depart from the terminal about 5 minutes after. I was around 8 years old during that time if I am not mistaken. Lets forget about the past...

So we reached Kek Lok Si after awhile and decided to walk from the ground level instead of driving up to the hill. Although I know mom is not strong enough for this, I do encourage her to walk slowly as part of sincerity to pay visit to the God Of Mercy. We took a slow walk towards the temple and finally we reach there in less than half and hour. Mom was tired and we had a rest awhile before going in. It is a nice place to go especially when you are down, at least you can find peace in the temple and ease your mind from all the worries that lingering around for days and years. We walk almost all the area from the Bronze statue to the Pagoda and all the individual temples where Buddhas are rested / placed. The only thing that I don't really like about this place is, everything is money. Entering the Pagoda section is charge at MYR2.00, taking a lift to the Bronze statue is MYR4.00 per person, etc. The only holy place the need not to pay is Church. I do feel irritated with all the charges but this is unavoidable. We finished our walk hours later and headed down to our car with peace of mind about 3.30pm. We drive around in Penang and ended up at the Siamese Temple for side seeing and prayers.

Sometimes it is true that having a break somewhere is worth still to ease our worries and sadness. I do ask around my friends why do they love to travel and go around during weekend and most of their reply is to relax and ease of mind after all the headache during the weekdays. Now I admit it is true, but depending where you are going.