Travels with Lar – Penang – Post 3

April 1 – 9, 2011
Wednesday
Woke up, went to work and taught all day.
In the evening, Kelly flew home and Ian had to go to dinner with a sales team. So Patti and Kazuyo and I went to the Queensbay Mall – which is just like any other big mall – and had dinner at a Japanese restaurant. We took the shuttle from the Hotel to the mall, but they forgot to come get us, so we called our favorite taxi driver and he came and got us. So not a whole lot happened that day.

Thursday
Woke up, went to work and taught all day.
We are getting tired. Patti and Kazuyo and Ian and I just stayed at the hotel for a fancy dinner with all of the courses – salad (I could have used that salad bar for dinner – shrimp, squid, oysters plus a lot of other things – by the way I did try all of those things). We had cream of carrot soup. We had a sorbet to cleanse our palette and then dinner – I had a fish thing. We skipped dessert because – well we just couldn't eat any more. The restaurant was called "The View" and see the pictures to know why (actually my room was above The View so I had this view every morning and every evening). Just how fancy was it? Well Ian came in shorts – and they made him go change.

Evening View - Cloudy but it only rained once while I was there.

Evening views from "The View"

By the way, Penang is on an island on the Indian Ocean side of Malaysia. It is connected by a long bridge – which I never had to cross because the airport is on the island also. Many people have a family home on the mainland and a work apartment on the island. They come to the work apartment after work on Monday and go home to their family after work on Friday, so traffic those two days is pretty heavy. How do they do it? Well a nice condo in Penang would cost about 100,000 Ringgits – or about 35,000 dollars. If you are getting paid the technology wages, you can swing this kind of life style.

Friday
Woke up, went to work and taught all day. It was the last day of class and Ping Ping and Tony took us to lunch at a Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai restaurant. Again it was more family style and Tony ordered. It was great. They were all amazed that an old American like me could handle the spicy food. Most of it wasn't that spicy, but there was a grass and shrimp soup that could curl your toes. The class went well and they are excited to try to get me back in July – but that hasn't been approved yet.
Friday evening Kazuyo had to fly back to Singapore where she lives. Ian, who is a Formula 1 racecar fan, flew out to a Malaysian race that was happening on Sunday. So Patti and I went back to the mall for dinner. She is staying another two weeks to help with implementation.
Saturday


I woke up early and flew home. Same route back – but only a 3 hour layover in Hong Kong and only a 12 hour flight to San Francisco because we had the jet stream helping us along. And I picked up the day I lost going over. But believe me, it was still a long day – or day and a half – or how ever long it was.


Final notes:
I didn't see any monkeys – but I saw a sign that said don't feed the monkeys.
I didn't see any snakes.
I would never drive in Penang. They drive on the wrong side of the road and most laws are treated like suggestions. At times it was a little bit scary.
Malaysian people are small and "pretty". I swear some of the girls in my class were in middle school, they looked so young. But the climate is just so good for their skin.
International travel still makes me apprehensive – but I flew home all by myself and didn't get into any trouble. I figured out immigration and customs with no problems.
I was glad to get home.