Penang ten-hour impressions

Ten hours in Penang, and these so far are what I have come across:

- Got a friendly cabbie who, like most cabbies, know all the good things to show to tourists. So I asked him what’s good. Mentioned ice kachang with fruits, tow sah pia, all other kinds of local food. Asked him on fun things to do in the daytime, mentioned about ice kachang with fruits, tow sah pia, etc again It’s a foodie’s town it seems. Asked him on fun things to do in the night time, at least other things besides food came out heh. Like watering holes, bars. And surprisingly, Russian women, Sabah women, local women etc. I think I must (again) learn to phrase my questions correctly.

But yeah, so it shows that Penang is big now. The vice that thrives in big cities has planted itself here too. I mean, even the Russian women see that it’s a market worth going into. Welcome to the big time, Penang, hope you can cope.

- Penang seems like a litigious place. In my short walkabout, I’ve seen close to twenty law firms. At one place alone there was six firms collocating. And by six, I don’t count the likes of “Khong and Rajah” as two heh.

- Singapore has many posh hotels and posh roadside cafe / pub / restaurant for people to lounge. Penang has many budget hotels with roadside kopi tiam / restaurant downstairs selling kway teow, kway keow theng, wanton mee, fried rice and the likes at RM3 a pop. At least my lunch was RM3.

- There are still quite a number of pedicabs in Penang; or jinrikisha, it seems to be called here. Though I’ve never seen them loaded back home like they do here: I saw an uncle pedaling 5 schoolgirls in his jinrikisha. To his credit, the uncle was smiling and striking conversation with them, despite the load. And if I were him, I would be swearing at how economic growth has promoted prosperity among children, if you know what I mean *heh*

And proof that Penang is relatively small: after 15 minutes, I saw this uncle again, in another alley. With two fewer girls in his jinrikisha.

- Penang has a lot of home industry and supply shops supporting those. Craft shops along the entire stretch, dealing in hardware, power drills, clock making, key making, foosball table making (! was surprised to see this one). One baffled me though, the marquee says : “Yee Hoe: Chicks & Furniture”… it was closed when I saw it (quite early morning) so my curiosity wasn’t answered. So what, they supply women and wood products? “I tell you what, sir, if you buy this entire teak set AND the bedframe, you can take home our model there too. Or the cashier, if you prefer” I’d say, yeehaw indeed…

Penang ten-hour impressions

Ten hours in Penang, and these so far are what I have come across:

- Got a friendly cabbie who, like most cabbies, know all the good things to show to tourists. So I asked him what’s good. Mentioned ice kachang with fruits, tow sah pia, all other kinds of local food. Asked him on fun things to do in the daytime, mentioned about ice kachang with fruits, tow sah pia, etc again It’s a foodie’s town it seems. Asked him on fun things to do in the night time, at least other things besides food came out heh. Like watering holes, bars. And surprisingly, Russian women, Sabah women, local women etc. I think I must (again) learn to phrase my questions correctly.

But yeah, so it shows that Penang is big now. The vice that thrives in big cities has planted itself here too. I mean, even the Russian women see that it’s a market worth going into. Welcome to the big time, Penang, hope you can cope.

- Penang seems like a litigious place. In my short walkabout, I’ve seen close to twenty law firms. At one place alone there was six firms collocating. And by six, I don’t count the likes of “Khong and Rajah” as two heh.

- Singapore has many posh hotels and posh roadside cafe / pub / restaurant for people to lounge. Penang has many budget hotels with roadside kopi tiam / restaurant downstairs selling kway teow, kway keow theng, wanton mee, fried rice and the likes at RM3 a pop. At least my lunch was RM3.

- There are still quite a number of pedicabs in Penang; or jinrikisha, it seems to be called here. Though I’ve never seen them loaded back home like they do here: I saw an uncle pedaling 5 schoolgirls in his jinrikisha. To his credit, the uncle was smiling and striking conversation with them, despite the load. And if I were him, I would be swearing at how economic growth has promoted prosperity among children, if you know what I mean *heh*

And proof that Penang is relatively small: after 15 minutes, I saw this uncle again, in another alley. With two fewer girls in his jinrikisha.

