My journey begins one fine afternoon with a taxi ride to the bus station. I had a bus to catch at 2.30 p.m. and I was rushing against the clock. Dragging my belongings into the taxi, with a heavy heart, I bade farewell to the hostel which I have been staying in for the past 6 months. Though my stay there had been relatively short, life there redefined friendship and strengthened my faith towards the Almighty.
2.30 p.m. Just in time! I've had closer calls, but I know...I should have been there earlier in case any unprecedented obstacles come along the way. My two friends, Sheng Yu and Shin Hoon, have already arrived in another taxi before me. Catching a final glimpse of the bus station, I took the final steps on board the bus that will ultimately take me to the Pearl of the Orient, the marvelous island which I have only partially explored in March this year.
The journey was rather uneventful. The nearly 6-hour journey was mostly spent in slumber. I was dead tired from several sleepless nights. Shin Hoon got off in Juru since she lives on the Penang mainland, so that left Sheng Yu and I continuing our journey to the island.
We arrived at around 9.00 p.m., a tiring journey indeed. We were picked up by Sheng Yu's parents, familiar faces to me. It took us about 15 minutes to reach his house. After unpacking my belongings, I proceeded to have a shower, followed by dinner. After reviewing my day, I called it a day and hit the sack. There would be a long day tomorrow.
1 December 2007
The day begins with a simple breakfast at Sheng Yu's house. Sheng Yu then drove me around Penang. Here are some of the sights of Penang:
KOMTAR Building
A Catholic church in Penang
Masjid Pakistan
Rapid Penang
Georgetown Baptist Church
A Seventh Day Adventist ChurchThe reason we've been touring around Penang is because we were killing time. In the afternoon, we had a group of other coursemates joining us, so we were in a large gang. First of all, Sheng Yu and I went to pick up another fellow Penangnite, Pat Kang Ying, who lives in Scotland Villas.
Then, we went to the bus stop to pick up the large gang of friends. We then proceeded to Northam Beach to have dinner. We dined at a place called the Golden Crab Seafood Restaurant.
Some of the delicious food served there
Our big gangAfter our wonderful meal, we decided to head tour around Penang to witness its night-life. Truly Penang is a place FULL of night life. We went to the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, which purportedly had the writer William Somerset Maugham as one of its guests. If the name does not ring a bell, look back at your Secondary 4 literature book - the short story called "The Lotus Eater".
They have a pretty nice Christmas tree inside too.
We also dropped by the Majlis Perbandaran Pulau Pinang. Haha.
Finally, we stopped by the G-Hotel, which is along Gurney Drive. According to Sheng Yu, they called it the G-Hotel because the name "Gurney Hotel" had already been taken by another hotel. Lol. Their Christmas tree was pretty special.
Well, that's it for today. It was a long and exhausting day, but nevertheless filled with fun and laughter. After sending the girls to their rented house and Pat back to her home, Sheng Yu and I arrived 'home' at about 1.00 a.m. We retired to bed shortly after that, knowing that an even longer day would come to greet us.
2 December 2007
The day began with the fetching of the people. Basically there were three drivers - Sheng Yu, Zen Yang and Sze Kee's boy friend (whom I forgot the name, Sorry!). We had breakfast near the girls' rented apartment. Here's a glimpse of what we had for breakfast.
After a hearty meal, we were ready to begin our long day. Our first destination was the Penang War Museum. It took us quite some time to get there as it was pretty far away. We even passed by this driving school on our way there. Haha.
The War Museum, at last!
The Museum was previously a British fort prior to its transformation to its current state. There were so many places to visit there, I suppose I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.
An artillery - BOOM!We entered a weapons storage facility...
...and tried to exit through one of the escape routes
Moments before the attempt...
The cramped tunnel...
Finally got out of there!
More guns...an AA (anti-aircraft) gun
Wah, don't kill me, Sheng Yu!Here we are supposedly at a look out point. But essentially, we are playing commandos. Haha.
