From Serenity To A Madding Crowd

Cirrocumulus clouds
Cirrocumulus clouds.

This beautiful sight greeted us as we emerged from Sunset Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit yesterday. This cloud formation is called the altocumulus and supposedly warns of impending rain; nevertheless, still an amazing spectacle. That reminded me of the sand ripples at the bottom of the seabed which had fascinated me as a child.

Uncle Paul, who had come back from Malacca with his family to celebrate the Chinese New Year here, suggested that we have dinner at the Gurney Drive hawkers? corner. The traffic congestion five kilometres away from our destination portended the state of things to come.

Gurney Drive hawker centre
Gurney Drive hawker centre.

Gurney Drive is not the place to go to during festive holidays. Traffic came to a crawl as we entered the beachfront. Parking space was hard to come and Peter, my cousin, had to wait a while to get one. The hawker?s corner was packed to the brim but Uncle Paul who had arrived earlier than us had a table waiting for us. The food was cut-throat expensive. I did not eat much as nothing caught my fancy.

Gurney Drive by night
Gurney Drive by night.

We adjourned to the promenade after we had finished our food. It was equally crowded there. There were makeshift stalls selling fireworks. Children and adults were lighting all kinds of sparklers, roman candles, rockets and missiles that lit up the night sky in a pyrotechnic of colours and explosions. That was also a hazardous place to be with merrymakers recklessly hurling firecrackers all over the place, notwithstanding the acrid fumes that filled the air. We left a short while later and got stuck in another traffic jam on the way back.

Author: Peter Tan

Peter Gabriel Tan. Penangite residing in the Klang Valley. Blissfully married to Wuan. A LaSallian through and through. Slave to three cats. Wheelchair user since 1984. End-stage renal disease since 2017. Principal Facilitator at Peter Tan Training specialising in Disability Equality Training. Former columnist of Breaking Barriers with The Borneo Post. This blog chronicles my life, thoughts and opinions. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

11 thoughts on “From Serenity To A Madding Crowd”

  1. peter, thanks for dropping in my blog to make a comment re: cny in church. i had made some response to you there.

    it’s good to know a fellow blogger from penang and a catholic too. actually i stays in bayan baru and the cathedral should consider my parish but i don’t go to the cathedral (my family does). as you are aware i goes to city parish churches (our lady of sorrows or st francis xavier).

    i like your blog. at first glance, it looks so neat (the design i mean). then reading them, they are interesting… and with pictures too. i’m going to link your blog to mine, so that it’ll be easier for me to hop on to your blog anytime when i want to read your blog.

  2. hello peter,

    happy chinese new year to you. sorry that my wishes comes this late. during my one week holiday of cny, i avoided looking at my pc so much. wanted to get away from the virtual world for awhile. staring at the pc for 10 hrs a day during work is more than enough already.

    happy chinese new year again.

    terry

  3. Hey Lucia,
    Thank you for dropping by. We live quite near to each other. If you have the time, do drop by at my place, and maybe we can share a thing or two about blogging and other interests.

    I attend Mass at the Holy Spirit mostly, but I try to make my rounds among the other churches to get to know a little more about them too. If you see a long haired guy on a wheelchair, that is probably me.

  4. Hi Terry,
    Gong xi fa cai. Better late than never. Once in a while, I have to peel myself off the monitor and get a life in the real world. As you can see, I am absolutely addicted. By the way, sippingsoda have been offline for a while already. What happened?

  5. hi peter. ok i’ll email you one day to find out where exactly you are living. it’s good to have a real blogger friend whom i can meet to talk too, as you said about blogging and other relevant interests. i mean so far all the bloogers i only know them online (except for jeff ooi… met him once long time ago).

  6. im here!!
    btw… the photo of da sky… i think nearly everyone who has a camera took dat picture… i did and so did terry =D

  7. You site was not available for a while a few weeks back and I was wondering what happened to it.

  8. Next time i visit penang i should visit you. i come by every few months for work – stay at evergreen 🙂 So you’ll find me eating at gurney drv! I’ll drop you a note when i’m there next and come visit if you’re free..

  9. You are most welcome to drop in at my place but you will not be catching me eating at Gurney Drive anytime soon. The food there is ridiculously expensive and does not do justice to Penang’s famous and delicious hawker food.

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