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Reunion dinner on the 2nd day of CNY in Rantau Panjang, Selama, Perak |
In conjunction with the Chinese New Year (CNY) 2018, my entire
family members (plus a new member, i.e. Taiwanese daughter-in-law Jia-Mei)
returned to my wife Soh Ai’s hometown in Rantau Panjang, Selama, Perak for 6D5N from
Wednesday, 14/02/2018 till Monday, 19/02/2018.
My eldest son Bryan returned by bus on the night of 13/02/2018 reaching
Bukit Mertajam to be picked up by Soh Ai’s brother Sze Hean, and my second son
Wai Jen took ETS train on the night of 16/02/2018 to be picked up by me at
Taiping KTM station.
On Wednesday, 14/02/2018, Soh Ai, Wai Yu, Jia-Mei, Wai Kei and I left Bdr. Sg. Long at 9.00am for our
journey to north. Soh Ai and I had taken our breakfast earlier at a coffee shop in our garden and bought take-away breakfast for the children.
The traffic condition of North-South
Highway was very smooth-flowing. It was a pleasant surprise that there were
very few cars on the highway 2 days before CNY.
We wanted
to have our lunch at Restoran Jin Chen near Tapah toll gate but it was already closed for business to usher in CNY. We proceeded
further to stop over at Kawasan Rehat RTC Perak (near Gopeng) for lunch and
bought some fruits at 11.45am. Wai Yu
took the wheel from me and drove from there all the way to our destination at Rantau Panjang.
As I was concentrated in playing with my handphone as a passenger after passing by Kamunting and
not keeping an eye on the route for Wai Yu, we went past the T-junction leading to Selama
and went to Batu Kurau instead, causing a delay of ½ hour in reaching Rantau
Panjang at 2.55pm.
We went for dinner at Selama town together with Soh Ai’s youngest
brother Sze Teong and his wife Kitty Wan at 7.00pm. My mother-in-law (hereinafter referred to as
Ah Ma) didn’t join us. The cost of 5 dishes (酱蒸金凤鱼 RM 33, 红烧猪脚RM 25, 招牌豆腐 RM 16, 四大天王 RM 18, 沙律苏东 RM 23) and 1 soup (咸菜豆腐汤 RM 10) plus rice (RM 8) and tea (RM 4) came up to a reasonable
price of RM 137.
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Stopping over at RTC Perak near Gopeng, Perak |
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Food court of RTC Perak |
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Traffic condition was very smooth |
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Wai Yu took over the wheels from RTC Perak to Rantau Panjang |
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Dinner at Selama, Perak |
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Pic from left: Bryan, Kitty, Sze Teong, Wai Kei, the blogger, Soh Ai, Jia-Mei, Wai Yu |
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Dishes costing RM 137 only |
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Rantau Panjang at dusk |
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Rantau Panjang at dusk |
In the morning of Thursday, 15/02/2018 which was the CNY eve, Soh
Ai and her youngest brother Sze Teong and I went to Selama town for
breakfast. We visited the nearby market
to buy some food stuff for Ah Ma.
The
lunch prepared by Ah Ma was very delicious, in particular of her speciality dishes of
spiced duck (卤鸭) and meatloaf or lorbak (肉卷). Soh Ai’s eldest sister
Sock Kim together with her hubby Chooi KH and youngest daughter Ji-An also came
for a short while before going back to Chooi’s hometown in Menglembu, Ipoh, and had
lunch here. Soh Ai’s brother Sze Hean brought
her family from Bukit Mertajam in the afternoon but did not stay overnight. Bryan
drove my car with his brothers and Jia-Mei and followed Hean to go back to
Bukit Mertajam (BM) after dinner and spent the night and the following morning there.
