34th MD308 Leo Forum: Penang, 2007

I've always been blasted by some friends with the claim that I'm never free for them. (-_-")

So it was rather amazing (well at least it was to me) that last weekend, amidst my work and Leo club schedules, that yours truly could happily roll up to Penang on a semi-spontaneous streak to attend the 34th MD308 Leo Forum from 1 June - 3 June 2007.

I'm off to Penang!

Now the last time the Leo Forum was held in Penang was in 2005. This year, the Leos who went were our club's 2006/07 President Leo Zetuan, IPP Leo Daryan, Secretary Leo Min Han, Editor/IT Director Leo Edwin, and Ren Li, while Asst. Treasurer Leo Joanne & 2nd VP Leo Elaine (yes, moi) were only able to join on Saturday morning.

As it was, Joanne, Merv & I had to leave KL at the godforsaken hour of 6:30am. Okay, we PLANNED to leave at 6:30am but in the end we left around 7am but hey! That's still considered an ungodly hour in my book for a Saturday morning okay?

Setting off from me home...

Knowing it would be a 4-hour drive, I got well-prepared for a comfy ride up and dragged my trusty kitty cushion along for the trip. Lol. Not that I'm a bit too old for soft toys but dammit, it's damn soft and nice to hug and it makes a great emergency pillow. Muaha!

My trusty sidekick sometimes affectionately called 'Meow Meow'. So I'm unimaginative in naming it. Sue me.

Like most trips to anywhere in Malaysia, the scenery you get while on the highway is always the same. If it's not palm trees, it's coconut trees. Trees, trees, trees. *snore*.

Oh, occasionally we get some mountains and rock formations too, especially when you hit the Perak state. Perak is well-known for its limestone mountains, and umm...let's see...marble. Yup, usually you'll pass by lots of mountains being mined for marble, which tends to leave them looking...nekkid naked.

Somewhere along the way to Penang, we ran into a massive jam at the one of the toll booths. You know, it's a bit scary when you realize you can't outrun traffic jams ANYWHERE in Malaysia anymore. Sien betul.

Guh. Jam again. Ish!

After a gruelling 4-hour drive, of which we had swapped drivers during our rest stops, we finally reached Penang! (^_~)/ "Hello Penang!"

Hark! We're on the Penang Bridge!

A shot of Penang from the bridge. Seeing those boats and yachts make me think a bit of Sydney instead. Hmm.

Before I continue, let me explain that Leo Forums are a great way to interact with other Leos and to renew old friendships, not to mention great to catch up with fellow KL Omega Leos. So, by arriving 1 day late, apparently I had missed out on quite a bit.

Like me missing the Leo Parade down the entire length of Gurney Drive...







...and missing out on the Fellowship Night at the Former Uplands School field...




...plus missing out on the performances by the Digi Celebriteens, it seems. Oh, and winning goodies from the Digi Yellow Men!

Min Han wearing the yellow Digi cap he won for shaking his tush onstage with the Yellow Men!

Apparently, I also missed out on the Opening Ceremony and Special Project in Sri Pinang Hall...




...but we arrived just in time to join the rest of the gang for Bak Kut Teh on Gurney Drive! Bwahaha! According to Zetuan, they had escaped earlier to have lunch outside because no one really had a yen for the catered chicken curry and mee hoon for lunch.

Predictably, we got lost almost immediately upon reaching Georgetown. Lol. So, while hunting for the route to Gurney Drive, the 3 of us had a mini-tour instead. LMAO.

One of the landmarks we passed by as we went on our uh...mini tour.

Several twists & turns and many, many one-way roads, we finally found our way to Gurney Drive. (-_-")

After lunch, we headed back to our hotel for a quick rest and to freshen up after the long journey before we went for the District 308 B1 Leo Forum in Sri Pinang Hall.





Unlike most forums where everyone would be housed in a single hotel, due to the smaller sizes of most hotels in Penang, everyone was scattered apart in several hotels. The Lions stayed in G Hotel, while most of the Alpha Leos were housed in Evergreen Laurel and Bayview Hotel.

As for the rest of us Omega Leos? Well, we ended up in Cititel, which strangely has no swimming pool, which totally made Leo Zetuan very, very disappointed. Lol.

(P/s. For those who went for the 2005 MD 308 Leo Forum that was also held in Penang, it's the hotel in front of that mamak place we had our yumcha sessions with the Lions last time. Hee!)

