Penang, Malaysia

Had a quick breakfast and then checked out. We had a 11:40am flight to Penang flying out of Subang, a closer regional airport. We reached in plenty of time (KL traffic is pretty bad).

Our flight was on time. We got a tasty gingerbread man as the in-flight snack - it was a very nice seasonal touch.

As we disembarked at Penang it felt like we had arrived at an island in the Caribbean. The architecture, relaxed feel, humidity and sea air, and British influence all reminded me of the Caribbean.

Took a taxi to our hotel, Coffee Atelier. It's built into a former shop house, and it's kept the old charm and quirkiness. Our bathroom is outdoors - it's covered, but the room itself is open air. I thought there would be bugs but there weren't any.

Had lunch at a little place on Lebuh Chulia. The only menu option is Hainan chicken rice, either steamed or bbq'd. You wouldn't think chicken and rice could taste this good. It was a successful start to eating in Penang, which is supposed to be a great foodie town.

Walked around random streets in the old part of Penang. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and has great looking colonial buildings. Plus the town sponsored a couple street art works in recent years. The last one in 2012 was a series of interactive murals by Ernest Zacharevic. He combines paintings with real life objects like motorcycles - and now people line up to take pictures with them. I had to wait almost 10 minutes for my turn to take a picture at the most popular ones.

We had dinner at Red Garden, a touristy night market. I tried the fish head curry. It was rather large, and tasted okay. It's a Carlsberg sponsored market, and so we celebrated Christmas Eve with some Asahi's. They serve the 660ml bottles in ice buckets, which serve as the equivalent of pitchers - you share the bottle, in smaller glasses. The waitstaff was too attentive -- after every sip they'd top up your glass.

The heat and humidity were a bit draining and so we went home and were in bed by 10pm. We should have kept our leech socks from Danum Valley - they're the same size and shape as Christmas stockings. But we didn't, so Santa didn't leave anything for us overnight.