Over the bridge~ Penang Island

Day One - 29 Aug 09

Dear and I began our journey as early as 5.30am in dark light. Had our breakfast at McD BU before we hit the road. Funny thing happened during breakfast - football was live on tv and there were a couple of young African students sitting around and ... this is best part I like to share with you all... a police car was chasing a motorbiker like 3 rounds on the same road in front of McD BU... it was hilarious! Well eventually the police found the motorbike without the biker!

It was somewhat a blessing that our journey was smooth and no traffic jam as most of my friends predicted it would be a busy weekend. It took us 3.5 hours to reach Penang. It was a 9-km wonderful ride on the bridge; I remembered the last time I got on the bridge when I was below 12 years old.

We first drove to town to have our 2nd breakfast at one of the coffee shop in GeorgeTown - our Cha Kuey Teow in addition of huge prawns and it was only RM3.50 per plate. As the day started drizzling, we thought that we should check in the hotel first since it was only 10am. We managed to get our room early and unpacked our things and had a short nap. At about 2.30pm, we hunted for Kayu Nasi Kandar, only to find out from a local that the shop has long ago shut down. He recommended us to Nasi Kandar Line Clear which was nearby on Jalan Penang, so we took a short walk and had the most tasteful nasi kandar! The people at the shop is friendly and nice as well :)

After that, I thought of buying Tambun biscuits so we walked further up to Pasar ChowRasta. Dear didn't like the market much as the place was full of flies on the food and he thought it was not a good idea to buy from there. I suggested we go to the most famous factory that produces this Tambun biscuits. When we arrived Him Heang by car, I quickly hop off the car and went into the shop and surprised to know that we needed to pre-pay and line up to get fresh Tambun biscuits. Other sub-items are pre-packed so no need to worry - only this biscuit! I walked out happily with my biscuits after 1/2 hour, poor dear had to wait in the car by himself.

Dear wanted to badly to go to the Fort at esplanade, but unluckily downpour. Not really a nice day to sight-see. We refuse to return to the hotel.... I saw this ad - QueensBay Mall and I said, why not we go to this mall? *dear shook his head in disbelief* You girls know why :P Ok, we didn't stay too long in this mall as we wanted to venture Gurney Drive sooner. At about 8pm, we were at Gurney Drive and could see and smell a range of food shops and quite indecisive on which shop we should try. Finally, we chose a large food lane which had everything we could order from curry mee, fried egg oyster, grilled seafood, prawn lam mee, assam laksa, wantan mee, etc. It was an eye opener to food lovers as you'd want to try every single foodstall in this lane. The fried egg oyster was one of a kind, I loved it! If I have a week here, I'd definitely come back again and again.

Now here I am sharing my first day in the land of food... till tomorrow....
Good night all!