Highly recommend the Imperial Hotel, Kuching. It’s not particularly fancy but it’s conveniently located and the best thing about it? The beds are extremely firm, which is great for my back. My other half claims it’s given the best night’s sleep EVER in a hotel.
This is always their first thing that greets me when I walk in through the entrance way of my parental home. A HUGE cross stitch piece done by my mum several decades ago. Link to the chinese historical story below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Wu
Entry into Johor Bahru was much less complicated than entry into Kuching. No immigration, no luggage scanning. We simply collected our bags and walked out the arrival doors. And there was my mum and brother waiting for us all.
My sister had already arrived a few days prior, bringing her family with her and now the house is bursting at its seams. But I think my parents are genuinely happy to have lots of noise around, with the sounds of chattering children’s voices and pattering feet going up and down the wooden stairs. I’m sure my mum and our old househelp are going to need a break from all of this commotion after we’ve gone home.
This gilded dragon and phoenix bias relief art piece has been in my parents’ home since my early teens, making it over 30 years ago. I still remember my dad seeing it in a store, and paying money to bring it home. I remember he even told a white lie to my grandmother at the time, concealing the actual cost of this art piece……he said it was given to him by a client….
These wooden palings (I am sure there is a proper name for these things) edge the 22 stairs going upstairs (another Occupational Therapist’s nightmare). These gilded plaques with good luck chinese characters have been hanging there since my early childhood too. Before emails were invented, our family would receive lots of chinese new year cards every year. My mum would make an annual display of stapling all the festive cards together in long columns and attaching them to each of these wooden palings. We would always count them to see how many there were, and whether the new year’s count would beat the count from last year.
Sadly, since email greetings came about, the number of cards dwindled and my mum no longer bothers to continue with that custom.
