The day after Christmas, also known as Friday, December 26,
started out like every other day here in Penang. Up, dressed, and off to town
for breakfast at Mugshot. We were on a bit of timeline as I had told Paul –
Holland (from the gift exchange the night before) that we would meet him for
breakfast at 12. Now I know this doesn’t seem early, like we shouldn’t need to
hurry to make it in time, but since we had a whole 4 beers each the night
before to celebrate Christmas, and because I was up late chatting home to my
family, we were moving a bit slower in the morning.
On the way to the bus I stopped to buy a carrot juice from
the Hawker center we I had eaten a small afternoon meal the afternoon before.
Because we were on our way to the bus, and needed to make good time, I got the
juice for takeaway. Now this was a whole new experience for me. They do not
serve takeaway beverages in a plastic or Styrofoam or paper cup like you would
find back in America, but rather they serve it to you in a plastic bag. They
pop a straw in the bag, tie a plastic string around one corner of the bag for
you, and off you go. Since the original take away beverage Elizabeth and I have
had a few more and have come to realize all the benefits and drawbacks of this
system.
Benefits:
-
Hands-free drinking. Because there is a sting
around the bag you can loop the string around your wrist and hang the drink off
your wrist and still use both your hands.
-
Easily packaged for brining home. If you do not
plan to consume the beverage immediately you can tie the top of the bag shut
completely and then package all the drinks into a larger plastic bag. No need
for cup holders in the car – no need to worry about spilling the drinks. Easy peasy.
Drawbacks:
-
You cannot set the drink down. If you need to
take a break mid-way through you cannot simply set the bag down on the table,
it would all spill. You must find something to hand the drink from, you bicycle
handle, a door know, etc.
-
Easily punctured. The plastic bag is obviously
not as durable as a cup. You can easily puncture the bag and loose your
beverage out the side. Thankfully this hasn’t happened to us yet. Fresh, pulpy
carrot juice all down your shirt would be gross!
We are definitely enjoying the novelty of this new
experience now, but I am sure at some point soon we will find out why the west
uses cups instead of plastic bags. Although I am tempted to bring this idea
back to America and try to capitalize on it.
We took the bus into town and ended up being 8 minutes late.
As we were getting off the bus right in from of Mugshot Paul was heading out, I
think he thought we weren’t going to show up. We dragged him back inside, had a
nice quick breakfast with him, and then he was off in cab to airport and on a
flight to Bangkok. Paul-Holland has been traveling around Thailand and Malaysia
for the last month. He is on a one-month holiday from his policeman job back in
Holland and he’s here exploring Asia. He left Holland alone one month ago but
met some other Dutchmen in Thailand and that is how we met him. Paul-Holland is
friends with Joost, we met Joost on Christmas Day, and we were all at the gift
exchange. Although Paul would have
really like to stay longer in Asia he had to get back to Europe to take his
Salsa Dancing lessons and some other things – I don’t remember. We wished him a
safe flight, gave him the standard three cheek kisses as is standard in
Holland, and he was gone.
At this point Elizabeth and I started focusing a bit on our
trip to Thailand. How we would get there – bus, boat, plane, train – where we
would cross the border – island, land border, or airport – where we would stay
when we got there – hotels? – and generally which direction we wanted to head
towards.
Our rough thought at this point is that we will stay here in
Penang through January 1 at which point we will head north to Thailand. There
are two options here, either we will take a bus up towards Bangkok – maybe
stopping in Phuket along the way – or we will take a ferry from Penang to
Langkawi, a Malaysian Island, and then take the ferry from Langkawi to Ko Lipe,
a Thai Island. At this point we will stay a few days in Ko Lipe and then take a
ferry from Ko Lipe to Phuket. Stay a few days in Phuket and then up to Bangkok.
Then from Bangkok fly back to Singapore, mid-January time frame, spend about
one week in Singapore trying desperately to get jobs, and if that works out we
will stay. If we can’t find a job in one week we will fly back to Bangkok and
pick back up where we left off heading north and then east.
In our time of research we didn’t lock anything it, except
that we need to get Thai visas figured out before we show up at the border or
we will only be granted a single-entry 15 day visa. If we look into it before
hand we can get a multi-entry 60 day or longer tourist visa which would be
ideal if we can’t get jobs in Singapore, then we can head back on the same
visa.
While we were working on this project a lone gentleman sat
down at the table next to ours. We had invited him the night before to join our
gift exchange but he had refused. Now, however, I couldn’t imagine him refusing
to join us we I asked him over. Matthijs, the lone gentleman, decided to join
us and we sat there chatting with him for a while, learning all about his life.
He is 26 years old, from Holland (surprise, surprise!), and over in Asia on a
19 day holiday. He is returning home on December 30th. Recently he
enrolled in a program to study Chinese herbal medicine that will last 5 years.
He was compelled to go into this after seeing how traditional medicine has
failed his mother who suffers from constant pain that western medicine has not
been able to find a cause or solution for. Although he has not totally
convinced his mother yet to try Chinese herbal medicine, he sees her faith in
western medicine waning.
