violist

UA 173 BOS SFO 0818 1145 752 2D Empower N Ch9 Y

Left the club late and swam my way to the front, saying hi
to Joanne en route. The red rope opened, and I was in a
sea of people clogging the jetway. Usually I don't board
in the middle of boarding, so this was kind of a new
experience. The plane was welcomingly cool. Predeparture
bevs were offered, the usual.

A minor delay caused by one of the ground crew apparently
having noticed an anomaly in one of the cargo doors; a
mechanic shortly came out and pronounced the plane ready
to fly; but by that time, our slot was history. We took
off maybe an hour late.

An efficient cabin crew, eager to please.

Breakfast was the usual omelet or fruit plate, except that
the cereal with the fruit plate was Crispix, rather than
whatever used to be served (I think Product 19 or somesuch).
As I had a cough, I asked for hot water with lemon and Jack
to see if that would calm it. The FA said, I'm taking
breakfast orders. I said, making a croupy sound, that is my
breakfast. He asked if it was an emergency. I said, no, but
it'll stop me coughing. He hustled to the galley and got the
other F FA to fix it for me. It worked, sort of, and I was
in the land of nod for most of the flight. Heard on Channel
9 during a lucid moment: complaints from various pilots
regarding circuitous routings in the midwest, answered thus
by ATC: "A lot of you guys have random reroutes into O'Hare,
dunno why."

We landed 30 late.

I was all set to hustle to the bus, but Hong Kong, Incheon,
and Narita pax were asked to stand aside, and I had high
hopes for a special bus to be sent over for us. No such luck
- as it turns out, we waited a precious 5 minutes with a
growing knot not helped by an agent bellowing "Asia
connections" and motioning people over; so instead of being
in front, we Hong Kongers, for whom the other pax had more
or less kindly let us go, were trapped at the back of the
mob. Another agent came by and told us to run behind him -
to the same bus; between gasps a 1P customer and I asked
him whether we were just going to the regular bus. Yes, said
he, you know about the bus? But then he said, between gasps,
that he could do something we couldn't do on our own, that
being get us to the head of the line. So we got to the head
of the line, despite the protests of numerous people with
20 minutes or even 40 minutes more than we. The bus should
perhaps have left with just the 869 people, but instead it
waited to be packed with SEL, NRT, and SHA pax. Luckily,
869 had, unknown to us, had its own mechanical issues, which
were resolved satisfactorily, and we were off from the gate
half an hour late and sat another half hour or more on the
ground. All that running for naught!

UA 869 SFO HKG 1240 1800+1 744 15A Empower Y Ch9 ?

Only two audio channels were working, and not number 9, but
the video ones all did, so I watched a movie about the
elderly Rolling Stones and then contented myself with the
Airshow, which other than telling us we had been in the air
for 21 hours was fine.

An unsmiling but attentive Chinese FA and a pretty and
charming Indian one: both gave good service.

to begin

T Sweet crab salad on fresh bok choy
Organic yuzu-miso vinaigrette

This was a decent amount of watery thawed crab, fairly good
in flavor though stringy-mushy in texture; the vinaigrette
was quite nice, and I used it on the salad as well.

Fresh seasonal greens
Classic Caesar or balsamic Dijon vinaigrette

Among the seasonal greens was an extremely stemmy but
deliciously peppery mizuna; also a little treat of grilled
asparagus, two tiny spears, hidden among the leaves.

main course

T Thai barbecue braised boneless beef short ribs; Yukon gold
potato puree, sauteed baby bok choy and caramelized pearl
onions

A 5-oz chunk of very tender chuck, not bad at all, in a
sweetish and not Thai at all gravy. The potato stuff was
crusty outside and chilly inside and tasted unpleasant, with
a varnish taste that one associates with rancid black pepper
but with no pepperiness. The vegetables were okay.

Shrimp and scallops with ginger, garlic, spring onion sauce
Steamed rice and green beans, carrots and corn

Mongolian chicken with spicy kung pao sauce
Stir-fried egg noodles and Chinese broccoli with mushroom

dessert

International cheese selection
Kerrygold Vintage Cheddar, Port-Salut

Eli's Creme Caramel Cheesecake

I asked for one slice of Cheddar; what came was one slice of
Port-Salut. After puzzling for an inordinate aeon over her
cheatsheet, the FA corrected thus. The Cheddar tasted like
plastic. Sandeman Founder's Reserve, a mediocre Port that
I have come to like because of repeated encounters, went
well.

midflight snack

Sandwiches, Lay's baked chips, Ghirardelli chocolate,
granola bars and other assorted snacks
Hot noodles are available upon request

prior to arrival

Beef pastrami on a multi-grain roll
Oven-roasted fingerling potatoes

This came as turkey and cheese on white roll, no taters.

Fresh seasonal fruit plate with creamy yogurt
T Items designed especially for United Airlines by Charlie Trotter.

violist

We actually landed pretty much on time, and I hurried to the
Royal Orchid for a shower (better than the RCC HKG showers
but I think not so nice as the RCC NRT ones) and a snack.
The mains are superior to the RCC and to those of the old
Royal Orchid; the dim sum are not:

eggplant stuffed with fish paste - excellent, restaurant
quality;

roast chicken with lemongrass - good, thigh and leg meat
with skin in a very savory marinade.

For the rest:

dim sum stuffed with pork and fish paste - somewhat nasty;

dim sum stuffed with fish paste - quite nasty;

dim sum stuffed with water chestnuts and fish paste - nasty.

