CM’s visit to the church of the assumption

the first item on the list of the 3 days celebration in george town, penang, on occasion of georgetown being listed as world heritage site, was a heritage trial walkabout, along the ‘street of harmony’ by the chief minister and his entourage (not sure who’s who but you can read the paper to find out).  the first place he visited was the church of the assumption (first picture here), situated at farquhar street. (in between the st xaviers’ school and the museum and opposite the convent light street school).

the church of the asumption is one of the 4 churches of ‘city parish, and city parish is the parish i belongs to.

the 2nd picture you see here, shows the CM, lim guan eng and others walking into the church. lots of photographers and reporters followed! well, i was there as a reporter too… to report for our catholic paper, the herald (if not, i con’t be able to be there, being working hours).

the third picture here shows the CM inside
the church. on the right is the church’s parish priest and in the centre, is the bishop of penang (who was earlier present at the opening ceremony with the CM).

the final picture shows the banner announcing the church as a world heritage site. actually the banner read ‘george town world heritage site’ (1st line), ‘church of the assumption congratulates’ (2nd line) and ‘the people of penang’ (last line). i did not manage to get a shot of the whole banner as i wanted to take the UNESCO logo (but missing out on the world heritage logo on the right) and did not have space to stand back to take the whole banner.

well i do have other better pictures but those are reserved for the herald! there were so many photographers around and all were rushing where the CM went, to take the photos. i hardly can find a good view for the shots. i notice i was the only one with this tiny point and shoot digicam while the others all were with big DSLR or pro cameras! they must be wondering who i was, with such lousy camera and joining them together for photo taking! haha!

of course after the CM left the church, i did not follow him along on his tour (next up was the nearby st george’s chuch, an anglican church) since i have to get back to work.

the church of the assumption, as seen by the first picture here, looks might impressive eh? well this church had an interesting history (the root of it being started began in 1786). it was build in 1860, thus it is now 148 years old.  those who are interested to know the history in detailed, can email me.