Work Play trip to Penang


The past two weeks we've been preparing our tender for an agency which kept changing venues resulting us having to change the traffic flow and the layout plan a few times. Because of these changes, the deadline has changed too. Corporations don't seem to understand the preparation involved in each tender, taking things for granted that we're only working on one project at a time. We give up on sleep just to meet deadlines.

We planned to submit the tender today only to be emailed (yes email, not even a call) that the event location has changed again.

We had planned a meeting in Penang tomorrow but had not booked our transport or stay as we couldn't decide whether to stay the night or not. 

When we got news about the extended deadline, we screamed in frustration and decided to go to Penang in the next two hours. My collague booked the hotel while I booked us the bus.

I am serious about promoting the arts in Malaysia. My company has the tech support. It's just that the market seems to be hesitant to invest in this technology. I'd love to see our museums to come to life.

This trip to Penang is in the hope to bring this concept to Penang. Our rickety carriage bus left from KL at 2.15pm and we reached at 7.30pm on the Island due to the evening traffic jams. We took a Grab Car 30 minutes from this quant Heritage house called Ke-Lan-Tan House.

ke-lan-tan House is a very well- maintained 2 storey tall building with 10 rooms. Three of the rooms are located at the ground floor and the rest of them located upstairs. Rooms are not numbered but named after famous Penang streets: Penang Street, Beach Street, Carnarvon Street, Light Street, Chulia Street, Pitt Street, Muntri Street, Campbell Street, Armenian Street and Kimberly Street. 

We stayed in Armenian Street which was cozy and clean with air-conditioning. We were set for a surprise. There was no ensuite bathroom. The unique style of ke-lan-tan House is, each toilet is located outside at the courtyard area.  Each guest personally holds the toilet key to our dedicated toilet during stay.

We were the only guests here tonight and the house custodian is a young, friendly chap. We made our way to Line Clear for Nasi Kandar. 





The entryway to the Courtyard where the toilets are

View From upstairs

DAY TWO

My colleague had already done her breakfast research. We're going to have a typical Penang breakfast. But first, she insisted we cycle there. I've not cycled for over 10 years I think! She didn't care that I wobbled while getting used to the very high seated bike. After making to the breakfast place alive, I had kaya butter toast with half boiled eggs and hot milk coffee. Devine!


The bikes we got from Ke-Lan-Tan house

Yummy breakfast at Toh Soon Cafe, 10 minute ride away from the house


A very happy me
We then cycled to the Penang State Museum and Art Gallery, didn't find the place suitable for our Digital Art and cycled back to our hotel.



We checked out and did some work on our laptops at a cafe nearby our next meeting.


A really nice boutique called Sixth Sense in Penang

From the back




We walked to our meeting after an hour, met some cool people and hopefully things will kick off soon enough.

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