To Penang

Am writing this weblog entry from Penang Island – my backyard and home for six years of my professional life. It was a four-day vacation back to simple and familiar sights and sounds, a chance to escape from Kuala Lumpur for a while.

The traditional gastronomical tour was, of course, mandatory…

Char koay-teow 炒粿條 at the famous Burmah Road coffee shop (still the best!). Note the glass of heng-jin peng 杏仁冰 (iced almond juice) - you can't get it in KL coffee shops!

Quee Mei eating cendol at the Keng Kwee Street coffee shop

Drinking fresh pandan coconut juice at Aboo Siti Lane

Gu-bak koay-teow 牛肉粿條 (beef noodles) at the Beach Street corner coffee shop

Ark-bak kuey-chap 鴨肉粿雜 (duck innards noodles) in Ayer Itam

Frankly, the char koay-teow diet was a bit of an overload, as I had it for three days in a row!

The only disappointment was that Sar Chew Restaurant 沙舟餐室, my favourite Nyonya-style keng-chae pnui 經濟飯 (economy rice) shop in Cantonment Road has now been turned into a roast duck rice shop. They used to serve lovely chicken curry and otak-otak, which goes so well with rice.

Ending a vacation in Penang with a nett increase in calories was not acceptable, so a hike up Penang Hill (via the traditional Moon Gate route) was scheduled in with my ex-housemates. Having not hiked up for years, it was expected that I could not complete the hike to the summit within less than two hours as before. Was quite happy to settle for a 2hr:20min timing… not bad for a guy who weighs 0.1 metric tons! The weather was unusually good at the summit – cool air and nice breeze – probably because we arrived early (before 10am).


Along the Moon Gate trail

The Grace Deu mansion, close to the summit


Ice kacang 紅豆霜 at the summit

View from the summit, with Georgetown and the Penang Bridge in the backdrop

I really miss the convenience of having a hill so accessible for regular hikes… which is, of course, a lame excuse, since a drive from my house to Gasing Hill is not really that far away.

And had I known that my trip up here would coincide with a huge Mini convoy at Penang Island's Gurney Plaza, I would have driven my Mini-Cooper up this time round!

Bok House - End of an era

And so it goes... the famous Bok House - that grand old mansion built by millionaire Chua Cheng Bok in 1929, has been demolished in the name of development. If such a grand monument, and surely one that qualifies many times over as a heritage building, can be destroyed, one need only venture a simple guess as to the fate of the lesser-known historical buildings in and around Kuala Lumpur, and the rest of the country.

To me, the use of the 'definition of a heritage site' is a lame excuse for the monument's destruction. Let us be totally honest about this - it is all about whether the powers that be really want to protect it or not. I think we know what the answer is.

And the other excuse - financial - is even more laughable. We can spend untold sums of money building giant artificial flowers and birds in an effort to 'beautify' our country, yet we cannot afford to upkeep an existing and real historical and cultural heritage.

I weep for the historical states of Penang and Malacca. Even as we boast about the large number of pre-war and historical buildings still extant in these two historical enclaves, they are sytematically being eaten up by these vultures of so-called development.

To those in power, here is my message: Please stop boasting to our foreign tourists about having historical and cultural sites in our country on one hand, while on the other hand you allow them to be destroyed. If your ultimate agenda is to have whatever that is left of history in the country to be annihilated, then kindly keep your mouths shut, lest you be accused of double standards and hypocrisy.

The two most beautiful equations in mathematics

This goes out to all of you mathematicians - academic, professional, amateurs or aspiring wannabes. Can you name the most beautiful equation(s) you have ever encountered?

Here are my two (2) votes:

Euler's equation:


Lagrange's equation:


Next question: Why did I choose them?

Euler's equation provides the link between three areas of mathematics: complex numbers, trigonometric functions and the exponential function. Amongst many other applications, this has provided us with the key to solving 2nd order differential equations. And in the specific case of



we obtain the equation that links the five major constants in mathematics:



Lagrange's equation successfully reduced Newtonian mechanics from graphical to purely analytical. While credit for pioneering analytical mechanics is due to Euler, the true champion is Lagrange. Lagrange's equation eliminated the need for an inertial axes of reference.

My first attempt at Sudoku

What a great way to spend a Saturday night in the company of close friends... sitting at the table together, pounding our heads over a stack of Sudoku puzzles. Well, a stack for them, anyway; for me, one puzzle was enough. And since it was my first ever attempt at it, you can imagine my frustration.


Head pounding

Needless to say, I did not succeed in completing my first puzzle. Part of me is convinced that there is a flaw in the puzzle I was attempting, that it was indeterminate (for those of you who are not mathematically-savvy, go look up that word in the dictionary yourself!), but the reality is, I probably ain't as good with numbers as I would like to think (how I muddled my way through engineering school is fast becoming a miracle).


Doodling and swearing

I think I'll stick to calculus and algebra.