Lost in Reverie

I’m finally getting down to it; writing this page about our Penang trip. It’s gonna be one helluva long entry. 65 pictures – feast your eyes!

On the evening of 23 February, Chaoyi and I headed down to Chinatown to collect his visa. We had a few hours to spare before departure time, so we went for dinner at Malan La Mian at Majestic, Chinatown.

Sour plum drink – I like!

Some noodles. The taste was pretty good – I heard that they are MSG free, so the taste you get is of what actually goes in the soup! Price was affordable. We also had the cold plate, which I liked, except the century egg. Ews.

Moving on. After dinner, we walked to Outram Park MRT, and headed down to Lavender MRT to meet Chaoyi’s friends, Weng Wei and Keshi. The bus departed at about 9.30pm, and you can just imagine my overwhelming excitement. I think Chaoyi was quite relieved when I actually fell asleep. Haha… I was quite restless cos I couldn’t fall asleep. Then we stopped at some place and had supper. I dozed off soon after – I think the problem was that I was too used to having supper every night! Haha!

We reached Penang before 7am the next morning, and immediately headed down to Berjaya Georgetown Hotel, Penang. This is the view outside our room. Well, not much of a view, but here’s a picture nonetheless:

After freshening ourselves, we went out for breakfast at a nearby hawker centre – the first of many orgasmic Penang food experiences! Haha!

Here’s Mission 1: Completed. Penang char koay teow!

My gosh. I swear I nearly died of happiness eating the char koay teow. It’s nothing like the junk substandard ones we get here. =X Anyways. More food:

After breakfast, it was time to explore! We just walked around, basically, taking photos of historical and cultural buildings, eating, and sight-seeing.

This is an old church which I really liked:

Another view. Isn’t the sky so blue? Beautiful. I think those clouds look like a seahorse or a dragon! Haha!

And yet another. The pillars make it look like the Pantheon of Pillars in Rome!

One of the small temples:

I think this is one of the many Hokkien huay kuans in Penang.

We were walking by the sea later on, and saw many trishaws. So adorable, aren’t they? But I bet they cost a bomb to ride on – tourist gimmick!

Penang Town Hall, which is currently housing an exhibition on tolerance amongst religions. Pretty interesting, what they say. The idea basically is that all religions have the same teachings that promote goodness among men. So we should respect each other.

This is me! OMG! First pic of me! (Chaoyi is so mean, he didn’t wanna take pics for me, and I didn’t bring my camera along – why should I, when there’s a DSLR available? Or so I thought. Bleah)

And me again! Yay.

Some building nearby. (Haiya, I dunno lah!)

Afterwards, we went to the Fort Cornwallis, which was built when Farquhar was governor of Penang. I think Farquhar has something to do with Singapore history as well. Haha. Huge canon. It had a sign on it saying, “Do not sit on canon.” Haha!

Another view of the canon. That’s Weng Wei and Keshi…

The fort overlooks the sea. I think so that they could shoot at invaders coming in by sea. Hur hur hur.

One of the horsies at the fort. There were two. I went too near one of them, and it tried to kill me! I think it was feeling threatened, but I was just trying to pat his head. Maybe it could sense my hesistation – I was afraid it would chew my hand off. Yes, I know it’s not a dog.

No trishaw ride, but got stationary trishaw! So prettily decorated too!

We stopped at the cafe for drinks and ice creams, and there was a parrot! We tried talking to it, but it was too sombong and didn’t talk back to us. Boo.

(I interrupt this broadcast to report that my CEO just walked in and said, “Hello Daphne, have you taken your lunch?” OMG. He knows my name?!)

Anyway. At the cafe, there was a cat too! Macam mini zoo, hor? Haha!

Left the fort soon after, and went for lunch. All that walking around under the hot sun made us quite hungry!

At this place:

The insides. The place was actually very cooling and shady. I like ancient Chinese buildings. The carvings and architecture are so beautiful, arent’ they? I know this pic is kinda dark, but the place was quite nice. There were 3 layers in the ‘house’. First, the guest reception area, then the courtyard, then the family house. Like in the Huan Zhu Ge Ge drama serial.

On the streets of Penang! This is a very unmessy part of it. The actual streets are so busy and congested with cars and pedestrians that it’s actually quite scary.

This is the tallest building in Penang, KOMTAR (Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak). Sixty storeys high, I believe. From the topmost level you can see the entire Penang!

Another shot of the building. And fluffy white clouds!

The view from the topmost level, which is actually a tourist centre.

Another side of the tower.

The tourist centre. Quite nice, actually. One can go in there by paying just RM6 for the admission fee, and have some beverages, which are complementary. The only grouse we had was that the windows were so dirty! It made photo-taking a pain in the ass very difficult.

Yay! Ferringhi Beach! It’s not very well-maintained, nor is it extroardinarily beautiful or clean, but the sand is really very fine.

