25th December 2010
Morning view from the window of our hotel room
Preparing to go out
Front view of the hotel
Our first stop was Kek Lok Si (极乐寺). It is a Buddhist temple situated in Air Itam and is one of the best known temples on the island. It is the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia. For more information of the temple you can visit here.
On our way there, we had a feeling that the Malaysia police force was running out of operational fund as they had to put up advertisement banners at the police station. The striking red of AirAsia ad was very contrast against the blue police building.
We parked our car at the foot of the hill where the temple is located and walked our way to the temple.
The stray dogs around the area doesn’t seem to be afraid of humans walking beside them.
In order to reach the temple, we had to ascend a stairways covered with rooftop. Along the stairways there are stalls at both sides of the stairs selling souvenirs. It was a fairly easy walk. Just followed the crowd and the route and you will definitely not get lost in this pathway.
Before arriving at the temple, we first came to the Liberation Pond (放生池). This is a place where many tortoises are cramped in a small pond, waiting for people to feed them with vegetable.
People looking at tortoise? Or tortoise looking at people?
Pokka Green Tea ad :p
The pagoda which was built in 1930
Valerie with her cute lomo camera
There’s no entrance for visiting the temple, but a small fees do apply if you want to visit the big Buddha temple and the pagoda. It’s just a mere RM2/person and the fund will be used for the maintenance for the temple.
Valerie at the entrance of the big Buddha temple
We did enter the big Buddha temple but didn’t go up the pagoda because we were a little lazy to climb the stairs :p
Next stop would be the 30.2m bronze statue of the Kuan Yin (Goddess of Mercy). There are 2 ways to reach there, one is by driving to the top of the hill, the other way is by the inclined lift. We chose the latter. We followed the signboard in the temple and reached the ticket counter easily.
The ticket price per person is as follow: Adult (13 & above) – RM ( 1 way), RM4 (round trip); Children (7-12) – RM1 (1 way), RM2 (round trip).
The crowd is queuing up and waiting for the inclined lift.
This is how the lift looks like from the outside
The lift can fit around 20 adults. Luckily it was air conditioned inside.
At the path leading to a temple beside the the Guan Yin statue, there are statues of the 12 zodiac animals. Valerie and I didn’t miss the chance to have a photo with our own respective zodiac animal.
The boar
The snake
A shelter was contructed for the Kuan Yin statue from 2005 to 2009. 16 carved dragon pillars were built to support the roof. The construction was inaugurated on 6 December 2009
I have read or heard before saying that the Kuan Yin statue faces the iconic landmark of Penang Island – KOMTAR (Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak). From what I heard this configuration based on Feng Shui. The KOMTAR building looks like a huge josticks/incense sticks and the Kuan Yin statue is always being prayed. This bring good luck and fortune to Penang Island. Rumour or not, it sounds quite convincing to me.
2 Luohan statues in front of the Kuan Yin statue
One can actually get a good aerial view of Penang Island from here but we wasn’t really interested to stand under the hot sun for very long so we left this place after some photos.
We took the lift back down to the temple, followed the staircase that we took earlier and back to the foot of the hill.
It’s time for lunch. I missed the Asam Laksa so much that I insisted to have lunch there. It is a stall just opposite the Ayer Itam wet market and one will easily spot it because of the huge crowd. I highly recommend this place if you’re planning to visit Penang.
It was RM3 per bowl. I could still remember that it was only RM2.50 per bowl 2 years ago when I was here. Inflation sure has came into the picture. Nevertheless RM3 for a bowl of noodle is still a bargain to someone from KL.
We also ordered some fried Po Piah (The owner sure has a unique way of naming the stall)
We left Ayer Itam after lunch and drove towards the city of Georgetown to explore the city. We found a parking lot, parked our car, and started our exploration. We took a few photos during our journey.
KOMTAR – Huge josticks?
Some old building structure
Wondering what they’re up to…
We walked around KOMTAR building as well as the Little India area. The place basically is a squarish area enclosed by four streets: Queen Street, Market Street, China Street and also King Street.
It was so hot that we headed to McDonald’s for Sundae cone
Very considerate “blind” so that people won’t know their head when entering
Structure and infrastructure around the area
Animals
Walking under the hot sun surely dehydrate us quickly. Fortunate enough for us, we “accidentally” found this stall selling Cendol which was crowded with people. Seems like it’s pretty famous.
Sure looks tasty
Where’s this place? look up this street on your map 
Rich man ride – an LV motorcycle
It was so rejuvenating after a icy cold Cendol. Time to walk again. I think the icy feeling struck my brain so hard that I headed over to a camera shop “Click n Snap” which is located at the ground floor of KOMTAR, and bought Valerie a Canon S95 compact camera as her Christmas present. She had been complaining about using my 7D because of the weight. After that, it’s time to head back to the hotel to grab some rest before dinner.
My presents to Valerie
Hers to me
It’s time for dinner after some rest. We didn’t want to go too far for food so we headed to the open air food court beside Gurney Plaza. We could walk there but still we were too lazy to walk for 20 minutes so we drove there and parked our car at Gurney Plaza.
Penang is famous for delicious food so we were eager to try as much food as possible. These were what we got:
Coconut
Char Kuey Tiow
Po Piah
Curry Rojak
Fried Oyster
Otak-otak
Valerie enjoying every bit of the food
After filling up our empty stomach with all the food, it’s time for some exercise. Time for window shopping at Gurney Plaza. In my opinion, this place is better than Queensbay mall although it’s smaller and has less shop. The experience here is better and more comfortable.
Christmas decorations
After window shopping, it’s time for a slow stroll along Gurney Drive. I supposed that it was Christmas day and the next day was Sunday. There were a lot of people. the place was filled with family, couples and friends. We bought fruit rojak and sugarcane juice, found a empty space and sit down by the shore, and enjoyed our rojak, chit chatted and a photo session.
We spent almost an hour there before we went back to the hotel. Next day would be our last day in Penang.