- Penang has a lot of home industry and supply shops supporting those. Craft shops along the entire stretch, dealing in hardware, power drills, clock making, key making, foosball table making (! was surprised to see this one). One baffled me though, the marquee says : “Yee Hoe: Chicks & Furniture”… it was closed when I saw it (quite early morning) so my curiosity wasn’t answered. So what, they supply women and wood products? “I tell you what, sir, if you buy this entire teak set AND the bedframe, you can take home our model there too. Or the cashier, if you prefer” I’d say, yeehaw indeed…

Penang ten-hour impressions

Ten hours in Penang, and these so far are what I have come across:

- Got a friendly cabbie who, like most cabbies, know all the good things to show to tourists. So I asked him what’s good. Mentioned ice kachang with fruits, tow sah pia, all other kinds of local food. Asked him on fun things to do in the daytime, mentioned about ice kachang with fruits, tow sah pia, etc again It’s a foodie’s town it seems. Asked him on fun things to do in the night time, at least other things besides food came out heh. Like watering holes, bars. And surprisingly, Russian women, Sabah women, local women etc. I think I must (again) learn to phrase my questions correctly.

But yeah, so it shows that Penang is big now. The vice that thrives in big cities has planted itself here too. I mean, even the Russian women see that it’s a market worth going into. Welcome to the big time, Penang, hope you can cope.

- Penang seems like a litigious place. In my short walkabout, I’ve seen close to twenty law firms. At one place alone there was six firms collocating. And by six, I don’t count the likes of “Khong and Rajah” as two heh.

- Singapore has many posh hotels and posh roadside cafe / pub / restaurant for people to lounge. Penang has many budget hotels with roadside kopi tiam / restaurant downstairs selling kway teow, kway keow theng, wanton mee, fried rice and the likes at RM3 a pop. At least my lunch was RM3.

- There are still quite a number of pedicabs in Penang; or jinrikisha, it seems to be called here. Though I’ve never seen them loaded back home like they do here: I saw an uncle pedaling 5 schoolgirls in his jinrikisha. To his credit, the uncle was smiling and striking conversation with them, despite the load. And if I were him, I would be swearing at how economic growth has promoted prosperity among children, if you know what I mean *heh*

And proof that Penang is relatively small: after 15 minutes, I saw this uncle again, in another alley. With two fewer girls in his jinrikisha.

- Penang has a lot of home industry and supply shops supporting those. Craft shops along the entire stretch, dealing in hardware, power drills, clock making, key making, foosball table making (! was surprised to see this one). One baffled me though, the marquee says : “Yee Hoe: Chicks & Furniture”… it was closed when I saw it (quite early morning) so my curiosity wasn’t answered. So what, they supply women and wood products? “I tell you what, sir, if you buy this entire teak set AND the bedframe, you can take home our model there too. Or the cashier, if you prefer” I’d say, yeehaw indeed…

The Quest for Gurney Plaza

What I like to do when traveling on my own is simply walk around the area I am staying in, on foot, with no particular direction. I may have a main objective, but I won’t rush to it, and just take in all there is to see as I bide my time.

So similarly this time round in Penang, after checking in, I wandered off in search for the bay/seafront (which I already roughly know where), but not necessarily immediately headed there. On asking the hotel receptionist on how to go the beach, I was handed a piece of map showing interesting things around the hotel. Oh goodie. With that I set off.

After exploring eastwards for five centimetres (map distance, not walking merely five centimetres out of the hotel entrance), I decided perhaps I should go get lunch and buy some toiletries. There is a “Gurney Plaza, mega shopping mall” written ten centimetres west of my hotel, at the edge of the map. So I turned around and headed in that direction.

By then I already noticed that the map was a general map, not those detailed map that shows all small alleys and nooks and crannies. So sometimes in the absence of landmarks shown on the map, I had to second-guess if I had walked down the right road or if I had missed a bend.

With that in mind, and with trepidation after walking some ten minutes without seeing any tall buildings meriting the status of a mega shopping mall, I stopped a couple of pedestrians to ask if they could tell me where Gurney Plaza was. Worryingly, both didn’t know. Nevermind, I have faith in my map-reading skill (don’t laugh!), so I kept walking ahead.

A couple of minutes down the road, saw a parking lot attendant, and asked him again if I was walking in the right direction to Gurney Plaza. He replied assuringly “Yes you just walk straight ahead here follow this road”. See, I know I can read maps. The hungry stomach was relieved, and I set off after thanking that guy.

