What: RBKD in Penang: SG Members Visiting

When: 20-22 March 2015

Where: Penang

Participants: Allan, Bi Hui, Candice, Celest, Jiamin, Joanne, Peijun, Phyllis, Shu Pei, Weijen, Xinyi, Yeeling

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Weijen, Priority Member (Penang Member):

It is not an understatement to describe it as a dream come true when I knew a group of Rangels were going to make their way to Penang from Singapore. To me, it is like ‘finally!!!’ Because I had been asking them to come over here and I would bring them for best hawker food or whatever Penang has to offer Such a shame though as the trip did not coincide with our famous durian season here.

They touched down on Friday morning, as I was not able to get my leave, so they roamed around Penang themselves from the morning until evening after I knocked off. We rented a minivan (10 seater) because the public transport here is not reliable and getting around will be really tough without private transport. As soon as we met up in the evening, we went to pasar malam!! Our pasar malam here rotates at different locations every day in a week, so certain locations are more happening than others. Friday’s pasar malam is one of the top favorite pasar malam spots! Food-wise, a lot of 小吃 are more common here, rather than hawker food. Some examples are 豆花、Lok-lok、炸鸡、酿豆腐、臭豆腐 etc.

The next day, we met up early in the morning to visit one of the oldest wet markets in Penang: Chowrasta market. Personally, it is a market that I’ve always gone to ever since I was young. It is an old-school morning wet market with stalls lined up at both sides on a long alley. Then we were off for the set visit in the afternoon. We went there with 35 bak-kwa (again, her favourite! ) roti for all the production crew – the bak-kwa roti aunty is only open for business from 4pm, but as we needed it by 3pm, so it was considered a special order! Hahaha so privileged right.

Then it was dinner time, Rangels wanted some seafood. So I brought them to a seafood 老字号 restaurant in town. But to our disappointment, the dinner was not nice (but I had no idea why many customers thronged the restaurant ) Lesson learned: do not come for seafood in Penang, because if you really want some decent and relatively cheaper ones, you have to go to Teluk Kumbar, it is located at the outskirts of Penang, which is at least an hour’s drive from town. So better have hawker fare here la ok

Then we were off to our second set visit of the day, in the UNESCO heritage area of Penang. It was the popular tourist spot with all the murals. The alley the production team was filming at was really quiet and creepy. We did not have a picture together as she was filming a heavy scene which involved crying scenes. So she was literally sobbing when she was having a very brief chat to us – she came over to us to apologise for that before saying goodbye But we continued for our supper after that, for some traditional Chinese dessert and char koay teow. And what was amazing is that…we walked back from the kopitiam to our hotel!! It was around 15-20 mins walk and the reason I said it is amazing is that…I will never do that if I were not with Rangels… I never walked such long before in Penang! but then tourists 就是要一直走一直走的嘛……沿途才可以停下脚步，欣赏夜景，哈哈哈哈。

PS 1: Xinyi discovered the 虾米淡汶饼 (which I did not know is a famous Penang 土产 :p because I don’t like 虾米) at this shop that she said ‘can meet standard and nice’, so this shop also sells other kinds of biscuits and various 土产 e.g. nutmeg. So we went to this shop and all of us ended up 大包小包，even I also bought a few stuff (seriously this was my 1st time going to the shop -_-|| aiya this kind of shops locals don’t usually go hahaha), that sight of all of us carrying 大包小包， would have given people a wrong impression that I would earn commission from the shop for bringing over all these ‘customers’ hahaha

PS 2: I went to the airport to receive Rui En upon her touching down. I brought a few egg tarts and a sizzling hot Tomyam (her favorite! ) noodles for her as welcome gift haha. She said the Tomyam is nice, it made my day haha but then that was not considered the best Tomyam, to me personally, because to make sure the soup was hot enough, I could not afford to get it too far away from airport, so ya I had to settle for Tomyam nearby airport area.

That is all my sharing! Although the few days we spent in Penang were brief, but it was memorable!! After all 她们终于来了，瑞恩也终于来这里拍戏了。To a Rangel living in Penang, this means a lot. Thank you guys for coming, for all these memories. <3

IPC