Penang Apartments for Rent

It has always been Mommy's dream (and Papa's dream too!) that one day, out of the many Toto bets that Papa normally places on weekends, Papa's bet hits the Jackpot prize! ^_^ If this really happens, then both Papa and Mommy can afford to have super-early retirement and enjoy quality life and quality family time with Juan Or. Quality life and quality family time, for Mommy, means not having to be bound by work schedules and work stress. That means we can go for vacation anytime, anywhere, whenever and for as long as we want to!

One place Mommy has in mind to go for our not-bound-by-time vacation is Penang because Penang is the place that has it all - food adventure, sight-seeing, beach, shopping, educational visits and historical sites. We can possibly rent an apartment there for one or two months to enjoy our vacation whereby it is going to be a relaxed vacation unlike those guided tours which are very hectic. And then while staying in Penang, we can also venture to other vacation places on the northern side such as Langkawi, Alor Star, Wang Kelian and other southern Thai destinations for food adventure and shopping.

Just to have a feel of part of the dream vacation, Mommy decided to make an internet search to see whether there are apartments for rent in Penang and what the price range is like. That is how Mommy stumbled on this Malaysian property website called PropWall Penang. What is interesting about this website is that it offers various kinds of apartments or condominiums (and even houses!) ranging from the economical to the luxurious types, a choice of unfurnished, semi-furnished or fully-furnished types plus those that come with added amenities such as swimming pool, garden, gymnasium and panoramic seaview. The rental price ranges from as low as RM600 to as high as RM5000  per month for condominiums and house rental from RM1600 to RM8000. Of course if Papa wins the jackpot prize, then the rental price of a reasonably luxurious condominium of say RM3000 per month wouldn't be a problem, but if you are a working class person who wants to go for a one-whole-month vacation, then going for one advertised RM700 per month semi-furnished condominium in Sungai Ara, Penang would be a good option. That means paying only RM23.33 a day for one month to enjoy a vacation in Penang instead of paying hotel rates. Not just that, you can even bring along extended family members on vacation without extra cost on accommodation because the condominiums generally have 3 bedrooms.

Hehehe.....now let's just hope Papa hits the jackpot soon, then all this will be a reality. ^_^

Trip to Cherating: Final Day 3

As mentioned in the last blogpost, after the barbeque dinner, Mommy went back to the hotel room (after Papa and Juan Or went back first) and found Juan Or already asleep, and turned out Juan Or had not taken his bath yet. And he slept the whole night through without taking his bath!

OK, never mind, so the next day, after he woke up from sleep (which was very late - as late as about 8.30am, only half any hour more to go before Mommy had to attend another meeting), Mommy asked him whether he was ready to go for bath and his reply was in the negative. So Mommy forced him to take bath instead. So there he was, in the hotel room's bathroom, screaming and crying all the way while Mommy bathed him! Apparently he was uncomfortable with the bidet-cum-shower shooting water on him! Hmmm! After taking bath, he was a happy boy again! ^_^

Papa also managed to capture some sunrise photos on his handphone while having breakfast at the hotel's restaurant. See....Papa has more photographic eyes than Mommy, right?

And here's Mommy's version of a later sunrise.

Mommy packed our things into the luggage before going for the next meeting. Then by about 1pm when the meeting finished, Mommy ate lunch at the hotel's restaurant (Papa and Juan Or had taken their lunch their much earlier) and immediately left the hotel as Papa wanted to start the journey as soon as possible before traffic builds up. We reached the East Coast Expressway at 2.04 pm and came out at 4.04pm, reached the Karak Highway's first toll at 4.07 pm and the second toll at 4.46 pm. We finally reached our house by about 6 pm. That night, Mommy merely cooked pasta for dinner since we already had heavy breakfasts, lunches and dinners for 3 days. Papa was drained off his energy because of the long drive whereas Mommy felt stressed out coming back to a messy house with loads of laundry and chores waiting to be done! Hahaha....back to reality and routine!

