We were up bright and early on Day 2... no... actually, not really... we had set the alarm to 6am, but it was only at 6.20am that noel dragged his feet to the bathroom. But today, we are going to Escape Penang! YooOoooHOOOOooooo!!!!
What is Escape Penang may you ask? It's basically an ADVENTURELAND! It's divided into the dry and wet park. Here's the link if you wanna find out more http://www.escape.my/ Noel and I do not have a single photo from the park, as whilst they do not stop you from taking in your phones / camera, they will advice you to be very careful because everything might pose as a hazard. For example, because you are zipping from treetops, your phone might drop waaaaaaayyyyy down there and.... byebyephone. Or, if you so oblige to hang it on one of those transparent thingy, the landyard might get caught on the tree or cable and... byebyeyou. Even chewing gum can pose as chocking hazard. So really, we didn't want to think about it, we just dumped everything into our locker and enjoyed ourselves.
The park is supposed to open at 10am, and based on our Rapid Penang Journey Planner (yes, there is an apps, please download it), it would take about 1.5 hours to get there. So we headed out for breakfast at 7am, in order to catch the 8am bus to reach by 9.30am. But it didn't actually take us that long to arrive. We were there at 8.45! Haha. We thought we were the earliest, but no, there were 3 big groups already outside waiting. I had planned to have breakfast at the so called 24 hours Kapitan Restaurant, but alas, it was closed till 8am, so having no choice, we just went for simple roti canai / roti telur breakfast at Kassim Mustapha. I went back to the hotel to pick up last night's murtabak we tapaued from Hameediyah. We also have a few Gardenia buns and Honey BBQ Pork pastry from Hong Kee, just incase we got hungry on the way home later.
The park is beautifully designed. The waiting area was shaded with lots of nature, so we didn't even feel the heat whilst waiting. You have to cross the road to go from the dry to the wet (and vice versa) but there will always be at least one personnel there helping you at the zebra crossing. The "lobby" area where all the lockers are located and where the toilets and changing rooms are also located is so clean and well kept. The toilets? Spotless.
I got my tickets online, at RM77/pax and bought "e-wallet" at RM50 (the website advices that a person typically spends RM20/day). I bought extra because I wanted to rent locker too. Here are Escape, everything is cashless (and the system works seamlessly). Upon purchase of ticket / e-wallet, you will be given a 5 digit code which you will use to enter the park, rent lockers, buy food / drinks etc. And there is a top up counter too if you need to do so. At the end of the day, if there is still balance in your e-wallet, it will be refunded to you. We rented a locker at RM9.40/day and it was big enough of us to stuff our big bag inside. We didn't even carry our water in.
Noel and I took a bus (No. 101) to the park, from Chulia Street stop. One thing I love about Penang is the easily available and efficient bus system. It costs us RM4 per person. Now, here's the great part. As part of their go-green effort, Escape Penang actually refunds you back the ticket cost! WOW! So, the trip going was completely free! (of course you have to pay your own tickets going back to town).
One thing that we need to pay close attention to at this park is that it is very strict in terms of attire. It's a bit more lenient at the dry park, but they are very strict at the water park, which I supposed is a good thing because it is after all everyone's safety. But fret not if you did not bring your swim wear, there's lot for your to buy / rent. But I don't know how much it cost...
Another thing great about this park is how much it emphasizes on safety, every game you go on, you will be hooked on a cable via a pulley and there will be a carabiner that will guard you. Just go with the weight limit, and you will be fine.
Noel and I started our day at the dry park (of course). At the first game, called "Monkey Business", we were given options of Level 1 - 3 to pick from. The guy recommended Level 1 as it is our first time, and I am glad that I swallowed my pride pill and took his recommendation, because even at Level 1, one of the area was to walk on a cable that's only as big as my pinky! When I got to the end of the cable, I had to stop for a while to CRY! hahahaha! The last part of the game was flying fox which we both enjoyed. When we got to the bottom and handed over our harness, the guy jokingly asked if I was up for Level 3 and of course I said NO, THANK YOU! Then we moved on to watch people jump from a tower (called Atan's leap) but because the queue was too long, we opted to move on.
Then we came to "Family trail" which looked easy for us... well, well, well.... easy... NOT. Haha.... Noel got stuck at one of the area where you're supposed to hang on ropes to get to the other side. It was so freakin hard because we are so heavy and it's hard to pull ourselves up! Haha.
As we were walking around to find a game that has the least number of people, we can here on our head people zipping by us on treetops... and I was telling Noel that it's the flying fox and we should try it. We watched some games but none really caught our fancy. I wanted to go on that flying fox game so we looked for it. However, when we got to the bottom of the hill, the photo of "Flying Lemur", wasn't anything like a normal flying fox. We didn't wanna do anything "extraordinary" anymore, so we decided to skip it.