San Miguel Pale Lager was nice.

Used the wireless and then went down to the gate just in
time to board

0611 UA 895 HKG SIN 2000 2335 744 15A Empower N Ch9 N

The upper deck was maybe 1/2 to 2/3 full; the lower deck
was quite empty. The extremely attentive UD FAs were
charming but not in that husband-hunting way that I see all
too often (perhaps I should be flattered, though?) on the
Asian-based carriers.

Duval-Leroy Champagne, before and during the flight, was
creamy, lemony, yeasty, pleasant enough but all in all
unmemorable. I passed on the Supreme Nut Mix.

The wine choices: Ch. Longbosq Medoc 05; Warburn Barrel
Matured Shiraz (Barossa) 07; Liberty School Chardonnay 05;
and Selbach Riesling Kabinett 06. I had the Warburn, as
I'd not tasted an 07 wine yet. It was not unattractive,
lightly vanillaed with nice berries. Your standard one step
above cheap swill wine. It went well with my main course.

Interesting cost-cutting measure: the FA cheerily offered
a printed menu, and after giving time for a quick perusal
of the main course (beef or salmon) snatched it back. Only
one menu for the cabin, apparently.

A salad looked a bit sad, but I ate it anyway. Dry, as the
dressing offered was a Caesar from Australia.

The meal seemed as if it had been catered by someone from
Des Moines who had never encountered Chinese food except
from descriptions in a book. It was wholesome.

Three equal portions, strewn randomly in the dish. The
beef was in black bean sauce - it was six big nearly 1-oz
chunks (from the chuck), expertly chemically tenderized,
in a thick cornstarch-based goo with some black beans for
color; this was sided by unintentionally crusty rice. There
is this old Chinese mama saying "for every grain of rice you
leave, the farmer sheds a tear"; I bore this in mind, so my
farmer did not weep too copiously. A vegetable medley
consisted of asparagus, snap peas, and a water chestnut; it
was mushy overcooked but okay.

Dessert was offered as "chocolate meringue in raspberry
sauce" - turned out to be a chocolate raspberry Bavarian
with a dollop of artfully-placed raspberry puree, as pretty
as a picture and as good as your fancy schmancy restaurant.

There was no entertainment or laptop power anywhere on the
upper deck. I used this poor box until the battery ran down
and then went downstairs to charge up. The FA presiding
upstairs escorted me down and introduced me to a downstairs
FA, who offered me any seat in row 22, 23 A or B, or any
seat in the middle section! I took 22A but switched to B
when it turned out that the folding table was defective.
Oh, United, please fix your equipment! It's embarrassing.
The lower deck FAs were extremely attentive, though not so
appealing as the ones upstairs. I guess it was downstairs:
please marry me and take me far far away; upstairs: you can
marry me if you like, but I can take care of myself, thanks.
All the FAs were based in Singapore.

I was bowed out of the plane in embarrassing fashion.

1P

Congratulations on avoiding this undistinguished offering from UA. I've not recently had a French red on UA that is in any way acceptable, apart from Chapoutier's Côtes du Rhone, though some of the French whites are OK, and even really rather good. The new world reds are much better.

violist

When I reserved at the Ambassador Transit Hotel, they
assigned me to the old one in T1, which I approached with a
bit of trepidation. Turns out it's much improved from the
old days, when it was a ramshackle operation with an overall
mildewy odor. Some consternation at the front desk when I
neither had an onward boarding pass nor knew what flight I
was leaving on. All was okay, one of the clerks looked it up
for me. I received a big 3-bed room overlooking gate D40;
rather nice accommodations considering it's just a transit
hotel. The shower, which was one of the worst features of
the old version of the hotel, was quite pleasant, and the
bed was more than acceptable. Up early to go surf the web
(FT mostly) and check out the Golden Lounge.

At the transfer desk the girl asked for my previous flight
boarding pass, for which I fished around for a while; I sort
of wonder what the consequences would have been if I had
not found it eventually. There was no record of my seat
request, which was okay as I was seq 1 and got my first
pick anyhow.

At SIN, the Golden Lounge is a smallish plain area with some
entertaining amenities - leg massagers, for example, I guess
to drive away those nasty DVTs, and a tiny game room for
spoiled kids. A shower, but I didn't use it. A prayer room.

Not very many people use the lounge, it appears. During my
stay, I figure there were never more customers than staff.

Standard continental breakfast fare - pastries, cereal,
milk, juice. A nicer Asian breakfast, though - chicken curry
(quite good, especially with the tangy anchovy sambal that
you could add) and coconut rice. Strange old western savory
food in the cooler - ancient portobello salad, mushy-looking
sandwiches. Also a few kinds of beer, plus Johnny Black and
a couple other lower-to-middle-shelf liquors.

I had two helpings of chicken curry and two glasses of
passionfruit juice. Spent most of my time in the business
center reading FT - I hope I replugged in all the wires that
I'd unplugged there to make myself comfortable.

0612 MH 652 SIN PEN 1105 1230 734 2F

The seats are the big clunky old ones that I haven't seen
since the days of the DC-10, or was it 8. Mine had its gears
stripped so I kept reclining against my will; but I really
wanted that row 2 landview window. Those funny wedgy foot
pillows. The front cabin was 6/16 and felt very exclusive,
something that happens when people have to pay to be there.

A very deferential, pretty (in her later 30s I think),
slightly spooky for her intensity cabin attendant. She
kept my water glass full and later my wine glass, until I
made it quite clear that I was about to float out of there.