Ten minutes down the same road, with no skyscraper in sight and worry creeping back in, epiphany struck: I had asked the wrong question. The question I should have asked first was “How far is it to Gurney Plaza”. I stopped the next pedestrian I met and asked her how to walk to Gurney Plaza, and she pointed to the direction I was going, but with a bemused face added “Very far”. This despite already walking ten minutes away from the parking lot attendant. Darn literalists! I really haven’t learnt how to ask the right questions. But at least there are still some people with common sense in this world.

I also now have a deep distrust towards any touristy maps. Especially those that indicate a name of a building at the edge of the map without showing a symbol of the building but also not showing an arrow saying “This direction to [name of place]“.

If you were wondering, my stomach was finally satiated after another 45 minutes and 25 centimetres to the southeast. I haven’t got my toiletry yet, but I can do without.

The Quest for Gurney Plaza

What I like to do when traveling on my own is simply walk around the area I am staying in, on foot, with no particular direction. I may have a main objective, but I won’t rush to it, and just take in all there is to see as I bide my time.

So similarly this time round in Penang, after checking in, I wandered off in search for the bay/seafront (which I already roughly know where), but not necessarily immediately headed there. On asking the hotel receptionist on how to go the beach, I was handed a piece of map showing interesting things around the hotel. Oh goodie. With that I set off.

After exploring eastwards for five centimetres (map distance, not walking merely five centimetres out of the hotel entrance), I decided perhaps I should go get lunch and buy some toiletries. There is a “Gurney Plaza, mega shopping mall” written ten centimetres west of my hotel, at the edge of the map. So I turned around and headed in that direction.

By then I already noticed that the map was a general map, not those detailed map that shows all small alleys and nooks and crannies. So sometimes in the absence of landmarks shown on the map, I had to second-guess if I had walked down the right road or if I had missed a bend.

With that in mind, and with trepidation after walking some ten minutes without seeing any tall buildings meriting the status of a mega shopping mall, I stopped a couple of pedestrians to ask if they could tell me where Gurney Plaza was. Worryingly, both didn’t know. Nevermind, I have faith in my map-reading skill (don’t laugh!), so I kept walking ahead.

A couple of minutes down the road, saw a parking lot attendant, and asked him again if I was walking in the right direction to Gurney Plaza. He replied assuringly “Yes you just walk straight ahead here follow this road”. See, I know I can read maps. The hungry stomach was relieved, and I set off after thanking that guy.

Ten minutes down the same road, with no skyscraper in sight and worry creeping back in, epiphany struck: I had asked the wrong question. The question I should have asked first was “How far is it to Gurney Plaza”. I stopped the next pedestrian I met and asked her how to walk to Gurney Plaza, and she pointed to the direction I was going, but with a bemused face added “Very far”. This despite already walking ten minutes away from the parking lot attendant. Darn literalists! I really haven’t learnt how to ask the right questions. But at least there are still some people with common sense in this world.

I also now have a deep distrust towards any touristy maps. Especially those that indicate a name of a building at the edge of the map without showing a symbol of the building but also not showing an arrow saying “This direction to [name of place]“.

If you were wondering, my stomach was finally satiated after another 45 minutes and 25 centimetres to the southeast. I haven’t got my toiletry yet, but I can do without.

The Quest for Gurney Plaza

What I like to do when traveling on my own is simply walk around the area I am staying in, on foot, with no particular direction. I may have a main objective, but I won’t rush to it, and just take in all there is to see as I bide my time.

So similarly this time round in Penang, after checking in, I wandered off in search for the bay/seafront (which I already roughly know where), but not necessarily immediately headed there. On asking the hotel receptionist on how to go the beach, I was handed a piece of map showing interesting things around the hotel. Oh goodie. With that I set off.

After exploring eastwards for five centimetres (map distance, not walking merely five centimetres out of the hotel entrance), I decided perhaps I should go get lunch and buy some toiletries. There is a “Gurney Plaza, mega shopping mall” written ten centimetres west of my hotel, at the edge of the map. So I turned around and headed in that direction.

By then I already noticed that the map was a general map, not those detailed map that shows all small alleys and nooks and crannies. So sometimes in the absence of landmarks shown on the map, I had to second-guess if I had walked down the right road or if I had missed a bend.

With that in mind, and with trepidation after walking some ten minutes without seeing any tall buildings meriting the status of a mega shopping mall, I stopped a couple of pedestrians to ask if they could tell me where Gurney Plaza was. Worryingly, both didn’t know. Nevermind, I have faith in my map-reading skill (don’t laugh!), so I kept walking ahead.

