C'est.: 2009

A picture tells a thousand words and we’ve got loads to tell.

Our first adventure began at Terminal 1, where we checked in and boarded for our flight.

We had the JetStar Magazines on board to keep us company till we arrived. Within 45 minutes, our captain said that we were starting to descend and reminded us to fasten our seatbelts.

It was really an easy flight. We were about to land and it felt great to finally begin our journey! The pilot greeted us off the plane and we had everything ready to begin our trip.

We changed our S$60 all courtesy of Jetstar at the Penang airport.

S$60 = RM142.80

We quickly cleared the immigration and customs; it was really easy as we were on the Jetstar Lightsaver, which meant that we had no bags to check in at all!

It was really straightforward. Chop, and go!

We got out to the arrival hall and saw a crowd of people waiting to receive their hotel guests etc.

Right in the middle, were 3 men in bright green shirts who were anticipating our arrival. They held us signs that said, "Jetsaver Light Challenge Participants".

They were friendly and greeted us and we were directed onto a transfer bus to our respective hotels.

The bus ride from the airport to our hotel was about 35 minutes drive.

Alas! We got to Berjaya Georgetown and it was a pleasant hotel with the famous Gurney Drive food stretch located 10 minutes away by foot.

This lovely lady named Jesse, helped us out in planning our routes.

We quickly checked into our rooms at around 6pm and washed up and left for dinner by bus right outside our hotel down to Macalister Road for another famous food stretch.

Bus fare - RM1 x 2 = RM2

There were so many to choose from! Left, right, right-back, front right, back left! We finally settled down at one hawker corner.

Here’s what we couldn’t resist:

Sting Ray – RM11

***Char Kway Teow (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) RM3.50 only!

Satay – RM5

Chicken Rice - RM3.50

Tang Yuan - RM3

Drinks – RM6

TOTAL COST = RM31

We finished our food and took a bus back to our hotel for an early night.
Bus fare - RM1 x 2 = RM2

It was one hella heavy stomach we had to carry back!
Here were some interesting animals we spotted along Macalister Road. Check out the contrast between the dog and the cat. The dog was completely monochrome (slightly depressing) and the cat was vibrant, full of color and life!

Day 2 a.k.a Dua Hari

The next day, as it was a very tight schedule, we got up early and had breakfast at the hotel to fuel us with energy for the day and made our way to Kek Lok Si Temple.

There was a slight downpour but thankfully it didn’t affect us as we were in the comforts of a nice air-conditioned bus.
Bus fare - RM1.50 x 2 = RM3

It took us about 45 minutes and when we finally arrived, we passed by the famous Assam Laksa stall and promised our stomachs as reward after walking back down from Kek Lok Si.

Known as the "Temple of Supreme Bliss", this temple took more than 20 years to build! It took us a mere 15 minute slow walk up to the temple. On our way up, there were touristy shops selling stuff from magnets to sarongs to bags to dried foods!

We passed by this tortoise pond midway up our walk, and couldn’t resist taking a picture.

This is known as the Liberation Pond. As in the Buddhist belief, turtles represent freedom.

They were all stacked on top of each other. Unfortunately we didn’t have any bread on us to feed them. To my surprise they weren’t as smelly as I thought they would be. :)

Did you know the turtles represents longevity in our Chinese culture?

Alas! The trek up! It was well worth it as we felt so tiny up there in the mass of gods with the panoramic view overlooking Penang behind us.

Aside from being a well-known temple on the island, it is actually the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia. As such, the temple serves as a focal point of festivals for the Chinese community here in Penang.

Jude as a Buddhist, he felt totally divine and couldn’t resist having his star jump by the magnificent backdrop of the temple.

Check out how high he jumped. It was a ledge about 5 feet long. I was afraid he would fall off. Phew!

Known as the "food paradise" of Malaysia, Penang, never fails to deliver these promising succulent flavors to our saliva quenching taste buds!

M A K A N _ m a k a n _ M a K a N _ m A k A n _ makan _ MAKAN _ eat eat eat eat

Its time for ...

P E N A N G's

A S S A M

L A K S A ! ! !

The picture of this bowl we snapped was intentionally blown up as an eye opening experience!

It lit my taste buds on FIREEEEEEE!!!