Cold towels before the meal.

She represented the meal offerings as "fish curry, rather
spicy, or chicken pasta." Of the 6 in biz class, 3 had the
fish curry, and the others didn't eat. The dishes came still
wrapped in their foil (oddly; maybe she wanted to make
sure they stayed hot).

The dish was tripartite again, but this time three neat
stripes, green, white, and yellow. The green (actually with
red) was a delicious sambal green beans; white quite
ordinary, even below average, plain steamed rice; the
yellow a sizable serving of two kinds of fish - one a sea
bass, tender and rather oily, the other with firm compact
fibers, rather tough, though at the same time, if you
approached it from a different angle, mushy - in a most
tasty turmeric coconut cream sauce.

Dessert was black sticky rice (yum) with agar-agar,
slightly spoiled for me by a condensed milk sauce.

An unoaked Chardonnay from an Aussie house I was not
familiar with was fairly nice, creamy, with pear and
tropical fruit.

Hot towels after the meal.

Cocktail peanuts after the meal as well, with one of the
water fillups.

Extraordinary landing - as though we were going into a huge
side wind; we landed on one wheel and then teetertottered it
a fair ways before settling down. But the tree leaves that
I could see looked pretty quiet.

Rather cute airport with maybe half a dozen jetways. Customs
and immigration was a snap, though I held things up asking
for a customs form: there are these big posters saying, you
must have a filled-out customs form in order to enter the
country, otherwise you are liable to an RM2000 penalty.
I was told they don't bother with that stuff any more, and
so it was.

opushomes

getting to the part for which I have been expectantly waiting. Please tell us why one should travel to Penang? Where to indulge and where to park our sleepy heads. Does it include water, sand and sea creatures since fat pork belly can be found in venues like Nashville, Memphis and Boston? Note to Author, fat belly and Vytorin are not complementary except in a health-related way.

violist

1P: I was perfectly happy to miss Ch. Longbosq.

Opus: unfortunately, my immune system betrayed me, and
I can only sketchily answer your queries.

Short version:

I went for a change because this is where Singaporeans go on
food holiday; I'm not so sure that I am inclined to agree with them.
As I got sick, I will give the town another chance sometime, though.

The charm and the anti-charm are both in the non-urban-renewed
nature of most of the city (quaint and historic if you like such things;
smelly, ramshackle, dirty if not).

The beaches aren't great, but the water is warm.

I enjoyed the Traders Hotel, though its neighborhood is relapsing
into a neo-non-urban-renewed condition.

violist

Oh, yeah, and I figured it had to have something going for it if
SQ can fill 3 777s a day to a town of 300,000 (the whole island
is under 2 mil).

violist

One thing I forgot to mention about the staff at the Golden
Club - they kept encouraging me to eat more, not that I
look malnourished or anything. I'd guess that as almost all
the other users were white folks, I may have been the only
one to partake of the Malaysian breakfast, and it would be
such a pity to have cooked that big pot of curry for naught.
===
The arrivals hall is ramshackle and insufficiently air
conditioned, its untidiness only partially masked by low
blue lighting and the presence of a couple of costume
jewelry stalls. A halal eatery on the left, Kenny Rogers
Roasters on the right. A tourist bureau desk personed by
a most bored-looking woman who clearly appeared not to
expect to have to do any advising.

My taxi, hired from a central booth that uses a voucher
system (as far as I can see the only way available to get a
taxi), cost a surprising RM47; on the other hand this was
from the south end to the north end of the island. And as
it turns out, the 10 or so miles took 45 or so minutes,
the traffic being horrendous even in the middle of the day.
Boy, the scooters play chicken with you!

The Naza Hotel is a modernish, pleasantish hotel on the
north side of the island. Helpful staff, restaurant with
decent prices, good location (beach just a stone's throw
away). I got a "studio suite," actually a quite large room
with a balcony sort of overlooking the water; it was,
though, only on the second floor. Can't complain for
something like RM150. It appears to be a small-town and
rather conservative place, with signs reading "no visitors
in rooms after 11:00 pm" and "children under 12 must be
accompanied by an adult"; also, it appears no alcohol on
premises. Not a big deal, I could use some drying out now
and again. All the women I encountered, guests and staff
alike, wore Islamic garb.

The guest guide reveals more cautions:

DURIANS & MANGOSTEENS - No durians and mangosteens are
allowed in the hotel premises.
DRESS CODE - Smart casual is the General Dress Code at
the hotel. Kindly be advised that slippers and singlet
are not allowed in the hotel.

One oddity that particularly struck me: if you use the
wireless in the lobby, it's free; in the rooms, it's
RM20 a day - not a huge amount by big-city standards, but
I wonder if it's just a disincentive for guests using the
Internet for nefarious or immoral purposes. I used the
wireless in the lobby.

Room service offers such delights as

SPAGHETTI BOLONAISE - Freshly cooked and topped with a
rich ground meat sauce flavoured with tomatoes and basil
CHICKEN CHOP - Deep fried boneless chicken serve with
crispy salad and French fries, covered with oriental sauce

as well as the usual beehoon noodles, Hokkien char mee,
char koay teow, and spring rolls. The main courses here run
RM10-18. Interesting to find a hotel restaurant where the
main courses top out at $6.

