Tuesday, March 7, 2017

2017CNY trip D7,8 - Penang

I would do whatever to avoid hotel breakfast whenever I travel back to Malaysia. I would rather tried BKT and whatever noodle outside rather than the standard continental breakfast plus nasi lemak. Well, on D7, we had our only hotel breakfast. Simple 3 star hotel breakfast, toast bread, fried bee hoon, fried egg… Nothing to shout but yet a nice one.
We reached the airport 2 hour before the take off. We did our last minute pepper buying tour. GSW had told me that the white pepper is produced by soaking ripen pepper in water until the skin break up(another words is until it is rotten). So he recommended black pepper over white pepper.
The flight was on scheduled and we reached Penang at 11am. I checked out and get our car from rental. After a few meal of food court, we decided to try out some restaurant food. I found a Chinese restaurant near Bayan Lepas. The food was up to the standard. The lady owner had recommended that we took the balik pulau road to enjoy another kind of view. I followed her advice and we had a great view of Teluk Bahang Dam. We stopped over the Batik factory and grabbed some load.
We reached Holiday Inn Batu Ferringi at about 3:30pm. We were given an upgrade by the hotel, instead of the crossing the road Ferringi wing, we were given room at the main building. The environment was great with the beach and lobby.
When the sunset, we had driven to the town for dinner. Penang had changed a lot and most of the major road had become one way. Komtar was no longer the highest building around Penang. Lots of Condos were being built and the price is fairly expensive.
After dinner at the new lane food court, we had stopped by the local shop for some shopping. There was a durian seller nearby the food court and Ving decided to try out the Musang King….Well, a hole in my pocket but still worth every penny; it would be a memorable taste that would last for a long time. (we did it once many years ago; my bro-in law, took me to a roundabout around PJ ..)
I had a dipped in the sea and enjoyed a short relax time on the recline chair along the beach side. I wished we had spent more time in the hotel.
We had done a city tour around George town on D8. Penang is indeed a good place to live; it is definite a good place to enjoy retire life.
We visited Penand Hill and stopped by penang road for a batik sweeping round. The chendol is nice but nothing to shout about. A must visit for anyone that like batik as Ving does are the Sams Batik and Asia co.
Both shop were located at the Penang road. The Asia co is manned by a friendly old Chinese couple; batik is local price and the souvenir is cheap as well. They sell traditional batik.
The Sams is an Indian shop and batik price is 1/2 of the Batik factory. Only thing to shout is the parking fee….We had stopped for 1hr 40mins and the fee was RM20….the most expensive I had paid over the last 10 years….
Gurney drive was one of my favorite spot during my childhood; it had changed over the year and the hawker had relocated to the food court…Food was still ok but I missed the feel of walking along the jetty and enjoying the breeze from the sea.

I hit dreamland early as we had to move out early the next day;the hotel staff had told me that it would be rush hour in the morning along the bayan lepas route….

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