Penang Revisited

We went up to Penang last weekend to attend a wedding dinner.  This was our first visit to Penang since 2003, when us and a bunch of church friends did a very ambitious food trek and ended up with constipation on the third day.

But I digress.  Driving up and down the west coast at this time of the year can be quite a scary affair due to the heavy rain, and we saw quite a few serious accidents on the way.  Thank God we managed to arrive safely.

We stayed at Gurney Hotel this time, which provided a great view of the Gurney coastal line, not mention proximity to the famous Gurney Drive hawker food.  Alas, rain put paid to our plans, and we ended up having Korean barbeque and steamboat at Seoul Garden in Gurney Plaza instead.  Here we were in the food paradise of Penang on a Friday night, and we were eating mall food :P

On Saturday we met up with an ex-colleague who kindly showed us how to get to Bayan Lepas and also brought us to the awesome Bayan Lepas food court.

Saturday afternoon was spent at Prangin Mall to meet up with some of the wife's relatives.  Prangin Mall felt like a cross between Pertama Complex and Sg Wang Plaza, and we were warned to watch out for muggers and snatch thieves.

On Sunday morning, we headed to the Botanical Gardens, but had to cut short our visit as Cynthia got quite cranky due to the heat and humidity.  She's getting to be quite a "puteri lilin", must train her to endure the Malaysian weather more.

An ex-teacher made an excellent suggestion of watching the sunset at Balik Pulau, but unfortunately, that will have to wait till the next round.  Despite some bad press, Penang is still a great holiday destination and we are planning to go back again next year.