Situated opposite the Trader’s hotel (formerly Shangri-la), this little tang yuan shop serves the Penang population whole year round. Tang yuan is made of rice flour mold into round shape, and drowned in clear sugar water or dark brown sugar/gula Melaka with tinge of ginger. This particular shop serves up to 5kg of flour daily and on festive season, their tang yuan are snatched up like hot cakes long before closing time.

Selling at RM2.70 a pack, the tang yuan comes in white and pink, and one giant, mother of all tang yuan. This giant tang yuan wraps roasted nut mixture, serves as a nice grand finale, or starter as some would like it.

Tang Yuan is served during one of the most important festival celebrated by the Chinese, called Dong Zhi (Winter Solstice). I grew up having them, where my Aunties would make small red and white balls in various sizes and the sugar water is strongly clad with ginger. We would gather at grandfather’s home on the festival evening and enjoy the Tang Yuan. It has been years since I enjoy Tang Yuan with my family, maybe this year, come December 21, I may make a trip back home. For the mean time, or the rest of the year, one could get your Tang Yuan or diffuse your craving at this little stall across Trader’s Hotel.

If you been to the Old Town Kopitiam, you would probably have tried their Kaya Toast bread. Today, I made a startling discovery, the toast butter is just a tiny weeny piece and only covers the side, for cosmetic purpose. From the side, the toast looks great with a huge piece of butter, but then, once open up, its just a butter strip. I was expecting the butter to cover the entire toast, I guess my expectation turned into a disappointment.

Will some one kind enough to pimp my site? I’ve been living with this boring design for quite some time and in dire need to have a new design. Please, will a web designer please pimp my site?

Bayan Lepas is where Penang Free Industrial Zone is located. Gazette more than 30 years ago, is now the home of many leading tech companies in the world. I took some time to check out the Bayan Lepas area on Google Earth and found that Google Earth have updated the Penang map. My house could be seen, therefore, the satellite photos were taken within the last couple of years (my home wasn’t built prior). The resolutions improved as well. Compare with my June 2005 post, the resolutions have improved to the extend of seeing cars on the road. However, it is not as good as those US cities, nevertheless, it is good enough to be used as a map for Penang.

The interesting discovery I’ve made was that some of the companies in Bayan Lepas FIZ painted the company name on the roof. Its not a surprise, cause the Penang International airport is in the FIZ and the flight landing or take off path flies across these companies or factories. Have your roof painted with the company name and as the plane passengers will be looking down while landing or take off and whoala, free advertising.

Of the hundreds of factories or companies in Bayan Lepas FIZ, only a handful have their roof painted. This excludes the top tech companies like Intel, AMD, Fairchild etc. The list includes MIPOX, Amphanol, Bosh, Blaupunkt, Jabil Circuit, ASE, Komag, Agilent Technologies, Inventec, Toshiba, Iomega and Exel. Here are the screenshot captured through Google Earth.

Here is the Best of the lot, and you know why…

Here is a challenge for all Malaysians, find me a larger Jalur Germilang on a roof or anywhere on Google Earth !!!!