Week 39: Houseguests, Homecoming, and Holiday

 

There's not a lot of Jo-sized doorways in the world. But there's probably a better chance of finding one in southeast Asia than a in a lot of other places. We found this after dinner in Georgetown this last weekend - still in celebration mode of her triumphant return after 5 looong weeks in the US. What was originally planned as a two weeker stretched further when Abbi (back in the US too) landed her first professional job in Boston. My two favorite girls then set off on a cross-country excursion to deliver the new grad, her stuff, and her car to her new place. She'll be working for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, presiding over their zebrafish population who are doing their part to help cure melanoma. We're super happy for her - she's been interested in living in Boston for some time, so its a bit of a dream come true to work in her field of study in the place she had her eye on. 

When I checked in with her this week it seems like things are off to a good start

While Jo was gone, some Wilbur besties came to visit - Jason and Olivia Kelly. Olivia heads out on her church mission in a couple of weeks, felt lucky that she'd share her last hurrah with the Wilburs in Penang. Or in the this case, me. 

This shot was taken within their first hour of landing in Penang. After 40+ hours of travel to get here. You might be able to tell this by the look on Jason's face. Pursuant to the goal of time zone adjustment, I kept them moving so they didn't bonk - first stop was some street food. This kept us busy for a while, since this was Livy's first time eating with chopsticks.

It was awesome having them here - we hit the orangutang island sanctuary

And of course hung out in Georgetown and feasted on the good stuff that Penang has to offer

Much love to Livy as she heads out to serve the people of Alberta!

Also - if you're thinking about coming to visit - we'd love to have you - we've got spare bedrooms and have great proximity to lots of fun places. Plus these interesting plants to observe - such as this thing, that's about the size of my fist, and turns into a weird coconut sized thing of unknown name

or our local starfruit tree

or the kumquats we grow on our balcony

As a citrus fruit of choice, I'm not sure kumquat tops anyone's list. It has been, however, pretty much a low maintenance success story for us so far.

Come for the plants, stay for the festivals...they're abundant, including a holiday today (the king's birthday) as well as a week ago - Wesak (the day the the Buddha died). With two Buddhist temples just across the street from our place, we had a great view of the festivities

love this little guy

Also love the team effort to get the float down the street

Here's the view from our apartment window

We're in a transition period where the monsoon season is moving from one side of the peninsula to the other...the result has been some consistent thunderstorms and interesting weather...to wrap this thing up, I think I'll include a few recent sunsets / sunrises. Because those never get old.

OK. Maybe two more things that made me laugh. This is posted at our local park. Among forbidden activities is saying goodnight to your 1950's prom date

Also, somewhere there's an unemployment line with a director of marketing who approved the naming of this delicacy