P/S: Do mummies out there feel stressed out too coming back home after an enjoyable outstation vacation? ^_^

Trip to Cherating: Day 2 - Morning Sunrise, Beach and Stuff Crabs

On the second day, Mommy woke up early, at around 6.30 am and managed to capture the morning sunrise at the beach. Beautiful sight! Wish Mommy can wake up everyday to the sound of waves beating the beach and the beautiful silhoutte of trees at the beach.

By 7.00 am, we went for breakfast at the hotel's restaurant and after that we headed for the hotel's swimming pool. Mommy had purposely bought a float for Juan Or from Mr. DIY's shop for this purpose. Juan Or was very eager when he saw the swimming pool. But as soon as he realized that Mommy wanted to take off his diapers and change into his briefs, he started crying in protest, holding on to this his pants tightly! So in the end, Mommy gave up coaxing him to try the swimming pool, instead Mommy changed into swimming suit and took a brief dip.

After that, we headed to the beach. Once at the beach, Mommy attempted to remove Juan Or's slippers. And this boy seemed to be a 'clean freak'. Since one side of his slippers was already removed, he didn't know where or how to put his bare foot when Mommy tried removing the other side! ^_^ But finally he realized he was supposed to go barefeet on the sand. You can see his reaction that it gave him a funny feeling to walk barefeet on the sand, but eventually he got the hang of it.

We took some photos too at the beach just for memory's sake.

Here are some beach photos captured by Papa on his handphone (which is more capable than Mommy's handphone to get better quality photos!):

Then by 9.00 am, Mommy went for two more meetings, i.e., the Annual Programme Review meetings for Food Science and Nutrition and thereafter for Biotechnology degree programmes, this time merely as normal participant. While Mommy was away for meetings, Papa took Juan Or for a rounding at the Kemaman area, to which Papa bought back some satar (fish paste dumplings of their local Malays).

After lunch at the hotel, another meeting went on and then followed by team building activities. Luckily only two games were arranged for the team building activities, so by 4-plus pm, it ended. So Mommy quickly rushed back to the room so that Papa can take us out for rounding around the Kemaman town and to look for stuff crab.

Indeed we found the restaurants for stuff crabs at Kemaman. However, the more famous one (can't remember the name of the restaurant) was closed, so we settled for second best at Restoran Stuff Crab Kemaman.

Stuff crab is supposed to be the specialty dish of Kemaman and Cukai area, so we were eager to give it a try. The dish finally came and mmmmm.......it was very tasty - very pure, i.e., lots of crab meat in the stuffing, but it was quite expensive - RM7 for one stuff crab. Papa ordered four, so the whole dish was RM28.

After that we headed back to Cherating and on the way, Mommy asked Papa to stop at the same keropok lekor stall again to buy some lekors to eat, some seafood snacks and a packet of not-yet-fried lekors. The not-yet-fried lekors were selling for RM5 for 10 long strips (of the lekor). Mommy only bought one packet to try because Mommy wasn't too sure whether it will still remain good when we transported it back to Klang Valley without any refrigertion the next day.

Turned out, the not-yet-fried lekors still tasted good after three days since the last day of the trip (of course it stayed in the refrigerator after we got back home). Hmmmm......now Mommy regrets not buying more!

This is how it looked like before it's fried.....

.....and after deep-frying.

Here's the lekors eaten with the chilli dipping provided.

Now back to the trip again. We got back to the hotel, had a barbecue dinner (which did not taste nice at all!) at the hotel and then went back to our room., though not at the same time because Papa took Juan Or back first while Mommy continued eating. There was a meeting going on at 8.00 pm on the laboratory's strategic management, but thankfully Mommy was not required to be involved, so it was yippy time for Mommy to get to rest and relax in the hotel room! Same thing, Mommy tried reading newspaper, but because of the hotel room's dim lighting, Mommy felt very sleepy and went off to sleep by 9.30 pm. Same goes for Juan Or - he slept early too (in fact he already fell asleep when Mommy got back to the room) without needing any coaxing, and that's probably because of the room's dim lighting. So aren't hotel vacations good for both Juan Or and Mommy? Juan Or is able to go to sleep early and easily, and Mommy gets to have plenty of sleep and rest - something so rare for Mommy if in own home! ^_^

That sums up our second day at Cherating. Stay tuned for the third day.