Penang!

After Singapore, I flew to Penang to hang out with a friend of mine, Wong. Here's a picture of him and his family where we got some awesome Indian food. Who needs plates when you have banana leaves! Very classy!
 
I stayed in Penang for 7 days where I got to continue doing nothing but eat, sleep, and relax. Check out the view from our balcony! Wong gets this view every day! Talk about having an awesome place. The air is fresh, the view is fantastic. Very refreshing!
 
My trip through Malaysia and Singapore have confirmed that I love Indian food. Half of my meals during the trip were Indian food! Check out this Poori the size of my head! Fried bread and lots of it. Yum! Add some good naan, curry, dal... I could eat it every day!
 
Here's a picture I took while watching the sun set Batu Ferringhi (a touristy strip of beaches in the northern part of Penang).
 























I now get to check off another hotel on my list of famous hotels visited. (I've made this list since I've unintentionally been to most of them!). The Sarkies Brothers founded a bunch of hotels toward the end of the 19th century/ beginning of the 20th century. Here's a Wikipedia link.

In chronological order, the hotels founded by the brothers were:

* 1884: Eastern Hotel, George Town, Penang, Malaysia
* 1885: Oriental Hotel, George Town, Penang, Malaysia
* 1889: Eastern and Oriental merged into Eastern & Oriental Hotel (visited Feb 2010)
* 1887: Raffles Hotel, Singapore (visited Feb 2010)
* 1891: Kartika Wijaya, Batu, Java, Indonesia[1]
* 1901: Strand Hotel, Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar) (visited July 2008)
* 1910: Hotel Majapahit (as Hotel Oranje), Surabaya, Indonesia

I guess this means that I need go to to Indonesia!

Here's a picture of the pagoda at the Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple (supposedly the largest in Malaysia). It gets all lit up for the Chinese New Year! What's crazy, is that every lantern and every tile in the temple is "sponsored" by someone. "Sponsored" meaning someone made a donation to the temple to have that lantern hung or tile tiled.

When I see these anodized aluminum bottle openers, I can't help but think about the hours it took me to machine a few of them in the machine shop (you might even own one of these!). Here, you can buy one for less than usd1!

This is a photo of the biggest ant I have ever seen! It's an ANT, and it's HUGE!

I went for a short hike in the Penang National Park to Pantai Kerachut which opens up to a secluded beach! No people, no litter, clean water! Went for a nice swim on a beach all to myself!