Jonathan and Merinda's Trip to Penang and Singapore, October 2007

Jonathan visited Agilent in Penang in October. Having promised to take Merinda next time he did this trip, she was invited to come and gladly accepted. Here you see our heroes sitting on the bridge over the koi pond in Changi Airport, connecting from the Auckland--Singapore flight to the Singapore--Penang one.

Merinda instantly liked the scary glass elevators in the Equatorial. Here you can see her on one of many gratuitous rides to the ninth floor. We were staying on the third.


The pool had a "grotto" into which you can swim, the grotto being a sort of cave decked out to be an entertainment space in which one might expect to see a disco, forgotten since the 1970s. There was also a waterfall across the mouth of the cave. Merinda did a lot of swimming.

In the course of this trip Merinda would eat many strange things. Here she inspects the livestock in a traditional Chinese seafood restaurant to which we were kindly taken by Janet Chua, one of the excellent ladies of Agilent Penang.

While Jonathan was at Agilent, Merinda stayed with Janet's kids.

Back in "the EQ" we looked forward to long luscious breakfasts such as the one above. At one meal we asked what was the name of the thing we were trying. "I must ask chef" replied the lovely Malay waiter. He returned to say "Chef says he does not know English name either".

We Skyped the civilised world as often as we could. Here you can see us chatting to honorary grandparents M&K. Note swimming costume drying on lampshade.

We were taken to lunch very kindly by Boon Khim and some TAO people. Merinda got to try more unspeakable things. Altogether she was very adventurous a young lady.

The EQ has a great garden that includes a suspension bridge. Here Jonathan and Merinda stand in the tropical mist for posterity. Jonathan was constantly put in mind of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and Noel Coward pottering about the tropics.

We visited the Penang Butterfly Farm. Here Merinda is enthralled not only by all the butterflies, but by the live one that has ventured into the gift store where the framed ones await sale.

We eventually has to say goodbye to the EQ. At left Merinda is on the suspension bridge of the garden, and below we are next to the koi pond that winds its way through the garden to the lower lobby.


Penang is booming, buildings going up everywhere, and there was a model of some proposed sumptious units in the foyer. We looked those marvellous models over and imagined life in a large 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom unit in a high-rise. Not quite the farm we are growing to like!

We left Penang airport and the Malay-Chinese culture that Noel appreciated to visit the powerhouse of Singapore.

This is a picture of Merinda through a fish tank in the airport in Penang.

In Singapore we started by taking the subway into town. The Singapore trains are like those in Hong Kong, the carriages form one single long space with no doors between. Here Merinda goes for a walk in the train.

Mind you, the advertisements in Singapore can be very crude. This one was plastered over every window in the train.


Merinda and her Dad set out to see a lot of the local culture, and that they did. In Chinatown we ate, and walked. Down a small alley we saw a Chinese apothecary. Very strange, like something out of Indiana Jones.

Merinda got good at navigating the MRT and then the locale maps that help you get around.

In Little India we ate. It was very Indian. It was hard work for Merinda!


We rode the cable car to the top of the mountain and then on to Sentosa Island, which is a kind of resort/fun park. We rode in one of the special "glass" cars, though these are far from completely glass-bottomed (I was expecting it to be a bit hairy). This must have been the cable car where there was an accident in which my friend Pam was killed in 1983.

Strange beach view from Sentosa: White sand, sun,seaweed and a swarm of shipping vessels!

By now we had ascertained that Malaysian Satay Sticks of chicken were Merinda's preferred foreign fodder.

Although the satay stick had been established as the central item of the main course, the next day we ate in a Hawker's Market, and tried things like fresh sugarcane juice.

The next day we visited the zoo. Singapore has a good zoo, not perhaps as good as many per capita, but then there are a lot of Singaporean capitae.

Merinda rode an elephant:


...and hand fed a manatee his cooked veges.

At last we came to the long but welcome voyage home... starting with the escalators.