SSYS Penang 2008 (part 4)

Sorry for the uber-late update but been busy with inter-school debates and all. Plus, this post is already super duper delayed. I'll just sum it up in one BIG nutshell. =D

Day 4 in Penang. 7.30 pm.

Went to this nifty, little place called New World Park, a commercial hawker centre like Hui Sing in downtown Penang together with the Singaporeans.


First thing I noticed in the air was the heavenly aroma of the various hawker delicacies. Finally, after 4 days of waiting, I was to lavish the taste of Penang hawker food at last!



With so many things to eat, I turned to Julin and she said to try the lok bak; Penang's equivalent of lok-lok. Rather than crab-sticks and the usual fishballs, Penang's lok bak consisted entirely of various assortments of meat fried in some secret sauce. Dipping them in the lemon sauce and chilli sauce will send a blossom of rich flavours into your mouth and tummy!

Lok Bak: The next best thing to heaven

And of course, the Penang Fried Kuey Teow is definitely a must-eat for any food enthusiast stopping by in Penang! Deeply fried noodles with prawns, cuttlefish, pork and a shit-load of chilli spices to boot, make it the sheer epiphany of delicious!

Penang Fried Kuey Teow: Mankind's greatest creation since deodorant

Plus, a god-sent cup of teh o pang to wash all those goodies down my throat. No one does tea better than the locals of Penang! Fragrance, satisfaction, bliss, all in one brew.

Teh O Pang: Heaven is but a brew away...

With all that said and done, it was time to head back for tomorrow.

Tomorrow signalled the end of our evaluation and our project exhibits were opened for public viewing.

Day 5 in Penang

But, before that........

Woman in picture: Aha! Found you! Tee hee hee hee~~

Back to the topic at hand, the public exhibiting allowed us much chance to visit other booths and mingle around with the various delegates.

Our resident Yao Ming: Chen Yuan Xi 193 cm!

Boy, words cannot describe how I felt during the entire exhibition. I felt as if the world was just concentrated in that one, particular room. We have cute Vietnamese girls in the corner, hawt Brunei-ian's in another, quirky Singaporeans running about, Filipino's attending their booths, Thai's inspecting various exhibits. It was awesome.

Leaving poor Liew to attend the booth, I sneaked off to satiate my craving for camwhoring.

WARNING: Shit-load of peektures ahead!!

Perfect Julin and her Plastic City!

Singapore with its Water Purifying Research!

Hawt Brunei-ians studs with their Acacia sp. Trees research!

Woohoo! My homeboys are flyyyy~~~~~

Sexy red is the new in~~

Child molester alert!! (Just jk, Hadi!)

If that's what the Philippines is, I'm packing up and moving there!

Yours truly prides himself on being a ladies' man

Once the exhibition was over, we headed off to the hall where the prize-giving ceremony was to be conducted. The moment of anticipation of many. The penultimate conclusion to the 5 days in Penang.

Before the prize-giving ceremony though, each of the country's delegate were scheduled to perform a cultural presentation. And boy, were they mind-blowers, especially the 1 from Vietnam! It practically rocked the house out!

A 2-stringed guitar, a rocker, and a catchy line like, "Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh!" made rock history

Now, onto the moment of revelation itself, the prize-giving ceremony.

Glad to say, most of the awards in the Mathematics category were bagged by the Singaporeans for their project, 'Bobby's Carrot'. If you wish to know more about it, visit their blog! The Science category were more of a mixed result

Julin bagged the award for best project exhibit and another one which I can't remember. Don't kill me! XD

Even our own Ernest bagged two awards of his own, 3rd for "Best Written Report" and 1st for "Best Presentation".

However, Liew and I didn't win anything. But hey, the experience of coming here, participating in such a prestigious event is already a battle won to me. Let's be honest, how many of us have the chance to even be involved in such a competition?

And now, group pics involved in our rendition of P. Ramlee's "Getaran Jiwa"

Most of the Malaysian delegates were involved

Of course, we couldn't get the opportunity to come if it wasn't for our teachers whom put in so much effort to help us make our project a success.

Thank you so much, our dearly beloved teachers!!!

It has been a roller-coaster ride of emotions throughout the entire duration of our stay here in Penang. So many new friends have been made, and so many memories shared. The world is indeed a smaller place now that I've met you all.