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Ah Ma with Jia-Mei in the kitchen |
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Wai Kei relaxing |
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Praying session on the 1st day of CNY |
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Lunch prepared by Ah Ma |
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Lunch on CNY eve |
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LeYi with youngest brother Jia-Wei |
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Dinner time |
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LeYi playing with her handphone camera |
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Selfie stick for photos |
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Bryan playing with Jia-Wei |
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Jia-mei having a photo taken with me after receiving my CNY ang-pow |
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Wefie taken by Jia-mei |
On Friday the 1st day of CNY, 16/02/2018, Bryan and
brothers came back to Rantau Panjang in the afternoon. A simple dinner comprising omelet and canned
satin fish was prepared by Sze Teong.
At
10.00pm, Soh Ai and I left Rantau Panjang to drive to Taiping KTM station. It
took us about 1 hour to reach Taiping.
The ETS train arrived punctually at 11.26pm as scheduled and we picked
up Wai Jen to return to Rantau Panjang at about 12.45am midnight.
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Sze Teong cooking for our dinner |
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Jia-Mei and LeYi watching TV |
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Dinner prepared by Sze Teong and Kitty Wan |
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KTM Station in Taiping |
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Waiting to pick up Wai Jen travelling with ETS from KL Sentral |
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ETS train arriving punctually as scheduled at 11.26pm |
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Passengers coming out from train |
The 2nd day of CNY on Saturday, 17/02/2018 saw a grander reunion
when we had a sumptuous steamboat dinner for more relatives, after Sock Kim and
family returned from Menglembu and Ji-An’s boyfriend Ruben came from Penang.
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Going for breakfast at Selama, Perak town |
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Preparing the ingredients for laksa |
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LeYi posing as a model |
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LeYi's favourite cotton candy |
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Children playing card games |
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Jia-Wei and his cotton candy |
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Preparation of steamboat dinner |
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Wai Jen playing with his cousins |
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Wai Kei and Jia-Wei |
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Ah Ma with LeYi |
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A view of the steamboat dinner about to start |
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A pose with Soh Ai during the steamboat dinner (photo snapped by Sze Teong) |
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Pic from left: Ji-An, Ruben, Bryan, Ah Ma (standing), Jia-Wei and Sze Hean |
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Ah Ma talking to grand-daughter Jin-Ni from Australia vide WhatsApp video call |
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Pic from left: Jia-mei, LeYi, Chooi KH, Wai Jen, the blogger, Soh Ai, Bryan, Sze Teong (standing), Ah Ma, Ji-An, Ruben, Sock Kim and Wai Yu |
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Ah Ma with her four children (seated left: Sze Hean, standing from left: Soh Ai, Sze Teong, Sock Kim) |
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Ah Ma with grandson Wai Yu and granddaughter-in-law Jia-Mei |
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The route from Rantau Panjang to Taiping |
Soh Ai and I woke up at 5.15am on Sunday, 18/02/2018 and we fetched
Wai Jen to Taiping to catch his ETS train to KL departing at 7.05am. Wai Yu and Jia-Mei also followed us.
After seeing Wai Jen off, we went to “Tycoon
Villa” at Desa Aulong Utama, Taiping to pay a visit to Soh Ai’s cousin brother Kok Yeaw
and his wife Kitty Ewe.
We went
for noodle breakfast together with Kok Yeaw and his wife Kitty Ewe in the nearby coffee shop at about 8.00am. After that, Kok
Yeaw took us to go for sight-seeing of Taiping Lake
and the surrounding scenic spots such as the Raintree Walk, Bukit Larut and
etc. We left Taiping at about 10.45am and returned to Rantau Panjang at about 12.00pm noon.
As we were told that there would be a lion dance at Sze Hean’s new
house at 3.30pm, we left Rantau Panjang at 2.00pm for BM. Ah Ma also followed us. As I was quite tired after waking up early in
the morning and driving to and fro Taiping earlier, Bryan took the wheel for the journey to
BM.
We reached Hean’s house of “Residensi Tropika” at BM at about
3.15pm. But the lion dance was not in
sight as scheduled (it eventually came at about 6.30pm). We waited till 4.30pm and decided to
leave.
