I checked out of Jazz City over at VivaCity Mall and moved to a new apartment down by the river. The new apartment has a spectacular view of the river and north side of Sarawak.
Changing hotels consumed most of the day and that was a good thing because it was hot and humid outside all day. I took a 20 minute walk around the river after checking into the apartment and was soaked in sweat.
The traffic from VivaCity down to the river was bad and it took longer than expected. I’m not sure how this city will deal with traffic over time when there is additional growth and population increases. Much of the land is spoken for already and areas that are not may be prone to flooding especially if there is more development.
There is a light rail project in progress that may help but that will take years to come to fruition.
Before I left VivaCity, I took this photo, in the center of the photo besides the divider there is a sign that reads: Not a pedestrian crossing. You will also see a pedestrian across the street ready to walk across. I walked across that myself to get to the strip mall across the street. Much of Kuching is NOT pedestrian friendly and many malls and shopping areas are built like “islands” that require a car to move between them.
I have a few things planned for tomorrow.
Categories: Kuching Sarawak Comments Off on Kuching: Day 5 – Relocation
This is as close you can get to an American breakfast at VivaCity although there is a place that sells butter waffles in sandwich form at the food court.
After breakfast I went to visit a couple of tailors. The first one had really nice clothes and fabrics but they were booked until November. Evidently some big event is happening in October and there is high demand for custom clothes. I was going to give up but came across another small tailor shop and walked in to inquire about custom shirts. I ordered three from the fabrics below and they should be ready in a week. Cost: 540 rm.
While I was here in Kuching there was an international cat festival but I did not attend the event since I only got my rabies shot yesterday I didn’t want to risk becoming infected 😉
It was a nice cool overcast day with sporadic rain which meant it was perfect weather to sail the river. The one hour tour went quite a bit west then circled back and went a bit east.
After the cruise, I headed back to the mall to get some foot relief for my shoes. The interior soles were wearing out and found this store that saved my feet. They had a machine that recommended a type of insole and the clerk let me try the “soft” ones and the “hard” ones, he (and the machine) recommended the hard ones, I was skeptical but they did the trick. Cost: 179 rm ($42).
The evening came to a conclusion when I met up with the local hosts living here and went to dinner at a place called Ember. The food was amazing. Below is an image of lamb pot pie – delicious.
Calamari on call.
This was charred corn but it ended up being charred and spicy corn. It was great but spicy.
Today is my last day at VivaCity and moving to a new location tomorrow.
Categories: Kuching Sarawak Comments Off on Kuching: Day 4 – Tailors, Sailors and Diners
The first order of business this morning was to head to the clinic for some vaccinations.
The cost matrix for the service:
Consultation Fee: 35 rm ($8.29)
Registration Fee: 10 rm ($2.37)
Rabies vaccine: 235 rm ($55.67) – Requires a follow up shot in 7 days
Influenza vaccine: 90 rm ($21.32)
Total cost: 370 rm ($87.65).
No insurance, no waiting, whole thing took 10 minutes. Why the rabies shot? Simple, so I can bite people without giving them rabies! That and there are a couple of reported deaths from rogue rabies bites here in Sarawak but there are likely more that go unreported.
After getting the vaccines done, it was time to head to Wisma Saberkas which is an overlooked electronics mall in Kuching. I picked up a forbidden phone to test SIM cards, network connectivity, speeds and reliability.
After the electronics mall, we headed to lunch at a place down by the river front.
Back at VivaCenter mall, I took a look at some other electronics and boy are things a bit pricey here. The OLED TV below is $2800 USD. It would be nice if they had a Costco here.
For some reason, the only security camera sold throughout Kuching and maybe Malaysia are TP-Link branded cameras.
Another curiosity in Kuching, are the endless variations of fried chicken and other fried foods. Fried chicken, however, has many different franchises here.
I think the reason for so many different fried chicken places is the style and country they come from such as Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, Japan and USA. Note that many restaurants also sell fried chicken but are not dedicated to fried chicken alone.
After returning to the mall, I bought a new sim card from another carrier to test speed and connectivity with my new phone. These guys had banners hanging all over the place from the mall and were aggressively pushing their service so I decided to give it a try.
