Thursday, July 27, 2006

The haze.....but for the miraculous rain....

Yesterday the haze was pretty bad.....the visibilty was probably less than 50 m......the sky was already quite dark by 5.00 pm yesterday...and you literally smelled smoke or something burning....that's how bad it was.....pity the asthma sufferers and ppl with chronic respiratory problems....

i prayed for God to send the rain....and it came this morning....around 7.00 am...lasted till 10.00 am.....the rain send the haze away and clean up the mess that our greed created...burning the jungle to make way for oil palm....sustainable oil palm.....what a misnomer....

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Homeless in Georgetown

The Komtar in Georgetown is a home for the homeless in Pg. Every morning along Pg road just opposite the Ong Kongsi, you will see a group (maybe 7 or 8) elderly Chinese man and woman sitting around. They have not come to shop because the shops are still closed nor come to have their breakfast in the coffee shops....bec they have just open and are getting ready for the office crowds.....

They are the homeless residents of komtar.....pg's tallest building.....at night they would sleep along komtar's corridors along prangin road..where the ground floor of the Departmental Store Super Komtar used to be....

I wonder whether any of our wakil rakyat ....people's represantative knows....it reminds me of many songs....the streets of london....an old lady carrying her whole world in two carrier bags or the song another day in paradise

We can do anything.... feed them.....find them a place to sleep.....its a good thing we don't have winters....or they will be frozen to death...as winter takes its toil....

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Dough-nut effect - the hollowing out of Georgetown

The city of Georgetown is hollowing out.....as more of its residents moved out of its center.....it will become like a dough-nut....with nothing in its center....

Every nite just after 9.00 pm....the city is a ghost town except for some sections such as the UPR (Upper Penang Road for the uninitiated)...the city is dead as a dodo.....as most of the happenings are located on the fringes of the city in places like the gurney and pulau tikus and bayan bahru....

One of the consequence of this dough-nut effect can be felt in the morning. The formerly busy markets of penang, like chowraster, campbell street, kuantan road markets are dying a slow death.....it is so "uncrowded" compared to their hey days in the 60's and 70's.....some of the best and cheapest hawker foods are found there....

I am lamenting the closing of my favourite malaysian pan cake store at Anson road market....the store owner can make enough to make it worth his while to continue his business....so is my favourite curry mai fun man.....his curry laksa is one of the best...very subdued and yet aromatic and delicious and yummy....he complains that he can even sell more than 5 katis about 3 kgs of mee per day...he too will be looking for another place to ply his trade.....how sad.....that's progress

Yup, i am fed up, with progress....

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The very rude drivers of penang

There is a sub-species of drivers in Penang that are impatient and and will do anything to beat the queue at road junctions and traffic lights.

They just want to go first, and to wait for the lights to turn green or for other drivers to turn is just too much for them.....they behave as if they are holding on to their urine or shit and have to rush to the nearest toilet or all hell will break loose and they will literally burst.....

These drivers break all traffic rules and norms of courtesy.....it shows their character...who they are .... is displayed for all to see....badly brought up and disrespectful, selfish and destined for destruction.....

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Rain rain go away

The rains never seems to stop.......as i can recall the rain in Pg usually starts around March-April during the inter-monsoon months. Then it eases off by the beginning of June, until after August, it starts again, unleashing its fullest onslaught around mid-September and then easing off again towards the end of October. By the mid-December, the dry season starts and ends with the onset of early april showers, the next year.....

2006 seems to be an exceptional year....the drought was not as pronounced nor was it as prolonged.....april showers actually came in early March, then it left us for a short while...but it never seems to go away....it continues....on and off....weird....

Somethings going awry....the rain pattern may be out kilter......global warming perhaps.....

Penang - Public Transport a major flop

Knew all along that the revamped transport system would failed miserably. They changed nothing......as the saying goes....our system is perfectly designed to produce the results we are getting.....if the State governement or rather the Federal Government run CLVB did not changed anything.....how can the system produce different results.....

Madness or insanity is defined as doing the same thing and expecting different results.....

Sigh.....gets more depressing with each passing day......thats why i stopped blogging about penang......there is not much positive things to write....phew....