Back to my hometown again. The last time I was back was last year to have our engagement photos done. Has it been that long that we’ve been engaged?? This time, I’m back for a friend’s wedding. Yippee!! A quick 3 day trip and a blissful luxurious stay at a hotel after 3.5 weeks of slumming it (almost!). It was like, oh my gawd, a hotel!!
Most of my school friends were only arriving the day before the wedding so I took this opportunity to catch up with one of my oldest friends, Andrew, and do what most people do when they come to Penang. Eat, eat and eat. I had my favourite assam laksa every day that I was there and then I had the rest. Nyonya kuih and curry mee, goreng pisang (banana fritters) and goreng cempedak (jackfruit fritters). As you can see, I took loads of food pictures but it’s only now that I realise that we didn’t take any pictures of ourselves. We brought our cameras out and took loads of pictures of the sights but none of ourselves. Bah!!!
I chanced upon this place looking for dinner on my first night there. The whole restaurant has a hospital/clinic theme. The food is served in sanitised trays, the drinks in beakers, the chairs are makeshift hospital beds and the lights are operating table lights. I thought it was pretty cool and it looks like they’re popular with the younger crowd.
My favourite dish ever!! Assam laksa. I know it doesn’t look all that appetising but trust me, it is the yummiest food ever. If I ever have to pick my last meal on Earth, it would be bowls and bowls of this!
We also did some sightseeing which was pretty cool. Went up to Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion aka the Blue House on the first day I was there. We almost had our engagement pictures taken here but alas, the price they were asking for was just too exorbitant so we had to pass. It is a really nice house though with a lot of history behind it. We also checked out the Peranakan Museum as well as Khoo Kongsi temple (one of the places we had our engagement photos taken!). I just haven’t had the time to go through the photos yet. 🙁
The day before the wedding was a public holiday!! Yippeee dooo!! So I made Andrew and his girl take me out sightseeing. Muahaha… we went to Kek Lok Si Temple which I have not been to since I was a little girl. We used to take all our tourists there and I remembered thousands of turtles or tortoises in the fountains or ponds around the temple but we didn’t see any this time around. So sad…. Apparently there was a lot of people stealing them a few years back to sell in the black market as they’re classified as exotic animals so I think the temple gave them away?? Which is a good thing but it’s bad too because human nature can be so vile!
The temple is going through a refurbishment process and they had all these tiles that people had ‘bought’ for the temple. It’s like a donation and you get to write your name and whatever you want on the tiles. Won’t they wash off though in the rain after a few months?? *shrug* Me being pessimistic again.
And then on the day of the wedding, Penang bridge, which links the island to the mainland (we grew up on the mainland) decided to catch fire. Major drama!! The bridge came to a standstill and the ferry, which is the only other alternative route to the island, struggled to cope with all the people wanting to come to the island. An hour trip turned into 4 hours. We missed about 15 minutes of the ceremony because of the darn bridge drama. 🙁 But the wedding was utter fabulousness. The bride and groom were so happy and they looked stunning in their traditional Vietnamese attire. Gorgeous gorgeous wedding!!
The girls came back to my hotel room for a chat session at the end of the night and I didn’t get to sleep until past 3 in the morning. My flight was early the next morning and the lack of sleep really caught up with me on the way back to Sydney. I literally nodded off every time my head touched the pillow on the plane home. I’m home!!
