On an Impromptu trip to Penang

Bored and looking for a quick trip, I jumped at the chance of going to Penang, Pearl Food Belly of the Orient.

Since I'm not going to be hanging in my room much accept to sleep and freshen up, I opted for a cheap but clean option - Tune Hotels, by the ever famous AirAsia which has constantly rained us with every possible as cheap and as practical as you can get  product.

I did not know what to expect but thought it should be akin to Fragrance Hotel in Singapore, a budget hotel which I previously stayed in.

This is pretty much the entire room. Just like taking an AirAsia flight, you pay for what you use. 

Need a towel? Pay.

Need hairdryer? Pay.

Need the Air-Cond? Pay. Oh I forgot, would it be for 12 hours or 24 hours?

Brought funky gadgets and you need wifi? Pay

Otherwise, you will have a nice clean room with comfy bed ready and a really good power shower head :) 

The bare necessities, done really well.

I wonder if they used recycled paper to print this?

Bathroom is pretty big for a budget hotel. It's half the size of your room and much bigger than the one I had in Fragrance Hotel Singapore. Won-dah-ful! I like a good shower without bumping into the walls.

But there's one thing which annoys me...

See that ad in the bathroom?

 And another ad here, just in case money matters makes you lose sleep

But maybe it's not $$ problems you're losing sleep over, you're just hungry, you poor baby...

And to remind you you're in the right hotel - Tune Hotels!!

Oh by the way, KDK fans keep you cool, so we needed to put their ad here too...

Garrrhhh,I thought I paid for a peaceful night's rest.. stop bombarding me with ADVERTISING!

******

While taking a walk on Gurney Road, I passed by this old mansion. So beautiful, reminiscence of the olden romantic colonial era. They should put up a board to explain its history. Or else I might have to give in to my curiosity, break in and wonder the grounds.. nyehehe

Pretty and mysterious...Wonderfully kept garden (which I just noticed while typing) so someone must still be looking out for this mansion

***

On the way to gobble Penang's delights, I chanced upon a petshop. And they had that garrafura (is that what it's called??) fish which supposedly eat dirt and dead skin. And it costs RM 25 per 40 mins (yeh, Penang is a heaven for everything cheap..) compared to KL which charge nothing less than RM 35

I hovered my fat legs above the pool first because I just realised, damn the fish were kinda BiG to be doing a small nibble job, ain't it?

My cousin shows me the way it's done.

Don't think too much, plonk your feet inside, banish thoughts of fish eating up flesh and bone, keep still, brace the tickles (or nibbles?) and your legs should be polished clean in no time.

After attempt no #101,100 and many squeals, I finally managed to totally immerse my feet in the water, for the fish to eat, chew, um nibble.

It was the Chap Goh Meh festival that night in Penang and the locals apparently celebrate it big here. After a round of shopping at Batu Feringghi, couz and I headed down to Esplanade to see what the fuss was about. 

Too bad, everyone was packing up their celebrations already. We had a little too much fun at Feringghi and couldn't keep up with time haha. So we decided to....

CAMWHORE!!! First with the brightly lit municipal council building

Next, with the birghtly litted trees along the road :D

***

You know they always say have char koay teow at Lorong Selamat?

I found the famous stall, they charge a hefty RM 6.50 for char koay teow compared to the usual 

RM 3.00-RM 3.50

First thing I noticed in the shop was the humongous exhaust fan. 

All the better to blow the smoke away, my dear!

And this was my char koay teow- soft pieces of noodle, egg, big prawns and lap cheong in full glory.

But.. was it worth paying double the price?

Nope, I'm sorry aunty char koay teow-whatever-your-name-is.

Trekking to Dipang Waterfalls, Perak

A couple of weeks back while doing the usual work crunch, I get a call from Sarawakian Danny. I had a hunch he was coming down to KL, since I couldn't think of a better reason for him to call. I was right and even better, he asked me to join him for trekking. Trekking was fine. But trekking with Danny? I was a bit unnerved. Danny is an outdoor adventurist with his own little outdoor adventure business Escapade Borneo
which is how I first came to know of him. With my city-slicker colleagues, we followed him on a 4 hour kayak trip during our Sarawak Rainforest Festival 2009 trip. Now back to the point. I imagined trekking with Danny would mean a really rough and tough terrain (what else could he enjoy?haha), so I voiced my doubts.

Err how difficult is this la?

How far is this trek?

Got trail ah?

To which he of course just said, Don't Worry La!

