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Woke up and finished packing as I will check out today and head for Penang, Malaysia to meet my friends Bob and Shirley.
Headed to the hotel breakfast buffet and had another fairly large meal (down to just few plates though!)
After breakfast headed back towards room, but stopped in a little temple/prayer/lawn section of the property as there was SOMEONE waiting for me. I had brought an offering of a little
chicken from breakfast, so I guess I past muster!
So I went back to my room and rested for a while then took a walk down the beach to one of the 'massage on the beach' places. For about $10 US I
had an hour long neck and back massage. Really nice!
Then headed back to the room and called to check out. They sent a golf cart by to pick my luggage and me up and returned us to the front desk where
I checked out and waited a few minutes for a private car they'd setup to drive me to the airport.
Got to the airport too early, so went to the airport restaurant and hung out for about 2 hours. Had a chicken sandwich, a cookie and some water while
I waited and read my book. Not bad for airport food, but nothing to write home about. It was, however, air conditioned, which was the important thing!
About 2 hours before the flight I went back to "check in". Ouch! HUGE line -- they were apparently checking in at least two major flights. Took about
30 minutes in a hot line to get to the front and check in. Sadly, they decided my one carry-on bag was "too heavy" and I had to check it. A little
concerning (though I had my knapsack with my computer, etc in it) -- didn't plan on ever checking any luggage. But no choice here...
Headed for a long walk to the gate and customs -- about 20 minutes later got into the gate area. Unfortunately this was the gate area for about 4
different flights. Very full, very hot, and lots of small screaming children. Oh joy! My favorite. Ugh. An hour and twenty of this before my flight
was set to board, at which point I was very happy to be in the first couple of seats (get to board first). Boarding from the gate was actually onto a
long people-mover cart, but once enough of us had gotten onto that they drove us to our plane. Ah, the nice quiet of NOT being in the boarding area!
Wonderful.
Flight was about 1/2 full, and only an hour and 30 minutes. Landed in Penang, walked a lot to get to luggage claim area, where my bag was waiting (whew!).
Cleared customs almost instantly.
Bob was waiting for me and called the driver he was using to get us to the hotel. I liked the fact that right near the exit to curb area there was a Dim Sum
offering (though I didn't partake at that time -- a sign of good things).
About a 30 minutes drive later we arrived at the Northam All Penang Suites Hotel. Major skyrise hotel building. Went to check-in and got the
royal treatment as I was with Bob (who they know really well from the many nights he and Shirley have stayed here). My room was on the 27th floor
and was HUGE and had a fantastic view out over the ocean and, I later found out, down to the food vendor hawker area we were to have dinner at.
Went up to Bob and Shirley's room and then we went downstairs and across the street to the night hawker stand market place for dinner.
This was quite different than the setup I had seen in Kuala Lumpur. This was a big semicircle of restaurant stalls which formed a big "U" around
a ton of tables. You went in and picked out a table to sit down. Each table had number on it (ours was #13). You then went around to various
stalls and ordered from the vendors, simply telling the which table number you were at. They would then prepare the food and they or a runner from
their stall would bus the food to your table and you'd pay them at your table. The really COOL thing about this is that we were able to go around
an order drinks, a korean pork dish, a fried chicken dish, a chicken satee on skewers dish, a whole fish grilled order, some pot stickers, some
xian long bau, some pork rice noodles, some shrimp and pineapple fried rice, various beverages, and desserts from different vendors specializing in
the various dishes and then just go back to our table and "pay as they arrived". Of course, the price was super low by US standards but the quality
was excellent!
My hosts Bob & Shirley
Here's a video of a look around the inside of the hawker area.
Here is what showed up at our table:
Wow! What a meal!
We all waddled back to the hotel and said goodnight. Tomorrow we have plans for more food (Dim Sum!!)
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