A couple of minutes down the road, saw a parking lot attendant, and asked him again if I was walking in the right direction to Gurney Plaza. He replied assuringly “Yes you just walk straight ahead here follow this road”. See, I know I can read maps. The hungry stomach was relieved, and I set off after thanking that guy.

Ten minutes down the same road, with no skyscraper in sight and worry creeping back in, epiphany struck: I had asked the wrong question. The question I should have asked first was “How far is it to Gurney Plaza”. I stopped the next pedestrian I met and asked her how to walk to Gurney Plaza, and she pointed to the direction I was going, but with a bemused face added “Very far”. This despite already walking ten minutes away from the parking lot attendant. Darn literalists! I really haven’t learnt how to ask the right questions. But at least there are still some people with common sense in this world.

I also now have a deep distrust towards any touristy maps. Especially those that indicate a name of a building at the edge of the map without showing a symbol of the building but also not showing an arrow saying “This direction to [name of place]“.

If you were wondering, my stomach was finally satiated after another 45 minutes and 25 centimetres to the southeast. I haven’t got my toiletry yet, but I can do without.

Trip to Penang

So here I am in a cheap internet cafe (1 ringgit per half hour) and I am getting what I pay for: clunky keyboard which evokes memory of mechanical typewriter *clickclackclickclackclack CURSE clickclickclick* and PC with enough memory to open one Firefox tab (given enough time to load).

The trip to Penang was a lesson in relatively OK planning but imperfect execution. I had elaborately planned the logistics of leaving home early Thursday morning to somehow allow me to go to gym first that morning, before going to customer’s place and eventually office, departing to Penang in the evening, and returning from Penang directly to office early Monday morning: all without needing to go back to that place far far away in Choa Chu Kang called home. So, early morning Thursday I left home toting multiple bags subdivided variously into those containing items for Penang trip, for office, for gym and for Monday. Some items that will overlap e.g. shoes for office and Monday, sneakers for gym and Penang, will require transferring.

Naturally, when I left later from office in a rush, only when it was too late did I realise that I hadn’t changed my office shoes to sneakers as planned. Then when I discovered my hotel has a mini-gym, I also discovered that my wrist support and heartbeat measurer are still in the gym bag. This was already rendered moot by the missing sneakers, though. So much for intent to exercise :-/ Also, as I settled down to prepare a bit for the tourney tomorrow, I found out that my Scrabble lists are still in my office bag (I read when I traveled to office). Bottomline: I am not supposed to do so many things when I travel, heh

The travel itself was pretty uneventful, as foreseen, since I intentionally booked a night coach so I could sleep all the way to the destination. This, however, was where my planning failed. I forgot to account for the generous air-conditioning that buses here provide (unlike the train, or rickety buses in Indonesia). When I sat down, the first thing I did was to shunt off the two personal air-con outlets above me. Then I reclined the seat, quite far back (quite nice. Although not close to 180 degrees yet, unlike some airline’s business class seat that someone who paid economy class got to enjoy recently; harumph ), took off my contact lenses, and prepared to sleep immediately after crossing custom. Which I did.

Then I woke up in the dead of the night. The whole bus was dark and quiet; no distractions or anything. I shivered, and realised why I woke up. There’s a cold draught, very cold draught from above me onto my reclined body. Apparently there was another different aircon vent from where the stream of cold air escaped, and after four hours exposed to it, the body decided it shouldn’t take this kind of thing lying down. So I sat up.

OK sitting up does nothing, but the brain was just beginning to fire up. Proof that it didn’t manage to fire up correctly: it decided that the feedback from my fingers which groped the vent (all dark, no personal light to use) indicated it was covered by a ball-like component that currently allowed cold air to escape from its perimeter, and the solution was to turn it somehow such that the entire opening was blocked. The finger prodded the ball into the socket and tried rotating it here and there, tugging other things behind it to cover the gap, pushing the ball deeper to find if there were other things in the socket that could be pulled out. And somehow, it just got pushed too deep, and the ball disappeared and rolled away somewhere. At least that’s what I think; in the dark, my finger lost contact with the ball, and only touched a funnel-like thingy (I think) and several wire-like thingies (I think). So now, no more cold draught from gaps around ball, instead, full blast cold draught through the entire hole. Wunderbar.

