Sunday Excursion

Well - my last Sunday in Penang was spent in the very best way possible - first in church, and then with

Contemporary worship at Wesley

Christian friends!Walked down to Wesly church just in time for the 11am service.  Enjoyed the music especially - and of course, - worshiping with brothers and sisters in Christ!  the message was the 2nd of a series on "Covenants".  this week was text about Abraham and circumcision as sign of covenant. 

The vegetarian buffet at the Centre of Fine Arts

There was another young Australian joining us at church - 'Sam' (I never asked, but I assume her full name is Samantha....) is about 25 yrs old, cute blond.  is part of Australian royal Air force military police.  has been in Penang for 3 months and returned home Wednesday march 7th.  anyway - Sam is single and Craig and Narelle invited her to come over from the base on the mainland to join us for church and then for an afternoon of driving around the island.
Sam is a vegetarian so I took all of us to the Asian Center of fine Arts (might not be the correct name!) which is a Hindu related place where they run a vegetarian restaurant as part of their ministries.  They don't charge for the food - donations accepted.  Lunch is a buffet.  Sarah Amin (my boss while here) took me there this past week - it was awesome! Lots of different spices - I recognized some of the foods, like 'lady fingers' are really okra.  Also, for example, they offer several kinds of rice so that, if you are doing some type of spiritual praying or 'cleansing', you don't eat onion and garlic because they stimulate your digestion..... So, when Craig and Narelle were trying to decide where we could go that would be guaranteed vegetarian, I knew the Perfect Place!
After lunch Criag and Narelle drove us down to the other end of the island, stopping at this HUGE shopping mall called QueensBay".  very modern.  It was surprising to see a TGIF restaurant and lots of other American stores.  I found a map of the country at a large bookstore.  Glad we stopped there,  but wouldn't go back on a regular basis, I don't think.
Then we drove on, across the rest of the island, driving up and over the mountain ridge that runs straight along

A fishing village

the island - to get back over to the Georgetown portion of the island you either have to drive over the mountain or all along the coastal perimeter.  I'm not sure how high the mountain range is (I'll check that out), but it was certainly cooler up on top - we stopped at a nice shaded overlook.
For a small island that has been colonized and 'over-westernized' for over 200 years - the island is remarkably wooded - lots of undisturbed forests  - perhaps the mountain range has something to do with the remaining forests?
Sam had never been to see the famous temple Kek Lok Si that I was fortunate to visit the first weekend I was here.  So we swung by the temple just as it was closing.  took a photo of me with a pig statue - we think that 1957 was the year of the pig.....
We dropped Sam off at the ferry so she could head back to the airforce base.  Then Craig and Narelle swung by and dropped me at my flat.  another tiring, but very enjoyable day.