No matter where you hail from, no matter your country of origin, no matter how many miles of sea and land we are separated by, we are not so much different than who we think. In fact, we are alike in more ways than one.

Therefore, I thank God for blessing me with this chance to meet you all. My outlook of the world has indeed, changed for the better.

Thanks, Yuan Xi!

Therefore, this post concludes what was, what is, and what shall always be in our hearts as the SEAMEO Search For Young Scientist 2008.

SSYS Penang 2008 (part 3)

Day 3 in Penang for the SSYS congress.

The whole morning was rather uneventful except for that impending moment of doom when we were to present our projects in front of the entire hall of delegates and judges. Once done, the Q&A session were to commence regarding our projects. Questions were mostly forwarded by various delegates and we had to answer them with utmost confidence and clarity.

A good portion of the morning was spent entirely on the Science category whereas the Mathematics category were to follow soon after during the afternoon (I missed most of them, taking a nap and all).

Indeed, there were some rather fascinating projects that truly benefited mankind's well-being, amongst them were a cure for cancer, flood prevention and a plastic city! Yes, I kid you not! A Plastic City (courtesy of Lee Julin, of course XD)

Ehem...moving on, once the presentations were done and over with, we joined the Filipinos for yet another night out in town. This time, we were headed in the direction of the city centre, or more specifically, Perangin Mall; a shopping complex built adjacent to the KOMTAR tower.

Me and Jonard; one of the Filipino delegates

You'd be surprised at how friendly and courteous the Filipino's are. It was indeed a stark contrast to some of the people we had here in Malaysia.

Upon arrival in Perangin Mall, the clock showed 6 pm and that wasn't much time for us to play or window-shop within the mall. Then again, it was a rather old mall and truth be told, there wasn't much things of interest anyway.

Pay attention to the bottom floor, what do you see?? o.O

With the clock striking 10 pm, we decided it was high time we headed back to our hostel. We didn't want to get abandoned in a shopping mall of all places, ya know.

The dawning of the sun marked the 4th day we were in Penang and today was the deciding moment of it all. The personal evaluation of the judges themselves on our projects and booths. Speaking of the judges, they consisted of a batch of Australians, Japanese and Indonesians.

The waiting room for the involved delegates

With so many booths set up. the judges allocated time slots to the respective booths for their evaluation. We (me and Liew's) were to see the judges at 10.30. Oh my gosh, the wait was an unrelenting torture that pounded with suspense with each and every passing second. The evaluation too, was no different, except for the fact that the judges were nice and all...

Anyhoo, with that aside, we finally settled down with Julin to practice our 'Getaran Jiwa' which was to be presented during the cultural show during the prize-giving ceremonies. XD

Ryner: Wow, you play the violin?
Julin: Yeah. So?
Ryner: You're perfect!!!
Julin: Excuse me?
Ryner: Oh hi, I'm Julin and I'm perfect!
Julin: Ok....swt.....

Getaran Jiwa~~~~~

After an hour of enduring out-of-key singing and horrible debaucheries of P.Ramlee's 'Getaran Jiwa', we headed off for our much-awaited Penang Island Trip. Our large group actually needed 2 buses to accomodate us all. Gwahh!

We sat in the same bus with most of the Singaporeans

Random peektureesss!!

After say, an hour or so of cruising the blue, picturesque coastline of Penang (including a moment of bitter irony when we passed Queensbay Mall), we arrived at our first pit-stop, can't quite remember the name but I'm sure it was Air Hitam.

The bus trip was rather harrowing and a very dizzying experience, so by the time we got off the bus, I was sick to my tummy. Even the tempting prospect of eating Penang laksa at the best place where it was served wasn't helping much either.

Managed to squeeze a shot off with the Vietnamese delegates

The second stop for today was at Air Terjun Titi Kerawang which was indeed a very, very sad excuse for a waterfall. Water wasn't falling, it was more like, dripping.

More peektureesss cuz' Julin asked to..

Then, we headed off to a small little alcove somewhere up on the hills of Penang which I presumed to be the water treatment facility if it weren't for the fact that no water treatment pumps were in sight.

