Penang Notes 2008

The last leg of my trip in Malaysia is Penang. Here are some thoughts:

Queensbay Mall was meh. Queensbay is a beautiful place, but the mall was so-so. Until I got to Borders. Hah! See what I got!

It’s Tim Harford’s The Logic of Life. Haven’t read it yet. Will read it on the plane back to Australia.

It’s obvious that me finding the book changed my mood (yes, its because I got it at an awesome price that you can’t get in Australia). Still, Queensbay Mall is bleh… I’d rate MidValley Megamall as being a better mall than Queensbay Mall (that said, there are better malls than MidValley Megamall, with one just outside my house). It just feels… old and dated, despite having shops like Bakerzin XD.

Oh, I also saw CJ7 (that’s the whole reason I went to Queensbay Mall). Wait for the review soon.

Also, the traffic to Penang island is… CRAZY! I got stuck in the traffic jam for about 1 hour to get on the bridge (or ferry, it’s the same), then another 45 minute jam on the bridge itself (the ferry, by contrast, takes 20 minutes to reach). Oh yea… Penang’s transport authority is the only transport authority in Malaysia that recognizes a pick-up truck as a truck, and not a car. Bloody. Had to pay more for the tolls.

Speaking of traffic, the Penangites have really lame traffic. Everyone drives below 50kmph. On the highways! UUUUUUUAAAARRRGGHHH!!

Chinese New Year has been generally uneventful. I still think of writing an article on mahjong and game theory and combinatorics (I said that last year, but didn’t do anything). So, obviously, yes, I did play mahjong again, not too many rounds though. I was sleepy. And 10 year old kids play better than me. zzzz.

And believe it or not, today is the fourth day of CNY, and I still haven’t counted the amount of money I get from the ang paus. Busy packing XD. Count later (maybe update the Angpau Economics article)

And, ah… when one mentions Penang, one mustn’t forget the mention of food. Fooooood. Many stores were closed (for Chinese New Year, obviously), but I still managed to get turned down by the char kuay teow seller in Pulau Tikus (she fries her noodles using charcoal – just awesome), because there were too many customers.

I immediately thought of methods for her to actually be relaxed (and not be frantically trying to match up orders) and still earn the same amount of money – one must not forget the laws of supply and demand. Ah.. but reality and theory don’t always match up, do they (HT: Aaron Schiff)?

Ah, one last thing I discovered in Penang: Malaysia has an Atomic Energy Licensing Board. Yep. We have nuclear powaaaar in Malaysia (other than MINT). Wow… plenty of things I know not.
Oh well. Gotta go pack my bags. To Tou, Liss, and gang, see you real soon!