here is what wiki has to say about it:

Georgetown is the capital of the island and state of Penang, on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. It was listed by UNESCO in 2008 as a World Heritage Site, together with fellow former Straits Settlement, Melaka.[1]

Understand

Founded in 1786 by British trader Francis Light, Georgetown was one of the three Straits Settlements along with Malacca and Singapore. Modern-day Georgetown is one of Malaysia’s largest cities with 600,000 inhabitants.

Note that with its combination of Chinese and Muslims, Georgetown takes its religious resting days. Most of the town stops working for the latter half of Saturday, and all of Sunday. Many shops and restaurants are closed during these times and the streets are extremely sleepy and quiet, with little tourist friendly activity going on. Muslim prayer calls can be heard at the required prayer times, and it is not uncommon to see the Chinese locals burning incense for ancestor worship on the sidewalks.

The town seems quite relaxed, as restaurants, small shops, and mall shops don’t fully open until around noon. If you’re waking up early, be sure to look for Chinese Dim Sum stalls as they are only available in the morning. But don’t bother looking for any other activities besides eating.

Today, the town is known for its well-preserved colonial core, with original shophouses dating from the 19th century to the 1930′s still surviving, together with their trades of old. Street markets and hawkers continue to be a part of daily life, and the atmosphere is often likened to that of Singapore back in the 1960′s and 1970′s.

The town truly springs to life in the evenings, when most of the locals would head to the nearby street hawkers to have their meals and sometimes, a couple of drinks.

So bye bye New-Zealand and thank you for all the great memories :)

here are probably my last pictures from NZ

cheers

So we ended up going to the Crater as you can see. At might very well be my last time skiing since I will have to work like crazy for the next 2 weeks as it is the school holiday here in New-Zealand.

Enjoy

I know it has been a long time since I posted anything here, but here I am with an update. Internet is kind of expensive here in New Zealand so I spend a lot less time in front of my computer (I guess it’s a good thing to take a little break once in a while).

Anyways my friends Laurent, Wenx, Clemens and Lis were in Whakapapa for 3 days so we had plenty of fun. Basically they arrived Friday night so they got to snowboard Saturday. The weather wasn’t to bad, but Sunday, on my day off, it was just horrible so we didn’t enjoy the mountain as much. We just all went to the hot pools in Torangi. Monday, however, the sun was shining and the mountain was clear. Wenx and Lis were out of the game already. They weren’t snowboard so it was Clemens Laurent and me. Also my co-worker Alex joined in on the fun.

Laurent, Alex and I decided to hike up the mountain to the volcano’s crater which is a very nice little lake. Basically you take the far west T-Bar and hike up for about an hour and a half. Once you get on top you see this beautiful lake and as you can see the view is amazing. It was a bit icy so the ride down wasn’t very nice, but we still enjoyed the challenge.
Thank you Laurent from the camera and the pictures. Enjoy

Antoine

La résidence est pas mal mais il reste que c’est un peu rudimentaire, genre que rien a changé depuis les années 80. Les chambres son bien et chaudes (très important) mais le reste est vraiment ordinaire avec une café et une salle de télé. Le petit village de Whakapapa (où j’habite) n’a pas grand-chose non plus il y a un genre de Château/hôtel, un centre d’information, un pub et un café. Les gens qui semblent travailler ici sont des Australiens et des Kiwis(Néo-Zélandais) en majorité. Il y a un couple de Polonais, un Américain et une Brésilienne. Il reste encore beaucoup de monde à arriver mais j’ai l’impression que ça ne va pas beaucoup changer. Je ne crois pas voir beaucoup d’Asiatiques ici. Je ne pratiquerai malheureusement pas mon Japonais cet hiver semble-t-il. Les Australiens et les Kiwis se tiennent ensemble et aiment boire de la bière, beaucoup beaucoup de bière…. Ils ne sont pas très accueillant non plus, on verra bien avec le temps! Dison que le contraste avec les gens de la Nouvelle-Zélande et du Japon est immense.

Sinon les choses se passent bien et les environs sont superbes. J’ai hâte de commencer à travailler, tout le monde me dit que c’est vraiment cool…….Ici, il ne fait pas trop froid non plus mais il y a beaucoup de vent car il n’y a pas d’arbres à cette altitude. La ville la plus proche est à 30 minutes de voitures si je veux un supermarché et un resto. Il y a un village à 15 minutes mais il n’y à pas grand-chose là, à part une station service et quelques magasins de location de skis.

Bon en gros c’est ça

Internet est chère ici mais je vais quand même pouvoir y accéder un peu.

here are some pictures

Here are some pictures of The city and the surroundings of Rotorua.