The Korean school year begins in March, not September like we are used to in the States. This means that after our long winter vacation in December/January we went back to school for about 4 weeks and then the school year ended. In our opinion, coming back for 4 weeks seems like a waste of time as the students already have their final grades so they don't much care at all about school. Anyways, before the new semester started we had about a week of vacation time with which we decided to go to Malaysia with a coworker of ours, Lush. We decided to split the week between two islands: Penang and Langkawi.
We flew AirAsia, a budget airline that has its main hub in Kuala Lumpur. This was very handy for us since we were going to Malaysia anyways, so we found some nice and cheap flights. Now I must warn everyone, while these flights are incredibly cheap, they are also incredibly awful. We had flown AirAsia to Tokyo, and we were hoping that for longer flights (the flight from Incheon to KL is about 6 hours), they would have a nicer flight prepared for us. Nope. Tiny, upright seats and carts too large for the aisle they are constantly selling stuff (for those of you who like aisle seats, be ready to get some bruised limbs). BUT it was cheap and got us there safe, so it's all good and we really shouldn't complain.
Anyways, our first stop was in Penang, an Island on the Northwest Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. We stayed in Old Georgetown in a really nice hostel. While the people staying there thought we were obnoxious Americans, the hostel itself was quite nice. We had a private room with ac so we were happy. When we first got there we were quite exhausted from our day of travelling, so we ventured out just to grab some food before bed. Since Penang had been a refuge for Chinese immigrants, we found some great Chinese restaurants right near our hostel. We ate at a nice little noodle place for our first meal. Unfortunately, during our meal a torrential downpour began. Since it started off suddenly, we decided to wait it out. Not our best decision, as we sat there for about an hour before giving up and wading through the streets that had become rivers of water basically up to midcalf.
After our showers, we passed out (for about 5 minutes) before fireworks began. We ended up going during the Lunar New Year, which as most people know, is a very important Chinese holiday. We arrived on the 8th day of the New Year, where you burn certain mementos and light off fireworks. I guess the mayor of Georgetown even sang Karaoke at the town festival. We missed that.
We slept in a bit the next morning, but when we woke up we went out to explore town. The town is rich with mosques, temples, and remnants from when Penang was a French Colony. As Georgetown is quite small, we were able to hit all the sites that we wanted that day. We went first to a mosque that was near our hostel, Kapitan Keling Mosque. We got there a bit too early though, so were unable to go in.
 |
| Kapitan Keling Mosque |
Around that area, there was also a Hindu temple and a teochow style temple, Han Jiang Ancestral Temple, we were able to go into and take pictures.
 |
| Offerings in the Hindu Temple |
 |
| Han Jiang Ancestral Temple |
After, we were able to explore some Christian churches in the area on the way to an old colonial cemetery. The cemetery was beautiful with old tombstones - one of which read "Died at 21 years - Beloved Spinster."
We started to get a bit hungry at this point, so went for the Indian Muslim food for lunch from a nearby street vendor who looked quite popular. The food was amazing. As much as we both love Korean food, getting this change of pace was welcome as it was so different than what we have been eating for awhile. After we inhaled lunch, we swung by the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and then we headed over to the E&O Hotel for afternoon tea. Of the 3 of us, none of us have ever done this, so it was quite an event since we had to guess the proper etiquette while using the different tea tools. Plus we were all incredibly sweaty since we were walking around in the hot sun all afternoon in what felt like 1000% humidity. We did meet an American there who said it wasn't really that humid, we can't imagine what a really humid day during the summer months would be like after that.
 |
| Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion |
 |
| High Tea at the E&O Hotel |
We then walked off our lunch and tea treats while checking out Fort Cornwallis, which wasn't really much to see, but had some more information about the island's history.
