Hi everyone,

We got ready for a day of exploring Penang and first thing on the agenda was breakfast. We didn’t purchase the hotel breakfast here so we walked to a little cafe up the road called Joja Bagels. It was very nice inside and despite the streets being so quiet it was busy. By the time we left there was a line up to get a table.

Aimee ordered the Philly cheese bagel and an iced caramel shaken espresso. Ronnie got the PB&J bagel and a latte with black sesame cold foam. It was all very delicious.

We then wandered back towards the hotel to order a Grab to take up to Penang Hill. The hotel has a security guard/doorman who kept an eye out for our car and load our stroller into the boot. The first Grab that showed up slowed right down and the security guard was trying to open the boot but the driver sped up and drove away. It was really strange and hilarious. Luckily the next driver let us ride with him.

At Penang Hill you take a funicular (kind of like a tram) up the side of the mountain to the very top where there are all kinds of things to do. It takes you 712m to the station and you walk up further from there. There were a few market stalls to walk by. Julian got a bird whistle which he loves (and is really loud!).

We walked up to a place called The Habitat. It is a rainforest with a canopy walk and tree top walk with wildlife. We saw monkeys and squirrels. A couple wanted to walk across a bridge but there were three monkeys in the way. They inched towards them but the monkeys got up and walked forward aggressively so they wisely backed off. It was a nice walk. The tree top walk was very high at a peak of 833 metres. Aimee chickened out after about 10 steps, Ronnie was scared about a quarter of the way through and Julian loved the whole thing.

After we left The Habitat we wandered back through a food hall and got some watermelon and juices. It was really refreshing. While it was cooler up there it was still very humid.

Finally at Penang Hill we got our caricature drawn. Aimee thinks the artist was pretty generous with our features and drawing turned out pretty cute. We took the funicular back down with front row seats and wow, it was steep but fun.

From Penang Hill we went to Kek Lok Si Temple. It is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia and is set high up in the mountains too. When we arrived there was a huge pond with lots of turtles. A man was selling food so Julian fed them twice. The temple has 4 levels and they’d blocked off the walking ways so we took the world’s slowest lift up to station 2. At station 2 we made a wish and put it on the tree. We let Julian choose the wish and he chose world peace which just happened to be his favourite colour. We took a buggy to station 3 which was a trinket shop and then another lift to the top. Here you could see the huge statue and another view of the city. We took the various modes of transport back down. In the buggy the driver was pumping the tunes and singing along.

From Kek Lok Si Temple we took a Grab back to the hotel to refresh. It was now late in the afternoon and we were so busy we didn’t have lunch. We ordered some food to the room. Ronnie and Aimee had Nasi Lemak which was quite good and quite spicy. Julian hasn’t really embraced the food so Ronnie ordered him a pizza from Dominos on Grab. Ronnie thought it wasn’t going to be delivered because the app showed delivered straight after it was finished cooking, so we ordered another pizza! That’s how we ended up with two large pizzas!

After we were fed and refreshed we went out for an explore. George Town is not an easy place to traverse especially with a toddler. You just need to kind of walk out in front of traffic to cross the road and walk around parked cars because there aren’t many side walks.

We made it to Chew Jetty which is one of the Clan Jetties here. Families still live and work on these floating villages. Here Ronnie tried his first durian flavoured thing which was ice cream. He didn’t mind it but Aimee thought it was basically just onion ice cream. Not good.

After we wandered around there we walked up the road a bit to Armenian street which is a famous street art area with lots of trendy shops. Ronnie got a small ice ball with ice cream in the middle. The small was big, the large would have been humongous.

We had a dicey walk through Little India just because of the traffic situation back to the hotel. We wrapped up the day so we could have a good rest before another day of exploring Penang tomorrow.

Step count: 14,638 or 10.45kms

Costs:

Prestige Penang: $293.38

Breakfast: $30.57

Grab transport: $12.76

Funicular Penang hill: $28.35

Habitat entry: $42.59

Souvenirs: $93.24

Fruit and juice: $9.54

Turtle food: $1.41

Temple lift: $11.31

Waters: $0.85

Grab food: $55.05

Supplies: $9.43

Durian ice cream: $0.90

Ice ball: $2

Total: $591.38

Much love,

Ronnie, Aimee and Julian.