I was tempted by spaghetti bolonaise or perhaps chicken
chop, but in fact after my walk on the beach (which is
not the best or cleanest in the world, but ok) had eaten
at the Golden Sand Bay View Food Corner, a slightly seedy
hawker center that nonetheless is the only one on the
tourist map of the north shore of the island. I got a
filling plate of mee goreng and Tiger beer for RM9, mostly
for the beer. The mee goreng was rather gummy noodles but
totally smothered in sambal - it's almost as though the old
lady had seen me coming. The odd bits in this version were:
dried squid tentacles, slices of pressed tofu, bits of
anchovy, fried onion, cruller, and shreds of romaine. Also
a vegetable chip of some kind, almost papadummy. Here too I
had been intrigued by a stall offering Italian food
including the famous lamb stew spaghetti. Not enough to drop
RM7 on it, though.

Back to the room, where I had a lovely view of the sunset
over Batu Ferrenghi with weird cloud formations in the
distance.

The bed was quite nice, equipped with four pillows, one
soft, one firm, two strangely corrugated.

Breakfast, which comes, is no-frills but okay. Congee, plain
mee goreng (I added garnishes from the congee), nasi goreng
with fish, and for you westerners, cereal, fresh fruit (dead
unripe white and green melon, okay yellow watermelon),
salad, chicken sausage, French toast, scrambled eggs. Oh,
and a big full-size tray full of sambal. Guava juice, Lipton
yellow label tea, and coffee.

It turns out there is a bar of sorts after all, stocked with
bottles of improbably brightly colored liquids, like the
prole's imagining of wine in Orwell's 1984. I didn't check
to see if any of the liquids were offered for sale.

P.S. Update on the okay part. Shortly after this meal, I
got dysentery. It could have been from the chiffonade of raw
romaine on my mee goreng the night before, which I doubt,
because usually things like that happen to me almost at once
- but in any case it made the next days uncomfortable. And
worse, made me skip several meals.

violist

I moved on to Traders Hotel, downtown, fka/aka Shangri-La,
as I had got a RM175/nt rate. One can still get bargains in
Malaysia.

Checked in at noon, which was two hours early; a courtesy -
no fee for this, as my room had just been made up anyhow.
In gratitude, and because I was spending but 8 hours in SIN
on the way back and decided not to do the transit hotel
again, and because the SKL at the airport closes between
6 and 7:10, I booked 6 extra hours at the other end for
RM100. The staff was uniformly polite and helpful.

The lobby is pretty (not gorgeous). The room likewise, about
the same size as at the Naza but with an even nicer bed.
Also, it is the best-smelling hotel I've found in Asia: no
mildew and also no lemon grass to mask the smell of mildew.

Internet is RM25 a day.

I was feeling mighty crappy and so skipped lunch and dinner
in favor of blessed sleep. Still, my tummy hurt, my bladder
hurt, I was doing projectile things, my joints hurt so that
I could hardly walk, north of my neck was all a huge
headache, and my left ear felt as though a large wasp were
inside stabbing furiously.

Decided I couldn't spend forever in bed, so tried to find
the secret passage (described in the hotel literature) to
the Super Komtar mall down the way: apparently the passage
has been closed, and anyhow the shopping center is fairly
nasty, I discovered after going out and approaching it in
the more normal way. Back down to the lobby for happy hour -
from 5:30 to 9 house pours and draft beers are 2-4-1, which
makes the RM20 tariff for beer less painful (according to
the Web, the average beer price at drinkeries in town is
RM9). Also, with every purchase in the lobby, one gets a
card good for 2 hours of Internet, bringing things down to
a sensible rate. I of course had to have several beers. The
things one does for the sake of FT! The house snack is your
usual fried noodle substance, distinguished by being heavily
seasoned with oregano and pepper. Of course, I stupidly had
to go taste these ... oops, back up to the room to pay
homage to the porcelain deity.

Discovered that this hotel has one notable deficiency -
the soundproofing - it sounded as though there were 8 old
grannies and their spouses in the next room; plus people
talk in the elevator lobby (the elevators themselves,
Toshibas, are swift and quiet). The second deficiency is a
peculiar one - the grannies had brought fried food, and the
smell percolated through to my room. Unfortunately, it was
not high-quality fried food, otherwise I'd not have
objected.

= =

Got up in the morning, much as I hated to do so. Tummy still
a-rumble, and I was glad not to have sprung for the rate
with the included breakfast.

Went for my morning constitutional before it got too hot
and found myself at the Hong Kong Tea Garden, a hawker
center on Jalan Macalister that specializes in dim sum.
Well, dysentery be damned, I had a few dumplings and an
order of barbecue pork - or I thought I'd ordered pork
(something that one can get in Chinese-influenced parts
of Malaysia, despite its being a Muslim country; and one
has to love the fact that Penang has streets named Katz
and Gottlieb). A chopped turnip and dried shrimp dumpling
stood out. The pork turned out to be chicken. I didn't get
sick, though just to be sure I hustled back to the hotel
and waited an hour before going out again.

Walked to the waterfront (very gritty) and up and around,
ending up at the Penang Museum, which turns out to be a
pleasant way to spend an hour, especially given that it's
air conditioned. The exhibits, not surprisingly, are of
local history and culture and are appealing in a
back-to-the-'50s style; it was obviously designed before
the latest trends in museum design were underway. That's
okay, the admission price is also a welcome throwback -
RM1, half that for kids. While wandering the galleries,
some guy accosted me in Bahasa Melayu ... apparently I
looked Malay to him. He represented the tourism board
and had a questionnaire for me to fill out. So I did,
and in return got a pack of postcards, one of which is
on its way to SkiAdcock's sister.