Then again, the place was beautiful and its ephemeral resplendence I captured with my handy-dandy but kanasai camera. (which tends to blur pictures at all the wrong times)

You're more than welcomed to save this as your desktop, you know

Last stop for today, a craft batik shop located right in the very heart of Penang's lavish esplanades itself, Batu Ferringhi. Nothing much to see inside, very boring, very not-so-worth my time there because NO CAMERAS ALLOWED. Mai chicken

Seriously, we only looked at how the batik were pressed and how the designs were incorporated onto the fabric themselves. See, told you it was boring.


And of course, a random picture of one of the many hotels there in Batu Ferringhi. This one's special cuz' it's closed. Why? I asked the construction workers there and they said it was haunted. Wowza!!

Looks can be deceiving. It's haunted!!!

And that concludes this post for today. Next up, Penang's almighty, majestic hawker cuisine!!!

Sorry if this post seemed a bit rushed. I'm typing it out at midnight when I'm supposed to have classes in school the next morning!

Till then, toodles!

SSYS Penang 2008 (part 2)

Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry for the uberly-delayed update! You see, my computer just took the liberty to conk out of me in the most inopportune of times and thus found its way to the computer shop to be fixed.

Therefore, it took a leave of about 2 weeks, with all my saved blog posts and photographs and all.

I apologise for any inconveniences or crest-fallen hearts caused by the lack of updates. OK now, continuing off where the last post left off....

I awoke at 6 in the morning to our second day in Penang where all the delegates were to attend an opening ceremony for the SSYS 6th Regional Congress.

A quick yet hearty breakfast later, we headed off to the SEAMEO hall where the ceremony was to be held.

A quick look at the brochures of the place the night before told me that the hall was able to sit approximately 200 people, give or take. Upon arrival, we were met with the sight of various blazers and traditional costumes of the different delegates.

Bright red: Singaporeans, Dark green: My company, Blue: Thais

After a grueling and boring talk (with a horribly-sung patriotic song added into the mix), we were finally let go to get started on setting up our exhibition booths for the following day.

Me and Liew's assigned booth

After an hour's work, we've finally managed to get most of what was needed up onto the once-naked booth. And I must say, we did a fine job at that!

A booth never looked this good

Pwetty flowers!!!! (thanks Cedrych)

With that all said and done, a night out to town was in order and so we asked one of the SEAMEO staff members to drive us out to Gurney Drive where we could hopefully wolf down some of Penang's most prominent cuisine; hawker food!!!

Since it was just 4 in the evening, we decided to loiter about in Gurney Plaza till 7 or so when the hawker centers open.

I just envy the fact that the shopping malls here are so much bigger than Kuching's!!

Within 2 hours of senseless walking about and window-shopping and by that, I mean Ryner popping into random stores to see the digits on the merchandise's price tag, we stopped by at place where these edible, cute round things with holes in the middle were sold.

I love donuts, they make the world go round and round~~

Yep, I have a soft spot in my heart for all things pastry and pies, especially when they have oodles and oodles of chocolate topping on top!!!!!

Our company of sugar-craving teens ordered say 8+ donuts and a couple more as seconds cuz they tasted so damn good what not with our empty stomachs, chocolate fillings and toppings and all.


Sad to say, the heavens frowned at us for giving into gluttony and ordered the heavens to open up to a steady downpour, hampering all chances of eating Penang's highly-esteemed hawker food!

I must say though, the thunderstorms in Penang have their bark worse than their bite. With ferocious gales, dark and sinisterly clouds looming over us, we'd expected another Katrina. Thus, we took shelter in the shopping mall where we had dinner.

The gods then forsaken us for our gluttony again and made the rain stop right after our dinner. Arghh!!! So sim tia to have the hawker centers so close to us but with a full stomach, I doubt we'd be able to eat another bite!

Oh well, at least we still had a cool, breezy night in which we took the opportunity to enjoy outdoors whilst looking out over the beautifully-illuminated shorelines of Penang.



Oh well, we still had a ways to go in Penang before I call it quits on my never-ending quest to savour the real Pearl of the Orient, and by that I meant the food, not the ladies lar.....

part 3 coming shortly.....with the buff, hawt Singaporean delegates I keep promising you gals out there!!!