It has been a fun week having my parents on my island; the weather has been in their favour and food, wine and tigers have been drunk.  

On Sunday we visited my favourite place on the island, Miami Cafe. I am sure that I will take all my guests here. It’s family run, always quiet and the view is beautiful. They appreciated it as much as I do and I was especially pleased that we saw a sea eagle doing its thing. After this we drove past the dragon boat festival, waved to pals in boats and continued on to Art and Garden.

Art and Garden is out of the way and isn’t accessible by public transport. It has no car park and you could easily miss it. I knew about it because Sarah told me to go and see “plants and glass” and also informed me that they spray you with mosquito spray. We really enjoyed the tropical setting and the landscaped gardens. The owners were friendly, we got free water and we saw giant tortoises. 

I call this collage “Boy appreciates nature”

We all enjoyed it and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes plants or art. Obviously I got eaten alive by mosquitoes despite the spray and spent the rest of the week having an allergic reaction and feeling on fire. Standard. 

We put up a Christmas tree so as to feel that family festive vibe, but it has unfortunately been destroyed by Nova.

On Monday evening we ditched our original plan to go to The Wine Shop with Tom because he had an allergic reaction to sun cream. Instead we ventured to floor 59 of Komtar for a meal with a view. In line with everything else in Malaysia it was a strange experience. We were the only ones there. They served us hot water (a thing in Malaysia but very alien to us), and much to everyone’s dislike there was only one wine choice. Dinner was 5 courses for less than  £20.

It was fancy, Penang style. I loved the experience and the view. It was odd that there were statues of children everywhere and that there was no hand drier in the bathroom. Mike gave some strategic feed back to the waiter so who knows what their next business venture will be.

On Tuesday we visited Sam’s Batik, and Mike made friends with everyone in there. One batik shirt and a couple of gifts later we left for Red Garden food court. One thing that always winds me up in Penang is how people follow you around when you are shopping. If I wanted help I’d ask you, otherwise leave me alone. This isn’t the vibe in Penang and especially not in Sam’s Batik so we all ended up leaving quite disgruntled. Fortunately Red Garden had a plethora of Christmas trees and carols to cheer us all up. Sadly the shewerma stand was closed but don’t worry I’m getting one tonight. We unfortunately  (fortunately) left before Chinese karaoke Christmas started.

Wednesday came and my mum lost the spare house key and fob. This wouldn’t be an issue if we weren’t in Malaysia and also if Mira didn’t have such intense security systems. You can’t get down or up or out without a fob. Much apologising was done and I became increasingly frustrated with Mira management who were making it very difficult to purchase a new fob. After continously annoying them I managed to sort it out to then find out that the key had been found in a taxi. Now we have three fobs and life couldn’t be better. The guards were less than impressed with the key situation and made me halt my car under the barrier, which then closed onto my car, to tell me that I needed to get a new fob sorted. Obvs.

We also visited the Avatar Secret Garden, a bizarre set up in Tanjung Tokong. It’s got some religious element that I’m not sure about but I like it because it’s full of lights.  It’s definitely grown in popularity since my last visit. It’s another quite strange assortment of things classed as as tourist attraction including a garden of plastic tulips, Chinese statues and a walkway of hedge animals.

We eventually went to The Wine Shop (still without rashy Tom) for a tasty bolognese and some kind of ok priced wine. Mike enjoyed quizzing the staff and I enjoyed drinking wine and eating cheese. He managed to bag himself a free fruit cake and we left with two bottles of wine and another interesting Malaysian experience. 

It’s been so great to show my family my life and some of the important people in it. The time flew by and I’m very happy that I will see them, and everyone else, again in 11 days time. Nova stole the show with her antics, and George Town with its charm and character.  There’s so much more I would have liked to do but with children to teach I was limited to evenings and that is a shame because I didn’t get to experience much of Penang with them. They were a great guinea pig parent couple for future parents. Thank you for your generosity parents and for flying across the world to see me.

Next stop:

The three Bailey girls reunite ❤

And for those of you who care about Nova’s journey…she’s doing more than fine. She’s in the prime of life.