Wended my way back along Lebuh Leith and Jalan Penang,
poking my nose in various Chinese and Indian shops, none of
which had anything I would be even vaguely interested in.
But one has to give it credit, the stuff is cheap. I also
stopped by Super Komtar again to see if it was better in
daylight. It's not.

Back at the hotel I had a beer (full price) before going
back to the room for a noontime shower. Someone pushed under
my door a questionnaire about my stay at the hotel. The
reward for this is "a Food & Beverage voucher value RM42.00"
- i.e., 2 beers, 4 during Happy Hour.

Am I the only tourist in this town?

Back out, checking out recommendations from 10best.com.
Two for two did not exist any more. So much for you,
10best.com. Walked the length of Macalister looking for
satay or roast pork. Went past a couple durian stands
(really tame-smelling durians; they didn't appeal) and
eventually found a guy at a hawker center who had both
red roast pork and real roast fatty pork. I had a roast
fatty pork rice, which was quite good (main dish, a little
bit of cucumber, and soup, RM3.50), and a Jaz beer, which
was surprisingly fruity and sweet, low in hops, and rather
soft drinkish, despite its advertised 5.5% alcohol.
Shoulda had a Tiger.

Maybe my dysentery was fixed. I was fearing disaster, but
none happened.

So. Operating on this assumption, I went to the lobby bar
again, this time for chocolate mousse cake! - something
I should approach with caution even under the best of
circumstances. As with many of my noble experiments, this
went awry in ways unanticipated. I don't know if other
cultures know the phenomenon of the travelling house gift.
Back when I was a kid, when people went to a dinner party,
they were expected to bring a box of candy or something
for the hostess - all well and good, but what does a
hostess do with six boxes of candy? So, these favors tended
to go unopened, and when one went to the next party, one
would bring a box, recycled from when one had hosted the
event ... and so on. The preferred gifts were Whitman's
Samplers and Almond Roca, as I recall (though the Rocas
tended to get opened, as they're good). One day my father
decided to go against tradition and open a box of candy, and
you can imagine - the things had long since decomposed to
unrecognizable shrivelled bits. Here at the Shangri-La,
at the beautiful lobby bar, there's a case out by the back
with impressive-looking pastries: opera cake, strawberry
lemon mascarpone cake, black forest cake, ... . Oh, they
look lovely. They were, at one time, baked with skilled
hands, carefully, using the finest ingredients and best
techniques. They were iced artistically. And nobody bought.
I could hardly cut this cake, and in fact, when I tried, I
had to use so much force that when I finally breached the
defenses, fragments of mousse and pastry went in all
directions. Not a happy experiment. Worst of all, I tried
the thing, and it tasted GOOD. Elderly and tough, but good.
The sad thing: the pastries run from RM7 to 9. When they
were fresh, they were worth probably twice that. Now, half.

News flash. Another mysterious communication under the door:

Dear Guest

CHANGE OF DOORKNOBS

Thank you for staying with us at Traders Hotel Penang and
we hope that you are enjoying your visit here.

We would like to inform you that our Engineering
Department will be changing the hotel rooms' doorknobs on
a periodic basis from the following date and time:

Dates: 16 to 18 June 2008 (Monday to Wednesday)
Time: 9.00 am to 6.00 pm

Fathers and teachers, I ponder, why didn't they address
this most pressing issue when they renovated the hotel,
which was within the last few years? Also, I just went
out and checked - they're not doorknobs, they're levers,
and they look just fine to these non-engineer eyes.

Some of you guys might think I'm making this stuff up.
You would be wrong.

violist

Next morning. More hazy sunshine; could barely make out
the bridge in the distance.

I tried to find the famous ticket counter for the famous
elevator for the famous Menara Komtar, but it was closed
for renovation, and nobody seemed to know if the elevator
was open any more for tourists at all. So I missed that
famous view. Another trip through the squalid shopping
mall in a vain hope that there was something I'd missed.

Okay, it was hot, and I was tired, and there wasn't anything
else in Penang I wanted to do that was within trotting
distance of a clean facility, plus I had this 42- food and
bev credit burning a hole in my pocket, so what now? The
hotel buffet is what. My bad luck that today was the Kids'
Corner @ Sunday Buffet Brunch, complete with balloons at
every table and a clown who came by to scare young and old
alike.

It was a surprisingly decent buffet, notwithstanding the 55-
price being one of the great nonbargains on this island.

A sushi/sashimi station with some totally scary-looking
maki that I didn't try but with really nice albacore and
fatty salmon sashimi.

An assortment of salads, from creamy potato (lots of mayo)
and macaroni and seafood (surimi ?!?!) salads to lovely
mesclun greens and a Thai beef salad that had some heat but
no lemon grass or kaffir lime, sadly enough.

Two major failures, one of them being the spring rolls,
which were fried wondrous crisp and would have been
delicious but for the fact that they'd been done in
thoroughly rancid oil.

Chicken curry was delicious, aromatic with lemon grass;
fish head curry even better - not so sour as the stuff in
Singapore but more complex: it was made with salmon heads,
from who knows what source [g].

Biryani was made with intensely aromatic rice and went
cross-culturally well with a mutton rendang, which by
itself was superb, though not very spicy.

