Monday, April 16, 2007

Day 29: Kuala Lumpur & sayonara to the family

My French family has visited Kuala Lumpur once, today's trip was to go visit other attractions there with the other French who arrived later. Last day for the family, 8 days leave for all of the rest.

The day after was the Tian Gong (one of the Taoist Gods)'s birthday. The Malaysian Chinese who are originated from Fujian, China celebrate this day with larger scale of celebrations compared to the first day of Chinese New Year. So, early in the morning, my sister drove my mother, a neighbore and my French family to the market for praying ingredients and accessories.

The market is full of Tian Gong festival praying stuffs: pineapple, pamelo and mandarin orange.


Is Tian Gong Festival, sugar cane is one of the main praying ingredient. The story behind was that the Hokkien clan was being attacked during the Tian Gong Festival, and they managed to escape the attact by hiding in between sugar cane. From that day on, the Hokkien pray with sugar cane during Tian Gong Festival.


Isn't the crab in Malaysia look differently compared to those in France? We hardly see snow crab in Malaysia. The Malaysian crab is quite meaty.


This prosperity cake (huat kuih) is mandatory for Tian Gong festival. It's true that the Chinese like money, all the pray about is getting rich. That's why during Chinese New Year we eat several types of prosperity cake: nian gao for promotion, huat kuih for getting rich and we wish each other "Gong Xi Fa Chai"= congratulations that you are getting rich. I guess the Chinese were suffering from poverty for centuries that they really wish one day they don't have to worry about money.


Is the year of golden pig, so we pray with pig cookies.


We finally departed for Kuala Lumpur, first stop the Menara Kuala Lumpur (KL Tower).


From KL tower you can see Kuala Lumpur skyline, including the famous Petronas twin tower.


The monorail has finally on operation. It was under construction for many years.


Later they visited the Butterfly Park



It was time for the family to say goodbye. On the way to the airport, we stopped by Putrajaya, as I heard the night view is excellent as well. At least it pleased my FIL a lot.


Sayonara ma famille! I hope this visit will give them an unforgetable memory. I wish I could done more with them, for example visiting the Port Klang, but time is so short that it's impossible to visit Malaysia in 2 weeks!

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