Holiday Inn and GPS

When we go for holidays, we always do our hotel bookings online in advance. Usually we get better deals if we book online. But this trip was kind of unplanned. Sometimes when we plan too much, Murphy's Law will step in. *LOL*

We wanted to stay at Lone Pine but it was under refurbishment till 2010. And so we thought... its Thursday... there's so many hotels in Penang... we should be able to get rooms easily. With the stopover in Kuala Kangsar to eat and click click click of pictures... we rolled into Penang when it was almost dusk. Both of us are clueless of Penang roads but the road signs were not all that bad.

Stormy decided to test out the GPS on his blackberry to find Tanjong Bungah.. hehehhehehe.. After a long while, we got an image on the GPS that says... "You Are Here" with a dot... and the rest of the screen was white. We were both laughing like idiots... and kept asking the blackberry.. so where are we?? But it never answered us.

We took a wrong turn and ended up in town. While catching some sights, we ended up at Komtar and said hi to Lim Guan Eng. We even thought about calling Lim Guan Eng and ask him how to reach Tanjong Bungah.. *LOL* Not that we know Lim Guan Eng personally.

The GPS was still a white screen... and with the "You Are Here".. hehhehehehee

We finally found the road to Batu Feringgi and was going uphill and i suddenly recalled some places i've been to before when i was a kid. We used to go to Penang quite often for holidays when i was little. We always go for the laksa. It is delicious.

While on Batu Feringgi the GPS suddenly picked up the map and now we are in business. I was driving while Stormy was navigating.. hehehhee.. with the clueless GPS. We were kind of looking for hotels in the dark... and suddenly Stormy said.. Holiday Inn.. let's stay at Holiday Inn. The GPS states that we've already passed Holiday Inn... and the road is quite windy and going uphill to turn around. So we said.. nevermind... we'll find another hotel. Then he said.. hey.. we passed Holiday Inn again. And we were both stumped. hehehhehe

We moved on... and reached a row of hotels. We tried Shangri-La but it was wayyyyyyy over our budget.. hahhahahahaa... we quietly came out. Then we passed The Ship and Eden... and then i saw Park Royal's signboard. So we stopped and asked. We finally booked a room for a night. We thought maybe we'll find another hotel tomorrow. The room faces the road but it was okay. The beachfront rooms were all pre-booked (always book you rooms online). And so we went into the room... and open the curtains to check out the sights. Guess what greeted us.

Holiday Inn blinking and grinning at us from across the road... *LOL* Both of us were wondering how many Holiday Inn's are there in Penang. We had a good laugh over the blinking Holiday Inn from across the road. It was like mocking us. Dang!

We decided to run across and check if they have any rooms available for the next night. And so.. after dinner... we walked across to Holiday Inn and asked at the reception. The girl said they are fully booked for tomorrow and so we said thank you and left. When we were walking out, i was telling Stormy... how come the girl is wearing the same uniform as the hotel we were staying in.

When we walked out and looked at the hotel we were staying at... we have Holiday Inn blinking and mocking us again. We felt like total idiots.. hahhahahahaha.. we didn't even know we were staying at Holiday Inn. All along i thought that we drove into Park Royal. Park Royal is beside Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn have 2 wings. One is on the other side of the road and is connected by an overhead bridge. *phew*

What a day. But it was hilariously funny. Guess we were destined to stay at Holiday Inn. So we booked another night... but the reception told us that they MIGHT be fully booked tomorrow and asked us to check again tomorrow.. *LOL*

We did get another night at Holiday Inn the next day (they even send us a big platter of fruits)... but we had to move to another room... which was nicer.. and we have another extra 2 kiddies bed... with a playstation too. Too bad the kids were not with us.

Moral of the story is... Always book in advance... and find out where the hotel is. Secondly, don't trust GPS.. *LOL* But all said and done, it was fun and funny and no one got angry. That is the thing with Stormy. Stormy hardly gets mad in situations like this. He just laughs it all off. These are my very precious memories with Stormy. Just in case i lose my memory one day, i can still find it all here.