Penang - 2008.07.23 - Day I - Gurney Drive

Before I start, I just wanna tell you guys that I LOVE PENANG FOOD. Especially the Fried Chicken Skin. Hahaha. I think I've told almost everybody I meet how much I miss this 'delicacy'. Hehe. Yeah I know it's unhealthy, but come oooon~ It's sooo addictive!! And it's not even available in KL... Is it available in KL? Are there any here?? You know something don't you?? If you know someone selling it here you HAVE to tell me!!!!

*breaths* okok.. =P

I hope I finish this travelogue. (Unlike my Shanghai's, I don't even remember if it's done,probably should get back to it soon. =P) Really have lots of pictures to upload! Hope it won't add the the 'lagginess' that has befallen my blog. Everything after my Plurk section won't load on explorer, been using Opera often now. (Oh btw notice the new header!! Suddenly had the inspiration to do it... Or maybe it was out of boredom lah I dunno. =P)

On with our journey! Of course, we'll start with day one!


Penang - 1st day
2008 07 23 Wednesday

The journey took us approximately 4 hours, it wasn't as unbearable as I expected. To tell you the truth, I'm not very good with long car rides. I'll always feel sore everywhere and awfully bored when everybody stops talking. But the day before I slept at 4am tidying the vacant room (used to be my room but now it belongs to another 2 housemates), and did some packing. So I had a good sleep somewhere at the 2nd hours. =P

1: Why I never look this fair in real life? =(

2: A passenger's view

3: The only thing different would always be just the view, and two heads as the frame. hahaha.






4: This is my favourite drink of ALL TIME! Sarsi! But not just any Sarsi, this is specially imported from China and tastes NOTHING like our local too sweet Sarsi. Jac bought 3 bottles back for me but now all finished dah. =(



5: Long car rides without music, now that's really unbearable!



6: Toll super expensive lor! Each toll have to pay 2-digit leh, like RM38, 27 etc.



7: Penang bridge! It's so funny, before this I thought Penang Bridge was a really long bridge, connecting Penang mainland to the island is the Penang Bridge. But manatau, actually very small lor! Hahaha.

Hahaha. Omg this incident I have to tell you! We were around Georgetown area and couldn't find our hotel (Bayview Hotel), kept turning round and round. Finally we decided to stop at a gas station to as for directions. Jac and Heng went down whilst me and Ying stayed in the car. Just as they were about to ask the worker there, I suddenly saw this in front of me!

8: Bayview Hotel Car Park!

The hotel's car park was just right in front of us! We quickly winded down the window and shouted at the guys to come back before we embarrass ourselves! Hahaha.

After checking into our rooms, it started to drizzle. Not sure if the weather would get better or worst, and it wasn't wise to walk around town with our dslr when it's drizzling.. SO, we went to a Gurney Plaza instead! Hahaha. My god, came all the way to Penang and half-day all wasted at a typical KL mall. -_-

Well, at least we caught a great movie! Red Cliff. I thought it'll be all gibberish to me with all the Confusious-talk and 4-chinese-worlds-but-have-alot-of-meaning-talk. Haha. Come to think of it, it was all that but at least the storyline and graphics made up for it! Love it and can't wait for Part 2 in November.

Oh oh and another funny incident I just have to tell you guys cause it's just so wierd! We were rushing to the cinema to see if we can make it in time for any movie. Red Cliff was available at 3:35pm and it was already 3:30pm and we quickly bought our tickets and popcorns cause everybody around us was rushing too. And when we gave our ticket to the ticket collector at the entrance, he gave us a really wierd look and said 'You want to go into a 5:35pm movie.. now?' And we were like 'Huh? 5:35pm??'. We double checked the tickets and it was really a 5:35pm movie. Paaaaaiseh. And the wierd thing is, nobody realized that it was a 5:35pm movie eventhough when everybody was at the counter, and 3 of us bought tickets -_- Well actually I saw that it was 5:35pm but then I thought it was already 5:30pm at that time.
Swt gau gau..

9: All the movie food we bought. Sigh. Have to walk around eating it.



10: Gurney Plaza


Since we had like 2 hours to kill, we went to G Hotel which was located right beside the mall. We supposedly wanted to stay here but it was abit pricey. I've never seen hotel like this in my life. So modern yet alluring.



11: g hotel's toilet

12: lobby


Lemme skip all the way to dinner, cause it was what I was waiting for the whole day! Penang's infamous hawker food! I don't know why they can't make it delicious everywhere. Like the hawker food here, seriously only eat it cause I'm hungry, not because it's nice.



13: time for hawker food!



14: can u see the fried chicken skin or not??

15: lok lok

Wanted to take more pictures but was so excited with the numbers of hawker stalls and people there!! (and lots of begger too).

Ok lah that's all for day one! Jac's pestering me to log off and go bath now, he's hungry. haha. byebye!

Shanghai - 2007.12.12 - She Shan Basilica 佘山进教之佑圣母大殿

My last day in Shanghai. Was a sunday and I wanted to go for mass, and I saw this nice church on the hill. Little did I know that this church does not have mass for quite some time already, and the actual mass was in a smaller church beside this one.

