Lion Dance

My passport is full with stamps and visas so I have to get a new passport before continuing my journey. Went to the state immigration office yesterday but there were too many people, so had to come back again today.

Again, there were still a lot of people. Probably that was because the office was close for Chinese new year for the past few days and people like me who came back for vacation were trying to renew their passport as well.

Compared to other government department, the state immigration office is more efficient and is possible to get back the passport on the same day.
While waiting, walked around Georgetown area. Georgetown is listed as a UNESCO heritage site with buildings from different architecture style.
Colonial buildings

Pre war buildings at the old district. These old buildings are still surviving and people are still living and doing business like it was during the 1960s.

Church

Buddhist temple

Mosque

Lion Dance

Little India

Old buildings

Fort Cornwallis built by the British

Sea view

I have lots of relatives and friends here and will be pretty busy visiting them for this week, especially since I have not spent a lot of time back home for the past 7 years. Tomorrow will be the first day of Chinese new year.

I will try to post some photos but it won’t be like my usual backpacking trip.

My bike from high school.
A typical Malaysian motorcycle, small but powerful. 0-80km in 6 seconds

Chung Ling High School, which has the same school anthem with Cornell.

Penang Bridge which connects the Island to the mainland, 13.5km. One of the longest bridge in the world.

Penang is famous for its food. In the 2004 edition of TIME magazine, Penang was voted as having the best street food in Asia. Penang has Chinese, Malay and Indian cuisine, as well as food from multiple types of influences.

Briyani Rice with tea (10 Ringgit~USD$3)

at an Indian place

Below are Penang street food.
Wan Tan noodles

Fried oyster

Coconut water

Hokkien Mee, Shrimp flavored noodles

Curry Noodles

Pancake

Koay Teow soup

Nasi Lemak, coconut rice on banana leaf

Char Koay Teow, Fried Noodles

Fried Stingray

A typical hawker centre

The flight was delayed and got to Kuala Lumpur at around 1.20am. It’s around 4 hours flight in the air.

Saw Reeses chocolate at the duty free shop. It’s selling for 27 Ringgit~USD$8 (USD$1~3.4 Ringgit). In US it only cost around USD$1.5. All the duty free stuffs in airports are not really duty free, except cigarettes.

Airasia is a low cost airline so it landed at LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) which is some distance away KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport).

Since I have another flight to Penang at 6.55am, I just waited at the airport until then.

Flight from Kuala Lumpur to Penang (108 Ringgit~USD$30).

It’s around 350km, an hour flight Kuala Lumpur to Penang.

View Larger Map

Flight was delayed again and got to Penang at 9am.

Penang has a big Chinese population and is the second biggest city in Malaysia with a population of around 1.5 million. Georgetown is a UNESCO heritage area and the city has the best food in Malaysia.
The Island looks just like a turtle.

View Larger Map

About Penang

This will be my first Chinese new year celebration at home after more than 7 years. After traveling around China for 1.5 months, it’s like I spent more time in China than Malaysia for the past 7 years.

In 2009, Penang was ranked number 2 in New York times under the readers’ popular vote category as one of the top places to visit.

Unpacked all my stuffs. I have lotsa maps, especially maps from China.

Got on a boat across the Pearl river from FangChun port

Old colonial building

Kicking a bird feathered ball, a type of Chinese sports

Got on bus 208 to the east train station. Passed by the main city center to TiYuGuangChang which housed most office buildings.

Took bus 175 to BaiYunShan (White Cloud Mountain).
Flower exhibition at BaiYun park

BaiYunShan is the most famous hill in Guangzhou. The highest peak is 382 meters high. Usually I prefer to go on foot if possible but because of time constraint, got on the cable car up to the hill (25 Yuan~USD$4).

It will take more than an hour to get up the mountain on foot and 15 minutes by cable car.

The words are saying BaiYunShan welcomes you

View of Guangzhou from the mountain

The weather in Guangzhou was quite warm. Took another car back down from the mountain (20Yuan~USD$3).

Took tour bus 1 from BaiYunShan to Chen Clan Academy. Chen Clan Academy (ChenJiaCi, in Cantonese it’s pronounced as ChanKaQi, 10 Yuan~USD$1.40)

This is very well preserved architecture from the 19th century. It used to belong to a wealthy family by the name of Chen and now houses many articles including ivory sculptures and artistic statues. Again, my camera ran out of battery so I wasn’t able to take photos inside the building and had to steal photos from the web.

Chen Clan Academy

Got on the metro

to FangChun bus station and took the 5.30pm bus (22 Yuan~USD$3, 70 minutes ride) to BaiYun airport located around 30km north of the city.

Got to the airport at 6.40pm for checking in.

I booked an AirAsia flight from Guangzhou to Kuala Lumpur about a month ago (837 Yuan~USD$120). That’s why I had to rush my trip around China. My original plan was to travel overland from China all the way to South East Asia but because of Chinese New Year, I decided to fly back to Malaysia first for Chinese New Year celebration and continue the journey later. Another reason is that my current passport is quite full and I will need to get a new one.

AirAsia is a low cost airline company based in Malaysia and has flights to destinations around South East Asia, a few cities in China, South Asia and flights are rapidly expanding to destinations further away.

Wiki page about Airasia

Currently there are flights from Chengdu, Guilin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin to Kuala Lumpur for around 800 Yuan if book early.

Got on the 8.45pm flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Dinner on the aircraft (20 Yuan~USD$3).
Nasi Briyani (A kind of Indian cuisine from Malaysia)

The flight was delayed and landed at around 1.20am.

Malaysia is a multi racial and multi lingual country.

This year, Kuala Lumpur was ranked as one of the top places to visit under New York times.

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia and has a population of around 7 millions.