November Rain

Surely it must've rained a big deal in little ol "Rain Town" Taiping this past November.
Of course memory serves me short (hazy? pun intended) as I skimmed through the pictures that was automatically ear-marked November by the phone, and with my current Day 4 of CW-DC Arrowverse Crossover Zombie mode; that certainly doesn't help jogging the mind's eye.

November was pretty good, I might say since we had some pretty memorable milestones in our walk with the Lord, as well as it has certainly been a great month of me catching up on my favorable pastimes. Nevertheless, I suppose I've been caught out somehow as I was very much unproductive with my very low output of digital images, I don't think I did even 5 pieces of images in total, across all my endeavors. Shame. Shame. Shame.

Anyhow, on with it. (Remember, K.I.S.S, Kevin. Summarize it and hit the showers and finish up Legends of Tomorrow!)

Sunshine Homes visitations: We hit 2 believers in a day! and one of them was this old brother who'd incidentally became unconscious during our session; thank God as we laid hands and prayed for him to regain awareness to accept and do the sinner's prayer. Hallelujah!

We continued our Wednesday sessions to Emmanuel Women's Home (or something like that, can't recall for sure) Quaint nifty home nearby Sunshine Old Folks Home. 

The womenfolk does have activities, crochet-ing and well, they help with prepping their food too. Of course, this home houses able womenfolk, whereas everyone had seen better days at Sunshine.

We sneaked in a couple of visits to this senior gentleman who neighbors Taiping Baptist Church. Kind and pet-friendly man; he hid behind his house (must've been to light up a smoke) on his grandchildren's birthday one day, and he saw Bunny & the Gang (Pastor Cheah's dogs : Bunny is the humongous Labrador Mix, The Gang refers to the other 2 young clowns) peeking and calling out to him for treats. He took the half of the birthday cake(s) and fed them by hand..and that was how Pastor saw it to tell us the tale.

On the 26th, we joined Taiping Baptist Church's family gathering, a 3D2N stay in Ipoh. 

Of course, I for one was raring to go when I knew about it, since this would totally mark the first time we are going to a family church camp..of course as days sniffed closer; (and with Mom and her worries of us 2 ass-hats sneaking off for smokes) the self-doubt sets in. The elephant in the room was the language barrier; I mean I do understand Mandarin somehow, sparingly; but this is going to be practically a full-on 3 days of Mandarin and even conversing in it (which is technically my worst) 

But I suppose I asked for not the whole nine yards from the Lord as I asked only for the strength to comprehend the sermons, and He did deliver. I am pretty sure I get the implications and hidden messages from all the sermons and this is a mean feat since there were 3 hour-long sessions from this Reverend Bai from China and it was evident as I understood his jokes too in thick accent. (and to a certain degree, playing RoTK 13 with mandarin language)

 Praise the Lord!

Moving along, yeah Ipoh. In the family I had the least things in common with Ipoh (they lived here for some years, years before I was born) but of course growing up in Taiping I had a few flings (both 'with' and 'in' teehee) with Ipoh and the other Perak cities no thanks to my busy/active middle school life, which is a lifetime away. But I do remember one thing, I wasn't like some of my friends that glorify Ipoh and traveled down for leisure, just for the malls, etc whenever they got their dad's car for the weekend (yeah, small townies had to resort to that, but I suppose I was being a dick since I associate Penang as my hometown then, yeah. Dick)

Oh, how different it was. I mean my last pass-over Ipoh must've been 5-6 years ago when I visited an ex-colleague based here; and I've certainly forgot Ipoh for it also being the food capital of Perak. We had a leisurely stroll on the final day, and I must say I did an imaginary tearful joy at having this particular dish I've only been reduced to having the discount version (though not 'discount' in price!) when I lived in KL.. the infamous Ipoh Koay Teow Soup. It should easily be more than 20+ years since I had a sniff of the authentic bowl of noodles; no matter where was the original one.

Bad Photo I Know Right : Ipoh's Chee Cheong Funn, got schooled from Harry that they are somewhat special, as evident in the addition of the mushroom gravy and mushroom bits. Yum yum awesome! But I had their other infamous noodle; which I never did like before this; Hor Hee (yes, in the family, Heidi named it such during our CNY steamboat dinners, little did I know it is named as such as a dish. I was taught that this specific 'space-ship' looking fishball is Hor Hee; if we called it "Space-Ship"...the elders wouldn't know it meant that. But we still call it Space Ship, even though I don't like eating it, since it is fish, somehow. But I can say I love the Hor Hee dish now!

Yes! of course this one is from a tourist-y place, but it still brings age-old memories

Skeptical at first; but I ate my words as I saw it for myself. I must say I was dead impressed. Buns are good, the varieties got me impressed really. But my favorites are the Real Squid Balls, tender juicy bouncy balls.

Our gathering was at the Oasis 5, Jalan Raja Dihilir; an awesome church venue. Huge spacious rooms and I suppose it is very accessible indeed.

Landscape of the back

looks dead like I pawn off an official picture. but no, just an opportune shot. 

Rare occasion to selfie. Of course without much practice, couldn't time a decent one with Mr Ozzie Ostrich

boat ride view of Gunung Lang and it's cleavage?

I only have pictures from the third day, somehow must've been preoccupied with the camp, helping out getting food, picking up speaker-brother Dr Lawrence Lim from his hotel nearby, and making coffee for Dad (and seeing to his tablet too, shared responsibility with Harry)
Guess must've reverted back to the introverted shell as I only thought of getting a selfie with Lawrence after we sent him back to his hotel. It certainly was a good 2 session of health talk from him; as I too am inspired to follow his dietary lifestyle, not his lifestyle, not yet jose. I mean, I can't fathom tuning in the night at 9pm and waking up 5am (he does his morning devotions for an hour and a half) but I will certainly aim for that one day... maybe the 7am's? :D
But I certainly am aiming for a good level of reduction in skipping dinner at 'normal' dinner time. His dinner is no later than 5:30pm, so that is an achievable goal somehow. Of course with staying at home and our meal times (and Dad with his food habits) plus the occasional *ahem* awesomeness of my cooking, it needs TIME for it to be reasonably possible lol. Of course, I'm aware Harry had been lowering his dinner intake ever since the last meet with Dr Lawrence earlier this year, and Mom has always been a small eat; it needs time to adjust our meals as I can't just simply excessively tone down on my dinner intake as this will certainly mean leaving loads of leftover rice for Fried Rice! and Larry isn't exactly stopping by to visit every single month. Okay. I better speed this up. Dominators are waiting to be pawned by the heroes & legends, man.

gosh, can't remember this alley. 

Mom with Rev. Bai

And so here we are, the final month of 2016. Mental note for the Christmas gift list, and of course looking forward to the conclusion of Civil War II, and this coming weekend's season finale of HBO's Westworld. Probably should do a post about Westworld, after I watched the original film and err, the book. But heeyy, I am pretty behind on my Goodreads Book Challenge!
Too many books too many graphic novels, too many Marvel, too many tv series, so little time. (oh, for one, I accidentally missed out on catching Doctor Strange in the cinemas, what an embarrassing relapse in time/day-keeping!)

supposed death of Iron Man. Not too shocking since you kinda have been teased and forewarned with/from other new titles.