*sleeps*

It's been approximately three and a half weeks since I came home, and also since I last blogged.

I don't know if I should say that I'm busy or not, because I spend most of my time either sleeping, eating, reading or learning to drive. At first, I really wasn't too keen on that last activity, but once I got used to it, it's alright, I guess. Nowadays, I spend most of my time waiting for the instructor to call me to tell me when my next lesson will be. In the meantime, I think I ought to do my coursework and dissertation research and study for my upcoming resit exams.

I actually have just returned from Penang. My sister's friend was getting married and she was invited to the wedding dinner last night, so on Friday night, we took a drive up to Penang (about 3 and a half hours door-to-door, in my estimation). Our cousins, the Loke family, including Su Yen's husband and kids, went as well, and we all drove together and had a late night dinner of nasi kandar on Friday night. Yum! It was good!

On Saturday, we woke up early to eat char kuay teow in some place my cousin's colleague recommended (actually, Su Yen, her husband and Rommel -Pot- all work for my mom. About 2/3rds of my mom's office consists of family memners!). It was alright. Very plain, small and expensive for what it was. I didn't finish it because kuay teow are rice noodles and those fill me up reaaaaally fast. The soya bean milk was really nice though!

I think we went to some shop to buy Chinese cookies and sesame oil, but I can't remember. I do know we bought cookies and sesame oil at some point in the day, though!

Anyhow, after that, we went to Queensway Mall for Ling to look for a yarn shop. We ended up spending RM475 on yarn! Well, at least they were nice ones and brands/varieties that aren't available in KL.

Since our tummies had had a rest, we went to eat assam laksa at another place in town. I'm not really an assam laksa fan, so I just took a bit of soup and enjoyed my sugar cane juice. I missed sugar cane juice in London! While walking back to the car after that meal, we stopped by a stall to have a few durians. That was good stuff!

The Loke family and our family were supposed to split up after that to return to our hotels, but since we were near Penang Hill, which has a strawberry farm I wanted to have a look-see, we drove to the furnicular station, but it was closed, so we decided to head towards this bakery (Jenny's) that sells really really good chocolate cakes. Everytime my mum goes to Penang, she always buys at least 10 cakes for the family and for friends.

Unfortunately, the map we had wasn't very detailed about the small roads or if a road was one-way or not, so we made many many rounds before we finally found the shop. We checked to see if it would be open today (Sunday) and bought a chocolate brownie cake back to the hotel because I'd been craving for something sickeningly sweet the whole week.

We finally returned to the hotel, and Ling, Patty and Pot went to play around by the beach and in the sea while I was supposed to take a nap (but ended up reading in the end). Ling and Pot went for the wedding dinner later that night, while Patty and I had room service for dinner and Patty slept while I read a bit more.

This morning, we were supposed to wake up at 8-something to go paragliding, but we all ended up waking up at 11am! I'm not sure why no one heard any of the alarms we set (o_O"). Patty did manage to go paragliding in the end, though, and Ling and I relaxed on the hammocks for a bit before we checked out and went to Balik Pulau for a visit with Sister Bernadine, went to the cake shop to buy cakes, then drove home with a lunch stop at Tambun along the way (eurgh, fly land. Don't go there to eat. It used to be good, but now there are so many flies it just puts you off the food).

Did I mention that we had a nice room? Sure, it was really old, but very spacious, and clean, and the view was really really great! When you first walk in the door, you enter a sitting room with a sofa, coffee table, TV, fridge and double doors to the veranda. A door on your right takes you to the bedroom where there are 2 king-sized beds, a TV, a cupboard, a chest of drawers, a desk and a make-up table with a really old-school looking-glass! The sliding doors to the left take you out onto the veranda, while the stained glass double doors on the right lead to the really big bathroom with two sinks, a bath tub, a toilet and a shower. Very nice bathroom.

The veranda was my favourite part! There was a corner with recliners, a day-bed which was very clean and comfy, and another corner with a table and matching chairs. All around it were shutters which open to a perfect view of the garden below (and all the hammocks!) and the beach. It was really nice to open the shutters, sit on the day-bed and read (or knit, in my sister's case). Very peaceful, very relaxing.

Okay, okay, I've yammered on for long enough. I really ought to post pictures, and I do have pictures of Bon Odori somewhere, but they might be in my sister's laptop and not in mine. I'll have a look through Facebook and see if my sister posted them or not.

Turrah!