We wanted to have something to
eat at Kulim town but found all Chinese restaurants or coffee shops still
closed. We finally returned to Selama town to have our dinner at Country
Restaurant (家乡饭店). The restaurant we patronized earlier (where the
food price was said to be cheaper) was closed.
The cost of 5 dishes and 1 soup came up to be RM174.
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Inside Taiping KTM station |
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Wai Jen posed with Wai Yu and Jia-Mei before departure |
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Departure platform |
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Train arriving |
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Outside Taiping KTM Station at 7.10am |
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Visiting Kok Yeaw at his house in Tycoon Villa, Taiping |
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Kok Yeaw's bungalow house |
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Breakfast at Desa Aulong Utama, Taiping |
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Pic from left: Kok Yeaw, Kitty Ewe, Soh Ai, Wai Yu and Jia-mei |
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Taman Tasik Taiping |
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Surrounding area of Taiping Lake |
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Maxwell Hill entrance |
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A view of the cramped passengers in Kok Yeaw's car |
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Lotus lake with dried out leaves |
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A very scenic Raintree Walk |
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A pose with Kok Yeaw (pic right), Kitty Ewe and Soh Ai |
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Visiting Sze Hean's new house in Residensi Tropika, Bkt. Mertajam |
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Jia-Wei dressed fully in red |
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Dinner at Selama, Perak |
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Dishes costing a total of RM 174 |
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Red fish cooked in Teochew style steaming |
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Mamee pork |
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In front of Ah Ma's house in the evening of Sunday, 18/02/2018 |
Soh Ai, Wai Yu, and Jia-Mei and I returned to KL in the morning of
Monday, 19/02/2018 while Bryan
and Wai Kei would take ETS train from Butterworth in the evening of the same
day. Soh Ai and I went to Selama town to
have our noodle breakfast at 8.00am and bought take-away noodles for Ah Ma and
the children. We left Rantau Panjang at 10.30am after bidding farewell to Ah
Ma.
The traffic condition was very heavy as we hit the highway from
Taiping. We took a break for coffee at
Hentian Sebelah Bukit Gantang at 12.10pm.
Wai Yu took the wheel from there and we were caught in a very bad jam on the highway before and after Ipoh, very slow moving and standstill many times. It was understood that there was an accident
in the Menora Tunnel near Jelapang in the late morning involving the collision of two cars in the northbound tunnel and causing a back-up of traffic for 5 km and a jam
that lasted almost 2 hours.
The slow-moving traffic was worsened by the heavy rain that started
to fall at about 3.00pm. All R&R
rest stations could be seen packed with long queue of vehicles. We drove out of the highway at about 5.00pm and
had our dinner (fried rice and fried noodles) at Restoran Jin Chen near Taipah
toll amidst heavy rain. By the time we
finished our dinner, the rain stopped and I took the wheel from Wai Yu.
On the way back home, it was the first time that I used the LATAR
(Lebuhraya Assamjawa Taman Rimba) or Kuala
Lumpur-Kuala Selangor Expressway, following a suggestion by Sze Teong to bypass KL town, by turning towards Selayang after passing Rawang. It led us to Ampang and Jalan Cheras, after
paying 2 additional closed toll fares.
We finally reached home at 9.05pm, after spending a total of 10.5 hours for a distance of 332 km! That concluded our 6D5N trip to my wife's hometown in conjunction with the CNY of 2018.
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Morning market at Rantau Panjang main street |
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Regular Monday "pasar pagi" along the main road of Rantau Panjang |
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A last glance of Ah Ma's house before departure |
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Hentian Sebelah Bkt Gantang |
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Traffic standstill before and after Ipoh |
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Traffic jam worsened by heavy rain along the N-S highway |
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Early dinner at Restoran Jin Chen, Tapah |
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Wai Yu and Jia-Mei in Restoran Jin Chen, Tapah |
Labels: Travelogue
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