Flurry of Events

Well much has happened since I last had a proper post.

Roses mark one of the most important events on Oct 10.

Pictures are still being filtered through.

Followed by e Sandy Lam concert. A couple more photos that weren't up the last post.

Just before the start. Yes, we were pretty darn close to e stage.

And out she comes.

Following a very energised encore, all of us stormed to the railings (which was just 2 rows in front), and I just happened to see Li Fei Hui standing beside me, also enjoying the concert.

And the rest is history.

After the concert, we went for a stroll around Tanjong Rhu, in part to avoid the crowd of commuters leaving the concert.

A nice pic of Indoor Stadium from Tg Rhu.

Following Thursday, 23rd Oct, was La Table Francaise at CharKOL. Nice relaxing event, and I provided the bossa nova music for the night thru moi iPhone.

A curious tree frog which lost it's way and got into the shop.

We let it back into the wilderness not long after playing with the slimy critter.

And on Friday 24th, we were off on our half-biz half-relax road trip ...

To Penang.

A friggin long way it was.

We set off at 630pm from Woodlands MRT, zoomed to Larkin for our coach bus @10pm, and after a torturous ride on uncomfy seats coupled with ridiculously cold air-con, we arrived at Penang @8am.

On the trip was Clarisse and I, and my biz partner CF and our friendly helper YK. YK's an extremely fun person to be on a trip with, despite her being extreeeemeeeeelllllllyyyyy sssssllllooooowwww with her meals and baths. ^_^

Crossing the Penang Bridge @730am on Sat morning.

And checked into our hotel room with a cool view overlooking Georgetown.

I liked the hotel very much, not because of the free wi-fi internet, not because of the hot water bath, but because all their internet stations in the lobby were running ubuntu linux.

All hail freeware!!!


And after we all had a nice bath and a change of clothes (and answering some e-mails and updating a website and whatnot), we set off for breakfast:

At an uber-authentic old-school kopi-tiam!

Where we had fantastic iced milo, wan tan mee, and fish ball kway teow. And after breakfast was our short walk around georgetown's heritage area, en-route to our biz-partner's office.

CF & YK on the far right of e pic

Catching up with them.

Wow.

They are so damn bloody forthright about what they do.

Rickshaws resting

Dragon engraving on a temple pillar

Pretty nice eh?

The Temple itself.

A lazy dog.

Seemed like he was bothered by the attention we were giving him, and roused a couple of times.

The wall of an old building, with some random graffiti.

Old School Peranakan Decor

An old market still serving the same function.

Slight resemblance to Lau Pa Sat (only smaller), a remnant of the city's heritage as one of the Straits Settlements, along with Malacca & Sg in the 19th century.

Well well well.

They even have pirated dalmations over there.

Carnavon Street, one of the main streets in Georgetown.

Our partner was located along this street, which unfortunately was pretty long, so we took some time to find our destination. Eventually we still needed the help of our friendly phone booth.

Calling our partner on an old schol (but badly worn + vandalised) phone booth.

And after biznass talk was over, Ron was kind enough to bring us around the city to try out some of the many delicacies found in Penang. The first destination was Lorong Penang, where 2 famous delicacies could be found side by side.

Another old-school kopi tiam.

The famous penang laksa!

And Chendol!

Very nice food, but the crowd + owner's can't care less attitude made the experience not very pleasant. The shop was impossibly cramped, with more people waiting for seats. Two pax taking one seat was the norm in that eatery, so you get the drift.

Moreover, the stall owners could refuse to take orders in frustration, even to the point of ignoring customers, because the flow of customers was just too damn good (they were famous). Service went down the gutter over there.

Ron mentioned that it was the first time he ate there, despite growing up there; because it was notoriously known to be crowded among locals, not to mention the difficulty of finding a parking spot.

So, after that, Ron brought us to a much better place to have Lemak Laksa and Fried Kway Teow, another 2 famous delicacies but were not as crowded.

And following that was a relaxing visit to Batu Ferringhi beach, a really long stretch of beach which was popular among tourists and locals alike. He drove us to different stretches of the beach, which had different sights to offer.

Somehow, ron got uncannily blocked by that dangling leaf. I don't know how, but somehow.

A small park by the beach, perched on a slope.

Pretty picturesque eh?

The northern-most point of the island.

And following that, we were off to Gurney drive, which was along another stretch of beach, and was famous for housing the 2nd largest shopping mall and the most posh hotel on the island, both side by side.

Which I eventually found to be owned by Capitaland. No wonder it felt so Singaporean.

The beach in front of the shopping mall.

'twas low tide, and the beach was littered with tens of thousands of mudskippers.

The girls fooling around in Toys'r'us.

Leaving Gurney Plaza

And G hotel beside,

Which we had to visit both out of curiousity and our need for the lavoratory ^_^|||

But it would have been our loss for not going in, as the interior decor of the lobby was splendid.

From below...

The lobby, flushed with the lounge and bar in one contiguous space. Very nice n creative layout.

Cool wallpaper in the posh toilet.

Cool white Die-cut steel bench.
Part of e lounge.

Cool sofa, also part of e lounge.

Cool 3m tall version of a pretty common lamp.

In fact, many of the lightings were very familiar, except the fact that they were blasted many many times compared to what I had seen before.

A sucky semi-western seafood dinner, where I had uber-wierd tasting Black pepper udon... gawd... I thought it would be nice when I pictured it in my mind.

And then, we were back to Batu Ferringhi, for the famous night market! pretty long stretch of all-year-round pasar-malam. We were worn out before we finished the whole stretch, and head back to rest.

A pirate ship at the start of the night market!

Actually a seafood restaurant standing over shallow coast.

Venturing forth!

A random shot.

Which coincidentally caught YK shopping.

It's like bloody close to the roadside can? packed to the brim with stalls & patrons.

And we woke up to a sunny Sunday...


After sending Clarisse to the bus terminal for her 9.30am bus (she had a dinner gathering with friends that evening, and the journey took 8 hours at the best speed), I returned to e hotel to pack up.

And after breakfast, set off with CF & YK to Ron's office again.

An authentically decorated Indian Restaurant we spotted along an alternate route to Ron's office.

CF at the door of Ron's place.

And after settling some logistics, we were off on foot again to explore.

Somehow he just wanted to do that. -_-|||
(no he didn't really pee)

And our next destination was apair of Thai & Burmese Buddhist Temples facing each other along a stretch of road.


And from there, we walked to Gurney Plaza to relax for a couple of hours before we set off for the bus terminal.

A very nice manor along the way.
Had this Victorian feel to it. Very nice.

Along the Gurney Drive beach again.

And a nice miniature of a DSLR - pretty cute, as the whole thing was probably 10-15cm long.

Yes, VERY miniature.

Following some light shopping at cold storage, we were off on our journey back. Set off on the road at 8.30, and reached the causeway checkpoint by 5am.

A cab home brought me to a soundly sleeping Clarisse, marking the end of our mini road-trip.