Wednesday 13 February 2013

CNY 2013 - 4th day

13 February 2013 (Wed):

Deciding & searching for a place to have breakfast was a chore each morning. Before coming to Penang, I did some research & copied down the add of each individual makan item but when u are in Penang itself & with only less than 2 full days, we did not managed to cover those recommended ones. See, even places like Long Beach or Chowrasta Market, we did not visit.

Instead, we would js drive along & stopped by to whatever place we felt comfortable with for meals. So in the end, we had breakfast this morning at a local neighbourhood housing (kinda like those old flats you see in HKG, where u sit in the compound & when u look up, anything would js fall out of the corridors).

But this place was equally crowded too. Char Kway Teow seems to be the "hot" order & they even serve westernised breakfast ( toast, sunny side up, hotdogs & baked beans). Other than that, they have Chee Cheong Fun, Mee Chiam Kueh, Tim Sum, etc. Either there was a lack of staff or everyone was too busy, no one cleared the empty bowls & plates. We did what the locals do; piled them up along the edge of the sidewalk. :P

Heading on to our next destination - Bukit Merah Laketown Resort; abt an hours' drive from Penang. I was comtemplating on whether this place is worth a visit or not. From the website, the place looked soooo nicely done up. The hotel rooms was super inviting. The themeparks was great.  BUT, this place received many NEGATIVE reviews, mostly on the rooms - cockcroaches, cracked furniture, stained towels & bedsheets, musty smell in the room, poor reception service or no service, tripped power, nosiy air con, etc....

I did not want to believe the comments.

I send an enquiry on one of their rooms promotion in mid Jan but received no reply. I send another thru their reservation email & again no reply. I was half hearted.

In the end, Daddy said we could have a look ard first & if okay, we would js book a room on the spot.

Bukit Merah Laketown Resort. Looks good; CNY atmosphere, warm reception; smiles & greetings..

We bought tickets for the Orang Utan (OU) Island; a very much talk abt place, a very much recommended place to visit. I was WRONG!!

Upon arrival on the island, we had to take a boat ride across, we saw only 4 miserables ones roaming abt. They were more keen on their keepers than on the visitors. We were then taken to the school, the nursery & the ICU - BUT with only a view from outside, which means there is the glass panel between us & the OUs.

NO OUs in the school; we saw only swings & branches, NO OUs in the nursery, where were the babies? People were talking abt seeing them wearing diapers ( on the internet reviews), NO OUs in the ICU; okay, that's gd news!

The whole god damn place did not even seem like an OU Conservation Island to me. Talked abt helping them to get accustomed when they are released back into the wild.

Daddy was irritated; a waste of time. We should have bought the combo tickets for the EcoPark & Waterpark instead.

This is the EcoPark. We saw many animals; rabbits, deers, pocupines, peacocks, hamsters, snakes, etc.. Its looks like a mini zoo. We even caught an animal show but with only parrots performing.

We took a chairlift across the waterpark & I caught some snapshots of it. Kinda small. The Lost World of Tambun in Ipoh would be much worth the visit compared to this.

All in all, I would not want to recommend this place. Luckily, we had no agenda & were free & easy on our time. We left the place at 4pm & head on to KL where the kids would be embarking on a new journey of their lifes - the working society :)


We reached KL & had a late dinner. Reason: The journey from Perak to KL was slow; traffic was heavy  & it was raining heavily. The stretch along Ipoh was filled with fog & all vehicles had to travel very slowly. We saw many traffic police road blocks along the way; we did not want to take any chance. But apparently, it seems they were there for show only.. :P  Oh whatever!

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