sight seeing was not really at the top of the itinerary in my trip to penang last week. it was more of an escape from the mundane routine at the office and to eat some good food and to stay at a nice hotel.
however there were 2 places in my to-do list as well, namely suffolk house and penang hill, and i managed to do them both. yeah!
anyway, the picturesque st george's church is too pretty not be captured again and again.
we went to suffolk house on our way back to the mainland.
while in penang, i saw a lot of small arrows with IS printed on them. i was wondering to myself all the while what it stood for. it wouldn't be for a wedding since no address was printed together.
i finally found my anwer when i reach suffolk house. the second sign under IS said 'to set'. i could only think of location set for shooting something when i saw that.
and true enough, when we reached the gate of suffolk house, the guard came rushing and said 'no tour, no tour'. the place offers tours to tourists besides their offer of meals. after i told the guard that i had a reservation for high-tea, only he let us in.
could these trishaws be props for the film?? or have they always been there??
there was a lorry loading things as you can see from the picture. they had actually finished shooting by then and was actually wrapping up. sob sob! it would be nice to witness something. anyway, some most of the areas were cordoned off and only the restaurant was not. one of the production crew did admit that they were shooting there but would not reveal the name of the production. she said i could always find my answer on google. and so it was what i did. my googling skill is not bad i would say hahaha.
with just IS, i managed to find out that the name of the epic period saga being shot here in penang is indian summers. it is about the final years of british colonial rule in india and penang snagged a part too due to its still existing colonial influenced buildings. bravo penang. the only cast member i know is the lady who played ron's mom in harry potter. the rest of the cast is not known to me.
i am not sure if they are still shooting in penang, but if you see the signs IS on poles, you can check out the places if you are keen to see filming in progress....or in my case, packing in progress.
this part of the estate was not open when we were there.....
but we still went and check out their settings.
this is a part of the restaurant area. it is dining back in time here and the serenity of the place is a bliss.
next up, the second penang bridge. it is super long....
and quite empty of vehicles.
long eh? this is like taken after the mid-point. i think we spent about 20 minutes on the bridge.
last but not least, penang hill. i wasn't really that keen on the hill actually. the thing that drew me there was the new funicular train. i was more excited to try it that checking out the view from the top. i guess the journey was more important than the destination this time around.
finding a parking space was difficult and i parked by the side of the road leading to one of the apartments around the area.
although the crowd was thick, buying the tickets was not much of a hassle as they were volunteers there guiding everyone. it is rm8 for malaysian adult. non-malaysian adult has to pay rm32 if i remember correctly. a non-malaysian child will have to pay rm15. the proof is in your mykad.
we waited for about 15 minutes before our ride came. it was an orderly queue and bearable. i had queued longer waiting for nasi kandar. lol
the new funicular train was really fast! it had no problem going up the steep hill at all and everyone enjoyed the ride....we especially enjoyed the ride down because we managed to squeeze into the front compartment and saw the whole route. check out the video at the end of the post.
on top of the hill, it was breezy and just slightly cooler.
i think this kacang putih stall has been around for ages. i could remember such a stall in my secondary school trip there. the stall operator must be making a lot of money selling here since his was the only stall selling kacang putih here.
this is a gimmick for people to part with their money and buy locks to seal their love on penang hill. i wonder if the management would regret it one day when the platform cannot hold the weights of all the locks there. see what is happening now in paris on ponts des arts. they better have a plan b.
this is from the peak of the hill. that area on the left is the train station and the lock platform.
the whole ride down penang hill on the train took more than 6 minutes. i have sped up the video so it only ran half of the time. the ride down was far steeper than what one sees in the video. there was one part especially after the mid station where it was so steep that everyone went 'ooooooooooooo'. it was like on a slow roller coaster there for a while. it was worth the rm8 i paid.
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