I thought I had gotten a great deal with YES which provided 50gb for 20 rm $4.74, but UMobile provided 2200gb (2.2 TB) for 30 rm ($7)! The speed on Umobile (17 mb/s) @ 4G at the mall has been a lot faster than YES (2.5 mb/s) @ 5G.
I will continue to test both from different areas in Kuching.
With the vaccines taking a toll on the old body, I settled for a nice hot bowl of Ramen from Ajissen Ramen. Sadly they didnt have Tonkotsu so settled for some random bowl.
Then its publish this post and lights out.
Categories: Kuching Sarawak Comments Off on Kuching: Day 3 – Vaccines, Electronics and River Lunch
Woke up this morning with a bit of hunger and much to my surprised, I discovered I was locked in Kuching’s largest mall! I got up and took the elevator down from my apartment. When I got out of the elevator, the passageway to the mall was closed. I should have known since the mall opens at 10 a.m. but what I didn’t expect was not to have any way to access the ground floor from the third floor.
After walking around for a while and speaking with a security guard that didn’t understand what I was saying, I decided to follow the exit signs for cars down the garage ramps and ended up free. Sadly, the mall is a bit of an island surrounded by non-pedestrian roads so I finally ended up finding the sole open store within the mall early in the morning: a 7-11. I bought a cup of noodles and that became breakfast.
After having my delicious cup of ramen noodles I repeated the same “escape” exercise and walked across a non-pedestrian road to a nearby highly rated spa. The 2 hour deep tissue massage was amazing. This place is a luxury spa with three stories and offering tea, coffee and pastries when you’re massage is done. Cost $50.
After the massage, I got a haircut. Cost $50.
The rest of the day was spent with friends at their place here in Kuching then off to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant but the food was more of a Malay-Vietnam fusion than anything else. The food was good but not traditionally Vietnamese nor Malaysian.
To prevent from going hungry in the morning, I stopped by the grocery store in the mall’s basement and picked up some cereal, grapes and pastries at a nearby bakery.
Categories: Kuching Sarawak Comments Off on Kuching: Day 2 – (Trapped In The Mall Edition)
Sometimes there can be a 24 hour period where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Last night, I stayed at a hotel near the airport. The place was a dump. No wifi (or at least the clerk didn’t have the correct password), the room AC had two modes: boiling hot or freezing cold, I felt I was getting a cold or the flu while in that room and there was no breakfast at the restaurant the following morning! I couldn’t wait to get out of there an onto my flight to Kuching.
I did end up having some decent food at the airport lounge through my American Express Priority Pass.
There is a continuous curiosity in my travels all over the world. No matter which airport I am traveling in and no matter the destination, the gate, B7 in this case, is always the last one at the airport terminal. I need to make a Twilight Zone episode about this one.
Unfortunately, my flight was delayed about 45 minutes which then pushed my whole schedule back by at least two hours because once the plane landed, it took forever for the luggage bags to come out because airlines started stacking as they all landed at the same time. Oh well, at least getting through immigration was a breeze this time around and took a whole 4 minutes.
The first order of business was to check into my apartment which is attached to VivaCity mall. It takes walking through department stores, up several escalators, through a secret passage, to a secret mailbox with a code that grants you a key and keyfob which you then have to use to get up through another elevator and finally onto your apartment. It sounds bad but if you like scavenger hunts, this is the bomb.
The good thing about being in an apartment over a hotel is more space, access to a kitchen, full fridge, and washer (no dryer). So the first order of business was to buy laundry detergent and get a load going.
As the laundry turned, I had dinner plans with an old friend that moved to Malaysia about 18 months ago to catchup on life in Malaysia. He recommended a new restaurant that opened here at the mall a few months ago and the extensive local menu was impressive.
Real dish not too different from photo….it had a great flavor.
With most of the day burned through travel, it’s time to take a break and get some rest.
Categories: Kuching Sarawak Comments Off on In Kuching Sarawak
I was having some problems with my Malaysian sim card so I visited the Queensbay Mall to talk to the vendor. After some review, I was given the wrong number which is why it wasn’t working properly. All is well with the local sim card and the internet is fast.
