Journal of Life: February 2012

Finally, the CNY holiday has gone to its end...

Both of my brothers and his family had left in the very early morning on the 5th day, and my sister and her family also would be leaving on the same evening too. Everything seems to quiet down suddenly after all the merries.

Feeling bored at home, we decided to go to Ipoh for a walk. None of our in-laws or my mom was interested to go, so there were the 4 of us again on the road.

Before we drove straight to Ipoh, we stopped over at Kek Look Tong for a quick tour. Except me, the 3 of them have never been there before.

When I was small, I didn't seem to appreciate those beautiful caves which are located just 30 minutes driving distance away my home.

Now then when I live a thousand miles away from it, I started to treasure them. Guess it's human nature to things for granted.

Kuan Yin is the god mother of husband and sons. Their "relationship" were made by my mom-in-law. She believes Kuan-Yin will protect them.

The cave temple sits on a 12 acre site and was used as early as 1920 as a place of worship. In 1960, the cave became part of an iron mining site. Later, it was clean up with a small prayer section, originally name 'Tien Hou Gong'.

In 1982, 'Tien Hou Gong' was hander over to a non-profit charitable organization, Kek Look Seah and the cave temple was named 'Kek Look Tong'.

The committee took on development of the cave by enlarging the cave, as well as reclaiming the swampy area near the rear entrance using soil and earth from a nearby hillock.

The floor of the cave has been filled and then paved into a flat surface while parts of the rough cave wall are lined with marble tiling. The impressive stalactites and stalagmite formations however were left alone.

Recognizing that the shape of the cave resembles a carp, renovations to develop the cave have been done mindful of this theme.

Being a spacious cavern with large openings at each end, the cave enjoys good natural lighting and a refreshing breeze blows through the cave.

Before we went to the other opening, we made a detour to the right by a staircase.

This airy atmosphere makes it a popular place for people to come and sit, relax and reflect in the company of a number of metal Buddhist and Taoist statues which were cast in Taiwan.

That's actually the front entrance to the cave, now then I know.

The big garden in front yard, I like its tranquility.

As soon as we came out from the cave, William was thrilled to see those wild monkeys running around the open garden.

At first, I was worried if the monkeys are aggressive type...later I could see that they are not. I think that's probably because nobody ever feed them, which is a good thing to do.

It's kind of weird to see the monks acting like a normal tourists, haha...Anyway, I ought to remember that they are human too.

Well, I was trying to lure the monkeys to come near to us, but that's near they came.

So I thought maybe they would came near to us when there are kids around, but I was wrong too.

The biggest monkey of all...

The monkeys didn't even bother even though we sat there, mimicking them. In conclusion, I would say those monkeys are simply not interested in us.

Ok, bygone, sayonana then.

A Malay couple was pat-torring here. They certainly had found a good place for the purpose.

We took some time to walk on this pebble path. It's quite tough for me to walk from one end to the other though.

While I was struggling my way, it's kind of frustrating to see someone running on it...

Wait, he was running with his slippers on, cherrr...

The tree with a pumpkin-like fruit.

Red is always outstanding, especially when it is surrounded by green.

As usual, they will never walk away from any playground that they bump into.

William had been complaining about his sore leg for several days already. But knowing his symptoms might probably disappear some days later, I was not particular worried about it.