Weekend In Penang

Just came back from Penang with Inspector not too long ago. We were really killing a few birds with one stone here - To attend Hippy Chick's wedding, hang out with Inspector's buddy - Dr. Bachelor (he's doing his housemanship there and was one of the Cleo's eligible bachelor nominees a few years back, hence the name), to get away from work stress and all (especially since it's a public holiday), and of course, to indulge ourselves with Penang food la!

It's been almost 2 years since we last went to Penang. I think Penang is getting a bit too crowded now! We stayed at Naza Hotel which is somewhere in Jalan Tanjung Tokong. The room was not too bad, toilet was a bit small though. Car park was limited. Breakfast was, oohhh... B-A-D. Even the guava juice was too watery! The last trip, we stayed at Berjaya Georgetown Hotel. Now that is a much, much better one.

Hippy Chick's wedding dinner was held in Gurney Hotel. It took us at least 25 minutes to reach there. Traffic was really teruk la.. Anyway, the dinner was alright. Hippy Chick's dad gave a speech in Hokkien and mentioned something (a colleague translated for me) about 2 people from different lives, different countries (the groom's a Singaporean) united together and become "rojak", which, to him, stands for R - respect for each other, O - taken from the word "love", J - Jesus Christ (they're both Christians), A - accomodate each other, K - kindness & forgiveness. Not bad, eh? The live band was quite bad though. They were singing slightly off key especially when they hit the high notes, and the worse part was that they sang a couple of heartbreaking songs, which goes something like, "I like you but I'm scared of you", "Goodbye but I'll always love you", "When will you ever be mine?", "what can I do to make you love me?". Hellloooooooo.... People are getting married here and you're singing this kind of songs? Yeah, they're nice to listen to, catchy tunes, but the lyrics don't suit the occasion at all!!

Oh well.. Dr. Bachelor entertained us with his experiences on delivering babies, his patients and while he was in Aceh (he was in the first team sent by Mercy Malaysia after the tsunami tragedy in December). He brought us around to makan as well. Let's see.. We had char kuay teow and durian ice kacang at some shop (which is apparently very famous for the durian ice kacang). We bought 11 boxes *lol* of Him Heang tau sar pneah from the market (the actual Him Heang shop in Burma Road was closed) to be distributed to families, colleagues and neighbours. We had cendol at a stall near the market. We had drinks at Breeze Cafe, just beside Naza Hotel, listening to the sound of waves. We had mua chee in Gurney Drive. We had char kuay teow, prawn mee and ice kacang in Swatow Lane. Too bad we had to leave early for KL (to avoid traffic jam), otherwise we would have gone to Ayer Itam for asam laksa. Nevermind.. Next trip! What other food did we miss out? Please let me know. I'll jot them down and make sure I go try them in my next trip to Penang. :)

Spent a couple of moment as we passed by Gurney Drive to reflect on the tsunami tragedy. I still couldn't believe that, no matter how high the land was from the sea, the waves were actually strong enough to rise and flood the land! I was glad to see that everything was back in operation, and I hope that the disaster will not occur again!

I'm tired now.. Have to go back to work tomorrow. Next weekend - Company's trip to Tiara Beach Resort, PD!