Penang's Assam Laksa - RM2.70 x 2 = RM5.40

It costs ONLY RM 2.70 per bowl. It tastes like a mixture of our local Chinese Rojak with Soup!

YUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!

Bus fare - RM1.50 x 2 = RM3

After lunch, we made our way to get a bus back to Komtar.

The bus ride cost us RM1.50 each, and it was a long ride. It took us another 45 minutes back to Georgetown Komtar into the city centre. Here’s one funny sign at a school that we saw.

Motivating huh?

Now here’s a little known fact about Penang. It Is the only capital in Malaysia that has an English name. “Georgetown”.

As it was a colonial place like Malacca and Singapore, with free trade made by the British, there were many similarities between Penang, Malacca and Singapore.

We were keen on comparing that similarity and looked at the heritage areas, protected by UNESCO World Heritage.

We started out with the maps and visited several places of worship.

These places reflected on what we have here in Singapore too.

Arab Street, Little India and there are many Chinese temples amongst them.

This age old Hokkien temple was one of them. It is known as the Khoo Khongsi Temple.

Entrance fee - RM5 x 2 = RM10

It represents the Hokkien Clan in Penang and was highly regarded as one of the special temples that supported the Hokkien people in Penang.

Check out in this picture above how intricate the sculpture of the miniature version of the temple. They were apparently all imported from China.

This guard gave us a brief tour and mentioned that the detailed gold carvings on the ceilings were a treat for many.

It served as the primary attraction for the later years for the temple which serves as a museum today.

Strangely enough, instead of your stereotypical fierce looking lions to guard these temples, this temple has 2 indian guards with rifles in stone, guarding the entrance of the temple which overlooks the view. Never before seen!

In the bursting heat, we had a tea break and gathered our maps out. We had a soothing "teh ice" each to sooth our body in the crazy tropical heat.

Teh Ice - RM2 x 2 = RM4

We saw 2 men at our table next to us and we sat down and had a chat with them. They were glad to hear that we are from Singapore, as truly, we were all one people, one nation.

They recommended us to look at several temples down the street and little did we know, we were in “Little India” just about 2 streets away.

We saw this Grand Indian temple, and a few more other Chinese temples.

It was until this temple that we stumbled upon.

This age old temple is known as the goddess of mercy temple (Guan Yin). With HUGE joss sticks parked right in the front of their doorstep.

It was smoky no doubt, but it was spectacular, even though it was tucked away in the corner of a busy street.

Though right outside was the busy street, we felt a total peace and serenity overwhelmed with calmness in the temple.

We bought our offerings at RM3.50 and offered them to the gods.

Prayer Offerings - RM3.50

There weren’t a lot of people, it was smoky (yes of course) but with the temple gongs going on every 2 minutes, strangely, it felt serene. Honestly, I haven’t felt such serenity in any Chinese temple before. Right at that moment I wanted to nudge Jude to snap me with a perfect backdrop for my star jump, but I felt it was inappropriate to other peoples’ peace and quiet time. I decided to continue with my silent thoughts and chose to quickly erase about the thought of a jump right in the middle of the temple.

We made our way to the next bus stop and along the way we stumbled onto a very traditional toyshop. This toyshop was HUGE. It was located just opposite of Komtar, the main city centre. YEAY!!!!!

We failed to control the inner kid in us.

Toy Shop Fun - RM0.00

Bumblebee (with a goatee) vs Optimus Prime (ROAR!)

We found a bakery shop called Rainforest bakery. We couldn't resist and we bought this 500g loaf of bread for just RM5.20!!!

Good Quality Bread (500g) - RM5.20

As we were made our way to the bus stop, we spotted a double rainbow for the first time. It must have been due to the downpour earlier.

If you look closely, you can see a faint rainbow above the more obvious rainbow of the two.

And you know what they say, there lies a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

We got onto the bus, to Batu Ferringihi.

Note that this bus isn’t under Rapid Penang (sort of their SBS version of ours). We paid RM2 for the non-air-conditioned bus to Batu Ferringihi.

Bus fare - RM2 x 2 = RM4

As it was during rush hour, thankfully we boarded from Komtar and we had seats to last the hour long journey. Check out the busy bus terminal at Komtar.

