Hello everyone 👧.
There are lots of hotels available in Penang, but as per my experience staying in Penang's hotels a few years ago, most of the rooms are not spacious. In addition, my Mum preferred accommodation that could accommodate 4 people (including me), as well as a swimming pool. As for my Brother, he preferred accommodation that had free parking available.
After searching through the hotel options on the website, only luxury hotels with expensive prices were offered with the facilities my family requested. By using the AirBnB mobile app, it helped me find an affordable price of homestay at Tropicana 218 Macalister apartment that met all my family's needs in Georgetown, Penang. This place also has facilities such as restaurants, a self-service laundry shop, bakery shop, reflexology and a convenient store. Therefore, I booked this homestay online with the assumption that it was the perfect choice for my family holiday trip in Penang.
After nearly 2 hours of driving from Terminal Ferry Kedah, we reached our homestay around 7.00pm in Georgetown, Penang. We're going to stay for 3 more nights during our remaining holiday trips around Penang and other places.
In order to access the apartment's car parking lot and lifts, all must use a pass card. This means that staying in this apartment is highly secure. As for the lifts, they are also separated between residents and tourists. We just followed the rules using the tourist lift and went up to 28 floors where our room was situated.
We all smiled upon entering the room. It's a studio room, but very spacious. There's a washing machine with drying functions, television and free WIFI with a strong internet connection. For beds, 3 of us ladies have to sleep on the King bed and my Brother will use the sofa bed.
This is our first time staying in a high-rise apartment and also seeing the city view inside. Some AirBnB mobile app users said they were able to enjoy beautiful sunset views from the building. Sadly, we did not have the opportunity to see the sunset until the last day of our stay at this apartment.
After over 1 hour of rest inside the apartment, we headed out for dinner. It's New Year's Eve, so many people are going out. By following the map to find the nearest food court, our route to the destination by car was very slow. This is despite the fact that it only required us 10 minutes or less to reach there by estimation.
It's also difficult to find a proper parking lot when we reach Sungai Pinang Food Court. There were many illegally parked cars around this food court area. Therefore, my Brother followed the trend and illegally parked there.
Large selections of food can be found at many stalls in this food court. We were hungry and wanted to try everything. As for dinner, we just ordered 1 or 2 dishes from several stalls. As per the picture below, this table of food we ordered was less than RM100 (USD22). 4 of us rotate to share our plate of food with each other so that we can have a taste of it.
It's after 9.15pm when we finish our dinner. I'm short of cash, so my Brother took us to a bank which is located just around Komtar. The bank is located in the Prangin Mall building and we did not manage to have a tour inside the mall as most of the shops inside had end of business hours.
My Brother who works in Penang is familiar with this location. Just in front of this Prangin Mall, there is a food court or street food that serve no pork. My Brother brought us there to search for my Mum's favorite Thai dish, Som Tam, from a Muslim Thai stall. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate this stall or it appears to be closed.
Then we tried our luck to find another strolling spot. My Brother drove us to Gurney Plaza Mall. There's a small concert on New Year's Eve at the end of the year in that area. As a result, my Brother became grumpy because of all the slow moving cars. We luckily managed to get a free spot of illegal parking around that area too.
The shopping mall was closed for the day too. Not like my hometown, some of our malls in Kota Kinabalu still stay open until 11.00pm. At night, there are many stalls on the roadside. We just walked along and looked around until we reached another food court, Anjung Gurney.
It's already around 10.00pm, and the food court was still crowded with people. For this round of meals, we will have desserts. We ordered ice cendol and ice lemon jelly for our desserts.
My siblings and I were in same mind that after finishing this desserts, we should headed back our homestay for rest. Our bodies are too tired to walk around a different place anymore. My Mum, however, still wants to stroll around. My siblings ignored my Mum's request and just sat on the seats in food court while playing their mobile games. Despite my muscle pain, I cannot leave my Mum walking alone in unfamiliar places. In the end, I just accompanied my Mum to a 7Eleven nearby to buy the things she wanted to buy.
Our next day trip will travel to Ipoh, Perak on the first day of the year 2023. My Brother told us that restaurants in Georgetown, Penang usually open at 10:00am. My Mum is on medication, so she bought some pastry buns to eat in the morning before taking her medicine.
Afterward, my Mum said the doctor advised her to eat fruit everyday. We search for a stall that selling fruits at the food court where we having our desserts just now.
There was confusion in communication between my Mum and the vendor. My hometown called this sour plum powder as Hamoi. In Penang, they called it as Asam or in Malay it's mean sour. My Brother who happened to search for us after spending so long strolling around saw my Mum's miscommunication with the fruit vendor. My Mum thought the vendor said the fruit she selected was sour. My Brother came to the rescue to help interpret the meaning of the fruit vendor to my Mum, who wanted to know if my Mum wanted to put sour plum powder in her selected fruit.
Why did I not communicate directly with the Chinese fruit vendor in Mandarin to avoid confusion which happened in front of me? Perhaps I'm tired and my mind is a bit lagged to think clearly.
As we returned to our homestay, less than an hour remained until New Year. We waited until 12.00am then we would have our bath to wash away all the dirt from year 2022 from our bodies.
From inside the homestay building, the fireworks look small.
I went straight to sleep after a bath. My tired body makes falling asleep very easy after a long day traveling from Langkawi to Penang. The next morning, almost everyone woke up quite late, maybe around 10.00am.
That's all. Thanks for reading my post 🤗.