 |
| Michelle and Lush taking in some colonial history. |
Our last touristy stop of the day was to the clan jetties. These are jetties that are of Chinese immigrants who share a similar heritage. We happened to get there right in time too for some more Lunar New Year celebrations. They were walking a very elaborately decorated boat through the jetties and placed it in the water. We were told they were going to sail it over to a temple a little ways away. We stayed until they placed the boat in the water, then decided to head out. That night we enjoyed a nice Chinese dinner before it started pouring rain at 8 or 9 pm.. again.
 |
| View from the end of the clan jetties |
Tuesday we woke up bright and early excited to head to the beach. The American we met who told us we knew nothing of humidity gave us some beach suggestions we decided to try out: Monkey Beach and Turtle Beach. While Penang is not known for its beaches, we still decided we wanted to check it out - after all we did most of Georgetown the previous day. The two beaches are part of the National Park so we were planning to maybe rent a boat to take us around. After an hour long city bus ride, we got to the national park to find out it was closed. Luckily for us, there was a woman who filled us in on all the details. What happened was, a boat of 100 Burmese immigrants came over illegally without any visas or passports, so the police closed down the national park in order to track them all down and catch them. So, we weren't too upset because that is a pretty good reason to close down the park.
 |
| The National Park off in the distance |
We then made our way to the beach a lot of people talked about, though it didn't get great reviews on anything we'd seen, Batu Ferringhi. While we decided to stay and hang out, it definitely was not the best beach any of us had ever been to. It was sectioned off into different areas for different companies to take people para sailing or where people could rent out jet skis. So our seating/swimming options were extremely limited. We were lucky enough to find a little spot in the shade of a not-so-popular para sailing company so they didn't care we were there. When we were beached out and hungry, we left to go to Gurney Drive, a group of hawker stands where you can get a variety of foods that Penang is famous for. Not a bad place. We also made a quick stop at the Floating Mosque, which if we were to go when the tide was in, probably would have been quite a site. But we got there when the tide was out, so it was just a mosque on sand. We also got shoo-ed away because we had come from the beach and were, therefore, a little inappropriately dressed with shoulders and legs everywhere. We had hoped that that night it would stop raining so we could go to a night market in Georgetown, but alas, it poured again. The hostel assured us this was not a normal thing.
Wednesday was our last day in Penang before we headed off to Langkawi. We had a leisurely morning where we just ate and walked around Georgetown a bit more. There is a ton of street art around town, so we used those as references to try to make our way around town with our remaining hours.
The flight from Penang to Langkawi is a nice 30ish minutes.. the kind where they say "you may now turn on your electronics" followed immediately by "please turn off your electronics." So that was nice. The remainder of our time in Langkawi was spent just hanging out with the other tourists and the manager of the guest house we were staying at. The first full day we went to a little island for a day where some people were able to fish while the rest of us just relaxed on a beach with absolutely no people. Right by it was a dense jungle filled with monkeys - devious monkeys that stole our Pringles.
 |
| Heading to our private island |
The next two days were also spent just laying around and exploring various beaches and a waterfall. One night we went to a night market which was full of different food stands and were able to try different Malay foods, such as coconut rice and some stews. Just like we found out in Penang, food in Malaysia is pretty phenomenal.
Overall, the trip was great. We are glad we took the time to explore some parts of Malaysia and it got us even more excited for our upcoming backpacking trip around Southeast Asia.
Anyways, our first stop was in Penang, an Island on the Northwest Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. We stayed in Old Georgetown in a really nice hostel. While the people staying there thought we were obnoxious Americans, the hostel itself was quite nice. We had a private room with ac so we were happy. When we first got there we were quite exhausted from our day of travelling, so we ventured out just to grab some food before bed. Since Penang had been a refuge for Chinese immigrants, we found some great Chinese restaurants right near our hostel. We ate at a nice little noodle place for our first meal. Unfortunately, during our meal a torrential downpour began. Since it started off suddenly, we decided to wait it out. Not our best decision, as we sat there for about an hour before giving up and wading through the streets that had become rivers of water basically up to midcalf.