There were men yelling with loud hailers all at the same time for the different Bus services that was moving off. We ended up waiting at that terminal for 15 minutes. This is what you will never see in Singapore today. What a cultural experience!

As the sun was setting, we managed to snap these sepia sunset shots with our handy lomo cameras.

It was sleepy nap-time, and as the bus got more crowded (rush hour), we were exhausted and dozed off. We woke up to a fairly packed bus and continued our sight seeing. Now that’s one great thing about taking this bus towards Batu Ferringji. Never mind that you don’t like the beach, or u are not a beach person (come on who isn’t?) but this ride all the way up to the north of Penang is way worth the trip. As you move along up north of Penang, you can see the colonial houses build by the British and later retained by the Chinese. Of course in today’s standards, you will see an expensive restaurant or a pub or two in between these wealthier houses or condominiums.

Round the windy road bend it was difficult to be asleep, as the driver had 1 hand on his steering wheel, the other on his mobile phone. It was intense but what an adventure for RM2!!

We were approached by the “anak pantais” (beach boys) from the beach, offering us with endless fun from sea sports. We politely declined but they were very hospitable towards us. They offered us beach benches for free. And we ordered drinks from them to quench our thirst.

Drinks by the beach - RM6

We sat there and enjoyed the soothing sounds of the beach waves and watched as people went from jet ski rides to paragliding to a family of 6 on a high speed banana boat.

The beach boy, Monkey, as what he is known by, told us tales where we had to accommodate to every customer near or far. He said if we went into any trouble in Penang, or even in Kuala Lumpur, to mention his name, and any bandit or thief would think twice about messing with us. We thanked him for his stories and enjoyed our lovely sunset together. What a perfect sunset to end our perfect day in Penang.

I had my star jump shot here by the Beach of Batu Ferringhi, right by Monkey’s stall. He and his friends were hyped up by my jump in which they thanked us for the chat and we shoke on a future visit.

It was about late 730 pm when the sun finally set and we walked out to the bus stop and saw the night bazaars were setting up. There’s Jude right at the end searching for me. We walked around and I found a lovely Penang Assam Laksa Magnet that I had to get! It was awesome!

I managed to bargain a dollar off to RM 3.

Just in time, our bus came and we hoped on our ride back to Gurney. We dropped off at our hotel, washed up and headed down to Gurney drive.

It was about 9pm and the hawker centre was breezy especially coming back from the beach.

We met a lovely old couple who were eating next to us and we chatted briefly.

Apparently, this stretch used to be a popular stretch for the couples to hang out and go for dates late into the night. Looking at it now, I’m not surprised that it still is!

Our bellies couldn’t resist:

Chee Cheong Fun – (a sweeter version) RM 2

The Penang Famous Kway Teow Teng – RM3 each

And a bubble tea (chendol flavoured) RM5

Total cost - RM13

We did our own little stroll around the area and stumbled into Gruney Place. It was a HUGE mall!

We found our way up to the cinemas on the highest floor 7^th and found that they were showing late night shows. We hadn’t caught the blockbuster Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and what better way to end our more perfect night?

We saw that a 12:15mn show was on and we quickly queued up for the film. It was way cheap dude! RM10 each! Boy oh boy! How could we ever get such prices available here in Singapore? We decided to stretch our last night in Penang and purchased our tickets.

Movie tickets - RM10 x 2 = RM20

We finished the film at about 3 am and strolled our way back to our hotel. It was romantic stroll and we were sad to leave. We packed our bags and decided to stay up so as not to miss our flight!!!

We sorted out our $$$ and to our horror we had only RM17.90 left! That was no way possible to get us to the airport!

We got down to the lobby early and grabbed coffee and found our other teammates, Billie and Maryanne. I approached them, in doubt of a Transfer bus to fetch us to the airport and they said there wasn’t any. So I asked if we could share a cab to the airport, that way, we could all cut our expenses short!

We split RM17.50 each for a RM35 cab ride. The uncle was nice and friendly, mentioned several unknown facts about Penang. Like the University of Penang for one, every student who gets admitted into the program gets RM20,000 upfront from the government. It barely costs more than RM800 a year in a degree program, and the rest would be yours to keep; to contribute to your family’s expenses, or for most, to buy a car! That's an interesting trivia!