Photo 72/365.

This is Day One of Penang on 06/11/2010.

On the first day, we landed in Penang International Airport at 130 in the morning. There were no taxis and all the car rental booths were closed. I thought we were screwed. I wanted to stab myself for not thinking ahead when booking the flight tickets because all I thought about back then was making sure it was within our budget. But God is Great, and there was a lady sitting at one of the booths only because she was waiting for a client. Thank God, we managed to rent an affordable ride yo, an 11 seater Kia Pergio. The next challenge was finding the route to the hotel in the middle of the night. Again God is Great, we managed to get there safely, with a space at the hotel's entrance to park in perfectly and have the sleepy dude at the reception who'd waited for us get us settle into our rooms nicely. We only had 3 and a half hours of sleep and then we were awake again. The breakfast buns were the best I ever had, so sweet and soft like naked donuts!!! :D




After breakfast, we headed out to Kedah to fetch my littlest sister so she could hang with us. Like a family should... right? We got a bit lost along the way but it's okay because I love long drives. We crossed the famous Penang bridge then exited at 168 and it was nearly 2 hours later (I think) that we arrived outside the orange house of where my littlest sister was staying at.




I love love the house! So retro and old looking. Got character. My littlest sister and her roomie's staying with an old lady, who's the owner of the house. She's called Tok Umi and honestly I don't know who's looking after who (: I finally got to check out my sister's room and I totally dig the shower, which was right smack at the corner of the room with wall partitions that don't even reach up to the ceiling. The shower room was also where she acts like an adult and do laundry.




Tok Umi's cat was so adorable. I forgot what her name was but let's call her Clingy because she kinda was. But I like that about her (: After we left the house, we went to check out some padi fields around the area. Caught a monitor lizard and a few shrimps (yes shrimps or prawns whatever) swimming in a river. Saw a flock of white birds flying over the fields. And also talked to some old ladies who worked on the fields. The place felt so huge and vast. It was really really refreshing. Then off on the road again. My sister took out her laptop and we researched on what to do and where to go next. Internet in the middle of nowhere? Anything is possible, people!






So after all that research, we decided to go to some mall (I forgot which) for lunch. I had the yellow rice with grilled chicken and sauteed cuttlefish in sambal sauce. My mum and brother had the fried rice wrapped in egg omelette. My dad had rice with seafood tom yam soup. My sisters had ramen in asam fish soup (which was the most Penang dish, and which was also too sweet and asam-like for my taste... and theirs). I rate mine the best by the way. After lunch, we walked around the mall, and Borders (yes the book store, my dream workplace) was one place we didn't miss 'cos we're kinda all bookworms. There I discovered that math and art stood tall together, side by side. I am totally amazed and somewhat inspired. But really... wtf? I'm sorry, I just hate maths.




Having had enough of being in the mall, we went to chill on a huge field right outside the mall that overlooked the sea and Penang bridge. The wind was so very strong you couldn't stand straight without bending backwards. Get what I mean? For dinner, we went to some hawker place similar to one at East Coast or Changi and had seafooooood. My colleague actually recommended the chendol and sotong bakar, so we ordered those. We also ordered cockles, sotong belacan and char kway teow, which are some of the popular dishes in Penang. It was good or maybe I'm just saying this because I was seriously hungry. Still it was really good nevertheless.





When dinner was done, we had some late night grocery shopping. Bought tidbits and had it as desserts in our hotel room. I don't know what we did after that, I guess my siblings and I just hung out. Because in the end, all we have was only each other.