as for my trip itself, while the main reason of me going to penang was to acquire a new visa at the thai embassy, i still had a blast and consider my stay one of the best vacations of my life. i've never really been a beach person because i get quite bored and could give less than two fucks about tanning, but something in penang had me wanting to just lay out in the sun all day. i think i got pretty lucky too because the few days that i was there happened to be the end of a long holiday week for malaysian students, and therefore the island seemed really empty. what i did notice the most were families out together, and i learned from a local that that's how most people spend time for the holiday.
for anyone who has considered going to penang, i definitely recommend checking out the island. the food was amazing and inexpensive, the weather was beautiful, and the people were friendly. the most popular area of penang is George Town, which is an alluring old colonial town that was declared a world heritage sight by UNESCO. it hasn't been very long since UNESCO gave George Town such an esteemed honor, so a lot of the property there seemed to be in the midst of transition and renovation, but i still really enjoyed exploring the neighborhood. another thing i especially enjoyed about penang was the fact that the public buses on the island went to most of the places i needed to go to, so it was convenient getting around. that's not to say though that i didn't have moments of cursing under my breath because the bus sometimes took forever haha.
here are some (or actually too many) photos from my trip. the very first one is of me at bangkok's hua lamphong train station, which i like to think was taken poorly by a random stranger as an auspicious indication of my trip to come.
