Time does fly fast, and soon it was 5 Nov 2004. My friend was sleeping soundly, but I had woke up before 7.30 a.m. My ears must have been sharp, I heard that the air-conditioner had stopped, and saw that many of the lights in the room went off. Upon checking with the hotel personnel, I found out that the hotel was now running on a generator, and was trying to rectify the problem of a power failure. Only certain lights could work during this power failure. It took about less than half an hour before the power went back to normal. My friend was sleeping so soundly that she had no idea that a power failure had taken place.
I had a late breakfast that day. It must have been the effects of the white wine that my friend slept so soundly and only woke up at about close to 9 a.m. So I spent my time in the room reading the newspapers and the book by Morrie Schwartz while waiting for breakfast time. Anyway, I reckon that there would have been a crowd at the restaurant if I were to have breakfast there right after the power fault was rectified. Furthermore, I had thought that it would be nice to have breakfast together with my friend.
After breakfast, my friend decided to spend time at the hotel's lounge to do some reading while I travelled out of the hotel to visit the Penang Museum. That was my plan to visit the museum, however, when I reached there by foot, I got to realise that the museum is closed every Friday. Maybe I did not have the luck to visit this museum.
Trying not to let my slight disappointments get over me, I walked towards the direction of Fort Cornwallis. This is the site of the first fort of Penang. Fort Cornwallis is the spot where Captain Francis Light first landed in 1786. It might be helpful to read one of the posts in my other blog to have a brief understanding about the history of Penang, and there you would read about Captain Francis Light (http://oceanskies79places.blogspot.com/2004/11/history-of-penang.html). When I was at the Fort, one of the staff gave me a short account of Fort Cornwallis. That gave a good start to my visit to the Fort.
Just after noon hours, I returned to the hotel. My friend decided to go to Gurney Plaza for shopping, so I obliged. We had Japanese food in one of the restaurants for lunch. It was acceptable, but could have been better.
I was happy for my friend that she had managed to find some things that she liked from this trip to Gurney Plaza. At least it would not be a fruitless trip for her. We had wanted to take pictures of the coastline along Gurney Drive in the early evening just before dinner-time but there was bad weather (rain and strong winds) so the plan had to be abandoned.
It was nice to have dinner back at Gurney Drive. This time, both myself and my friend tried the Penang laksa that my friend had on 3 Nov. The more I ate it, the more I thought it was good. The laksa was just right. The stall's hawker also gave good service. As it was drizzling slightly, he covered our bowls of laksa with plastic bowls to prevent the rain water from falling into the laksa, I thought that this was a thoughtful gesture of good service.
After dinner, my friend proceeded to one of the hair salon for a wash-and-blow. Our fourth day in Penang should have been more interesting to her than our third day.
Soon we left for the hotel. In the hotel room, we packed our luggage, preparing to set off from Penang the next day. Later, both of us went to hotel's ground floor. I surfed the internet at the hotel's internet corner, while my friend had a drink with an acquaintance whom she had made in Penang.
When we were back in the room, my friend had wanted supper, so I helped her call for the room service to bring up a plate of nasi goreng. My friend allowed me to sample it, and it tasted pretty good. It tasted better than our dinner the previous night.
I figured that I went to bed after midnight, much later than I had originally planned to. I guessed that in my dreams that night, I must have been seeing pleasant memories of my trip in Penang.
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