Penang 04

I've just got back from Penang (thanks again Tish!). There was so much to eat that I didn't feel a single hunger pang for 72 hours and the lining of oil in my digestive tract hasn't dissolved yet either. We were literally ingesting cups and cups of lard, but it was tasty lard, and I can feel it making its way to my thighs.

It was food every two or three hours, and we're not talking little plates of biscuits or a sandwich, it was an all out glut fest. It would be breakfast at the hotel, then a second breakfast downtown, then lunch, then tea, then dinner. The idea of supper was thrown around, but quickly slam-dunked into oblivion as we struggled with indigestion. Aaron seemed to have a separate stomach specifically for ice-kacang. The act of eating was exhausting.

Music tastes were disputed all the way up to Penang, with Tish rooting for swing, Aaron forcing eclectic mixes into the CD player, and Junlinn promoting Jay Chou. Jay Chou lasted all of two minutes before they threatened to throw the CD off the Penang Bridge.

The second day was spent being grilled to a crisp onboard a yacht as we surveyed a reclamation site. It was an interesting excursion. The guys tried tanning and I counted jellyfish. About two hours later, on the verge of lobster-hood, we decided to hang out in the cabin and watch a movie. We only got about fifteen minutes into Collateral Damage before we had to disembark.

We hit the pasar malam on Batu Ferringhi on both nights. While the first night was spent buying lots of DVDs (we only managed to watch one in the end), the second night hosted a massive shopping spree. Aaron and Evan's most noted buys were matching 'Drunken Monkey" t-shirts and decorative samurai swords. Tish, as per usual, only bought things for friends; but why is it that haggling with store keepers, who are probably all part of a cartel anyway, makes you feel like you've been ripped-off? Is it something about their beady eyes and shark-like grins that shouldn't really be there if you were successfully ripping them off? It made me feel like a tourist in my own country.

Anyhow, I actually managed to control my urge to buy everything, mostly because I felt too tired to do much, was too busy concentrating on not being knocked over by the speeding cars and motorbikes as we squeezed along the narrow pathway in front of the stalls.

I had a wonderful time, even though I spent all of five minutes on the beach and only about an hour freezing my ass off in the pool. I wish the other half of our group had come too though, that would've made it perfect.