Komtar as seen from our hotel room

Due to the fact that our glorious leader had mistakenly noted the time for the Forum, we misjudged our timing and ended up reaching the forum late. Luckily we had arrived in time for the awards for Omega Leo Clubs, and had to sneak in through the back door.

More amazingly, there was actually an entire row of empty seats for us where we sat together with Lion Soh from our sponsor club, Lions Club of KL Cheras and also the KL Perennial Leos.

On a mutual agreement, we had decided to roar for every single KL Omega Club that won. What we didn't expect was how often that would be, which meant we kept popping up and down from our chairs yelling "KL Omega, Roar! Roar! Roar!" non-stop.

Trust me, it's EXTREMELY tiring and damn harsh on the throat. Even the other club members were a bit confused why we kept bouncing up from our seats like, 5 times in a row to keep cheering the same roar.

Which, btw, is why I've no pics to post here. We were too busy roaring and going to the front to take pictures that we simply had no hands to shoot pics!

Although we did not retain our Top Club position for this forum, nevetherless KLCC Omega did quite well, garnering Outstanding Club Award, Outstanding Secretary Award for Leo Min Han, Merit President Award for Leo Zetuan, Merit Treasurer Award for Leo Yedda, and also Outstanding Leo Award for Leo Joanne!




For our projects, we gained recognition for our efforts, receiving the award for Outstanding Environmental Project for our PD Beach Cleaning project, Outstanding Fund-raising Project for our Jumble Sale, and Outstanding Children Project for our Sharing Hearts Sharing Hopes projects! (Let me check on the award names, might have jumbled em' up)

CONGRATS YOU GUYS FOR A JOB WELL DONE! (^_~)b

Now the Top Awards are usually presented during the Banquet Night, and this Forum it was to be held at Han Chiang School Hall. For some reason, both times that I've been to the forum in Penang, the banquet nights were held either in the Municipal Hall or in school halls. (-_-?)




Now Han Chiang is pretty famous for its heritage in Penang. They even have a statue of its founder in the front of the hall.




If you're wondering why it's a backshot, that's because hordes of Alpha Leos were hogging the front to snap pix. Me being the older and more patient (*cough cough*) Omega Leo, decided to let them have the front all to themselves.

Amazingly, the school has been around since 1958! What's more, this statue was unveiled by our very first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman!





This year, the banquet theme was Shanghai Night. Although I didn't bother trying to fit myself into a cheongsam (since I know I look horrible in one), it was quite nice to see so many of the other forum delegates to rise to the occasion and dress up according to theme.

In case you're wondering AGAIN why all these shots are from the back, it's because:

a) They were mostly Alpha Leos
b) I didn't know them (and was feeling slightly anti-social due to lack of sleep)
c) I was too lazy to trot over and ask them to turn around to pose
d) They might think I'm some female perv with a thing for females, god forbid!

Now we had to wait quite a long time before we were allowed into the hall, eventhough we were ON TIME. Malaysian timing again. Sheesh. Btw, they actually made us line up in 2 lines before allowing us to enter like we were some elementary students indeed.

Funnily enough, there weren't much 'Shanghai' decor in the hall. We had flashing strobe and gobo lights. We even had a smoke machine, for the love of God. But considering the theme was Shanghai Night, isn't it more feasible to put some more oriental touches? But that's my 2 cents worth, of course. *shrugs*

My god sis, Joanne & I

Zetuan trying to act cute. *puke puke*

Zetuan, Edwin & Min Han

Yeah, we decided to camwhore a bit while waiting for the hall to fill since we have to document this occasion for the club anyway. To kick off the night, there were several speeches from VIPs and Lion dignitaries.

Considering it's Penang, it wasn't surprising to have a Dragon Dance as our entertainment. The added twist though, was it was a GLOW-IN-THE-DARK DRAGON. (O_o). Yeah, they plunged us into darkness and all of a sudden this glowing PINK dragon bobs through the crowd.

To give them due credit, it was a pretty good performance by the Chung Hwa Penang School. Only I think they shouldn't have done it while the first course of the meal was served. As it is, we couldn't even tell what we were eating and had to take turns using our handphones to illuminate the dish. (-_-")

Satay prawns? Funky...

After the banquet dinner, we headed for Feringgi Bay! There's lots of bargains there which made us me us very happy shoppers indeed. Hee! Bought loads of uh...secret merchandises and headed onwards to Gurney Drive to meet with the Bukit Kiara Leos for supper.

