back to the future

i'm back.

for 3 minutes every night over the past four nights that i was gone, i would shed a tear and curse a bad word in the hotel room without fail. you see, i have a huuuge ulcer on my lower lip so every night, i would dump salt on it to try to make it heal faster. then the pain would be so sharp that tears would roll down my cheeks as i curse a bad word when it would hurt. much to the amusement of my mom, of course. haha. that's all.

other than that, this was probably one of the best family holidays i've ever had over the years and i've enjoyed it thoroughly.

my dad reckoned that we went back to 30 years ago because everything was so simple and the road system was um, kind of whacked. but it's also because of that that i truly felt stress-free and relaxed. it also had something to do with the location that we were at. the entrance of the hotel in penang(same one we went to last year) faced the sea and having breakfast at the cafe every morning seemed so refreshing.

we met quite a few new people this trip. one was a young waiter who served us at the hotel's cafe. a 17 year old chinese-siam mixed boy. he was smiling all the time and was really friendly, we started calling him my mom's boyfriend. another was a young thai lady selling shorts at the pasar malam at Batu Ferringhi. my dad first spoke to her in malay(to ask for a little discount), and then later found out that she was a thai(who grew up in penang). so he dished out a few thai words(he'd learnt the thai language before) and before we knew it, she replied completely in thai. reaaaaallly quickly. the 4 of us just stared at her, and i went "woah." my dad didnt understand a word. it was pretty amusing.

speaking of the pasar malam, we had to drive through about 38 bends from our hotel(in Georgetown) to Batu Ferringhi to get there. dont ask me why we counted. heh.

also, when i said that the road systems were kinda whacked, i'm not kidding. just drive around Penang and you'll know what i mean. one lane can be splitted into 2 without warning, the no-entry sign means nothing, cars dont signal as they turn, they dont stop at the bends, and there were alot of angry cars around, as my brother would call them. hilarious. we started out as cautious Singaporean drivers and definitely left as Penangites.

in fact, we kind of grew accustomed to the place, that when we went down to Petaling Jaya and Melaka, we would tell people that we were from Penang instead of Singapore. *cough*

hotels. the beautiful Evergreen Laurel in Penang was affordable, clean and classy. and the service was amazing. Crystal Crown in Petaling Jaya was...um, affordable, and um, maybe the room was slightly bigger. but yeah, it wasnt so bad. i mean, they gave us a few free cockroaches in the toilet where the flush couldnt work. who could compete with that right? :)

laugh. while having dinner on our third night in penang, my bro and i watched a cop on a scooter ride past, spit into the ground, look at us, and then ride off. *laughs my ass off* the highlight of our night. speaking of dinner, i asked for a glass of iced water one night, and i got a bucket of ice. no, literally a tin bucket of ice. LOL.

ah yes, the botanical gardens. a beautiful green place. the only problem was that the flowers were being caged up, while the monkeys ran wild. hell yeah. angry monkeys, alright. cool concept. haha.

i'll put up the pictures soon.
by far one of the most amusing trips ever.
amusing, and so, amazing.
this is what i call a real holiday.

if only i didnt have to come back to the future so soon. sigh.