Penang

Week 34: 10/12/2012 - 16/12/2012

Dylan and I headed to Penang for the weekend in search of food and beer. Our Air Asia Chief Steward gave a hilarious safety briefing kicking off with:

"At Air Asia we take safety very seriously, we take YOUR safety very seriously. See. Look at the faces of the cabin crew. Soooooooo serious." 

First time I've listened to a safety announcement for a while.  

Beer and Food in CF Food Court

Due to booking late we ended up in a zero star motel. Our tiny room consisted of a double bed and a matress on the floor with a toilet in the corner barely enclosed with saloon doors. At least the air con worked. 

Friday evening we hit CF Food Court for some food and a few beers. It doesn't always pay to ask the locals where to drink, as afterwards we ended up at the weirdness of Bliss.... RM10 for a girl to talk to you... really?! We headed to Slippery Senoritas, which was entertaining. Unfortunately we switched to Whiskey and Coke which did not fit into the beer and food plan!

A dragon

We spent most of Saturday wandering the streets of Georgetown. We had a pretty good lunch at Sky Cafe (Chulia St), popped into Khoo Kongsi, visited the Clan Jetties of Penang, wandered past Fort Cornwallis, and then found a place for a couple of beer during the afternoon rain. My flip-flop broke as I crossed the road and I nearly got run over by a bus rescuing it!

We had dinner at the bustling hawker strip of Gurney Drive. All sorts of awesome food on offer, including Penang Koay Teow. You can definitely see the Chinese influence in the region. We headed up the road to Precinct 10 for our evenings entertainment. 

Some Ginger bloke

Sunday morning we managed to merge breakfast and lunch by moving straight from finishing Dim Sum at midday to ordering food at Restoran Kapitan 12:30! Kapitan was probably the best meal of our trip.

Secret Fong Wah

Week 33: 3/12/2012 - 9/12/2012

Hong Kong again? Why not, eh?

Friday: Isla, Fredel, Chris, Cicada, The Hennessy, Wan Chai.

Things I found out:

Chris Jack writes provocative messages on the Institution of Civil Engineer's message boards even though he's a Geologist.
Chris Jack rates irritating thing using Royal Mail Rubber Bands as a basis. ie... "That's Rubber Band Squared!"
Chris Jack can moan about anything (I already knew this).

Errrr, Fred? This isn't Cheung Chau.......

Saturday: Sneaked into Hong Kong Football Club for buffet lunch with Isla and Fredel.... then spent the evening at a Secret Santa BBQ at The Yacht Club courtesy of Fredel. Its good to have friends in high places.

Argh! Its a Lion riding a bicycle!!

Sunday: Awesome Dim Sum at City Hall, then a trip to Cheung Chau.... which actually turned out to be Peng Chau! We had a lot of fun riding a bicycle around followed up by some well earned sangria.

Christmas Punch

Week 32: 26/11/2012 - 2/12/2012

After a trip to the driving range with Charlie, we ended up in Bangsar police station, which suprisingly had nothing to do with the fact that I'd sliced about 30 balls over the safety net into the adjacent car park. Just a minor taxi accident requiring a statement. 

Charlie in Bangsar Police Station after we got shunted in a taxi

On Thursday I got a invite, quite randomly to the South Africa Ambassador's Cocktail Party, involving free wine and food. I made the most of it, which on a school night was not all that smart. I arrived into work 2 hours late on Friday!

Listening to the SA Ambassador's speech. Funny funny guy.

On Saturday I hosted my annual Mulled Wine event, in a completely different environment to Southville! It was supposed to be a pool party, but due to torrential rain from 3pm until 7pm, most time was spent huddling in the Gazebo (my condo bar).

Soooooo mature!

Good things about the Party:

1. People came, despite the weather
2. Pigs in blankets
3. Cheese and Pinaple on a stick (that's Christmas right?!)
4. Banter
5. Beer
6. Christmas punch (aka Mulled Wine)
7. Mince Pies
8. Bikinis

Bad things about the Party

1. Rain.
2. Tequila shots (Grrrrr..... Choi!!)
3. Mulled Wine (which was bascially wine punch, bits of jelly and ice cubes floating in it)
4. Trying to keep the bar staff from putting ice in the "mulled wine"
5. Being mercilessly mocked for the cheese and pinaple on a stick
6. Left over mince pies
7. Lack of Christmas jumpers
8. Sunday

Kareoke. Is. Fun?!

Week 31: 19/11/2012 - 25/11/2012

Having disrupted my in flight sleep, I ended up feeling a little jet lagged, so I had a quiet week. I did make some time to finally start painting my canvas.... Will it ever be finished... nobody knows.

Time for some whiskey......

On Friday evening I got invited out with the people I was supposed to have gone to Myanmar with (Zainab, Cory and Dylan), including my last minute replacement (Aimee). It was great to see everyone, but I couldn't help but feel a little left out of the holiday banter!! Any evening which ends up hanging out drinking whiskey and listening to rock is a great night in my book. Thanks for the invite Aimee!

Uke by the pool

Saturday the weather was beautiful, and after hanging out in Bangsar for a bit of lunch and a coffee, a bunch of us (spontaneously?!!!) headed back to my condo to hang out by the pool. It was lovely, kicking back and enjoying the sunshine.... until I noticed that I had no idea what anyone was saying..... I was surrounded by 3 Germans and 3 Austrians. I felt invaded!! After a few beers we headed for a bit of ten pin bowling. For a "relaxing" evening it all got a little bit intense. I nearly lost a shoe too!!

In order of appearance: Brunch, Baby Guinness, Jagermeisterbombs, jovial people, Odd Job, Dance floor clearing, photoshop.

Sunday was a champagne buffet brunch at the Intercontinental. Great to catch up with Marcello & Choi, Gavin & Ann-Marie and Becky, and meet Kev and ChrisTina. Civilized lunch rolled into afternoon drinking, shots, beer mat flipping, ball room dancing and then, obviously, Karaoke. A fun filled day, full of random conversations and silliness.

Farewell Blighty

Week 30: 12/11/2012 - 18/11/2012

As a bit of Thanks For Having Me I took my surrogate house mates, Juts, Susie and Dave, out for dinner. The usually family friendly atmosphere at Grounded was slightly disrupted, firstly when the waitress spotted me finishing my gravy with a straw (no spoons available), and then heard me saying "The whole fist Dave, the WHOLE fist!" whilst shaking my fist at Dave. Needless to say it was taken completely out of context.

Tuesday my big sister, Zoe, took me out for dinner at Raymond Blanc, which was great. The food was awesome, and we rounded it off with a couple of glasses of port.... which nearly came to the same price as the food!

Who wants to get the last tube home anyway??

Wednesday evening I was treated to Chris and Gemma's honeymoon photos..... all 1300 of them!!! I tried some of the chocolate that they had made too, very different from the Cadbury's.

Thursday I said my goodbyes in the Bristol Office, and then headed to Big London for the evening. Great to catch up with Briana & Mike, Nige, Howard, Tricky  Dicky and..... [drum roll please] Keke (couldn't avoid me forever!!). We headed to Vapiano, a kind of self service Italian restaurant, which was good fun. Some sensible people went home after dinner.... Three of us headed on to The Market Place (Howard's blog here) for a few more cheeky beers.

My flight back to KL was uneventful. I hardly slept at all as I was up and down so often... gotta keep moving.

50% German speakers...... Maybe I should learn. ACHTUNG!!!

Sunday evening I headed out with Lianne and Elke to the Sky Bar.... its nice to be back.