Pitcher Plants

I do not wish to get shrunk like in Wonderland this time, and to take closeup pictures of giant pitchers. This is never a good fairy tale.

I shall not know it is a pitcher anyhow if I am so tiny; swimming inside it is unnoticeably fatal, and is forever disappearance.

Size distortion is magical, it twists perception on the other way round.

But adventurous Alice enjoys this and has begun to think that very few things indeed are really impossible.

"Wisdom" of a Crab

"If you are a bird, why would you live on the ground?"

So weird. Sallie prompts me to ask a crab on my way climbing up Penang Hill.

"If you are crab, why wouldn't you stay nearby a creek and go crabbing in the middle of a road instead."

No way you come all the way to greet me. I am not popular in a crab world.

You too, because you are shellfish?

Or is it hungover, a miscalculated effect after a couple of shots of Dutch courage? Oh do I hear you rightly? Alcohol kills weakest brain cells. Regular consumption of alcohol thus helps take us to a new level of smartness.

What a crab.

Pill Millipede

I met a new friend when hiking at Penang Hill. It was thought to be a kind of ball shape of seed initially, but this is its reaction to danger actually.

It is named pill millipede, a not-quite-sweet name. Nobody likes pill.

We were friend finally, because no matter how much I poked or scratched its back, it just kept crawling.

I laid a piece of leaf, wanting it to climb at a small angle aiming to shoot its front view, it always avoided.

Until I had lost my patience, it managed to prove that I did not have the quality of a good photographer.

Only a good friend tells the truth.

Mushrooms Shut Up

I realise that I have to keep running after talking to Alice. I need to be fit to chase the White Rabbit one day.

There are mushrooms that you are not able to see. They must be shutting up like a telescopic lens. Alright, they too are magnified so dramatically that you see them only as big pillars.

You have to have the right size accordingly. Look for a bottle marked "potion"; look for, oh no, you do not recognize mushrooms so you just cannot choose and decide to eat which side of a round mushroom.

But first of all, you must be ready at no time, for the rabbit will appear before you at anytime.

And if you meet the White Rabbit now, he will greet you "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year".

Last Hike in 2012

Three of us, father, mother and younger son, went hiking in Penang Hill again. This was a five hours round-trip as we spent time breathing, exploring and laughing uncontrollably.

As laughing uncontrollably, nothing much can be said about the colony of mushrooms, the hugging trees, and the leaves that cupping down along the trail. 

Pulling

I may be an alien in a human boady in the way how I listen to nature. I should not have doubt.

"I am pulling you very hard, only to show you beauty in a different perspective." A spider was overheard talking to a little tree.

And I heard the groan of a fern leaf at the same time. "Why don't you follow my way?"

It seemed like everybody have their own viewpoint. 

I have mine too. Why don't you go hiking with me at this paradise? But don't get me wrong. I  shall never try to bend your arm, your neck, your body or whatsoever in order to get you agree with me.



I'll only bombard you with countless images. You just cannot escape.

I think I am an alien in a human body. Want to know more about me? See me at Nature Center Magazine.

And I would like to pull you to Your Sunday Best. 

The Woods Are Deep

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.

I rather prefer to walk around, but see only the surface, and that has already occupied all of my time. I wonder what the thought of the Statue of Liberty is, after watching at a fixed angle, and at different depth of fields, for 124 years. It must be very deep if she can tell.

What a frog is to you? It brings joy and excitement to my friend, Ratty, though it is only a frog, that's like an unknown bug, or a little weed flower to me.

I always agree that woods are lovely, dark, and deep, and I have promises to keep. I shall explore deep inside when I have finished the surface.

I continued

Our hike in Penang Hill went on after begging the pardon before squeezing ourselves through two chatting rocks. I never meant to poke into their affair, but had somehow overheard that my family were the only hikers who took up this part of hiking trail.

The trail is actually narrow with grasses overgrown at certain areas, rutted, steep and slippery at the others. We might confront with downhill bikers who were riding down the slopes. That was sure adventurous and fun, but it was a thin but long snake that tangled and hung from tree branches that made our adrenaline rush; it kept calm, we never seemed to be.

We were crazy also to climb the mossy stairs that went parallel with a drain, where the trek occasionally hid from us under thick fallen leaves; we were needed to climb over fallen trees, and to get out from entangled twigs and branches, only to find a bee that had been waiting for me for a morning; it waited for a morning, but needed just a couple of seconds to complete a "say cheese" session.

When zooming in, I saw lines of words in its eye: "Have you used to feeling like the old rubber press: Old, unused, and forgotten?"

"No, I am not as old, but am developing my eccentricities to be as remarkable when getting older."

Story By Rubber Press Machine

I continued and had then spent a four-hour round trip in Penang Hill, a hill with an elevation of about 833m, a figure that is insignificant if talking about touching the moon.

Along my way, I met a hundred-year old mushroom that never bothered to open its mouth for stories. I observed layers of the charcoal-black body, or were those the mouths of the mushroom that had talked so much, so were now unable to close back?

Nevertheless, an abandoned rubber press machine reminded me about the past glory of this place; it talked about someone like James Scott, David Brown, and Francis Light. I know Francis Light as the founder of Penang; I asked again, and understood that the other two were British merchants who grew also nutmegs, cloves, peppers and strawberries. David Brown’s descendants brought in rubber trees later.

At the end of a brief history, I was stopped from taking a detour to beyond a bend. A signboard said: Beware of dog- a David Brown’s dog?

I climbed Penang Hill

What did I chirp in reply to a bird last Sunday morning? I told I came from Cerok Tokun Hill, some 34km away with Penang Bridge in between. Arriving there without a strong pair of wings sure was a problem.

Penang Bridge in the background

The conversation never escaped the ears of Penang Hill. "I see, you called that girl Cerok Tokun Hill.”

This big brother took a pause while rubbing my shoulders with some tall grasses, and continued, “It is hazy right now. I’ll date her later.”

And its words lingered in the air, within the trees, when breeze passing. The girl might have already overheard that,

A tunnel next to Penang Hill Railway top station.

.

for the words have left a tunnel.