I began to curse inwardly that during planning I didn’t see fit to bring a sweater or a blanket or something; I mean, I am going to tropical Malaysia, right? Anyway, I was then thinking perhaps I can use something to cover my body up from that draught. The biggest thing I had with me was my backpack. Which was not big. Nonetheless, I tried it, hugged it to my torso. My exposed thighs trembled (ed: read in context!). Lowered the backpack, the neck resisted. Sigh.

I tried curling into foetal position on the seat, and tried to go to sleep, ignoring the cold. The brain resisted. Images of death by hypothermia after 6 more hours of freezing kept popping up (yes the brain occasionally does that whenever it feels its existence threatened). So this problem still has to be resolved.

Perhaps I could avoid being hit by the draught. I returned the seat to full upright position. Almost managed to do it. Minimised the exposed area, but unfortunately, it still blew directly onto my hair. Brain, located right under hair, started its slideshow again in my mind. Leant forward as far as possible, but then exposed area grew bigger: the entire back was hit by the draught, and I started shivering again.

Sometimes I wish I were fat and could ignore all this.

As a last ditch effort, I rummaged the content of my backpack for any inspiration. If only I had my traveling bag, which was stowed away in the carriage compartment, at least I could have worn an extra layer. The backpack offered nothing much. Exercise shorts, bottles of water, clipboard, contact lenses solution. Wait, the plastic bag that contained the exercise shorts. I took the shorts out, balled up the plastic bag, and stuffed it into the airduct. Thank goodness it fitted! Relief. Now I could just go back to sleep, and made a mental note to remove the plastic bag when I got out.

Immediately went back to dreamland, only waking up once more when the driver called for people whose destination was Taiping to alight. The next time I woke up, it’s the Penang terminal. Did I mention what an uneventful ride it was? ;p

So I missed any sights along the way, didn’t even notice when crossing the Penang bridge from the mainland (had wanted to), and immediately alighted after the driver hollered that we had reached Penang. Hailed a cab, and off I went to the hotel. Penang, here I am!

And yes, I forgot to remove the plastic bag from the air hole. I hope the next passenger seated at no. 19 will not be baffled and would appreciate the reduced exposure to hypothermia, heh.

Trip to Penang

So here I am in a cheap internet cafe (1 ringgit per half hour) and I am getting what I pay for: clunky keyboard which evokes memory of mechanical typewriter *clickclackclickclackclack CURSE clickclickclick* and PC with enough memory to open one Firefox tab (given enough time to load).

The trip to Penang was a lesson in relatively OK planning but imperfect execution. I had elaborately planned the logistics of leaving home early Thursday morning to somehow allow me to go to gym first that morning, before going to customer’s place and eventually office, departing to Penang in the evening, and returning from Penang directly to office early Monday morning: all without needing to go back to that place far far away in Choa Chu Kang called home. So, early morning Thursday I left home toting multiple bags subdivided variously into those containing items for Penang trip, for office, for gym and for Monday. Some items that will overlap e.g. shoes for office and Monday, sneakers for gym and Penang, will require transferring.

Naturally, when I left later from office in a rush, only when it was too late did I realise that I hadn’t changed my office shoes to sneakers as planned. Then when I discovered my hotel has a mini-gym, I also discovered that my wrist support and heartbeat measurer are still in the gym bag. This was already rendered moot by the missing sneakers, though. So much for intent to exercise :-/ Also, as I settled down to prepare a bit for the tourney tomorrow, I found out that my Scrabble lists are still in my office bag (I read when I traveled to office). Bottomline: I am not supposed to do so many things when I travel, heh

The travel itself was pretty uneventful, as foreseen, since I intentionally booked a night coach so I could sleep all the way to the destination. This, however, was where my planning failed. I forgot to account for the generous air-conditioning that buses here provide (unlike the train, or rickety buses in Indonesia). When I sat down, the first thing I did was to shunt off the two personal air-con outlets above me. Then I reclined the seat, quite far back (quite nice. Although not close to 180 degrees yet, unlike some airline’s business class seat that someone who paid economy class got to enjoy recently; harumph ), took off my contact lenses, and prepared to sleep immediately after crossing custom. Which I did.

Then I woke up in the dead of the night. The whole bus was dark and quiet; no distractions or anything. I shivered, and realised why I woke up. There’s a cold draught, very cold draught from above me onto my reclined body. Apparently there was another different aircon vent from where the stream of cold air escaped, and after four hours exposed to it, the body decided it shouldn’t take this kind of thing lying down. So I sat up.

