Penang Trip

18.02.2009
And so, we started our morning with the breakfast buffet that comes with our hotel room. The first morning buffet is really lousy and it improves a bit on the second morning. I actually took pictures of the buffet but decided to just show this.

Both Laura and I took a bowl of porridge each. I prefer to have my porridge quite plain with just seaweed while Laura's is with so many ingredients. Hers certainly looks so much tastier.

We actually all the intention in the world to explore Penang all by ourselves and a print out from wiki-travel but decided to get a day tour package (@RM80 pax). And so, we had a van to take us around a few tourist spots. The must-visit places in Penang. Firstly, the Leaning Thai Buddha Temple. Erm... alright, I remember reading about this temple from a storybook that I have won from a competition I joined in primary school. It does exist. Hehe... And since we cant go to Bangkok, at least we get to visit a Thai temple. :p The Columbarium, which is right behind the Leaning Buddha, is quite creepy. Really, it gives me the creep to walk among the ashes of all of the dead people. No pictures. Dont dare to take pictures of those ash urns.Just opposite of the Thai temple is the Burmese Temple. It has quite a number of ...structures. The sun is pretty strong at that time but the inside of the temple is quite cooling.

As a tourist, the local products shop is another must-go. We went to a white coffee shop, a batik shop (no one attend us since it was lunch time) and a local products shop that sells all sort of products. The white coffee is really nice...the lady let us taste so many different flavours.
Next stop is the Botanical Garden. Seriously, when I think of Botanical Garden, I think of beautiful flowers and loads of colours...cooling winds... and when I see Penang Botanical Garden in the afternoon, it is only VERY GREEN. Guess the weather is not very helpful. Even the tree that is supposed to be the oldest tree is almost completely barren. I wonder why. We left the place in less than half an hour. When we stopped to look at the map of the garden, we realised that the Garden contains nothing of what I have imagined (loads of beautiful flowers) but just... ermm... it has nothing much to talk about. Really. And so, goodbye to Botanical Garden. Hello, Lunch! The driver drove past a small stall and got us to look at the price of the Fried Kuey Tiaw - Wahlau! About RM 8 for a plate. According to him, it is not worth it to spend that amount of money on something that you can actually get elsewhere for cheaper price. Instead we went to the New World Park that offers different arrays of food. It is a huge food court that has really nice facilities. Should be quite new, I guess. I had the Fried Kuey Tiaw and Fried Oyster. After filling our stomachs, it is time to go to Penang Hill and start hiking. Kidding!! We used the tram to go up the hill. The tram took about 15 minutes to get up... or is it half an hour? Not so sure. The view are pretty good from the hill. Not the most magnificent view I have ever seen but it will do. The air is sometimes cooling from the wind... The heat is mostly due to the fact that it is afternoon afterall. Nothing much to do there except enjoying the view and then... down we go.
The next destination and the final destination on our day tour is Kek Lok Si. A temple. A huge temple with several beggars at the entrance pathway. I think all of us are sick of looking at temples for the day. So... just a quick look around and extremely slow walking around and group standing in front of the cooling fan in the temple store - we left the place...
The tour package should ended with a ride back to the hotel but instead, we had the driver dropping us off at the Queensbay Mall since it was still pretty early. Queensbay Mall is quite huge and very new. The stores are also quite nice. The shopping crowd is quite thin so we had a nice time looking around without feeling crowded. The Forever 21 store in Queensbay Mall has an amazingly huge area for its jewellery section. Had a lot of fun looking at the jewellleries... Didnt buy any though.
We had Kim Gary for our dinner. Cheese Baked Rice. A side dish called.... Mushroom something... Totally forgotten the name. :p The Yin Yong drink is yummy... The borsch is really tomato-ish. The rice is tasteless so I had to add some pepper... Ermm... Next post will be to talk little little things on this Penang Trip. Have to select the pictures. 300+ pics to select from. I have improved a bit - I have pictures of myself during the trip. Hehe...