Proud to be British! =P
Posing for a group photo...
Poor Ang...he's one of the languishing captives in this fort.
The steps leading to Cannon Bay - the site of a large artillery that is no longer there...sad =(
The intelligence office. My self-styled interrogation room. (With my sub-ordinates as well)
Another little passage that is littered with paintings on the walls.
This is my favourite one. A battleship.
That's it for the trip to the War Museum. Surprisingly, this trip is also a first to the Penangnites. Good for them too that they got to see more of their island. The day is far from over, though.
The next stop takes me somewhere that I have not been to since 7 years ago, when I went on a guided tour around West Malaysia. The place is filled with slithering, cold-blooded reptiles that intimidate most people, but are seemingly great "friends" to some. The place is also known as the Snake Temple.
Here's a "photographic history" of the snake temple, literally.
I remembered having photos with a snake when I visited the Snake Temple 7 years ago.And guess what, the photography booth is still there!
But I wasn't about to waste RM15 for two pieces of photographs. Not when I could pay RM3 to see an even greater array of these reptiles and have photos with even bigger ones than the comparatively tiny ones depicted in the photo. Zen Yang and I braced ourselves as we entered the "Snake Gallery", a cool gallery showcasing a huge number of snake species. There are just so many, but here are some of them.
There's even this creature called "water dragon" that looked like an iguana to me. Lol. We even had the chance to touch it.
Aside from that, we also got to touch real live snakes, and have photos with them.
Now, here's a shocker! A huge python. Honestly, I was pretty nervous when I got into the cage.
Phew, but fortunately, we didn't end up in the python's stomach and made it out of the cage alive.
See! The RM3 deal was worth it, wasn't it? =D
Now, you'd probably think that our day trip is finally over, but...you're wrong. We're only half way through! But first, let's chill with some 'ais kacang'.
Okay, now that we're refreshed, let's continue on with our journey ahead! The next part of the journey takes us to one of the most famous temples in Penang. It is located in Air Itam and its name means "Temple of Supreme Bliss". It's none other than the Kek Lok Si Temple.
Here are some of the sights around the temple.
We even took the "tram" to the top of the hill above the pagoda to see the Bronze statue of Avalokhitesvara (or Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy).
Here's the view of the temple at the top.
They even had statues of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. I found mine - a snake.
Unfortunately for us, the statue was undergoing renovation works.
The view from the top of the hill.
Well, that more or less wraps up our trip to Kek Lok Si. Our next destination takes us to look at a more modernised area of Penang - Gurney Street. And voila...here we are.
It's the Gurney Plaza! Haha. Well, actually we just hung out there for a while. Since there are three big bookstores there - Big Bookshop, Popular and MPH, I've decided to have a look at books. Ah, all the books look so tempting. I barely looked at some of the books before I had to depart for dinner. Sigh...farewell books!
Well, the consolation was that dinner was great. It's not somewhere one would expect it to be. The restaurant is a terrace house in a residential area. But make no mistake! The place serves excellent Western food!
A chicken pie...
...being carefully cut by Khai Chin...
...but ends up being ripped apart by some very hungry people! Lol...
My serving - Chicken Chop Oriental! Tempting? Hehe...
And there's mushroom cream soup to go with that!
Seems like they're really enjoying their meal...
Wow. It's been a long day. But...the journey's not totally over yet! There's one last stop to go. We went to Batu Ferringhi. However, we didn't really do much there. We just went shopping for pirated discs. =P Yup, Penang's pirate heaven. Sorry, but I do not have any photos to show on this. Haha.
Well, that wraps up our long and tiring day. We went back feeling totally exhausted. It was well worth the energy that was expended on it though. This is all for Part 1 of my Penang Trip. I shall continue the rest of my stay in Penang in Part 2. Until then, have a glass of lime-plum juice!
Cheers!
BRIAN CHEE NEE HOU
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