Tsunami Reminders of Christmas Past

This is a modest sampling of some of the really pretty hand-painted ornaments I collected while on "vacay" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia the week the Tsunami hit, Christmas time 2004. I remember being in the hotel room and looking down at my cell phone and feeling horribly, horribly dizzy. We found out 4 1/2 hours later what happened.We lived on the water front of the strait of Malacca in Georgetown, Penang Malaysia (top center of the map), and that day we drove up Gurney Drive and saw a huge wave of water coming toward us. At the time I would guess it was 1/2 a mile out at sea. We mentioned how weird it was to see a wave coming so close to us ( this photo is a North ward view, Indian Ocean in the distance)We said nothing more and continued into the underground parking garage of our condo.
We rode the elevator up and complained of the extreme heat, and Tiny and Dave ran into the apartment and changed right into their bathing suits with the intention of going down for a swim at the pool. When they reached the pool their was an extreme scent of dirty sewer water, they went out to the guard house to check on the smell. The guards began pointing them toward the street where they noticed over turned cars, dead fish and loads of mud on the promanade and into all the property nearby. Dave and Christina ran up to tell us to look out the balcony and see the meyhem, that's when we heard dozens of sirens. The emergency vehicles where heading to the north end of the island just past the view you see above. Over 100 people were killed while sunbathing at the popular beaches on the north part of the island facing the Indian Ocean.

Please, please watch the facinating video I have posted below this post. It must have been taken from the condo just a floor or two above ours. The scars of the poisoned out grass were visible on the property next to ours for the remainder of our time there. The water was filthy as you can see. The Penang govenors were not concerned with the ecology of the island (once known as the Pearl of the Orient) but only with the money they could make from rich people in the big fancy condo's, so the once beautiful beach was distroyed by raw sewage. So anyway, this is also a cool audio of the Hokkien Chinese and the wonderful sound of the expressions they make.



So when I see these ornanments I think about the Tsunami. It was so sad. But the Lord was surely looking out for us. We were almost caught in that muck, by just moments. See the video posted below this one.