Thursday, December 3, 2015

Penang Nov 2015

Last day in Penang! Our returned flight was at 4.30pm so we asked our tour guide to drop us for Bak Kut Teh while on the way to the airport. Since the kids woke up early and after our nice breakfast at Garden Cafe I took them to the indoor playground. It was located beside SIGI restaurant and they were opened at 10am. Hotel guest paid 24RM for each kids and baby under 2 is free. Each accompany adults for each kid are free too. Very simple indoor playground with a toddler area and huge slide for the older ones. Well, I didn't expect my 2 years old to love the slide, yes all the HUGE SLIDE! He didn't even wanted to go to the toddler area LOL Make sure you are in your long sleeve if you want to accompany your kids to play. They are super strict on this!




I forgotten to take down the name of the Bak Kut Teh place we had for lunch. I only could recalled it was the last restaurant along the Song River Bak Kut Teh. I still prefer the version in JB, I couldn't really taste the strong herbal as I was looking forward to but much more dark soya sauce in the soup. The lunch cost us $80RM for the mixed soup, Sesame Chicken, Vegetable, rice and tea. I find it expensive comparing to our seafood dinner. 

Pardon my hub fat finger LOL

Bak Kut Teh

Sambal Potato Leaves 

Sesame Chicken 

Penang airport is quite small and only a few airlines. Airasia is the most popular which I could see as the queue is the longest and messier. Our flight got delayed when we reached Singapore due to bad weather. Overall, I find Penang is a place that is worth for the return. I quite like the resort we stayed but the distance is quite far, be it from town or airport. And there is much things to do when night falls. I hope you all enjoy my simple write up and hopefully it provide some tips too Wink


Penang November 2015

Penang Trip!


Penang Nov 2015

Our breakfast on Day 2 was horrible! We went down at 8.30pm to their Garden Cafe but it was full. And direct us to SIGI restaurant which we had lunch yesterday. Some of the food was served uncovered, you can see files flying around! Hashbrown was hard as stone and non crunch cornflakes! After my unhappy breakfast, we went for our tour which starts at 10am.

First stop - Famous Kek Lok Si Temple: Kek Lok Si
Our tour guide brought us around and intro us our to this temple. There is a small tram that could bring you up to the big Guanyin statue. We spend close to an hour here. If you want to tried the famous Penang Laksa, it is just at the bottom of this temple. Air Itam Penang Laksa resource from:Daniel Food Diary. I didn't went to try as I am afraid there is no other food choice which suit my kids.
On the way up to the temple



Fare for the tram



Second stop - We went to try the Loh Bak at Kheng Pin Cafe. It is actually a deep fried Five-Spice Roll and not braised pork meat. The boss of this stall is a nice hokkien spoken uncle, I do not know how should I go about to order it so he asked me how many pax and I told him 2, he suggested to get the 7RM (set) will do. To me, there is nothing really to shout about (individual preferences, no offence). Is a little dried but very crisp and fragrant. I still prefer our local version.

Address: Kheng Pin Café, 80 Penang Road
Opening hours: 7am – 3pm. Closed on Mondays
Resource from: Miss Tam Chiak


Loh Bak 

Wanton mee

Chicken Fish Porridge - Silky smooth and crunchy 

Third Stop: Famous Mural Street
It was burning hot, sweaty and tired after carrying my '12kg' around. We didn't stay too long as I wanted to go to Gurney Plaza to enjoy some aircon Laughing



 
The jetty across

Fourth & Fifth stop: Gurney Plaza and Ghee Hiang Tar Sau Piah
Gurney Plaza is quite a huge mall with an atas cold storage supermart below lol... There is a Gurney Paragon beside with most high end shop. We didn't went there, we just walked around and left to get the Tar Sau Piah. It is their local famous pastry (green bean biscuits) which I heard they have over 150 years of history. I was so embarrassed when I was inside the shop. I was expecting a huge shop which I usually goes to like in Malacca, where you could taste their pastry and had other products which you could shop around. But not here! You basically queue up, there is a 'menu', you just ordered what you want and that it! So I brought 10 boxes which they have been nicely packed in individual wrapper back for my families and friends.