C’est la fille mignonne.

Et le jetski. Okay, shall stop the French. Chaoyi and I rented the jetski for 45 minutes. Super fun. He rode it and I sat behind him. The sea was quite choppy, and that made a bumpy ride, but still very exhilirating! Unfortunately, Chaoyi was nice enough to throw me into the sea when he turned the jetski at an angle too sharp that I lost my balance and grip. Please look at the outfit I was wearing in picture above. Now you can say “Awww” and sympathize with me. I never intended to get wet at the beach. 😦 Boo.

(I still think he did it on purpose, cos he is so evil and mean)

Weng Wei and Keshi tried the parachute thingie. It looked really exciting too! Basically you’re lifted off the ground by the speedboat, and you just… become airborne. I don’t know how to explain it! Haha!

I like this pic of us. 🙂 (Though it’s kinda dark)

We took a walk on the beach after I fell into the sea, to dry the clothes off abit. It was still very very wet when we went off for dinner. But oh well. We were going back to the hotel afterwards anyway.

We went for a sumptous dinner! Pics pics pics pics!

Chicken with cashew nuts and mushroom

Squid – cooked in some way that I can’t remember. Haha!

Beef – black pepper I think. Oops.

Prawns – So yummy!

We were all very hungry after playing the entire afternoon, so dinner was wolfed down in less than the amount of time taken to prepare it. Haha!

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, where I fell asleep really really really really soon. Chaoyi stayed up later and helped me ‘dry’ my denim skirt with the hairdryer. So touched. 🙂 So that was the end of Day 1!

The next morning, we woke up late, because I had awoken in the middle of the night and had had trouble falling back asleep. 😦 So when it was time to wake up, I was very very reluctant. We finally went for breakfast at the hotel cafe, after which we went back to our rooms to pack our stuff (and nap, hehe!) When we checked out at 1pm, it was time for lunch again! Haha!

Pointless act-cute (ok, I admit it) photo, but I like. So?

Lunch was at a nearby Chinese dimsum restaurant. The food was so-so. I’ve had better. But it served the purpose of filling our tummies nonetheless, and we then set off for our last day of wandering around in Penang. The transport from the tour agency came to pick us up, and we all trooped off to drop our bags there.

Headed for the pier afterwards, and went on a ferry ride to the mainland. The main purpose of the ferry ride was to go out to sea? Erm, for Chaoyi to take photos of the Penang coastline? Hmm. Whatever it was, it was rather enjoyable as it was very windy, and I like the sea. 🙂

This is the… erm, I dunno. It’s where rich people park their yachts.

On the ferry. Yes, really.

Guess who? Hairy vs smooth, shoes vs sandals, long vs… nevermind.

Out at sea.

When we got back, we went to that famous dou sha bing place, Ghee Hiang, to buy some of their goodies.

Yeah! Me!

We walked past a fire station, and I wanted to be a firewoman!

(Aiyo, this firewoman so cute. Haha!) 😛

We decided to stop wasting money on taxi fare, and decided to try out the local bus transport system instead. Obviously horribly maintained, but it got us to all the places we wanted to go to! The minibus service number 21 rocks.

So exciting, the bus ride. I haven’t sat in such buses since I was a little girl! We finally arrived at the famous Kek Lok Si temple on the Penang Hill.

Kek Lok Si temple is the biggest temple in Southeast Asia, and it is home to the reclining Buddha and a giant statue of Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy.

Alot of turtles! They look like beetles!

Gross.

Moving on!

The pagoda

Alot of lanterns! If you donated a certain sum, you could ‘buy’ a lantern and write your name and wishes on it.

More lanterns and more Buddhas

I like this mini pavillion with its surrounding erm, moat?

The garden of the horoscopes. Chaoyi found this pig’s butt amusing.

I’m born in the year of the pig. No resemblance ok! None!

Haha!

All the animals of the Chinese horoscope (abit dark. Sorry lazy to edit)

This place is actually quite high up on the hill. We had to take an inclined elevator to reach it. Can you see the shadow of the dedicated photographer? 🙂

The view.

Gigantic Kuan Yin

Seeing double? Triple? Quadruple? Quintuple? Haha.

Still at the temple. The Pagoda.

And one last shot!

After we left the temple, we went to have dinner.

Here’s Mission 2: Completed. Penang laksa!

In all honesty, I went to Penang simply for the food. The laksa and the char koay teow were totally worth the hundreds of kilometres travelled. We stuffed ourselves silly at dinner, before leaving Penang. Chaoyi and I each had:
1 chrysanthemum tea
1 laksa
1 char koay teow
1 dessert

Haha. After dinner, we took Bus 21 back to KOMTAR, and freshened ourselves up before boarding the coach back to Singapore. Arrived in Singapore early Sunday morning, at 5am. Went back to Hall, showered, didn’t bother to unpack, and slept till 1pm. Haha!

I miss Penang food.

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