Hey everyone

Today was Penang day. We got up pretty early and had planned to go up 'the hill' in Penang, to see the nice views and go to the botanical gardens. But because it was Friday 13th... It was raining, and heavily. And it was the first rainfall Penang had seen in six months. So with gloomy faces we met the others and went for some breakfast.

We hoped the rain would ease off over breakfast, but it didn't so we decided to venture to the mall. We trekked across to the mall only to find none of the shops were open. It turns out that most Malaysian shops don't open until 10am but then stay open until 10pm. At the mall we met some Christian missionaries, who pointed out the best places to go, so we set off with our map to find Little India. It was a surprisingly nice area of town, composing of a couple of streets with music coming out of every other shop. We would later learn all about the multi-cultural society in Penang, and the different religions living side by side in Malaysia.

After Little India we went to Fort Cornwallis. By this time the clouds had cleared and it was back to being in the mid 30s. Next to the fort were some very british buildings- big, white, very 'proper' and solid looking (a million miles from the crappy pavements and sewer sytem in the town). The Fort was British, complete with Rule Britannia blasting out of speakers. There were cannons, we had ice creams, it was all good fun. At one stage we had a group of chinese kids run up to us and ask if they could have their photo taken with us, then later when we were having our ice creams, a malaysian girl came over and started a conversation wiith us... One of the first things she said to christina was "can I just say, you're skin is beautiful. It's just so white! We'd do anything to have skin like yours". As you may have guessed, Christina has yet to start to tan (and probably never will?), but has at least got more freckles. It's a start...

We were happy we found something nice to do in Penang. After looking at the fort and on the way back to the hotel we visited a Chinese clan-house, which had the biggest inscense sticks we had ever seen. We're talking six foot long! Crazily, right next door was St Georges Church (bit in the colonial era) and down the road was a mosque (we could hear the prayers from our hotel room).

Close to the hotel was a bakery (a very rare sight in Asia) that we popped in and bought lunch and the next days breakfast from. They had scones! amongst lots of other bakery treats. We got ready for dinner and we (the group of us) decided to go to an English pub for dinner. Not exactly the local cuisine but its nice every so often to remember what lovely western food is like. Stepping inside was like going through a portal and arriving in a Whetherspoons pub. Most of us got burgers (inc. Alex), some got pies, some got baked potatoes (inc. Christina). Just to top it all off, alex had apple pie and custard for dessert. Oh how he loved every moment of it...

To get an idea of how much like an English pub the place was, just as we got up to leave, christina turned around looking for her coat on the seat. Of course, you would be pretty crazy if you actually had a coat when it was 30+ outside at 1Opm. We went back to the hotel and packed our stuff as we were leaving for Kuala Lumpur early the next day... Xxx