Prior to going into this new line of study/work, Matthijs
was a plasterer. This is interesting because Tom, the Englishman we met a few
days back that is living in Phuket and working on the yachts, used to be a
plasterer in England. Neither of them seemed to find much satisfaction in the
work as both of them have since moved onto other careers. Matthijs also
recently (6 months ago) ended an eight-year relationship he had been in. I
cannot imagine having dating the same person for 1/3 of my life – and my entire
adult life. That’s crazy. From what we gathered he still loves the girl and
cares deeply about her but wants his freedom, much as I do myself.
Part way through our time with Matthijs another friend from
the evening before, Joe, joined us as well. Joe had his trusty selfie-stick
with him, was doing a great job chatting up all the beautiful women – something
he seems quite skilled at – and was generally out enjoying the day. He had a
coffee with us and then we all went our separate ways, Matthijs off to the
Cameron Highlands for a few days in the jungle, Joe to see the new Hobbit movie
at the theater, and Elizabeth and I went home.
The bus ride back to our hotel was terribly long and when we
got off the bus it was pouring rain. The walk is about 15 minutes when it’s
dry, but as soon as the sidewalks are wet they get slippery and the walk gets
longer. Plus, we only had one small umbrella and no raincoats; we knew it would
be a long, wet walk home. Just as we got off the bus we ran into a white couple
that offered us tickets for the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. I didn’t hear what she said
but Elizabeth recapped later that she offered us the tickets because it was no
good and maybe we wanted to go. It’s no good, and you think we want to go? No
thanks lady! Plus it’s raining! Who wants to see a bunch of tourist attractions
from the inside of a bus when it’s raining? Not me! My favorite part about the
whole interaction is that it was pouring rain and they didn’t offer us a ride.
I don’t want it to seem like I would expect strangers to offer me a ride
because it’s raining, but obviously they could see we were about to walk
somewhere in the rain, they had already stopped to talk with us, it’s not like
they couldn’t have just offered then after seeing how wet we were going to get.
But, alas, no offer so off we headed towards home.
When we finally arrived at the hotel we were soaking
wet. Our flip flops were absolutely
soaked from walking through puddles all along the road, our shirts and shorts
both had large wet patches, and the backs of our legs were splashed will all
sorts of debris and mud. We couldn’t have been happier to be in our room where
it was warm, dry, and out of the rain.
For dinner we ventured back out, as it had stopped raining,
towards the mall to have a hawker stall meal. We both found noodle dishes that
suited us and a nice vegan appetizer to share. The meals were a bit bland – not
nearly spicy enough! – but not bad. And the whole dinner only cost RM$12
(US$3.5). For dessert we tried some questionable fruit dish – Rojak. We didn’t
know what it was before we bought it and we still don’t. The dish consists of a
cocktail of various cut-up fruits and vegetables and topped with a very dark
sweet sauce, chopped peanuts, and deep fried dough pieces. I had her put the
sauce on the side in case we didn’t like it. By the time we were done we had
eaten maybe 2/3 of the dish. There was good pineapple and cucumber on the
plate. It was mixed in with various unknown items – some okay, some uneatable.
The sauce was sweet but we couldn’t tell what it was. I wouldn’t order it again
but I’m glad we tried it. And I was happy to have some water to wash the bad
taste out of my mouth when we were done.
Following dinner we did a bit of shopping at the mall and
then went to Starbucks for a treat. Our favorite Starbucks employee, Mr. Marley
(Bob), was working. We were thrilled to see him and he seemed happy to see us
as well. He wrote special messages to us on our cups “*the most beautiful
customer”. What a nice guy! We sat outside enjoying our drinks when we spotted
our friends from Christmas Eve sitting at the café next door. Finished with our
drinks we decided to walk over and say hi. As we walked up to greet them they
just couldn’t believe it was us. They kept saying things like “this is so
weird” and “I told you.” We had no idea what they were talking about but Sam,
the guy, explained.
Apparently on Christmas Eve Sam had been telling Amanda that
is you sit with your palms open and your feet open to the world people will
come and talk to you. As he was practicing this on that evening I had gone up
to talk to them for this first time and ask their story. Then on Friday evening
(the evening this story is taking place on) Amanda was trying this when we came
up to them again. Apparently every time they try this we show up. I’m sure that
would be weird for someone.
Anyways, Sam and Amanda were there with another friend, Yvonne.
They were enjoying a coffee outside and having a chat. It was great to run into
them again as well because we were able to get more of their story. So as a bit
of a reminder, Sam was the Kiwi who had lived in Penang for 15 years with his
ex-pat parents before studying in LA for one year. The additional information we
found out is that he had spent his time in America studying business but had
too much fun not studying and thus returned to Penang. I can imagine Southern
California could be a bit too much fun. He has known Amanda about 2 weeks.
Amanda is 17 and Eurasian – one European (Irish) parent and one Asian (Chinese)
parent. She had finished high school and will be starting Uni in London in
March where she will study music – apparently she’s a great singer. Yvonne, the
one we hadn’t met the other night, is 15, currently in high school, has known
Amanda 5 years, and known Sam 1 week. She is also Eurasian – one Dutch parent
and one Indonesian parent – and has grown up in Penang with his grandparents.
They seemed happy to see again, just as we were to see them. If we run into
them one more time, and I’m hoping we do, we will invite them to meet us for
dinner or a coffee. Although they are much younger than me it must be meant to
be that we become friends.
After our day full of meeting new people it was back to the
hotel and to bed.
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