Trip to Penang by Pik Ling

DAY 1 In Penang    

The first day of my Penang trip was on 12th January 2013. This was a very special day for me and for many people; as it was also the day of Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat rally. When I was on my way to TBS bus station to meet my course mates who had just done their last paper for final exam (however, they were so energetic, haha). I saw a lot of people with yellow(BERSIH) and green shirt(Stop LYNAS) in the train. They were heading to Kuala Lumpur Station. I was so surprised to see my primary school teacher (she is already 60+ years old) in the crowd!

We took LRT from TBS to Pudu station to take the bus which brought us to our destination.
Usually the time taken to reach Penang is around 4 to 5 hours, but the bus driver drove "too safe" until we spent almost 6 hours to reach. 3 of us were chatting on the bus non stop for few hours, while another friend took her sweet nap for 3 hours. :D

Around 7pm (we departed at 1.30pm, finally we were on the Penang Bridge!! The first sunset we saw in Penang. =)

My course mate, Hoay Ling was our tour guide during the trip because she is the Penangite. Hoay Ling's father came to the bus station and drove us to the GEORGETOWN CITY HOTEL.

Exterior appearance of the Georgetown City Hotel

What we can see when enter the hotel

 Check-in at the counter

The original price for the hotel per night was around RM370, but we got a discount of 50% by using the GR card!
(This is not an advertisement, haha)



This is how our room look like!

Since it was already around 8pm, all of us felt hungry. So, our tour guide, Hoay Ling brought us to the nearest place to have our dinner. We were just a few steps from the Gurney Plaza!

The mall was fully decorated with red colour items, we could feel the atmosphere of Chinese New Year!

We had our dinner at the Gurney Drive. We had done some research before going to Penang.  Gurney drive is one of the place which popular with penang food. However, its really disappointing after we tried the food.

Rojak cucur udang. My friend said this is a "must-try" food. You can see how this dish looks like at the picture shown below. (Picture no.1)

1. Rojak cucur udang and normal rojak.                           2. Asam Laksa.

3. Char kuew teow                                                                  4. Oh jian (Fried Oyster)

My friend, Ting said: "This is the worst asam laksa I've ever tasted!"

Another friend commented that KL's  fried oyster is even better than this (picture no.4)

Char kuew teow and rojak cucur udang taste quite good, but the bean curd in this dish has turned stinky. Yucks...

Later on, our tour guide told us that local penangites would not visit Gurney Drive for food, because the food sold there does not taste good, only those who are not familiar with penang food (tourists like us) will "get tricked"by its' popularity. This experience has taught us a lesson, which is "The popular food is not always taste good likewise the tasty food is not always popular." haha.

DAY 2 In Penang     We went for the breakfast buffet provided by the hotel. The varieties for the breakfast is quite a a lot. They even prepared few types of sauces for the western food, such as black pepper sauce, cheese sauce, mushroom sauce and other unknown sauces :D

Looks tasty, doesn't it? ^^

After having our simple breakfast, we went to have a look of the facilities in this hotel.

Swimming pool and the gym room.

The Penang view from 8th floor. What a beautiful morning =)

Next, we visited the famous mural paintings area. With the help from Hoay Ling's friend, we reached our destination without taking buses. There are  many narrow streets with random mural paintings on the walls. It's actually quite dangerous to snap photos there because there are cars passing by.

I like these two murals the most! ❤

The wall paintings are so nice!! However, some have lost its beauty as time goes by. The paint on the wall has falling off.

Other wall paintings and special art wire in Penang. Amazing and creative!

The Khoo Kongsi
The entrance fee is quite expensive, which is RM10, but once we show our student cards, we can visit this place with the price of RM1. Wow, powerful student card! ^^

Chew Jetty

We spotted the filming house in the movie of Ice Kacang Puppy Love ( 初恋红豆冰) which was the home of Eric Moo (巫啟贤).

For dinner, our tour guide suggested to bring us to taste the same food as previous day, but different place.  Haha. We ate the same kind of food during the trip, so that we can compare which is the best! =D

This place is nearby Sunway Hotel.

Top left: fried oyster; Top right: Tangyuen in red bean soup
Bottom left: white curry mee ; Bottom right: Char kuew teow

 The food at this place is really delicious! I love the char kuew teow a alot! =D

And we saw something interesting here! The shop's name is 粥杰伦(Zhou Jie Lun) which is same pronunciation with the famous singer Jay Chou's full name in chinese, whereas this shop is actually selling porridge (粥-pronounced as "zhou")

Waiting for bus to go back to hotel. The tall building named KOMTAR. 

DAY 3 In Penang    
We ate DimSum as our breakfast! yum yum..... There are so many varieties of dimsum here!

Guess how much is it? 13 plates of dimsum and chinese tea for 4, its only RM36! We will never get this price in KL! 

After having our breakfast, we took the bus to Kek Lok Si Temple, it is quite far as we took around 30minutes to reach; and we need to climb a long staircase before we can reach the temple.

We can see the turtle pond after the long staircase.

The interior of Kek Lok Si Temple

The view is so nice!

Then we go for the higher part.

Excited! :D

The view of higher part of Kek Lok Si.

The largest Kuan Yin, still under construction.

Everyone was writing their own wishes on the ribbons and hang it up on the  "Wishing Tree". It is believed that the possibility of our wishes can come true will be higher if we can hang the ribbon at the higher place.

After we exit from the temple, we went for the "TASTIEST" Asam Laksa in Penang!

The day before we were planned to go for Bukit Bendera, but unfortunately it was under construction.  Luckily it had reopened before we left Penang.

With our student cards, we only need to pay RM4 for the ticket =D

The photo effect is not so good, the night view really amazing when we were on the hill.

Night view from Bukit Bendera. 

   DAY 4 In Penang  
It was the last day we stayed in Penang, before we leave, Hoay Ling brought us to a "kopitiam" to have our breakfast. We reached around 8.30am, but almost all of the food has sold out. My friend said 8.30am is kinda late for them to take their breakfast. This was so unbelievable,Penang people wake up so early in the morning? The only left was the wantan mee, so we ordered only 2 plates to share between 4 persons as we already taken some food(buffet breakfast provided by the hotel).

Left: Penang's Wantan Mee ; Right: Wantan Mee which we normally can see.

Penang's food , from the aspect of ingredients used, is kinda different from what we normally eat in KL areas, even they having the same name. Their wantan mee is actually looks like our "lam mee", and the taste is also different from how we normally tasted.
Penang's curry mee, usually white in colour(from what we observed in the few days in Penang) and serve with a spoon of chili sauce mixture beside, while KL's curry mee is always red in colour.

Look at the PRAWNS!!! 

Char kuew teow, the prawns served were so much bigger than the size we can see in KL's char kuew teow! LOVE PENANG CHAR KUEW TEOW!! ❤3❤

Finally we going back to KL.

It was my first time at the airport.

Cute baby we saw in the plane. (Paparazzi time!) 

First time on the plane, kinda excited ^^

Souvenirs bought back from Penang, and some biscuits(not in the photo)

Bye bye, Penang, hope to visit again in the future.