Trip to Penang with A to Z staff

posted by tkl

I went to Penang recently on a staff trip with the people at A to Z. Yay! I love staff perks like this.

I've never really gone proper sightseeing in Penang so it was nice to go with them. we went to Kek Lok Si temple in a bus and I took lotsa pictures! Surprisingly I quite enjoyed Kek Lok Si. But I think it's only because we spent a very short time there haha.

Check out the cute tortoises at the base of the pagoda!

cute cute tortoises!

Temples in Malaysia are really colorful aren't they? Compared to other countries. Rather than a place of contemplation, they're more like a celebratory place.

We took the 'lift' up to see the big Goddess of Mercy statue

I really like the Goddess of Mercy's face (photo on the left). As for one in the picture above..It's so strange!!! It's a head sticking out of a building!! And the colors!! Seriously?? And why is she so short?? Is she sitting down???



The rest of the day, we played games. We played 3 games, 1 called daruma ga koronda (だるまがころんだ）which I found really silly but just took part in anyway to be a good sport.although to be truthful i didn't try my best.

we also played 'gesture game):

On the far left, you can see my boss holding up a sign with Japanese words and their translation in English (for Malaysian staff). 1 person has to make gestures and get their team members (the row of ppl standing in front of my boss) to guess the words.

It was quite fun. But some of the English translations weren't very good. And some of them, Malaysian people wouldn't know about anyway  so I thought that was a little unfair. For example, 1 was 'Ichiro', who is a very famous baseball player, but normal Malaysian people who aren't interested in baseball anyway wouldn't know who the heck he is. Or 深爪（ふかずめ）which i'm still not actually sure what it means but i guess means 'cutting a nail too deep). On the sign however it was written 'cutting a nail to the quick'. wtf?!

Anyway i thought it was really great that everyone tried their best. although maybe it would have been fairer if they'd gotten some1 Malaysian to help with the translations. haha.





The last game we played was すいか割り or roughly translated according to Kgia....smash the damn watermelon!!hahaha..basically we were blindfolded, had to walk in circles a few times (to dizzify us) n then had to listen to our team mates' directions on where to go to hit the damn watermelon.

Of course, Penang is never complete without food. We had awesome cha kuey teow at Lorong Selamat. It was really yummy! But since everyone knows that, I thought I'd show you a pic of super yummy yummy prawn mee mixed with loh mee. N i'm not even a big fan of prawn mee or loh mee!




I also had famous nasi kandar with my cousin and Von. My cousin very kindly was our tour guide for half a day and brought us there~



I'm still wondering why they call it Line Clear nasi kandar? Because there's no line? There's obviously not true though ahhaha but the food's good so it's all good.

Yes the fish head is really big. I wonder if anyone actually takes this to eat? And how much it costs?

I'd prawns so it was really expensive, around RM22. but i thought, what the heck. i'm not gonna come back any time soon to have nasi kandar and also the prawns looked really good and yes they tasted good too and yes I finished the whole mound of rice and everything else.






He also took us to the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. I really enjoyed the tour very much! The tour guide was really funny. I went on the 11am tour. Really recommend it! Slightly reminiscent of the Melaka Baba Nyonya heritage museum tour but better! I think partly coz the tour guide was so funny. Also the tour comprised of a little architecture, some history, some romance etc. etc. just a bit of everything. Sugar and spice.

The color's really interesting isn't it? I've to say the restoration they did was really awesome.












The guide said that the owners had to get craftsmen from China to do the restoration works.

Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos inside, which was also very beautiful. I love the open courtyard.

  

The left and right wings I believe are a boutique hotel now and people can stay there. A little pricey but the rooms look very exotic. You can also book the mansion to hold a function!

The guide said these ornaments were made with bowls imported from China, smashed into pieces and painstakingly stuck on one by one! Amazing right? For the restoration of these, the owners had to import around 10,000 bowls and get craftsmen from China.

Anyway I really enjoyed the tour! Highly recommend it :)

I enjoyed Penang alot. Thank you A to Z! & Nwarnwar~