Hello, Penang

Hello all! I left my laptop in KL, so I wasn't able to update on the fly in Penang, but I've got some good stuff for you. First, as always, the maps:

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View Larger Map 

A lot more, after the jump.



In particular, we stayed at a place in George Town and hung around that general area for most of the trip. I'd like to take a moment to commend my sister-in-law for her extensive and exceptional planning of the whole affair. I don't believe it's easy to wrangle all of us and I really appreciate her for all of her efforts to make it a memorable trip for Wearn and I.

Here's a bit of what Penang looks like as you drive around (if you listen closely, you can probably hear my very kind sister-in-law explaining some of what you see):

We stayed in a very nice hotel that had this very cool feature that, it turns out, is totally standard in hotels in Asia (at least in Malaysia and Japan):

You wish your room came with this set-up

See how there's a cool little holder for you door key-card  If that's not in the slot, your lights and air conditioning automatically turn off after about a minute. How cool is that? You never have to worry about leaving a light on or forgetting your key-card again.

View from the room

As you can see, Penang is a pretty developed urban space, with lots of skyscrapers. You'll see in another post that there's actually a great deal of history to this place as well.

Wearn relaxing

Malaysia is world-famous for its food and Penang is famous within Malaysia (and the rest of the world) for its food, especially its street food, so what first impression of such a place could be complete without a look at my first meal in Penang?

Char kway teow with ambra drink

We kicked things off with some char kway teow and ambra drink. There's a lot going on in the char kway teow, but for those unfamiliar, it's basically fried noodles with spouts, shrimp, dried fish, chilis and other goodies. If you look closely at the close up below you can see a couple of dark pieces (most clearly at the top left-ish). Those are cockles, a type of shell fish I'd never heard of. Kind of salty, but not much else to report on it. Wearn hates it. The ambra drink tastes, to me, a bit like a cross between kiwi and wheat grass. Everybody else said I was crazy, though.

Close up of the char kway teow

A shot of the fine establishment we patronized

A good introduction, no?