There was a station with what appeared to me to be mystery
meat, for which people seemed to be fairly avid - I took a
piece; it turned out to be extremely tough gamy half-roasted
mutton, guaranteed to displease one and all. I liked the
half-roasted part - the inside was still at the jellylike
stage -, and to some degree the gamy part, but not so much
the extremely tough part. Subsequent investigation showed
that there were also grilled mutton chops in the tray, and
people had been digging for these.

After filling up on the above, I discovered the chicken rice
station, where I begged for one small piece of duck; the
cook took a leg, deboned and sliced it, and plated it for me
with a smile though with some surprise that I did not want
rice or even the low-carb substitute that was available -
julienned jellyfish.

There was pizza. If it had had pepperoni on it I might have
tried it just for the sake of being able to report, but it
looked ordinary to me.

Desserts were worth the price of admission. What I tried:

First, and least, a salted strawberry in slightly sweetened
agar - totally weird;

lemon custard, thick and smooth, being augmented by
cornstarch, but at least not too sweet;

little sculpted things - a cannolo and a Danish, each about
15 mm long - made out of bean paste of various colors;

red sticky rice pastry with lotus paste filling;

a sweet-salty coconut sticky rice cake;

something that looked like a chocolate truffle but turned
out to be a rum ball of the sort your grandmother would make
if she were feeling a bit racy at Christmastime - chocolate
wafer crumbs, confectioners' sugar, and rum, I believe.

There were probably 20 kinds of dessert I didn't try.

Other things there that I didn't take advantage of:
various ordinary-looking dim sum;
fried fish with tartar sauce;
homefries;
cream of tomato and basil soup;
a chocolate fountain with an impressive array of dips;
the ice cream drawer - boy, some of the kids were ecstatic
when they found this;
ais kacang makings;
and some unaccountably sorry looking fresh fruit.

As with many restaurants I've seen in western hotels in
Asia, the clientele is primarily not western tourists but
rather affluent locals doing their best to show their
cosmopolitanism. In fact, at this particular lunch, there
wasn't a single white face in the room, which was pretty
packed.

==
Back to the room, full in body and spirit, and to bed to
store up a few hours' shuteye ... and then the telephone
rang at quarter of five. Housekeeping, distressed by the
continuous do not disturb sign. Ah, well, I was out only
half an hour of sleep.

opushomes

So, time to scratch Penang off my must see list. Time would be better spent in Sarawak or Sabah. Pork is definitely available in Sarawak without a great deal of effort expended.

Malaysian shopping complexes are quite alien to even those of us not mistaken as Bahasa Malayu speaking. Interesting report, sorry for the tummy problems. Perhaps you should next trip per-prepare yourself with either Cipro or Azithromyicin to provide a quick cure. Although your dysentery sounds somewhat different from the normal version due to the headaches.

This message comes to you from the Jewish Quarter (PC term for ghetto) of Krakow. No illness here, just very loud visiting religious high school kids lead by idiots who think hallways of a hotel are appropriate teaching and partying sites especially after 11p.m. Soundproofing here seems better than the Traders in PEN, did you get Shangri-la Golden Circle credit? Loud American kids get thru solid wood doors and concrete walls at crummy Krakow hotels costing considerably more than 170rm.

violist

On the whole. I enjoyed Penang but found it a little behind
the times in its competition for the tourist dollar. The
beaches I saw were not that interesting, and the other
waterfront areas were utilitarian and industrial. The famed
tower I never got in, but all around was plenty of nothing.

The bridge is a bridge. Wikitravel had claimed that it was
the third longest bridge in the world. I doubt it's in the
top ten or twenty. It is fairly attractive from a distance.

The ferry, I presume, is a ferry: not much longer of a trip
than the Star Ferry, nor, by its looks, more interesting.

The hotel was quite nice and must have been something in
those optimistic days thirty years ago when it and Menara
Komtar were built; unfortunately, the area has gone back
downhill toward its pre-urban-renewal condition.

Food - what I had was fine, but after getting whatever bug
it was, my ardor for anything spicier than Cantonese was
dampened, so I can't say I got the full experience.

I admit that my desire to stay within sprinting distance of
clean rest facilities precluded my doing any of the nature
activities - Penang Hill, the National Park, the Botanic
Garden, those sorts of things.

=
Checked out and discovered I'd been charged for 12 hours of
overtime. That was fixed in short order, and I was soon in a
taxi steaming literally and figuratively for the airport (no
air-con). In contrast to my last trip, this one, mostly on
expressway, took ten minutes, and I found myself staring at
an empty SQ counter wondering what to do for the better part
of an hour.

Wandered the length and breadth of the airport, which took
like 3 minutes; used one of the hideous toilets; decided it
was time to eat again, as there was really nothing else to
do. Passed up Kenny Rogers Roasters and its "jacket potato
pasta meal," whatever that is, and went upstairs to Nando's,
the first I've ever met. My Aussie friends are pretty gaga
over this antipodean-based chain, so I was optimistic. I got
the quarter chicken, hot, and I should have gotten it extra
hot. Sauces on the table: tomato; garlic peri-peri; hot; and
extra hot. I liked garlic best, as it tasted of garlic. Hot
was medium; extra hot was somewhat hotter. The underlying
flavor was very like El Yucateco, even though I don't think
Nando's sauces have habanero in them. The tomato sauce's
odor reminded me of Hungry Jack, so I didn't try it; should
have done so just for the sake of science.