And guess what, when we wanted to enter, they actually ask us to pay a sum of RMB30 to enter. like, WTH?? I know that the park is kind of like a tourist attraction, but I mean, to pay for mass?? Ok nvm, then we argued abit, saying that masses are suppose to be free, and the person that answered us said she never heard of such thing. .. WTH???

Ok, nvm. At the end, she asked us to use the side gate which was 500m away. We wanted to walk but got conned by a trishaw cyclist, saying it's VERY FAR, and have to go UPHILL. Okay lor, we took the ride for RMB5. Who knows, it's actually quite near! And because he said in the beginning have to go uphill, we assumed that he'll take us straight to the church's entrace. WHO KNOWS, he just dropped us off at the foot of the hill!! -_- Damn conman.

Ok NVM, when we wanted to get in, there's this.. person guarding the gate, say we have to pay. And we're like, no, we're not gonna pay so just let us in! And he said we have to give him the password.. 0_o This is the most troublesome mass I ever attended... sigh.

At the end, they let us in without paying after much negotiation. By then the mass was all over at the lil church. But luckily I missed it, cause what I saw was during the whole mass beggars were going round and round asking for money. And when u don't give them they'll curse you to hell.

-_-





church on the hill



faulty cable cars.



close up



inside



yinyang



chia!





One last time at the city.



I love their road system. Electronical signboards. If the there's traffic jam on a particular road, it'll be red in colour.



japanese soda i had during lunch. very cool lor! Have to pop in the glass ball then can drink.



kept this as souveneirs for kataks like me.

sasasasa!!! >.<

SMT. World's fastest bullet train? i dunno. i saw it on national geography.



Hopefully I can visit Shanghai when the weather's more warmer. (can buy cheap summer cloths lor! =P) Really appreciate the hospitality from Jac's family, really made me feel like home. =)

To read about my previous post on Shanghai, pls click these links here:

Shanghai - 1st day - 徐家汇,上海最繁荣的地方
Shanghai - 2nd day - 麦当劳有猪肉！
Shanghai - 5th day - Mr. R 陪我去买小笼包~
Shanghai - 6th day - 新天地 Xin Tian Di District
Shanghai - 7th day - 城隍庙 chenhuangmiao & 田子坊 tianzifang
Shanghai - 11th day - 朱家角+泰晤士小镇
Shanghai - 12th day - 人民广场 + 南京路步行街 + 外滩

Shanghai - 2007.12.07 - 城隍庙 Chen Huang Miao & 田子坊 Tian Zi Fang

Another day of blue skies! Today will be a shopping day, in 城隍庙 chenhuangmiao!






zig-zag highway







very tall oh


Our destination is ChengHuangMiao. It's kinda like an old style shopping district, where you can find silks, jade, tapestries, swords, and other traditional Chinese crafts and trinkets. But the place I'm shopping is d building beside chenghuangmiao, something like a petaling jaya warehouse. lolz~ That's where most of the fashion accesories and trinkets are.






aerial view of chenghuangmiao - photo courtesy

the actual entrance of chen huang miao - photo courtesy

I thought chenhuangmiao was a district, and there really wasn't any temple (because I didn't see any!). But after doing some research, there was actually a small temple at the end of the district. lolz. I didn't really care cause i somehow knew that there will be an entrance fee. *RM15*

oriental KFC, I ate there! - courtesy photo

cheng huang miao

all lit up at night

down this road is where i do my shopping!

At night, we met up with one of aunty's good friends. Surprisinly, she was quite young and very hip. lolz~ Then we head off to 田子坊 tianzifang.

oh don't let this fool you! the street is inside there! - courtesy photo

I had to find photos from other sites cause I didn't have a chance to go there during the daytime, where everything looks different.

hidden street

This is what I love.. exploring. =) The feeling u get when u discover something new is amazing.

ever-cosy cafe

When they say it's time to have the best delicacies in town.

I was expecting something like this...

And it never occured to me in a million years that d shop would be located here!

..

here! can u even spot which one is actually the shop? and nope it's not the one with the yellow lights.

heeere

the space inside is soooooooooo cramped, just 5 tables

The lao ban liang quite rude lor. Because we were a group of 5, usually we're given first priority *because we'll order more! lol~* So there was a 3-ppl group outside, and when the tauke ask them to share table with another group of ppl, they started complaining and said why we can have our own table and they can't. Then guess what the tauke replied..

'Don't wanna sit then don't eat lah!' And just continue taking orders and bills.

=\

ppl business good bah..

the food. cost RM100+

I didn't think it's worth RM100, but the food's really good. Not something u can taste everyday.

They said that the shop was famous for their pork legs, but I didn't know! I ate eeeverything except the pork legs. And I only knew AFTER jacky gobbled up the last one...


The night was still young, so we continued to yam cha at a dessert shop. I didn't notice the name -__- But the snow shake/ice kacang there was fantabulous. The ice is very fine, but not till it turns watery. The pearls are chewy, and the beans are sweet and rich.


So to end the post, tadaa~~

sweet~ with that very young n hip aunty there. haha~