Penang -- Week 1, Part 1

This is long so I'm breaking it up into parts. Don't worry, I won't have a daily account for the full year!

DAY ONE -- Saturday
We get ready to face the day, go down and have breakfast. By now we've learned, that if you serve us a buffet breakfast in Asia and you offer a variety of western and Asian foods, we will choose western every time. Not that we don't want the Asian, we just don't know how to assemble/eat it. So we stick with what we know, sort of. It's not as though this is western food as we know it. Eggs, for instance, seem to vary quite a bit from place to place. Scrambled eggs in Japan were like lumpy yellow goo. And here, half-boiled eggs (it actually says that on the menu) seem to be popular for breakfasts.

At 10am a guy comes to meet us with our rental car and I get my first taste of life as a second-class citizen. Interestingly, this has hardly happened at all since then. He introduces himself to George and isn't concerned at all with learning my name before walking George over to a desk in the lobby with one chair behind and two in front. You'd think he'd take the one behind so we could have the two in front. Nope, he's only here to do business with one person, so he claims one of the two front chairs and offers the other one to George. Regin and I sit in a nearby spot. After the paperwork is complete he takes us for a ride. George has the impression he will give us a tour of the island. But no, he shows George how to get between the hotel and Agilent and off he goes.

We have a car! We decide to go for a drive on our own, on the left side. We're not more than about 20 minutes in when George hits a parked car because he's not leaving enough room along the left side of the car. The guy is awfully calm about it and says it won't be a big deal to fix, no more than 100 ringgits (about $30) to fix the scratch but accepts George's number anyway.
I wonder what the rental company will think of our scratch. About 5 minutes later George almost hits another car and a man that's between us and the car. From here on out it's the same, I'm afraid for my life with every ride. The chaos of the road here and George's driving combined are about as scary as it comes. This still hasn't gotten much easier, now that we've been here over a week. I still shriek, flinch, and cover my eyes at times. I haven't decided if I am going to drive here or not yet. Even in the States I'm a nervous driver, I don't know that I'd survive a day here.

We meander aimlessly through George Town a tad. There are many run down buildings here. I am not noticing the beautiful colonial town I am supposed to see. George asks me where to and I suggest the beach so we drive across the north part of the island. We're in resort town, Batu Ferringhi, and I need to eat. So we go to The Ship, hokey as it is, because I'm grumpy and it's the only place we see that's immediately identifiable as a restaurant.
Western food again. It's super bland, not even salted. Some have asked how I've been doing with my hypoglycemia on the trip so far. I gave up on my diet my first day in Tokyo. It's too hard. I'm still not going to town on sweets, so I'm still doing reasonably well. No big crashes like back at home yet, but lots of drowsiness, and the occasional light eye ache and headache when I forget a meal/snack. They're getting worse. I think it's the cumulative that's getting to me. But I have done pretty well till now eating whatever noodles, rice, or sauce is placed in front of me. This time, it's breaded food and fries. I decide to take Regin to the bathroom. It's a serious climb up super steep stairs, no stroller access. I think briefly about carrying the stroller up. That's silly. We hike up without. It's murderously hot in the bathroom. But this is one of the nicer bathrooms I have seen on the island -- I don't know that yet. Regin doesn't want to go, there is nowhere to change his diaper, sweat is pouring off my brow, we climb back down.

Off to the beach. We find this itty bitty cove over the cliff-like edge of a windy road which is scary as hell to cross when you're faced with these nutty drivers.

Isn't it beautiful? We also see our first monkey there. Sadly, it's caged up. I guess it's a pet.

Regin's not as interested in it as we are. But that's a general rule. His interests are usually a bit more mundane like balls, oranges (edible balls), and ceiling fans. He also enjoys walls, rocks, and leaves.

We're there taking pictures of each other when George spots our friend Carmen.

She laughs at the fact that this is her first trip to this beach after living here over a year, and on our first day here we run into her there!
She also tells us that she isn't swimming because she doesn't want to offend the locals with a bikini and doesn't want to look like a dork in swim shorts. She only wears bathing suits when she visits the resort beaches. Now she's watching her kids have a great time. As for us, it's too hot to stay long, Regin is melting, and we didn't even bring sun block for him.

Back on the road. Now we're off to the mall -- George's plan. We go in to see what it's like. I am bored and totally disinterested. I am also disappointed to see a lot of the same stores we have in the states. Guess, Gap, Toys'r'us, Borders, Forever 21, Chili's, TGI Fridays, Aldo, Crocs, OshKosh, Baby Gap, L'Occitane, The Body Shop, MAC, GNC. In addition to that we've seen countless 7-elevens, McDonalds, and KFCs outside the mall. I am excited, however, about being able to shop at Topshop which is a trendy store from the UK. George tried to get phone service through a couple cell stores, but they tell us we need to go to a different location. We tried to buy some groceries and other necessities, but our only available credit card was declined. Ugh. Back to the hotel for more room service.


DAY TWO
It's Sunday. I want desperately to relax and do nothing after all we've been doing. We do end up going back to the mall though. George needs a hair cut badly, and we need to try again to get some groceries. George's hair cut is fantastic. It was about $10-$20 for the cut, and this is a top-end type salon. The guy spends absolute ages washing and trimming, and cutting and thinning, then drying and trimming some more. George is a new guy at the end. And he's had the salon treatment that many women get used to, complete with head and neck massage. I'm jealous. But I can have my hair done another day. His was priority today since he's going to work for a little bit tomorrow.

While he was getting his hair done, I read some articles in a local magazine. Someone sent a letter to the editor thanking them for the article they wrote last month about a gay man who was so much happier now he was married with kids. A later article in the magazine asks if women should give their husbands sex even if they don't feel like it. All the arguments sound reasonable and balanced (you shouldn't have to do anything that doesn't feel good, yadda yadda) but there is this underlying current of some (what we'd consider to be) outdated ideals. I'll have to pick up some more magazines later to continue this anthropology lesson!

The grocery store was interesting. I was so relieved to find organic foods, even if most of the packaged stuff comes all the way from the States and is super pricey. Looks like we may not be saving a lot on our grocery bill here. We may not be saving much on clothes either since many of those are from the States too. Everything is supposed to be cheaper here, but the clothes and restaurants are about the same so far.


More soon...