OK sitting up does nothing, but the brain was just beginning to fire up. Proof that it didn’t manage to fire up correctly: it decided that the feedback from my fingers which groped the vent (all dark, no personal light to use) indicated it was covered by a ball-like component that currently allowed cold air to escape from its perimeter, and the solution was to turn it somehow such that the entire opening was blocked. The finger prodded the ball into the socket and tried rotating it here and there, tugging other things behind it to cover the gap, pushing the ball deeper to find if there were other things in the socket that could be pulled out. And somehow, it just got pushed too deep, and the ball disappeared and rolled away somewhere. At least that’s what I think; in the dark, my finger lost contact with the ball, and only touched a funnel-like thingy (I think) and several wire-like thingies (I think). So now, no more cold draught from gaps around ball, instead, full blast cold draught through the entire hole. Wunderbar.

I began to curse inwardly that during planning I didn’t see fit to bring a sweater or a blanket or something; I mean, I am going to tropical Malaysia, right? Anyway, I was then thinking perhaps I can use something to cover my body up from that draught. The biggest thing I had with me was my backpack. Which was not big. Nonetheless, I tried it, hugged it to my torso. My exposed thighs trembled (ed: read in context!). Lowered the backpack, the neck resisted. Sigh.

I tried curling into foetal position on the seat, and tried to go to sleep, ignoring the cold. The brain resisted. Images of death by hypothermia after 6 more hours of freezing kept popping up (yes the brain occasionally does that whenever it feels its existence threatened). So this problem still has to be resolved.

Perhaps I could avoid being hit by the draught. I returned the seat to full upright position. Almost managed to do it. Minimised the exposed area, but unfortunately, it still blew directly onto my hair. Brain, located right under hair, started its slideshow again in my mind. Leant forward as far as possible, but then exposed area grew bigger: the entire back was hit by the draught, and I started shivering again.

Sometimes I wish I were fat and could ignore all this.

As a last ditch effort, I rummaged the content of my backpack for any inspiration. If only I had my traveling bag, which was stowed away in the carriage compartment, at least I could have worn an extra layer. The backpack offered nothing much. Exercise shorts, bottles of water, clipboard, contact lenses solution. Wait, the plastic bag that contained the exercise shorts. I took the shorts out, balled up the plastic bag, and stuffed it into the airduct. Thank goodness it fitted! Relief. Now I could just go back to sleep, and made a mental note to remove the plastic bag when I got out.

Immediately went back to dreamland, only waking up once more when the driver called for people whose destination was Taiping to alight. The next time I woke up, it’s the Penang terminal. Did I mention what an uneventful ride it was? ;p

So I missed any sights along the way, didn’t even notice when crossing the Penang bridge from the mainland (had wanted to), and immediately alighted after the driver hollered that we had reached Penang. Hailed a cab, and off I went to the hotel. Penang, here I am!

And yes, I forgot to remove the plastic bag from the air hole. I hope the next passenger seated at no. 19 will not be baffled and would appreciate the reduced exposure to hypothermia, heh.

Trip to Penang

So here I am in a cheap internet cafe (1 ringgit per half hour) and I am getting what I pay for: clunky keyboard which evokes memory of mechanical typewriter *clickclackclickclackclack CURSE clickclickclick* and PC with enough memory to open one Firefox tab (given enough time to load).

The trip to Penang was a lesson in relatively OK planning but imperfect execution. I had elaborately planned the logistics of leaving home early Thursday morning to somehow allow me to go to gym first that morning, before going to customer’s place and eventually office, departing to Penang in the evening, and returning from Penang directly to office early Monday morning: all without needing to go back to that place far far away in Choa Chu Kang called home. So, early morning Thursday I left home toting multiple bags subdivided variously into those containing items for Penang trip, for office, for gym and for Monday. Some items that will overlap e.g. shoes for office and Monday, sneakers for gym and Penang, will require transferring.