Queensbay Mall isn’t as posh as the Gurney Plaza but it can hold it’s own.
I like the way the mall is decorated for the fall all throughout.
There is a kiosk with a couple of guys selling condos so I inquired about the cost and location.
The Type C below features 4 bedrooms, 2 bath and balcony. Cost is a bit less than 800,000 ringgit.
Sushi is less than $1 per plate on the revolving plate conveyor belt.
I opted to buy a burger and the Whooper Jr combo was less than $3 for burger, fries and drink.
Here are the prices of some electronics. Some of these items are quite pricey but I assume they are imported and there are heavy tariffs associated with these devices.
And if you’re curious about the cost of TV subscriptions, the ad below features 95 channels, Astro Go, HBO and Disney for $17/month.
I changed hotels to the south part of the Island to check this out but so far I’m not impressed. This area is too industrial and commercial.
Categories: Georgetown Penang Comments Off on Georgetown: Queensbay Mall and South Island
Today I spent time in the northern part of the Island. The northern area is where a large number of expats/foreigners live. It is also where some of the higher end malls are located. I visited Gurney Paragon Mall & Gurney Plaza. Two large shopping centers near each other and walked the surrounding neighborhood.
The image below is from within the mall looking out at some condominiums.
The image below is of Gurney Paragon Mall
There are 8 stories in the mall and every kind of shop. The one below called Mr. D.I.Y caught my eye and it’s something like Home Depot in the U.S.
They sell a variety of items.
Razors seem fairly inexpensive.
Cooking gear.
I use gloves when cooking and these seem like a bargain.
Not sure why they sell a lot of winter gear here where it’s always hot but I guess people do travel.
These are the list of shops at Gurney Paragon Mall.
I did end up stopping by at a mobile phone shop and bought a sim card for my phone because my carrier from the U.S. was very spotty. It would work fine then stop working suddenly for no reason. I have 5 bars now with the service I got on the card.
Pre-paid sim card for mobile: 20 ringgit ($4.76), 50 gb data, unlimited local voice, text. Note: In Malaysia, you are REQUIRED to provide a passport for all sim card purchases.
I visited the malls today because the weather was expected to be heavy thunderstorms for the day so I opted to go check out the movie theaters here and watch a movie. I ended up seeing the Conjuring which should have been called the “Dozing” because I nearly dozed off a dozen times on how boring this movie during it’s 2 hour run time.
Ticket to movie: 16 ringgit ($3.81)
Popcorn and drink: 19 ringgit ($4.50)
Total $8.81
There is a grocery store at Gurney Plaza below are some of the items. To get the cost in dollars divide by 4.
I had lunch at the mall and it was a great deal. All the food below was $7 USD. It included an iced tea, chicken quarter, rice, bok choy salad, soup, egg-roll like, and a fruit-jelly bowl. I was unable to finish all the food.
As expected, it was raining heavily when I finished my mall tour. It took almost an hour to get back to the hotel in my Grab from the North side of the island to the southern part.
I will be changing hotels tomorrow to move further south in the island. More tomorrow!
Categories: Georgetown Penang Comments Off on Georgetown: Gurney Paragon & Gurney Plaza
An action packed day in Georgetown. I hit the major tourist sites today and I did it on my own without any tour guides. It seems like low season here and most of the sites are fairly empty so no need to pre-buy tickets to beat the crowds.
Penang Hill
My first stop was Penang Hill. I took a Grab from my hotel and then took the funicular up to the top.
There are great views from the top and there are many places to walk about so plan on at least 45 minutes to see most of it or longer if you want to explore more.
There is also a skywalk that provides a large field of view. Watch weather forecasts to make sure you don’t get rained on or fogged out.
There is a Hindu temple at the top as well.
And there is also a Mosque.
One of the views from the top.
I was fortunate to miss the rain. It seemed it rained before I got there and after I left.
Kek Lok Si Temple
Next stop was Kek Lok Si Temple and definitely worth a stop. It was only about 5 ringgit Grab ride from Penang Hill so if you’re doing one you should do the other on the same day.
This is the largest Buddha in Penang.
Size and scale photo.