Last stop: Penang Hill
Regret not doing enough research and regretted going too! Our tour guide told us the expected waiting time to queue to reach the top of the hill during peak period can be up to 2 hours! But when we saw that there isn't much queue and only took us 20 minutes so we went ahead with it. They are very disorganize, nobody is there to manage the queue so people start pushing around when the tram comes. Each tram took about 7 minutes to go up but waiting time is close to 15 minutes to get into it. Upon reaching, we shook our head because the queue going back is much much longer than the one we came up. It was windy, cooling and we got the buddy to bring us for a mini tour. It cost us $30RM. Bad weather again and the time we decided to head back was close to dinner time and so the queue was even worst! It really took us 1 hour and 40 minutes to return. Super tired! One experience and never again!
Nice view

Nice view


Seems copycat of Korea lol


Dinner: Tsunami Village
Tour guide suggested us this place for dinner. It's a chinese seafood restaurant, a kampong style restaurant where you could have sea view while having your dinner. Wrong move again, because is quite hard to get a cab back to resort. Since our tour has ended we got to find our own ways back. This place is situated at the bottom of where we stayed. Food were pretty good, cheap but with some 'irritating files' as accompany Confused

They renamed it to Tsunami Village after the incident back in 2004. It wasn't crowded when we reached there on a Sunday at 7pm. We ordered, Prawn Paste Chicken, Claypot Beancurd, small Steamed Pomfret Fish, Vegetable, Fish Maw Herbal Soup and Stired Fried Lala. Total damage: $90plus RM, pretty affordable right? 

Address: 543-A Tanjung Bungah, 11200
Contact: 019-447 2718
Closed on Monday

The view

Fish Maw Herbal Soup - It would taste nicer if the soup is brew much longer 

Dou Miao

Lala - Very tiny clams, not nice

Pomfret - Very small, not much meat, a little stinky but the sauce is good thou

Claypot Beancurd - Lots of ingredients in it

Prawn Paste Chicken - Crispy, tender and nice!

That the end of our day 2!


Penang Trip - Nov 2015

Went Penang for a short trip and chosen to stay at Golden Sands Resort as I have 2 kids. Booked our flights with Airasia 6 months back for $135 per pax (exclude baby). Our flight was at 11.45am and we arrived before 1pm. I manage to find a driver that provide us 2-way airport transfer, 1 day tour (2nd day) for 8 hours. If you don't have any itinerary they can plan for you. English speaking, chinese or dialect they are able to converse. We took their 7 seaters car service and paid $360RM in total. I find it pretty reasonable since I have kids and could go anyway I like, instead of getting lost and taking cab around.

We cleared the custom in Penang pretty fast! But the journey to our resort was 1.5 hours! All because of the jam, weekend and school holiday. Rolling Eyes Finally we arrived at Golden Sands at 3pm! Checked in was smooth, our room was quite far end. I booked Deluxe room that comes with balcony and a free extra bed. But the extra bed was quite annoying as it was blocking the walkway and we knock against the 'legs' many times! Room was a little worn out and hopefully they will do some upgrading soon. And the air-condition was so hard to maintain. We set at 29 but woke up to 19! Call the maintenance also pointless! The kids love the balcony, especially my 2 years old. But it was raining all afternoon when we were there and it can get quite wet at the balcony area. Poor tv channel, which I find it important if are stuck in the room. Poor wifi connect and some stains on the sofa.

Our room 

Balcony view

Stain on sofa

Bathroom

Complimentary tea, nicely kept

The extra bed with the irritating legs lol


Irritating aircon

Since is already 3pm, we just went to one of their restaurant to have a simple lunch.


Calamari - Nice 

Hawaiian Pizza - Some cheese are not even melted yet

Very expensive lunch! We spend about $40SGD just for all this. This restaurant is close to beach so I guess if you come during sunset the ambiance will be very nice. After lunch we head off to the pool. Since there were many kids around, the pool wasn't that clean. And you can expect some files and leaves in their pool too, Duh! After not long, the rain start to drizzle and we head back to our room, relax and waited until dinner time to head out. 

The night market which is located right beside the resort open after 7pm! We are slightly early and they were just preparing to open their stall. We chanced upon this foodcourt and settled our dinner there. This is the 1st foodcourt which is the most closest to our resort. There is another one which is just a distance away. But the 2nd one seems lesser crowds than this. Food is pretty cheap, expect for the so-so pancake which my girl ordered. I always bring my totseats along as I have doubts on the public baby high chair. Weather wasn't that good again, it starts pouring after our dinner and there isn't much stall to see so we head back to rest for the day. 

Foodcourt

Penang Laksa - $4RM not the best one but not too bad overall

Plain naan - $3RM which I buy to let my little boy snack lol

Chocolate pancake - $10RM super chocolately and super sweet

Oyster omelette ($8RM) and Chicken Wings which I forgotten to take picture LOL

Fried Noodles (Char Mee) - Black fat noodle which hub ordered. I didn't tried it but I guess it was from KL or origin from Penang?

Drop me a comment if you need the driver contact Wink