Penang

Last weekend, went to Penang with my family. Arranged by my uncle. Reached Penang on Saturday afternoon. Our first visit was to Toy Museum.

Toy Museum
Touted as the biggest toy museum in the world. I expected much from it. Entrance fee was RM10/adult and RM6/child, if I remember correctly. It was housed at an ex-club actually.

Inside, it was not like how I expected. It was quite dark and gloomy, and at some spots, dusty. At some places, the wooden floor was dilapidated and broken. The display shelf is very basic & most of the exhibits (if I call them as such) are haphazardly arranged. The exhibits mostly are figurines, figurines and more figurines. It failed to even amuse my 6 years old cousin. It's like looking at a teenager's personal figurine collection and nothing much. This place and items has potential, but just need more investment to further improve it.


Penang Hill
Went to Penang Hill on Sunday. To our surprise, so many people were there! First had to wait to get a parking spot, then had to wait more than an hour since ticket for the next train was full!

I imagined a breezy journey up, sitting down, relaxing and enjoying the scenery. Not gonna happen mate. When the train came, it was so jam-packed full. I would say, even worse than the Bas Mini Wilayah days. No air conditioning made things even worse. Tropical climate, no A/C, packed enclosed space with a lot of people, some of them foreign tourists, I leave that to your imagination...

The climb gradient was very steep. I almost thought it won't be able to make it up the hill. Really, really steep. Like vertical steep. It may not be that apparent in pics, but here's my attempt to capture it.

When we reached the top, it was like, uuummm errrr nothing. Really. OK nice view of Penang Island, but nothing else. The climate was not even comfortably cool since the hill is not really that high anyway. The only interesting thing to note is this binocular.

I believe this is at least 20 years old. I remember the last time I was here, I was still in primary school. Looking through the binoculars. And now it's still there! Great! And the magnification was also extremely good. I can clearly see the Penang Bridge. Can even count the cars on the bridge! Here's a view from on top.

After about an hour or so we left. In the end, I guess people came only for the train ride. In case you're wondering what so special about it, it is a funicular train. No, it's not funny! Here's an article on wikipedia: Funicular Railway

But yesterday in thestar.com, I just realized that Penang government is planning to replace it with a modern system. To me, without the train, Penang Hill is nothing...