Next, we went to hunt for the Tubby Racer. We had to drag our own tubes up a very high hill and then the staff would "kindly" push us down. When we got to the top, the personnel told us the blue tube we brought up was a bit slower. When we moaned our disapproval, some people who were waiting around said they wanted to use the slow one and we readily exchanged our tubes. And what should the personnel do to make our tube go even faster? Why, apply oil of course!!!! He applied almost like a whole can on mine (noel had gone down first) and the thrill of going down the hill, bumping to the sides, afraid that I would overturn on my tube... gosh! I reached the bottom with a big thunderous laugh! Exhilarating!
We decided that was it... but in my heart, I wanted to still try the Flying Lemur. I mean, we've come all the way here and paid all that money, might as well make full use of it right? At the exit gate, we asked the security guard what Flying Lemur was, and he told us, oh you must go and try it for yourselves. That made my heart itch more! So we went back and went up the hill. And the queue!! It was super long!! But we persevered and after waiting for 40 minutes, we finally zipped across treetops at full speed for 4 times! What a stress release to be able to scream your heart out as you zip across in full speed.
It was already 1.40 by then and we were hungry. So we went to the water park side and went to have lunch. We had water + coke + rice set (beef + veg) + jumbo hotdog. Came out to about RM30ish. Very reasonable for a theme park, the portion was big and reminder to self, just get the rice set, because it was so satisfying to eat rice (just as how satisfying it is to eat rice when we're having picnic). When we were having lunch, there was a group of professional stunt divers performing a show of dive platform and plunges. Apparently, the group is from Ukraine, and the show was very entertaining.
Then, came the water games! The first one we did was the Family Twister... a water version of Tubby Racer. You bring up float tubes and they push you down the tunnel and you end up in the Lazy River. Noel chose to have shared float (*awwwww) and it was a fun ride down and down and down the water "roller coaster". Next one we went to the Speed Racer where you lie down on your stomach on a foam board and speed down a giant water slide. It was so.freakin.fast and the water spray to your face is a bit painful. But fun anyways. At first I didn't manage to launch as I didn't know how to pull up the board, but after that it was fine. Then, Noel went to try the Super Looper which he said was painful as you are being pushed down with high pressure and water is spraying up your backside at the same pressure. Ouch. I didn't dare to try that one. After that we went into a pool called Wave Ball where a ball blobs up and down to create a wave like movement of water. Fun, put on a life jacket even if you know how to swim, unless you are a really strong swimmer as the water movement can pull you in towards the deep end. Out from there, Noel joined a group of boys playing futsal and I just sat around enjoying the surrounding.
By then, it was 4pm and we thought we'd call it a day even though we still had 2 hours to go. Playing all these games so freaking tired man. So we changed and head up to the busstop and went back downtown.
We got back around 5.30pm, and decided to just dump our things in the hotel and go out for dinner. Tonight, I had planned to eat street food at Chulia street because it is near to the hotel. At first, my aim was the wantan mee, but sadly, they were closed that night. There are 2 wantan mee stalls, yet both didn't appear when we got there. We ended up ordered Curry Mee, which was delish, duck egg CKT, which though we said we weren't fans of CKT, we thoroughly enjoyed it that night, it was so good. Then we ordered spring rolls and asam laksa, both was so-so. But what we enjoyed most was the fruit juice. It was so refreshing after the whole day. What we didn't like was the fruit juice owner's attitude. They owned the tables and chairs, so you have to order drinks from them, else you are not welcomed to sit. Wow. And they weren't so polite when they tell you the "policy" either.
We were "almost" full by then, but I wanted to let noel try Lok Lok. When we were younger, during our trips to KL, mom and dad would take us to Petaling Street and we would eat lok lok for dinner. It was so good, don't know how much it costs them back then. During uni days, when we visited the Pasar Malam, I would also grab loklok every now and then. My must eat item would be squid, cockles and kangkung with squid. That night, we only had 5 sticks, so yums. Noel said he wanted tandoori chicken so after lok lok we decided to go back, and dropby Kapitan for the tandoori. But, lo and behold, one of the wantan mee stalls were open! Hurrah!!!! We ordered one plate to share and Noel let me have most of it, because I enjoyed it so much. Exactly the taste of the plate of wantan mee I always have during my uni days. Ahhh... closureee... I also ordered lime plum drink which Noel enjoyed to the max and didn't give back to me. Haha.
After that, we walked to Kapitan and had our tandoori chicken, Milani chicken and cheese naan. All enjoyable. Milani is perhaps cheese sauce and got it's name from Italians i.e. italy = milan = cheese. A tad too salty for me. I ordered Mango Lassi and once again, Noel enjoyed it to the max.
And then finallyyyyy.... it was time to go back, shower and collapsed in bed. Actually no, not really, we walked the streets of Little India, in and out of the shops to look for affordable Indian baju... and then we retired and was dead to the world by 9pm. Looking forward to our last eating day tomorrow!
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