Indonesia Trip 2019: Last day in Penang! (August 2nd)

Our last day in Penang involved heading up to Penang Hill to see what it was all about. It started with a fast and steep train of sorts up to the top of the hill. Once at the top, we took the mandatory panoramic shots from the hill overlooking the city below. We tried to find the place where we were staying at, and we were able to find it! Which was pretty neat.

We walked around for a little bit before deciding we wanted to go to The Habitat on the hill. We bought some food first (fried local cuisine) and entered the area. There were a lot of beautiful plants and butterflies. Supposedly some squirrels lived in the trees, but we were unable to find any.

 Among all of this greenery and plants, there are a few swings where people can just get on and swing. It's definitely an interesting experience, but a nice break for tired legs.

The big interesting thing about The Habitat (other than the plants and animals) is that there are bridges and walkways in the canopy, which looks very cool in their flyer, but when you get there, it's a bit underwhelming. However, there is a large circular structure above the tree tops, and when you go up there, you're debriefed on the rules (like no running or roughhousing), and in case of sudden bad weather, the person at the bottom would blow their whistle and everyone had to immediately go down. Definitely not a place to go if you're afraid of heights.

Another crazy thing was, we were apparently there at the same day some governmental person was there. I want to say some ambassador or secretary. It was interesting, since there was this huge crowd with a bunch of cameras just there with us. 

After a long day up in The Habitat (we spent nearly the whole day there), we returned to the hotel to have one last dip in the pool. Which is a pretty nice place since it's on the 11th floor of the building, and opens up to the city beyond.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Third Day in Penang! (August 1st)

We first visited the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, which is a chinese jewelry museum. Everything about it was ornate and gorgeous. The building was covered in carvings, and with every turn you'd find either beautiful jewelry, gorgeous tapestries, or dainty pieces of glass. It was very interesting for me because I also got to learn more about my heritage, and I got a key chain with my Chinese name on it!
From there, we went to Batu Ferringhi where most of the afternoon was spent playing in the sand and watching the sunset. My sister and I played with the rocks to build a rock tower (she was unfortunate enough to get wet), and my dad was determined to get some pretty shots of him doing yoga with the sun behind him.
For dinner, we ate at another hawker market (basically a street food, food court) and walked through the night market a little. There weren't many interesting things, so we headed back to the hotel where we were staying at.

Tip: Getting Around

In Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, instead of Uber or Lyft, we use Grab. It works just like Uber and Lyft. It's an app on your phone where you designate a pick up spot, a destination, and it tells you how much it costs. We've never had a bad experience, and the prices are very cheap when you're converting it to USD.
It's everywhere, in high traffic places like the airport, there can be a designated spot like this.

Or, you can just be driving on the street and you'll see a fleet of people in neon green driving by.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Day Two in Penang! (July 31st)

Since the reason behind the trip to Penang was for my grandfather to get a check up, that's what we did. It took us nearly the whole day to go through the whole process.

For dinner, we went to the Chulia Street Food Stalls. It was quite hectic, the moment we sat down there were probably three people talking to us in hokkien about how we needed to get drinks. It was quite hectic, even though I couldn't understand it.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Off to Penang! (July 30th)

My grandfather doesn't trust the doctors in Medan, so to get a doctor's visit, he goes to Penang, Malaysia. It's a couple hour flight, and all of us went together.

My friend happened to be in Penang on that day, and we really wanted to meet. The two of us met a few years ago over the internet, and through that time, we have worked on many collaborations together. It started with us singing a cover together, then she introduced me to more collaborations, and our friendship grew from there. We'd stay up all night chatting with each other about life, making jokes, and working on YouTube videos. She is the closest friend I've made on the internet, and since I happened to be flying across the world and would be in the same country, I told her about it. From there, we planned to meet in Penang. Time would be short, since she'd have to leave later the day I arrived, but a few hours was better than nothing.

Amazingly enough though, her parents were able to find a room in the hotel we were staying at, and booked a room to stay in. It was crazy, because then we were able to spend the whole afternoon and evening together. What was even crazier was I said "let's meet in the lobby," thinking that it was a public space and that there would be other people in the area (as a safety precaution). We ended up meeting in the elevator as we both went down to meet in the lobby. The stars must've aligned for us that day, because so many things went so well.

Since we hadn't eaten lunch yet, that was our next step. We (meaning my dad) decided to walk to a nearby Nasi Kandar with thousands of reviews on Google. It was sweltering hot, sunny, and humid. So it wasn't a great time. It would've been easier to use Grab. The line was extremely long, and we waited nearly half an hour in the sun before we could eat.

After that, we spent the rest of the day filming videos and singing together.

Tip: Norit

Now, if you are a foreigner (like me) coming into Indonesia, your stomach might not be able to handle the food very well. According to my cousin, street food and ice are especially dangerous. Ice because you don't know where they got that water from, so you can get food poisoned. So, what do you do when your stomach is causing a storm? Norit.

Image credit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/NORIT-ACTIVATED-CARBON-CHARCOAL-FLAUTULENCE-INDIGESTION-GASTRO-DISORDER-TOXIN-/233155712806

It is the only medication that I know in Indonesia. You may have seen things like this floating around the internet when the "black foods" craze was happening. It basically helps when you have diarrhea, so, if you're one of those poor people who are suffering from that while you're in Indonesia, search for this.

Indonesia Trip 2019: To Medan! (July 29th)

It was time to say goodbye to our family in Jakarta as we headed off to the next leg of our trip. One side of my family is from Jakarta, while the other side is from Medan.

We met my grandfather and more old friends of my parent's. We ate kwetiau, a dish with wide noodles with vegetables, eggs, and chinese sausage.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Back to Jakarta (July 26th-July 28th)

We returned to Jakarta in the morning, and for the rest of the day my sister and I took a nap...well, it's more of we went to sleep. I woke up for dinner, but my sister didn't wake up until around 15 hours later. For the whole trip we had been getting up early and going to sleep late, so naturally, we needed some time to catch up on our sleep.

The first thing we did on the next day was eat mie alip, which is some really good bakmi, noodles with chicken, some vegetables, and some wonton as well. I'm salivating just thinking about it! In the picture below, we're in the upstairs of the building, so if you go and there's a lot of people downstairs, considering going upstairs. It was empty up here while it was packed downstairs.

Then, me, my mom, and sister, went to Bogor, the place where my grandmother grew up. We visited the Botanical Gardens there, and happened to be there when the President of Indonesia was there. There are a lot of plants and very tall trees.

We ate some ngohiang, which is some vegetables, potatoes, and meat in a sort of gravy. It's very good.

Then, for dinner, we joined up again to eat Bebek Begil, or duck. This is more food that I'm just salivating while thinking about it. The tea with lychee is really yummy too! To get there, since there were a lot of us and we didn't want to battle the traffic, we used the MRT system.

The next day was also a quiet day. We went shopping, and also ate some martabak. There is martabak manis and martabak telur. Martabak manis is like a thick pancake with chocolate and nuts inside. Normal martabak is more savory and uses egg. Both of which are delicious, so if you have the chance, definitely try some!