Naturally, when I left later from office in a rush, only when it was too late did I realise that I hadn’t changed my office shoes to sneakers as planned. Then when I discovered my hotel has a mini-gym, I also discovered that my wrist support and heartbeat measurer are still in the gym bag. This was already rendered moot by the missing sneakers, though. So much for intent to exercise :-/ Also, as I settled down to prepare a bit for the tourney tomorrow, I found out that my Scrabble lists are still in my office bag (I read when I traveled to office). Bottomline: I am not supposed to do so many things when I travel, heh

The travel itself was pretty uneventful, as foreseen, since I intentionally booked a night coach so I could sleep all the way to the destination. This, however, was where my planning failed. I forgot to account for the generous air-conditioning that buses here provide (unlike the train, or rickety buses in Indonesia). When I sat down, the first thing I did was to shunt off the two personal air-con outlets above me. Then I reclined the seat, quite far back (quite nice. Although not close to 180 degrees yet, unlike some airline’s business class seat that someone who paid economy class got to enjoy recently; harumph ), took off my contact lenses, and prepared to sleep immediately after crossing custom. Which I did.

Then I woke up in the dead of the night. The whole bus was dark and quiet; no distractions or anything. I shivered, and realised why I woke up. There’s a cold draught, very cold draught from above me onto my reclined body. Apparently there was another different aircon vent from where the stream of cold air escaped, and after four hours exposed to it, the body decided it shouldn’t take this kind of thing lying down. So I sat up.

OK sitting up does nothing, but the brain was just beginning to fire up. Proof that it didn’t manage to fire up correctly: it decided that the feedback from my fingers which groped the vent (all dark, no personal light to use) indicated it was covered by a ball-like component that currently allowed cold air to escape from its perimeter, and the solution was to turn it somehow such that the entire opening was blocked. The finger prodded the ball into the socket and tried rotating it here and there, tugging other things behind it to cover the gap, pushing the ball deeper to find if there were other things in the socket that could be pulled out. And somehow, it just got pushed too deep, and the ball disappeared and rolled away somewhere. At least that’s what I think; in the dark, my finger lost contact with the ball, and only touched a funnel-like thingy (I think) and several wire-like thingies (I think). So now, no more cold draught from gaps around ball, instead, full blast cold draught through the entire hole. Wunderbar.

I began to curse inwardly that during planning I didn’t see fit to bring a sweater or a blanket or something; I mean, I am going to tropical Malaysia, right? Anyway, I was then thinking perhaps I can use something to cover my body up from that draught. The biggest thing I had with me was my backpack. Which was not big. Nonetheless, I tried it, hugged it to my torso. My exposed thighs trembled (ed: read in context!). Lowered the backpack, the neck resisted. Sigh.

I tried curling into foetal position on the seat, and tried to go to sleep, ignoring the cold. The brain resisted. Images of death by hypothermia after 6 more hours of freezing kept popping up (yes the brain occasionally does that whenever it feels its existence threatened). So this problem still has to be resolved.

Perhaps I could avoid being hit by the draught. I returned the seat to full upright position. Almost managed to do it. Minimised the exposed area, but unfortunately, it still blew directly onto my hair. Brain, located right under hair, started its slideshow again in my mind. Leant forward as far as possible, but then exposed area grew bigger: the entire back was hit by the draught, and I started shivering again.

Sometimes I wish I were fat and could ignore all this.

As a last ditch effort, I rummaged the content of my backpack for any inspiration. If only I had my traveling bag, which was stowed away in the carriage compartment, at least I could have worn an extra layer. The backpack offered nothing much. Exercise shorts, bottles of water, clipboard, contact lenses solution. Wait, the plastic bag that contained the exercise shorts. I took the shorts out, balled up the plastic bag, and stuffed it into the airduct. Thank goodness it fitted! Relief. Now I could just go back to sleep, and made a mental note to remove the plastic bag when I got out.

Immediately went back to dreamland, only waking up once more when the driver called for people whose destination was Taiping to alight. The next time I woke up, it’s the Penang terminal. Did I mention what an uneventful ride it was? ;p

So I missed any sights along the way, didn’t even notice when crossing the Penang bridge from the mainland (had wanted to), and immediately alighted after the driver hollered that we had reached Penang. Hailed a cab, and off I went to the hotel. Penang, here I am!

And yes, I forgot to remove the plastic bag from the air hole. I hope the next passenger seated at no. 19 will not be baffled and would appreciate the reduced exposure to hypothermia, heh.

Updates over weekend

Just a quick note: found out that I may have convenient access to internet in Penang, so I may be able to update my blog from Penang after all. Though most likely it will be more on the Scrabble result, but we’ll see. Keep my fingers crossed.