So, today 30 Sept our adventure stared with an early walkabout Changi T1, it was good to see this 36 year-old airport (from 1975) slowly get a facelift to catch up with the times :) Our budget flight (there is nothing budget about 2 return tickets Singapore / Penang for S$515!!!) left for Penang at 11:25am. It was a quick 1hour 10minute flight.
Our 75RM cab ride from the Penang International Airport (also going through it's own upgrading) took almost as long as the flight from Singapore! The vintage taxi took it's time... we got to the Hard Rock Hotel Penang just after 2pm. The check-in was at the King's Club on the 6th floor. We had initially booked a lagoon room (with direct access to the swimming pool) via the Hard Rock Hotel Penang website, but we got a call (followed with an e-mail) the next day to say that the room which was meant for us needed fixing, so they offered us a free upgrade to a Seaview Studio Suite. Sweet!!!
There was afternoon tea from 2:30pm at the King's Club, and the rest of the day was spent at the pool. It started out really nice, but as the sun creeped across the sky, more and more screaming children started to crowd the pool. Time to shift deck chairs and look for a quieter haven. We left for a quick rinse and went back to the King's Club for evening drinks and canapés.
A long stroll along the beach brought us to a friend's food recommendation, Beach Corner Seafood. It was ok but I found it costly, RM103 for 1 x pomfret assam claypot, 2 x deep fried spring rolls, 1 x stir-fried mixed vegetables, 5 x dark soya sauce prawns, 2 fresh coconuts and 1 orange juice. And only the assam pomfret and springs rolls were worth the walk :P
It cost us RM25 (there don't seem to be any metered taxis in this area of Penang, the signs on the outside of each cab says "Metered Taxi - No Haggling Allowed" is such a farce) to get from Beach Corner Seafood (just next to Parkroyal Hotel) to Gurney Food Center. It is like Newton Circus in Singapore, lots of local food stalls and lots of locals so something must be yummy. We waited 20 minutes for the famous char koay teow, tried some rojak with sugar cane juice.
Fata needed contact lenses 'cos they are more comfortable when swimming, we walked to the CapitaLand mall just next to the Gurney Food Center at 9:45pm in search of the lenses. Very luckily Fata found his savior in the form of a pretty-young-blue-contact-wearing-lady, who had the contact lenses he needed, but also replaced the nose buds on his spectacles, one of which fell out in the earlier swim. :) kumxia nice lady :)
With the earlier pre-dinner, first dinner, and the first part of the second dinner, we went for a long walk along Gurney. Back at the food center at around 11pm, it was chee cheong fun, chendol and lok-lok :P the cab ride back to the the hotel was another RM25, very expensive... now to rest up for another day in Penang! :)
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