The chicken, apparently flame-broiled but under a tabaka
type arrangement, was juicy and flavorful but not
substantially superior to the better stateside chickens. The
famous marinade appears to be a standard brining. The prices
are high: as high as in the US, which means that eating here
has got to be a special treat for the natives. RM10 for a
breast quarter with no sides, that's a lot.

At last the check-in opened, and I had my boarding pass in
a few seconds, even after an Indian guy zooming in front
of me in line (business class, I guess). Security and
emigration took another minute or two, perusing the
duty-free zone a minute or two more, and then to the really
tiny Silver Kris.

The girl at the desk was very welcoming.

When I arrived, there were just a handful of guests; at
peak, shortly before the flight, the place was totally full.

There was this Indian child (offspring to Mr. zoom) whose
shoes, unfortunately, squeaked as in squeaky toy squeak.
She was adorable and kept both the guests and the girl at
the desk in stitches, but every time she took a step,
SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK.

Odd catering: synthetic fried scallops; bee hoon noodles;
spring rolls; cream of mushroom soup; cake. I tried the
synthetic scallops under the impression they were the real
thing. Surimi city.

I had Martell VSOP Medallion, which I enjoy because of its
vanillary smoothness, and just one snootful of the competing
Hennessey VSOP Privilege to remind me of why it's inferior.

For those stuck in the PEN, note that the rest room upstairs
across from the Golden Club is clean, not as in USA clean,
but as in Singapore clean. It's also open to the public.

==
0615 SQ 197 PEN SIN 2115 2240 772 11K

I wondered why they are running triples on this short route.
When I got to the gate area I realized why. The place was a
zoo. Turns out that the front cabin was full, and I am
guessing that the rear one was likewise.

We boarded up on time and took off a few late. The cabin
service was fine, nothing notable. A pair of very senior
male staff plus the usual complement of Singapore Girls.

My seatmate was this old Chinese guy who kept being visited
by his son (or grandson?) from the wayback. I'm pretty sure
that the younger man, a frequent flyer by the looks of him,
had had the seat but had ceded it for reasons of filial
piety. Anyhow, the old guy, though in his element in the
luxury department, was unfamiliar with the bells and
whistles of the KrisWorld and of his big somewhat adjustible
seat (which, by the way, I find immeasurably inferior to the
UA C seat). We managed to communicate, vaguely, in Mandarin,
which was for him probably a third language or so and for me
not a language at all. As with old guys everywhere, though,
he imagined that I understood everything he said and could
not figure why he couldn't understand half of what I said
(which of course is because my Chinese of whatever sort
stinks). We had a fun time of it.

dinner from penang to singapore

appetisers
Mixed seasonal salad

main courses
Ayam Kelantan - Kelantan style braised sliced chicken with
spices and chillies, fried seasonal vegetables and
coconut flavoured rice

Herb crusted lamb cutlet in rosemary sauce, ratatouille and
potato leek gratin

dessert
Mango crepes with vanilla sauce

hot beverages
Coffee - Tea

Please accept our apology if your choice of meal is not
available SQ197YC PEN-SIN (D3) 110-1.1RC

The salad looked sort of forlorn, and I'd just had a quarter
chicken not so long ago, so I abandoned it. The lamb dish
was two big chops, one gone slightly off (you know how meat
gets a fishy taste when it's about to be ready to bite you
back?), the other just fine, in a heavy herbed breading. The
best part was the rosemary sauce, which was actually a cumin
and fenugreek I think jus. The ratatouille lacked eggplant.

Dessert was delicious - a delicate crepe wrapped around a
rich mango cream; the sauce was just like Bird's, though.
I didn't eat much of it, as I was full.

Ch. Fonreaud 02, I think a minor Medoc chateau, was about
the right age, with the tannin mellowing out nicely, but
had begun to lose its fruit. It went pretty well with the
lamb.

Seven pieces of silverware for this meal - a bit of
overkill, I'd say.

We got to the gate a touch late, even though the flight
took only 65 minutes (traffic issues on landing I think),
which was fine with me, as I had eight hours to kill.

At 11 pm, Terminal 3 was the happening place, all the shops
open, bars buzzing. I did a mail and spent an hour!
wandering about looking at the shops and bars; then went to
a quiet area for a snooze. Okay, folks, I admit, this is
just a (subsidiary) corridor, but it has a shh! sign, so why
do people insist on raising their voices as they traipse
past? Crumbs. Anyhow, I got an hour and half sleep and then
went to do more mail. Whereupon the cops swept in. Not a big
deal, though there was some consternation when I neither had
an onward boarding pass nor knew what flight I was going to
be on ... . At 4:10 (the appointed time, according to the
monitors), I presented myself at the transit desk only to
find nobody ready to check me in. A helpful SQ girl told me
that the UA staff would show up around 4:40. Returned around
then to find a line. Oh, well. Why must everyone's checkin
be so complicated? Except mine, which took about 39 seconds.

A good hike back to the SKL, which is most impressive: huge,
well appointed, well catered, with super-polite staff who
apparently are trained now on whom to admit or not.

A standard assortment of western breakfast foods: omelette,
hotcakes, cereal, yogurt, Danish, croissants; but also an
appetizing selection of Asian foods:

a very gingery chicken potato curry, served with roti jala
(lacy crepe bread); congee, which I didn't try; some noodle
dish that I didn't try either;

dim sum - roast pork buns (mediocre; but then lackluster
pork buns beat good sandwiches any day), turnip-dried shrimp
cake, and red bean buns, which I didn't have room for;

bean curd soup;

Mini-Potong purple yam ice cream on a stick (yummy); and

terigu, an Indonesian or Malay dessert/porridge - something
like what I used to make with sticky rice, palm sugar, and
coconut milk, only this appears to be made with barley.

