Saturday in Penang

After a good sleep, I woke up and enjoyed a delicious continental breakfast at our hotel/apartment. There was a huge variety of food including western and malay. Everyone ate lots! The vans arrived at 10 to take us to Georgetown for a Historic tour of the city. We all go on a Trishaw and got wheeled through the city on this unique mode of transportation.

All the trishaws lined up

Alicia and I sqeezing in a very extravagant trishaw. We decided to take our own since this was a little warm in the 40+ weather.

 After about 30 minutes riding through the city, we had a 15 minutes break to stretch and go into two temples. Here is a Chinese temple. Usually, tourists are not allowed to enter these temples but they made an exception for us.

Lots of incense burning. Gold and candles everywhere

The trishaw drivers were lower class males. They had teeth missing and looked malnourished. It was a little bit uncomfortable for me. They also had to maintain their own trishaw. You could clearly tell who had more resources as some trishaws were very old, rusty, and plain while others were decked out with flowers, fans, a radio, etc. We drove around in the trishaws for a bit longer and then had some free time to enjoy the water and the scenery.

Me in front of the water!

We got back in the vans and drove to a beatiful youth park. There were pools and playgrounds for the kids to play in. We had a picnic lunch here. The KANITA ladies brough us each a take away container of rice and chicken along with a salad in a bag, an apple and a juice box. It was great! After lunch, we explored the park and watched the boys play some giant chess. Then we drove to our next apartment. It was not nearly as nice as the one from the previous day. It was old, dirty, the bed sheets were stained and there were lots of bugs and ants everywhere. 

Our second apartment

 The bedroom I shared with Ali. Vintage is an understatement and there were ants warming up our beds...

 We dropped off our stuff, found a place to buy towels and headed straight to "The beach"! I went in the water but not for very long. It went deep really fast  and the current was very strong. I was afraid of getting sucked under so decided to lay on the beach and read my book instead. There was also a lot of sand in the water since the current was so strong so we all had sand everywhere! We went back to the apartment, got showered and cleaned up and went out for supper together. We wanted to go to the famous Hard Rock Cafe across the street but it was booked for a Chinese wedding. Instead, we went to an Italian place inside the Hard Rock Hotel Resort. We splurged on drinks and "normal" food- PIZZA! We also ate right on the sand of the beach and watched the sunset, it was very romantic.

After supper, we took our new instructor, Rhonda, to the Penang night market.  They sold the same items as in KL Chinatown but the prices were a lot lower. The other group was going out that night. We checked out the place where they were going but decided not to go because we were all tired and didn't want to waste our Sunday to a hangover. Instead, we walked back and came upon this barber shop. Rob had been wanting a hair cut for a while now so we all came along and watched as Rob got a $6 Malaysia hair cut. It was very interesting and us girls had a blast!

Here's Rob with the barber after his haircut

 This is how we spent our Saturday night. Not typical but we had a lot of fun together!