It turned out that they were in a cafe nearby instead, which clashed with out intention to pig out on char kuey teow, so we settled by ourselves on one of the stalls still open at that time and had some yummy supper!



Penang Char Kuey Teow rawks full-time. This stall may not be one of the best but it still beats those in KL hands down.



Next morning, we opted for breakfast on our own again and went off a-hunting. Headed for this apparently famous Char Kuey Teow auntie at Lorong Selamat but it was still closed when we got there! Shoot. So we ended up going several rounds thinking where else to eat.




Along the way I saw this, which I thought it was pretty hilarious. I never knew KL was famous for pork meatball noodles. (O_o)?




Eventually we just settled for one of the coffeeshops around Lorong Selamat and faced the ever-present problem of finding parking.

The guys goofing around again while waiting for Joanne and Merv to find parking

Originally we were headed for the corner coffeeshop that we've ate before during the last forum, but halfway through I saw the dim sum! So, me being the kid I am bugged the rest to have dim sum instead. (^_~)v




Check out the variety of dim sum pastry they have here. I don't ever recall seeing them serve these in KL dim sum shops.

Our haul for the morning, or rather, half of our haul. The first half went down our tummy already...

The guys went back for the Closing Ceremony after breakkie while Joanne, Merv and I opted to hunt down and buy 'dau sar piah' (a famous local pastry) to haul home.

One the way we passed by the supposedly-famous Char Kuey Teow auntie's stall and she was opened by then! Grr...talk about lousy timing on our part.

Now, Zetuan wanted to buy Him Heang 'dau sar piah'. But even after rounding Jalan Burma for what seemed liked eternity, we still couldn't find it even though we passed by Ghee Hiang about, I don't know, 5 times?

Most Penang-lang swear by Ghee Hiang btw, although for some reason KL peeps lurrvve Him Heang. I wonder why. Eventually we called up Penang friends, who informed us that Him Heang is actually closed on Sundays. WTF? (O_o) *bangs head repeatedly on car door*

So we ended up going back to Ghee Hiang...






...only to find out that they were sold out already! (-_-"). Argh! ARGH! ARGGHH! We wasted too much time going round and round hunting for Hin Heang and missed out on Ghee Hiang! So we had to head home to KL empty-handed. (T_T)

To top it off, we got lost trying to find our way back to Han Chiang. Again. (>_<)

Eventually I dozed off while Merv and Joanne continued the joyride all around Penang looking for a familiar route back to Han Chiang. 2 hours later, we gave up, stopped at a McD and told Zetuan to meet at the toll instead.

5 minutes later, I had a call from Zetuan:


Zetuan: "Eh, which McD are you guys at? Oh, oh I see Joanne's car!" (Line goes dead)
Me: ........... (O_o)?


Another 5 minutes later, he troops in with the others:


Zetuan: "Do you know where Han Chiang is from here?"
Me: Uh..no?
Zetuan: (points to the BACK of the McD) "THERE."
Me: (-_-") W-T-F? *keels over dying of laughter*


According to Merv, he had never gone over so much of Penang in his entire life. Lol. Talk about a memorable 2-day, 1-night trip indeed.

Joyride over, it was time for us to head home. We left Penang and quickly ran into an neverending storm around Ipoh, which then 'accompanied' us for the rest of our journey home.




Now in Malaysia, rain = traffic jam.

Would you believe we only reached back into PJ and KL around 8pm or so? We left Penang at about 2:30pm. If there wasn't a storm, we could have reached, oh, Singapore already.

The best part was of course, when everyone was screaming for a toilet rest stop, and there weren't any in sight, and then you see the nearest rest stop is but 500m away but you CAN'T get to it because the cars in front of you ARE NOT FREAKIN' MOVING in the bloody traffic jam.


[Pause]


You have no idea how much we wished for teleportation then.

All in all, it was quite a fun trip because we created our own entertainment most of the time. Bwahaha. The forum itself though was a disappointment and many felt paying RM300 for it wasn't worth it.

Not when we were initially informed we would stay in Evergreen Hotel, or that all our meals were to be there. Not for fried mee hoon and curry chicken. And, no offence to Penang Leos, definitely NOT for THAT Penang Leo who uttered the classic line of "This is how we do it in Penang" to us.


Nuh-uh. No siree. Pffft.



Psst...for the more official one I wrote for my Leo Club, hop here.