There are also many stone animals throughout the base.
There is a beautiful temple on the grounds of the complex.
Intricate designs on this mosaic.
There is also a Pagoda on the campus and it’s fairly tall and imposing as well.
The grounds here have many colorful flower, far more than the Botanical Gardens!
Penang Botanical Gardens
The most challenging place to visit was the Penang Botanical Gardens. This site is in the vicinity of the other two so add to your outing if you have the energy to do three sites the same day. Note that it is hot and humid here so pace yourself and bring plenty of water, sunglasses, hat and maybe a sun umbrella.
The main road to the gardens is CLOSED so you’ll get dropped off about 500 yards from the main entrance and have to walk the rest of the way. There is construction at the site which is why the road is closed.
The gardens are impressive, it’s a very large area that would take hours to see all in one go so you may need to strategically pick key sites you want to visit or plan on several visits if you love gardens.
There are monkeys all over the place and while none were aggressive toward me while I was there, they can be a bit mischievous and steal certain items like sunglasses, hats or other items on your person.
During my visit, the clouds became darker and darker so I opted to call it a day and head back to the drop off point. I made it to my Grab car just in time to avoid pouring rain. Weather can be fickle here so be prepared or plan on getting wet.
Ironically, as soon as I got back to the hotel and took a shower, I hit the pool to soak and relax.
The next two days are expected to have rain here in Georgetown area so I may be doing indoor activities.
Categories: Georgetown Penang Comments Off on Georgetown: Penang Hill, Kek Lok Si Temple & Botanic Gardens
What an incredible day! It started with the fabulous breakfast buffet at the hotel (free for Titanium members). There are many food stations with plenty of options. I usually stick to my morning soups and noodles.
Indian food station.
After breakfast, I took a private car (courtesy of hotel) to old Georgtown center. There is a rich cultural history in the old city center and lots of artistic flair.
The image below shows giant burning incense. They can be found around some of the Buddhist temples.
There are many famous art works on walls throughout old Georgetown, some of them explain the area’s history.
Armenian Street
After walking in the intense heat and humidity, I stopped for lunch at a nearby Indian restaurant. Food was good.
Then washed it all down with this blue concoction.
After walking around for a while, it was time for an hour long foot massage. The cost for an hour was 68 ringgit ($16). After that I did a 90 minute body massage which cost 130 ringgit ($31). The therapist was amazing and removed all the sore spots on my back.
Food Tour
After the massages, it was time for my 3 hour, 15 sampling. food tour around Georgetown. The tour focused on three major cuisines: Malaysian, Indian and Chinese dishes. There is a complete description of the tour foods down below so as to not clutter the blog with text and images.
Malaysian
Kuih Talam, Pulut Tai Tai, Radish cake @ Nyonya Palazzo
Indian
Banana Leaf Rice & Paper Tosai @ Ananda Bahwan Spices used to make the teaOriginal pani puri & chochalate pani puri @ Tea KadaiPenang Samosa (Michelin Noted)
Chinese
Sourplum Chicken @ Sun Yoon Kee Sesame ball (Coconut & Peanut) and Hum chim peng (Chinese donut) @ Cintra Street CornerAiyu Jelly
Just got in today to Georgetown Penang and the city is alive and the hotel fabulous. Normally I would wait till the end of the stay to write a review but with this amazing gem there is no need to wait. It’s a great hotel.
As Titanium member, I got upgraded to a Junior Suite and it’s a great suite with a great view.
Bathroom has a rain shower and tub with a view of the skyline.
The facilities are nice. The gym and pool are on the same floor and the pool has a great bar.
Platinum and Titanium members get access to the lounge which is self serve and features some snacks and drinks.
The lobby is impressive!
As a Titanium member I was invited to the special members only area at the pool with a spread of amazing food.
I dont know the names of this stuff but the flavors are amazing. The quiche like pastry has salmon in it. The noodles are tender and spicy. The round mini-cupcake is another amazing seafood dish. The beef cracker has a unique taste as well.
The staff have been excellent catering to my every need.
More tomorrow.
Categories: Georgetown Penang Comments Off on Arrived Georgetown, Penang Malaysia
