I'm glad that I get the opportunity to visit a friend in Penang. The transportation issues gave me a headache at first but I had to admit that it was easier going there by a bus than a train. It's much more convenient as it's nearer to Butterworth Jetty. Once there, friends came by to pick me up. (Lucky aren't I, I'd probably got lost without them once in Penang ^_^!)
On the very first day, we went to Queensbay watching Tron and hang out by the sea side. Then, we went to Botanical Garden. The Lily Pond actually got many tortoise hiding under it's leaves. When I opened my eyes widely, I saw around 10-20 of them. They really like to play hide-and-seek. The monkeys are cuter than the ones at BMI. They ate loads of leaves. I saw three of them and I think they saw me too. My camera was making lots of noise. When I approached one of them, it didn't ran away as I suspected but they kept eating leaves. I guessed it was quite used to human presence.
After that, we saw a bus coming and we made a run for it. Luckily, the bus driver said it would be another 20 minutes before we can board it. Thus, we make another run toward a nearby mosque. That night, we went to "Pesta Sungai Nibong". At first, I saw lots of stuff being sold at cheap prices. What really caught my interest was a book shop that sold books at 20% discount price. Unfortunately, there's no discount for comics. I was hoping to buy them, but I had second thoughts.
Somewhere around the corner, I saw this wicked looking games. Genting Highland was nothing as extreme as they do. Everything rotates 360 degree either the most extreme game or the mildest one! The craziest of all was the "Bone". I'm not sure of it's real name but it looks like that. It was 4 storey high and has 4 seats at each end. There's only two ends. When the Bone rotates the seats rotates with it. I felt like puking when I watched them from below. In the end, we tried the "Car Bumper". We'd just crazily bumped into another car and get bumped as well. I felt sore after one ride let alone two rides!!
The most meaningful event was the "Quadratids Meteor Shower". It was raining the whole day and very cloudy. My heart sank when I saw that the sky haven't cleared yet at 12 a.m. Subhanallah, the sky suddenly cleared an inviting us to observed them! At 2 a.m. we packed our stuff and walked all the way to a USM Muzeum. We laid out the carpet on the field and make ourselves at home. I saw the Orion Nebula, Gemini, Sirius, Venus (that looks like half moon), Saturn (with its cool ring) and Showering Meteor!! We counted around 30 of them on 4th Jan 2011. I learned a lot from my friends and Dr Chong.
Although we didn't get to see fireballs I'm really thankful to Allah for this chance to experience wonderful events. I made new friends, learned new things and of course tightening the bond between my friend. InsyaAllah, I'll explore more on astronomy. They're very fascinating!!
