Before the Raya mad rush, we took a week off and headed North for our once a year trip to Penang.

The night before, Daddy asked, “You sure we need to bring along Jelly?” (he was thinking of bringing his dad instead).
Imagine we’d been having this bring-don’t-bring conversation since August, and made a decision and now this?
I was ‘tulan’ (Cantonese : annoyed) and replied, “If you can feed the girls, bath them, wash the bottles after their feed, then no need to bring.” Grrrrr…
Of course Jelly came along eventually.

We took off on Saturday, with a car choked full of things. It’s no joke travelling with 2 young kids.

When we had a pitstop at an R&R some where near Tapah, we kidded with Zara and told her that we’ll be staying in one of the outdoor pavilions; nearby, some goats were bleating. She was worried, and when she was convinced we were staying there, she said, “I think we better go home.”
Daddy still teasing, “We thought both of you like farm stay, that’s why we chose this hotel.”
Zara replied, “I don’t like farm stay, I like home stay more. We go home better.”
I pretended to cancel this hotel and told her we’ll try to get another room in Penang. She was relieved, but still added “If no nice hotel, then we drive back home ok?” o.O”

First stop of course is St Anne’s (church) at Bukit Mertajam.

In the old chapel, Zara said her prayer while all Zaria wanted to do was blow off the candles at the alter (of course after Happy Birthday singing). -.-”

While looking around, Zara stopped at the statues showing Jesus’ crucifixion looking very sad and asked me, “Mummy, why the people so wicked they want to nail Jesus on the cross.”
Seriously, for me who still have questions about my religion, I don’t know how to answer her.

We stopped at Bukit Tambun for dinner, the restaurant that we went to last year was closed to public for a wedding so we had to go to another restaurant (some fishing-floating restaurant). Food was lousy. Phhhhbbbbbt…

We arrived at Bayview Beach Resort at 8:30pm. Zara was so happy and relieved when we stepped into the room. We took the L-shaped family room again. The room is spacious and clean; 4 of us took the king bed, and Jelly took one of the single beds. We had an early night although I was tempted to sneak out to start my DVD shopping.

Sunday morning was spent at the pool and at the beach. Zara preferred the earlier, while Zaria the latter.
When we brought Zaria to the pool and took her to a deeper end where her feet couldn’t touch the ground, she said, “I’m scared.” or “I don’t yike(like)”. When we asked Zara to go to the beach, she said, “I don’t want, the sand is so rough.” So we had to split into two groups. 1 to the beach, 1 at the pool.

For lunch, the girls had Pizza from Papa Pizza at Tanjung Bunga, while we had char kuey teow (Hokkien : fried flat rice noodle) behind Papa Pizza. I think the pizza was better than the kuey teow.

Love this shot of the girls, just up from their naps and attacking the left over pizza.

In the evening, we headed to the Botanical Gardens. Zaria, the adventurer, tried to get close to the monkeys, and a few times almost got attacked by them. She was a bit disappointed to know that the monkeys were ‘not-friendly’ and ‘naughty’.

They loved the place, the flowers, the plants, the space.

A lot of people were crowding around this guy at the entrance of the garden. He was selling curry puffs, spring rolls, wades, samosas. What made it so special is after you’d chosen what you want, he’ll cut them up and pour asam laksa soup over them. I had a piece of ‘asam laksa’ spring roll, and it was quite good.

Dinner was at Nonya Breeze (we never missed it). Still so good, still so reasonably priced.

Monday morning after breakfast, we visited Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. We missed 30mins of the guided tour, and still, the girls were getting a bit restless following the guide for the rest of the 30mins. This place is beautifully maintained, but girls have no appreciation for all these.

We had char kuey teow at Lorong Selamat. Yummy but very expensive. RM14 for 2 plates and even the boiled sugar cane water cost RM1.70.

After the girls’ nap back in the hotel, we split into 2 groups and let them chill out at the pool and beach again.

Guess what we had for dinner? Papa Pizza was so good we went there for dinner (actually, it’s also because the Phang Hainanese Seafood Restaurant we wanted to go was closed).

Tuesday morning, we finally managed to see a horse at the beach (horse riding was one of the reason why we chose to stay in Batu Feringgi). After agreeing on the price (RM50 for 2 rounds), I took the girls. Poor horse had to endure the weight of the 3 of us. Zaria was really happy to finally get to ride on a horse. She kept patting and saying, “Hello horse.”.

(Some sad fact : This horse used to be a race horse, and retired after 5 years of racing. It became a horse for holiday goers to ride on at the beach until it reaches 10years old. What happened next? The owner will sell it to some Chinese who’ll turn it into horse satay. Humans are so cruel. -.- )

Zara spent more time at the pool after the horse riding, and I squeezed in a foot massage by the pool. Zaria went back to the room with Jelly for a nap. Before 1pm, we checked out and left the hotel. On our way out, we had a very tired Zara snoozing, and a very energetic Zaria singing.