Turns out, we will be going trekking with Waterfall Survivors, a Facebook group of waterfall enthusiasts. Ironically, I have added this group on my Facebook many moons ago, hoping one day I'd be adventurous enough to join them. Well, life is funny and unpredictable, as they say

So I stared ringing a few more people who were gung-ho about outdoorsy stuff to join. To my disappointment, they each were either busy or had something else planned. The two who ended up going with me turned out to be the last two I had in mind, whom I never thought would trek into the jungle! (Sorry guys haha). It was by a stroke of luck, that I was speaking to Amy on the phone regarding some financial agent who called me because she gaveaway my number (hmmph!) and I asked her if she'd like to visit a waterfall without actually expecting her to say yes. But she said yes. A very enthusiastic YES.

And with Allison, the other gung-ho gal, she heard from another friend whom I actually invited to go.
So yes, as they say, it is fated.

On the day of the trek, I woke up at 5 am to prepare some egg and crabstick sandwiches and headed down to the meeting point in Tesco Mutiara Damansara. I did a quick survey. Some much older participants, some in their twenties and thirties. But judging from my previous experience, usually older participants are the 'experts' who really know their stuff. You don't expect your average middle age people to suddenly join a trek after all.

So we headed off in a convoy on the North South Expressway and exited at Tapah. Thereafter, it was a scrumptious breakfast in Kampar town before continuing our journey to the interior and to a school. The community here were Orang Asli, so I think the school caters to their kids.

Waterfall survivors leader Joe Yap starts off with the Do's and Don'ts though I reckon there are more Don'ts.

She then hands out the first aid kits, each one gets one, to my surprise. I am used to trips with just ONE first aid kit for the entire group.

Next up, was the trail. We started very late, almost noon, and yes so we were half melting.

The head of the trail was bare, I think they had chopped the trees to make way for some other plantation.

The hot day and blue sky makes for a beautiful picture, but check out the squinted eyes on the faces below, and you know just how bright the sun was shining that day.

Danny, the one in shades. The reason we all changed our Saturday routine and woke up at an ungodly hour for this trip, haha.

He turned out to be a BIG help throughout the trek chopping our way with his parang and lending an outstretched hand when you feel like you're gonna do a Humpty Dumpty.

 

After a good 30 minutes, finally tall trees! Temperatures suddenly dropped to a cooling level once we got under the green canopy. Perfect example of why we need them trees to cool our planet!

The trek was not too bad, a bit slippery here and there since the ground is moist and certain parts of the terrain were slightly steep so you have to use your hands to grab on to branches or something to stable yourself. And the first reward.....

In the picture, the rocks certainly look steeper than in real life haha. But what the picture doesn't show is that the rocks were covered in slimy moss so it was slippery enough that someone did slip and tumbled a bit.

More trekking and the next reward...

Water is oh-so-clear everywhere...

And finally the last of the Falls, where we stopped to unpack whatever lunch we brought. 

I overpacked- sandwiches, sausages, apples, thinking I'd be hungry and also packed extra for the people I came with but amazingly enough everyone wasn't that hungry.

Those who were more rajin even brought maggi mee and their mesh tins.

The mandatory happy group pose!

Preparing for a Getaway!

It's 5 days more till I whisk myself off to a getaway holiday! And the usual excitement is there, planning what to do (I love to do research before going, call me kiasu but I don't want to miss out on great activities!) , planning what to wear (I take a minimum of 3 hours to pack my bag to make sure I bring the littlest among of clothes, all versatile pieces, yet I end up almost always having a big heavy bag OR a bag with too little clothes I have to borrow my sis's clothes).

But the oddest thing is, I suddenly found another new 'to do' item. How to stay in shape so I don't spill from my beachwear. *Gasp* In all my years of beach holidays, I had never worried about this, not because I have a good body or anything, but it never seemed to matter. I always felt I am an average looking person and I'll be fine, and really who cares anyway? I laughed out LOUD at women's mag articles on '10 surefire ways to get your body trimmed by summer' and '10 desperate measures to get in shape for that bikini' but now... now... I am suddenly paying attention to these sort of articles. Suddenly, looking average ( lumpy here and there and spots of cellulite at places I shall not disclose) is not good enough.

I'm not sure how this 'sudden' change of perspective came about. Did my eyes consume too many of the cheap, slutty, slimming ads? Have I been around too many skinny models? I'm racking my brain to see if someone recently told me I look fat (hmm thinking about that, yes my dad did mention something a couple of weeks ago, but that's hardly a cause for a sudden desperation to look toned?) Or do I suddenly have higher standards for myself?

Hmm.... I think it could be all of the above. Which makes me wonder.. how many more days, hours, minutes and seconds left before I hit the beach? Oh no... not many!