It's school holiday again and time to bring my kids to Disneyland!
No? Not even to the beach or any theme park?
I wish.
Thing is it's not that I don't want to. It's just I can't afford such luxuries right now. Not yet at least. So we did the next best thing. Pack them off to stay with their grandparent for a month. At least our parent would be happy. So would the kids, I hope.
When I was little, my parent did the same thing. Almost every school holiday my Dad would fetch us and pack us off to Penang to live with our grandma during the holidays. I guess that was the decent and economical thing to do other than let us waste our school break doing nothing. My grandma, she would be delighted to see us then. She would cook us all kinds of wonderful meals and food, like that authentic Penang fish curry. You can't find that kind of curry anywhere else in Malaysia. Only a real Penangnite can cook a fish curry like that. And I don't usually eat fish mind you. But for her, I'd make an exception. Let's not forget about her legendary 9 inch roti canai. Yes, my grandma makes her own roti canai. Don't need to go to no mamak to have roti canai whenever we were in Penang. Grandma would roll her own dough, spread them around, flip them in the air like a boss and cook them on the round pan thingy just like a real mamak. Where'd she learn to do that? You guess is as good as mine.
Apart from that she would also ask my uncles to bring us sightseeing around Penang. We would visit Bukit Bendera, Padang Kota Lama, Komtar and have a bath at Batu Feringghi among others. But the highlight of our visit must be Penang Fair. We can't wait to visit that fair. It's huge and we could watch concerts by the top artists of the day and play all kind of games. It was the good times.
However as the years go by, my uncles started to have a family of their own and then suddenly we have nobody to take us anywhere anymore. So most of the time we just chill at grandma's big house at Lengkok Pemancar, Gelugor. Since then, our annual visit to Penang was not that fun anymore. My Dad would be too busy working in KL, Selangor, Johore or God knows where and the only time he has was to pick us up from Pasir Mas and drop us in Penang. We'll only see him again about 4 weeks later. Around that time I wish he would stop sending us there to Penang in the first place. The fun and games was all gone and I especially felt like a prisoner in that big place. Don't know what my siblings felt though but I stopped looking forward to such visits soon after that. Worse I started to create all kind of mischief to get their attention. Once I sprayed aerosol all over the second floor and got a handful of scolding from my grandma. Not to mention get into a fight with my cousin Fendi. I was really bored. After my parent got divorced, we rarely go to Penang again, if ever. Maybe once in two years, something like that.
So you see, I'm worried if my kids would somehow feel or experience the same thing. I do hope that's not the case. Mia for example is very friendly and has no problems making new friends. Adam on the other hand is rather like me, shy and very reserved at first. But over time he'll warm up to others. Eventually. That said, I trust their grandparent has something fun and exciting in store for them back home. After all Linda's father just retired from the force earlier this year. He for once has all the time in the world.
If not, at least Adam has his new Playstation console to play with at home. When I was his age, I'm just happy playing with my cheap video game console all day long. That's how I became the champion Street Fighter player in the neighborhood. I hope that rubs off to him somehow.
Disneyland and similar theme parks will come. But not right now. The future maybe.