Also finger sandwiches and assorted western snacks, but I
didn't give them a look.

There's something about sipping Otard XO (actually a bit
harsh for my taste) out of a Givenchy coffee mug, while
embraced in luxurious upholstery, but these days may soon be
past - there is a big construction area nearby signed with
SATS, United, and various other logos - and I am willing to
guess that this oasis may soon be off limits to us again.

Guy Betsy

You didn't go to the other sites? Like the Goddess of Mercy statue, Penang Hill, Batu Ferrenghi beaches, and the Pulau Tikus eateries?

You stuck to the tourist areas and got tourist food. You should have asked the local Penangites (like me) on where to go makan. People would go to the far reaches of the island just to have their favourite curry mee or laksa. You could have opted for hotels in the residentual part of Guerney Drive, like the Evergreen Laurel, Northam or Guerney. Or the "G" hotel. http://www.ghotel.com.my/ Or the Cheong Fatt Tze heritage mansion? http://www.cheongfatttzemansion.com/

The Penang Road Chendol (green mung bean pastes shaped like worms in ice cold coconut milk and brown sugar) is to DIE FOR and at US$0.50 for a humongous bowl is the best memory you can ever have of Penang!

Penang is still a favourite amongst many tourists as it is one of the cheapest places in Malaysia. And Malaysia is overall cheaper than Thailand - if you know where to go , eat and shop.

violist

Heh, got to admit that I didn't venture far afield, but then my
first day experience took its toll, and I ended up gravitating
toward clean bathrooms as my most important destination;
otherwise, I might have been somewhat more adventuresome.

Next time, if there is one, perhaps I shall enlist the help of
locals such as yourself in my search for delectables ...

violist

The boarding pass machine at the gate refused me. I thought,
1A, here I come, but after some agent's furious typing I
ended up in my usual and customary (and previously reserved)
seat, next to an attractive expat consultant in her 30s who
was on her way to a conference in Texas. We talked about
flying, families, expatting, and southern humidity.

UA 896 SIN HKG 0640 1025 744 15H Empower Y Ch9 Y

Upstairs turned out to be less than half full. Just before
we left, a few young guys turned up. Judging by their
hilarity and general demeanour, I guess that they were
disserviced passengers who won the jackpot.

An amusing sign seen on taxi out: "Maximum wing span 65 m" -
does this have anything to do with why the 777 wingspan is
64.9 m? And which came first?

The genial pilot announced that it was going to be a smooth
flight. Almost immediately, the turbulence began. Whoops!

Excellent service, rivaling the Asian carriers but not so
obsequious, from SIN-based crew. Hot towels.

To begin

Your selected entree will be accompanied by fresh fruit
and breakfast breads.

main course

Poached eggs on beef tenderloin with Hollandaise sauce;
oven-roasted new potatoes with herbs, buttered asparagus
and carrots

Braised minced chicken with preserved fish and egg noodles;
Taiwanese cabbage and Chinese mushrooms in oyster sauce

Continental breakfast
Selection of fresh seasonal fruits, cereal and yogurt

6/08 SIN-HKG (B85) 262C019-2

The beef was okay, tender and medium; the eggs properly
done. Good vegetables.

Duval-Leroy Champagne.

More hot towels.

The flight came in a bit late, and there was a big old line
at transit security, so no time for a shower, which I would
have liked.

The toilets at HKG are significantly nasty.

Boarding was well underway when I got there. There continues
to be a bag check at the gate, now for all pax (last year,
F and C were exempted).

UA 856 HKG SFO 1145 0846 744 26F Empower Y Ch9 Y

I wonder who kiped row 15 from me? Anyhow, I got another of
my favored seats, though, 26 center aisle with nobody in
the middle. The other similar seat was taken by a jolly,
nervous woman connecting from HCMC. We chatted about seat
selection, and she mentioned seatguru, so I countered with
seatexpert and FT. Oh, yes, that's the one run by the guy
who had a magazine, right, I forget his name. Randy Petersen
I said. Yes, she responded, nice guy. But she didn't admit
to being an FTer. On the other hand, she grinned broadly
when she saw me signing Hemispheres magazines.

Service was again quite good, from SIN-based crew, who
included a quite pretty blonde of about 45 or 50, a
diamond in a sea of topazes.

Warm nuts and hot towels.

to begin
Smoked salmon, sliced duck breast and vegetable crudites;
Honey mustard dressing

Fresh seasonal greens; Creamy red pepper or balsamic olive
vinaigrette

main course

Pan-seared filet mignon with Burgundy tarragon sauce; Garlic
and lemon-roasted new potatoes and grilled zucchini with
glazed carrots

Mango-pine nut rosemary crusted chicken breast with chicken
jus; Spring onion risotto and braised asparagus

Steamed cod with black bean sauce; Fried rice with sweet
onions and sauteed broccoli with red peppers

dessert

International cheese selection; Camembert, Cheddar

Chocolate meringue terrine with raspberry coulis

prior to arrival

Creamy spinach omelette with fresh tomato basil sauce
English breakfast sausage and roasted new potatoes

Fresh seasonal fruit plate with creamy yogurt

Today's menu features beef from New Zealand.
We apologize if occasionally your choice is not available.

6/08 HKG-SFO/LAX (LD83-S89-B87) 261C007-3