Penang

Yep! That view from a jacuzzi is worth traveling 300km north for the weekend!

It was pure excitement as I stepped out of class at 12.30 and headed straight to the airport to catch my plane at 4.30 to join vie vie for the rest of the weekend. However I was turned down by some cold that I caught days ago and to never ever catch a cold before a weekend escape, I ended up popping various dietary supplements from now on to keep myself healthy; special thanks to vie vie for the supplements.

It was a long and stressful week with 8 hours of lectures daily and to actually fly off to heaven on north was indeed very appealing despite some minor health glitch.

The place we stayed was Gurney Hotel and vie vie got some really great deals and they upgraded us to this 2-bedroom suite which at first was kinda freaky coz there's too many vacant spaces in the room! (you know what i mean). But just before that interfered with my mind, the stunning view from the room literally blew me away and the best part was ofcourse...the bathroom!

Gurney Drive infront of the bed

Penang Brige outside Queensbay mall

On our way back to KL, we've stopped by Ipoh and had lunch at the original Old Town white coffee house next to Ipoh Tourist Information Center. It used to be some typical chinese kopitiam ages back and eversince some great minds expanded and franchised the business, the coffee house was then refurbished to this modern-colonial theme similar to those you can find along Heritage row in KL.

Often enough, I felt that these franchising work creates a rather generic and uniform appearance regardless of which part of the world you are in. Old Town white coffee for instance, have the same menu at their originated store in Ipoh as it is at those other stores in KL, which I'm abit disappointed cause I don't wanna feel at home so soon! haha.

To my surprise, busses in KL and Penang are operated by the same company called Rapid KL and Rapid Penang. Okay, perhaps the word 'Rapid' is their company's name but can't they modify the appearance i.e colour and design of the bus abit for the sake of giving a different identity for both cities?

So, is franchising doing more good or bad? Good for business, bad for tourists...I think.

The field or 'padang besar' of Ipoh and it was yesteryear's Trevvy and Axcest before the internet came into service. Foreground was Michelle Yeoh's secondary school (Convent Ipoh i think)