[Travelogue] Short-Escape: Penang, Day 3 :) | Penang Hill, Bistro Tang, Penang Botanical Garden, Gurney Drive and Domino's

By Lasmarya Hadi Purwanto - January 23, 2017

27th October 2016: Day 3, Penang

TEASER

Rose up early in the morning to catch the earliest funicular train to hunt the sunrise at the peak of the Penang Hill, Bukit Bendera. When we arrived, the station was still closed T.T. We're among the earliest to arrive there, and we sat there waiting for the counter to open. Ah, if you would want to know how we could arrive there, what kind of transportation that would pick us up at such an early time, the answer is UBER, the best mate in travelling. It is undoubtedly one of the best invention ever made in the 21st century. Muahahaha

After almost 30 minutes waiting, we finally got into the very first ride of the day. The ticket fare for two ways is RM30/adult. You can also check their schedule and ticket price, here.

Though it might not look like a different kind of train from the usual ones, but the shape of this train is quite unfamiliar for me. Unfamiliar in term that, the trains and railways that I've seen so far, have always been moving forward or backward (horizontally) on a flat land, instead of going uphill or downhill. So, this is totally something new for me. And, and, we first thought that we could move from one compartment to another through the alleys between the seats, just like the usual trains, so we casually rode on without putting much thought of which compartment served the best view. We thought we could simply move if we're not satisfied with ours. But when we got inside,...., there's no second chance. Haha

Yet, thankfully, we made the right choice, by getting on the very last compartment, at the end side of the train, that we were able to capture some of these lights-in-the-dark views, with nothing obstructing us.

The sun had almost risen when we reached the peak, and too bad, the sky was too foggy that morning to get a clear view of the rising sun. T.T

But still, no matter how many times I see a sunrise, it has never failed to amaze me. The way the blue shades of the sky as the background and an orange yellowish ball as the spotlight intertwining has been mesmerizing me all this time. And on the peak of Penang Hill, although it was mostly blurred by the fog, yet the sun, this time too, didn't fail to attract me.

See how thick the fog was? Hmmm...

Most favorite picture of the day goes to this one below!

The sun's up and lightened up the whole sky!

Finally able to strike a cool pose, which is qualified enough to be posted as profile picture, and to be uploaded to instagram, after a super-brief last day training by Ms. Diana Liu :P

And a second afterward... (couldn't hold my cool pose anymore) LOL

Introducing you personally to my dearest friends!

Have you met...

Putra Jaya?

or Winda Chai?

Bidding goodbye to Penang Hill, now downhill we goo!

At around 9, following the recommendation of the Uber driver who picked us up at Penang Hill about the best local place to have breakfast, we headed to Kafe Ping Hooi, at Lebuh Carnarvon, around George Town. It's a small hawker area in the corner of the street with several food stalls altogether serving lots of local delicacies to choose.

(This fried pork, only cost us RM10, which is very affordable, and it tasted great as well!! Well, in Medan, it would cost way more than that for the same portion >.<)

Hokkien Prawn Mee

Penang's famous Char Koay Teow

Koay Teow Theng

After breakfast, we went back to our homestay to have a nap for several hours, recharging our energy for the rest of the day. We actually planned to take a rest only for a little while before heading out again for lunch, but we ended up sleeping too much. (Well, who can resist the temptation of sleeping in, even just for several more MINUTES? Who would have expected that it would turn out to be several more HOURS? :P)

When everyone was ready to go out again, it was already past noon time. We set out for lunch at around 2 p.m., and we walked (yes, walk again! Have I mentioned how I love walking while travelling?)(p.s.: And thanks to Daniel Jiang, who's really good at arranging trip, he got us a place to stay in Georgetown area, and he managed to find a lot of great places in the same area which is within reach by foot. This is also to confirm that there are indeed a lot of places to visit in Georgetown only, so who says Penang doesn't have anything to see?)

We had our super late lunch at Bistro Tang, which is stated as the place where east meets west, a fusion restaurant on the first floor of Ren I Tang Heritage Inn. Bistro Tang is so "instagrammable" in some way as it still preserves the unique interior of a former Chinese Medicine Shop well, including the furniture and other oriental details.

Calamansi Freeze, RM 10.90

Iced Calamansi Tea, RM 8.90

Mango Tango, RM 10.90

Trio of Dips, RM9.90

Chicken Salad, RM 18.90

Yee Mee Chicken, RM 16.90

Nyonya Curry Chicken, RM 15.90

Fish and Chips, RM 23.90

Laksa, RM 15.90

Mushroom Herbal Soup, RM 15.90

The super killer Chocolate Brownie with Vanilla Ice Cream, RM 12.50

(We ordered a lot, and we could hardly finish everything, but we were still tempted by this one dessert, so we ordered it anyway, although we knew we were full. But you know what, we finished it in within 1-2 minutes, since it's SINFULLY GOOOOD! And of course we ordered another... TWO. :d

The backyard, that connects to the Ren I Tang Heritage Inn.

Then, for the afternoon-almost-evening stroll after a super full late lunch, (don't ever blame the dessert, there's always rooms for dessert! sssstt), we're moving to Penang Botanical Garden with the purpose of burning out all the fat by walking around the large garden, it was barely anyone when we entered the place, we mostly met monkeys (scary monkeys, who look like they can snatch anything from us), but soon, we met a lot of local people going there to exercise.

Have you met... Wesley?

Well, due to our "too-long" nap, we came right around its closing time, and it means that we could only walk through the Monkey Path and couldn't enter any of the specific plants green houses, like the Cactus House, the Orchidarium, the Holticulture Centre and many other recreation sites inside. But, despite that, there were also a lot of natural spots to take photos, and nothing could beat the fresh air in the garden. No wonder, local people like to come here to exercise. There's also a trekking route that connects the garden to Penang Hill.

How I wish we had this kind of garden in Medan too, as a place for family recreation, communal space, and also for exercising, surrounded by pollution-free air. It would be really nice, if we could take care of the garden as well as this too.

The stroll ended with us (except Daniel Jiang) playing around, waiting for him to hunt for sunset photos in front of the gate, and we killed some time by singing nostalgic childhood songs (check video at the end of this post!), taking pictures of anything around us, having a lot of fun laughing at each other.

(The suspect!)

Loving this family bonding time!

See? If there's a place like this around, there will be more reasons for family to spend some quality time together. :)

With the sun setting, we're ready to move to the next stop of the day: Dinner at Gurney Drive, another hawker center with a huge variety of Penang's famous street food which is located near the Gurney Plaza and Gurney Paragon malls. The competition of the sellers here were super high, each table is designated for a particular beverage stall, which means we couldn't order from another beverage stall if we're sitting at their table. We didn't know anything about the rule at first. We thought we could just sit anywhere, so we ordered some beverages from one stall at one side, then we decided to move to another side which had more choices of food. We moved around looking for a place to sit while holding our drinks. And you know what happened? We were chased away several times, mostly in a rude way, yes, r-u-d-e-l-y, driving away our mood. Although after a while, a kind young man was willing to accept us, with the condition that we ordered some beverages from him, we had lost our appetite, that we didn't have the mood to order much anymore.

Lok-Lok

Fortunately, there's Domino's! Thank God for Domino's, by far the best pizza I've ever eaten! Without a fulfilling dinner, we had Domino's as our "revenge" supper. Yes, you definitely had me at Domino's!! I'm sold!!