Penang, what a nice mix of Singapore and Melaka it is. Lots of big city advantages with the small town ambience - shrines, temples, museums, parks, beaches, with friendly people, good restaurants, and reliable bus service.

Although Penang is a very modern city, Chinatown's clock stopped 50 years ago. The hilarious signs, colorful old shophouses, ridiculously cheap restaurants, clatter of mahjong tiles and strange Chinese dialects kept drawing us back to the old city. Whether it was the scent of sandalwood and spices, Hindi music, sari or stone seal shops, or the famous temples, we visited this area daily for a week.

Finding Terry's favorite "street eats" stand closed on Sunday, we kept hiking north to the Garage Shopping Plaza across from the E & O Hotel that just happened to be their once-a-month crafts fair. So Jeni and I wandered, oohed & ahhed, touched & purchased while Terry had another massage. We'd found a restaurant with the very non-descriptive name of Beach Blanket Babylon. It was a contemporary colonial British affair that should have been called Oliver's. Enjoyed their set lunch - a real bargain @ 14 RM ($3.25), pigged out, and hit the shops!

Then we started with the Temples!

Cheers to keeping busy in the city! KK