Ok so this post is a bit more about me than usual, because…well, it’s my birthday so why not? Plus, just one week ago as this post goes live, I was still in KL, wrapping up my lovely afternoon in which I explored first the Botanic Gardens (which we’ve shown you in recent posts) and then the remarkable Malaysian Museum of Islamic Art (which we’ll show you in future posts). Since this blog tends to show you photos I might have taken quite a few weeks or months ago, I thought I’d show you some recent posts featuring the fairly-current me, sweaty and happy from climbing up to the top of the Penang Hill two weekends ago, on the eponymous island of Penang in the eponymous State of Penang in the fabulous country of Malaysia. Quick comparison: as you see, there in Malaysia, land of true mountains, they call their 833-meter high item a “hill.” Down south here in my truly beloved adopted home of NL, some folks call the Vaalserberg and surrounding 322-meter high items “the Dutch alps’ … some of them, I think, with tongue in cheek. Or at least I hope so. This was, of course, a work visit – and generally a quite lovely and enjoyable one, I’ll say. But as you know, we don’t really talk in this personal space about the work, so instead I’m showing you various shots of one of my truly favorite MY weekend activities, walking in the heat and humidity (endurance test for an aging dude, eh?) of a Malaysian summer afternoon from the bottom to the top of this awesome hill. Pro tip: check for monkeys in the various photos below. And yes, Steve, there’s another special animal shot that’s just for you 🙂 — see if you can properly identify the one I took with you in mind…
Turns out I skipped Urban Garden on the last cycle: such things happen when I try to keep up with daily posts while traveling. Or maybe I knew that once I got home I’d have lovely shots like this, from Kuala Lumpur’s remarkable Botanic Garden, which I visited Saturday morning before flying home that night. These are all taken from or of the lovely and fun “Bamboo Playhouse” – which is not a theater but a house for kids (of all ages, if you count me) to play in – as you see from the sign below :-).
Just about all my remaining photos from KL. As this morning’s post of winter sunlight on grass seed-heads in my neighborhood last Friday showed, I’m still getting out when there’s a bit of sun and slowly adding 2024 pics as well…but we will soon take a break, I think, once I just get more of the 2023 backlog splashed here on the blog.
Sticking with my theme of using up more of 2023’s photos before taking my break, herewith all the remaining from-the-air shots of 2023. They’re in chronological order, so you first see my plane passing over the Dutch coast on 6 November en route to Dublin, then more of the English coast both on the east side (North Sea) and the west side (Irish Sea – so far as I could tell, we passed roughly over Liverpool, but clouds…), and then two 29 November images of the island of Penang and the sea north of it as we approached landing after my flight from Qatar to Penang (with a stop in Phuket); and, finally, 6 December photos as our plane traveled up the coasts of Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar en route from KL to Yangon. Not really sure which islands we’re seeing in these various shots, but fairly sure most were islands in Myanmar by this point.
Penang Island from the mainland: above, as seen on 29th of November as we neared our landing; below, as seen during my flight from Kuala Lumpur to Yangon on the 6th of December.
(so much world, so little time....) 