How bizarre!: Pearl of the Orient

Made a trip to Penang last weekend. FIL and MIL went to attend a wedding while we took the opportunity to indulge in our favourite hawker foods (what better time to go than with the expert - FIL's a Penangite through-and-through). It was ironic then that we ended up only having our last meal in Penang together with them although they did 'ta pau' some popiah (from Padang Brown), ban chiang kuih and mamak mee goreng (from Anson Road) for us one afternoon. We were left to fend for ourselves the rest of the time and we drove around aimlessly trying to remember where we had good Kuey Chap the last time we went there with him. Okay, okay .... it wasn't all that bad... I was just trying to stir up some drama.

We stayed at The Gurney this time as there was a good offer with Citibank cards. RM175 nett for a studio suite with breakfast for two (not that you'd need that in Penang with so much good food to be had but the truth is, the variety at the coffee house was pretty good too). The suite was very comfy with ample space and a sofa long enough to sleep on. Nat loved the pools with the slides and sand all around although the water was absolutely freezing cold. Service from the staff was good. No complaints about the place and would definitely stay there again.

Catching helium balloons in our hotel suite

Family pic by the infinity pool

Anyway, the highlight of my trip was reuniting with a long lost friend (found via Facebook, of course!) and meeting up with her family, hubby and adorable son who's just 5 months older than Nat. Yup, you bet I was trying to matchmake them!

Nat putting her moves on Seb

We met up with Jacq, Kah Kheng and Sebastian on Friday as well as Saturday night and had a blast! Funnily enough, we hardly rekindled old memories as we were busy trying to catch up on each others' lives since we last met 14 years ago. They brought us to Northam Beach Cafe on Saturday night and we discovered some pretty good food there. The sotong kangkung, satay, Filipino food, assam laksa and oh chien are well worth a try.

Old classmates and our babes (Yes, I'm THAT much shorter!)

More on the food front, we found out that my favourite kuih ketayap stall at Macalister Road does not open nightly. It all depends on whether they made enough money during the day in their other business. However, we still managed to gulp down 15 those yummy banana apoms between the three of us. If you're ever at Macalister, don't forget to try the duck rice, char mee suah, char kuey kak and belacan fried chicken. Can't remember the name of the coffee shop but it's at the junction to the Sunway Hotel.

While we were there, we also came across the most beautiful cherry blossom tree I have ever seen (yes, a trip to Japan in Spring is on our list of must-dos before we die).