Penang Trip Part 1: On Ipoh Chicken Rice and Technology

Note: I decided to write my travel notes in letter format. It seems more natural for me to tell stories about trips this way. It will make writing about past adventures easier, too. We can just pretend we're digging up old letters. That way, writing about a trip that took place last 2002 wouldn't be so weird. I hope you enjoy reading them. If you get tired of the melancholy letters, fret not - I shall shift to the "usual" writing style for all the other non-"oh-best-beloved" entries. ;)

January 2, 2013

We embarked on a road trip today, Oh best beloved. To Penang. Yes, Penang. It's one of the four new places I wanted to go to this year and I am thankful my family agreed on taking this trip. We initially planned on going to Singapore but, unfortunately (or was it fortunately?), my working visa is still being renewed - no trips outside the country for now. 

So we went to Penang. I told them it was a historical spot in Malaysia (George Town turns out to be listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site) and that the food there is supposed to be great.

Google Maps says George Town is 3 hours and 52 minutes away from my place (364 km, more precisely). We made it there in 6 hours and 30 minutes. Well. You know it's my first time to drive this far. And there were so many slow moving trucks on the road (I overtook most of them). Plus we made a stop over at Ipoh. We tried their Chicken Rice - Dad said his steamed chicken was a bit undercooked but they appreciated the meal because I explained to them how Chicken Rice is actually rice cooked in chicken broth. Anyway, stopping over at Ipoh was okay since we got to see this pretty hilarious signboard (thanks, Mom, for taking the picture):

I was almost dead tired by the time we arrived in George Town. Hey, I was driving a manually transmitted car! Plus we sort of got lost trying to find our hotel. We were trying to find the Tune Hotel located at Jalan Burma. Well, I had a map and some instructions prepared but I took an early turn into one of the streets. And then we found out that George Town is a city of one way streets. Oops.

It was a good thing we had my Yes 4G Huddle (wifi on the go, anyone?) with us. It was also a good thing my brother's phone had a GPS application as well. And it was a super good thing that the iPad (I shall dub him Stevie Wonder) had Google Maps open so that we could easily see which one way streets led to which other one way streets.

So we got to Tune Hotel in one piece. Well, four pieces. We rested for an hour or so before exploring George Town by foot.

But I shall tell you that story next time.

I hope all is well with you, Oh best beloved.

Until next time,

Mari