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The view of Penang Island from atop Penang Hill, or what they call, Bukit Bendera

HELLO WORLD. I'M BACK FROM MY HOLIDAYS.

It's been such a great December break, with most of the time with me being out of Singapore. LIfe's great, and I'm enjoying every single minute of it. Anyways, I got back from Penang, and it's such an amazing place. Majority are Chinese, and me of my, you wouldn't believe the kind of buildings they have there. It's like driving past the luxury buildings in Singapore. Ok, one thing I learnt: Penangnites (at least I think that's how they label themselves) are a rich bunch. Their condominiums and bungalows and whathaveyous can fetch up to millions! Millions, beb! I'll gore myself to death if I had that much money. Haha. So, food's great, and I LOVE the Penang laksa. The gravy is like the asam pedas gravy, and the laksa doesn't have egg. Note, I'm not that big a fan of laksa, but this Penang laksa, beats everything down! Ok, from now on, I shall only eat Penang laksa. No other laksa, please. I stayed at Parkroyal Hotel, a really fab place to live in, amidst the mountains, in which I shall scour for that one photo later and attach it at the bottom, and it's at Batu Feringghi beach, which is the northern most part of Penang Island. Oh yes, did I mention that Penang is an island by itself, separated by the Peninsular by the 13.5km Penang bridge. Amazing. The bridge must've been Mahathir's big project. Haha. Right, I'm being mean.

And I'vve covered every state possible in Peninsular Malaysia. Really. I'm not lying. Since we went to Penang, mom and dad thought that we should pay a visit to our uncle who lives in Perlis, which is like the last state in Malaysia, technically. So we passed the rice fields of Kedah, what a magical sight, really. And northwards to Perlis, to Kangar. And we nearly went to Bukit Kayu Hitam, which marks the border into Thailand. I swear, we were so close to moving into Thailand. Wow. I'm still so fascinated now.

But the most memorable event would be the journey towards Penang Hill. We had to take the train, but the sad thing is that the train moves so slow, I swear, I run faster than that train. Hah. So they have this track up the mountain, which is like 800m above sea level, I think. I saw monkeys up the mountain, ok, hill, and lots of houses. You wouldn't believe it, but there are actually habitats on these mountains. I wonder how they get their water supply and food and all sorts of necessities. It must be a tough climb, cos the ascent was rather steep. Even I freaked out halfway, and I am on the train. So, when we reach the top 20 minutes later, the view of Pulau Pinang was breathtaking. I think there's a picture of it at the top. We can see the Penang bridge and all that, and it's really cold up there, plus, there are shops at the top, and the ones manning the shops are really hot Pulau Pinang mamats, I swear, I could have cekup-ed one of them, haha. Funny funny. Nice people. Anyway, the monkeys there, well, they are really people-oriented. Meaning, they can sit beside you and not scratch and pee on you. So cute. And I managed to snap a photo of a really cute monkey, who sempat pose for the shot, believe it or not. Hahah..amusing.

Did I mention that there's lots of pasar malam at Penang, especially near my hotel area. And oh man, there's so many Arabs there! I think they hail from Lebanon or something. And the way they speak, my iman tergugat seh. And I don't know why.

The journey back home took 12 hours. Really exhausting. But I enjoyed it all the same because there were lots of stops. Let me see if I can recall them all. First, we stopped at Ipoh, then we moved southwards to Kelana Jaya, then we stopped at Negeri Sembilan, where we stopped at Rembau, which happens to be Z's kampong, and finally, we stopped at Ayer Hitam, finally at Machap, and then we went past Skudai and finally into Woodlands checkpoint, cos Tuas was kinda busy. What a busy exhausting tiring exciting ride. And that marks the end of my holiday for this year. Really. I'm just looking forward to my trip to Iran and Jordan next year. Yee-hah!!!!

I'm too lazy to blog about prom, but one thing's for sure. I enjoyed it, but the food, omg, it tastes like warong food. But it's okay, if that's Copthorne's definition of Muslim food. Haha. And I snapped a picture with Darrel Ang! Woots! I shan't post it up here, cos I want it to remain exclusive, and revealing it to the world would mean that it would degrade in status. Haha, my theory, don't bother.

I'm still rather sad that I didn't get to see my sacrificial, ok, my parents actually, lamb. I've been a devout audience at Masjid Tentera every year, and not being able to celebrate Hari Raya Haji in Singapore was actually a sad thing. We actually spent it on the road, on the way back to Singapore. But the good thing is, the Malaysian PM, Abdullah Badawi, was actually in Kepala Batas, which is in Penang, witnessing the lambs being sacrificed. So, it's good that we're actually within the vicinity, hehe.

And I experienced lots of accidents in Penang. Down on my luck, I daresay. I smashed my little toe on the bus seat, hit my head on the van door, broke a nail when I smashed it on the bathroom door, fell from the bed when I'm sleeping, choked on a fishbone, and had a terrible migraine and fever on the second day. Ouch. But it's memorable, haha.

All in all, I would visit Penang again. Just book me a two-way ticket to Bayan Lepas International Airport. Thanks.