RANDOM VIEWS FROM THE BALCONY, THE TOWER & THE FERRY

*Edited : This blog post was published midnight of April 11, 2012, several hours before my family and I felt the 8.9 magnitude earthquake here in Penang, Malaysia with Aceh, Indonesia as its epicenter. We needed to evacuate our 10th floor seaside appartment temporarily after 2 strong quakes felt in the late afternoon and a tsunami alert that was also lifted 9PM, same day. Swing back for the story soon.

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One of the little things that my family and I enjoy whenever we’re at home is cloud watching…

Amazing how they form puffy cotton-candy-like formations against the gorgeous blue sky…

Last Easter Sunday, I woke up early as usual and was greeted by this almost cloudless view overlooking George Town, Penang from our 10th floor rented appartment’s tiny humble porch…

If you'll look closely at this photo you'll see that cylindrical and tallest building in George Town, Penang, captured in the middle of those "yellow industrial giraffes". That iconic building in this side of Malaysia is called KOMTAR.

Later that day…

A quick glance at Wiki: “Komtar Tower, or Menara Komtar Complex is Penang’s tallest building and the sixth tallest building in Malaysia located in the heart of George Town, dominating the island’s skyline. KOMTAR is a portmanteau of Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak.

Komtar is a multipurpose complex consisting of retail outlets, transportation hub and administrative offices for the Penang State Government. An acronym for Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak, KOMTAR was named after Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, the second prime minister of Malaysia.

The 65-storey tower is a 232 m (761 ft) 12-sided geometric block atop a 4-storey podium. The complex comprises office and retail commercial space as well as public and recreational facilities.” ~Sourced fromWIKI.

2 days back :  As Catholics, we’re allowed by our office to observe Good Friday by sending us home after a half day at work; while Gabby’s Principal, being a Baptist-Christian herself, made a self-declaration of school holiday before the weekend. So around half hour past 2PM, Tina, Gabby, my mom and I got a chance to troop to George Town once more. And since we were too early for the scheduled Station of the Cross and Holy Mass at 6PM in St. Francis Church in Penang Road, we decided to drop by Komtar first and went up its viewing deck on its 60th floor (which is only open for public on weekdays). With 5 rinngit per pax entrance fee (RM5 = PhP 70 or USD 1.62), we’re ushered to the lift and off we went—up!

My clueless self was expecting that the Komtar’s viewing deck would have an open-air-area or something with grills at least but I just scratched my head when I saw a full-glass-60th floor. Oh well, pardon the glass-glare on my photos.

However, wherever, whenever, the view from the top is always marvelous…

And if you’ve been following this blog for quite sometime now, you probably know that for almost 2 years, we’re living in Butterworth which is a bus-ferry-bus-away from George Town when commuting. Thus, taking the 12-minute-ferry ride (not to forget the waiting time of about 15-30 minutes for the ferry on jetty) has also been a part of our weekend (and holiday) trips to and from this Malaysian state. The ferry looks something like a version of RORO-ships back home (roll on/roll off).  At times, Tina doesn’t enjoy the ferry rides because of her vertigo.  On the contrary, I consider it relaxing (unless so crowded, of course) and somewhat symbolic because each time I set foot on that Butterworth-George Town ferries, I take another adventure.

En route to George Town while we’re on board the ferry,  I took some photos of various vessels passing by…

The ferries that transport passengers and private vehicles from Butterworth and George Town and vice versa are either painted multicolored or monochromatic. From my 7-year-old son’s keen observation, ferries that only have one color (such as the yellow one shown above), accomodate both people and cars, but mostly if the ferries appear to have 2 colors or more, they’re exclusively for those with wheels who opted to board their cars and motorcycles on the ferry than drive along the Penang Bridge. Roundtrip rates of ferry is only one ringgit and twenty sen for adults (RM 1.20 =PhP 16.8 or USD 0.38) and half of the rate for kids. Coins are to be dropped directly on the turnstiles before the waiting area. Senior citizens, pregnant women and children are always given priority.

Dale Carnegie quoted, “One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”

I say, we don’t have blooming roses yet in our windows but despite we all miss the Philippines so much, literally, we have fantastic views of the Malaysian horizon that we see when we ride the ferry, go up tall building and ascend to high place (PENANG HILL!!!) or something that we simply enjoy in the comforts of our present abode. We’re savoring and seizing it while it lasts! 😉