We had bought some basic staples at a neighbourhood store yesterday. So, we had enough for breakfast. That coffee packet was not instant and needed to be strained. Today, however, we wanted to get out and get a lot of food and supplies.
After a bit of a slow start to the morning, we decided to take the bus to George Town. We are exactly at the end of bus route #301 which goes to Penang's main city. We will be using Rapid Penang transit during our stay although our apartment comes with a space in the building.
The traffic is a bit a problem in Penang. So knowing commute times is a bit impossible. I think it was a pleasant 50 minutes to get to Komtar. It took a whopping 2.80 Ringgit ($US 0.66) and our first goal was to find the ticketing office to get a pass. We didn't have any photos with us, so we got unlimited weekly passes for a week for $7.34 rather than one month cards.
I bought a Malaysian cell phone SIM and popped it into my phone. Then, we walked around a lot, trying to get our bearings. I love the fact I have personalized, internal maps of so many cities of the world. We visited George Town once but spent only a day or so in the capital of the Penang state. It is such a nice mixture of cultures.
We found the downtown Mydin, a large department store with reasonable prices. However, we were getting hungry and decided to board a bus on the gratis, downtown bus loop. As we were nearing the end we saw 'Little India' and stopped to pick up some spices and supplies which Jay will use in his cooking.
We also ate biryani, of course on authentic banana leaves.
It was getting on towards 2:00 PM and the hottest part of the day. It was probably about 31C today. So, we decided to go home after finding the Jetty, which is our bus's last stop in George Town. It took a long time to get back. Today was a national holiday and I hope this is why the roads were so packed.
After showering and relaxing we realized we had still not really picked up provisions. However, when coming back we spotted the stop for a major TESCO and also a shopping center complex which was only about 10 minutes away on the bus. We decided to take a trip to the Kompleks Bukit Jambul. We saw online that the major anchor store is now a Mydin.
Yup. It had everything and we bought three bags of groceries and I was able to swipe my Amazon Canada Visa card which has no foreign transaction fees. It was after 6:30 PM, so we also ate in the food court. My Nasi (something or other) was about 650 ringitt, or about US$ 1.60.
We got home late but I was able to use my Android box and watch the latest episode of The Orville. This is going to be a great three months ...