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Penang or Georgetown would have to be one of the best places in Asia for walking tours, especially if you like old, heritage buildings. In Asia’s rush for economic prosperity most of the old residential houses and buildings are slowly being replaced by modern high rises.

Thankfully Georgetown is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site ensuring its architecture will survive rampant development.

If I had the cash I would buy and renovate of these townhouses. There are still plenty of unrenovated buildings. Some of the renovated places have been made into backpacker hostels, art galleries, residences and tea houses.

This place looks like it is for sale, with a price of around 300,000 ringgit, which is less than US$100,000 – a bargain if this is right.

Another renovator’s delight.

And finally in the same street a renovated place, which I believe is owned by a French guy. I had a peek inside the other day when the door was open and it looks great inside also.

It’s been almost a week now since I left the Philippines. I was thinking that it might be a place I would like to stay longer, but in some ways I was glad to leave.

Philippine food has the worst reputation in Asia, and sadly I confirm that it is true. I can spend months in Thailand eating at cheap restaurants, food vendors and hotels and I have rarely had a bad meal. Sometimes the western dishes might be a little strange, but you can’t complain really with any of the local food, and if you stay anywhere near the coast you will experience the best seafood ever.

Everything in the Philippines seemed to be sugary, salty or fatty. Most of the restaurants were either American or local chains. Jolibee is local version of McDonalds and in the bigger cities, you find them on almost every corner. Also the smell of fast food restaurants seemed to linger everywhere in the streets and even in the malls.

I have read reports of foreigners getting mugged in Bangkok, but I always felt safe there. In the Philippines though, especially in Manila and Cebu I just didn’t feel safe at all walking around at night. I don’t know if I was just being paranoid, but you don’t see any other foreigners walking around. I caught taxis everywhere, which fortunately are cheap and the drivers were pretty good, always switching on the meters.

One thing which was hard was all of the street kids begging for money at night. The Philippines is not only country in Asia which is bad for this, but there just seemed to be so many, like in Cebu city. The kids were dirty and ran around with no shoes. They slept outside on the concrete paths – it was really sad.

I stopped off in a smaller town called Iroiro, which was a six hour bus ride from Boracay. It seemed like a more pleasant place than Cebu and Manila. Boracay was nice, but crowded when I went. The islands around Palawan are supposed to be the best for beaches and for diving. I should have gone there first, but I was interested to see what Cebu was like, as I know a lot of foreigners choose to retire there. Why is this? Well, I will let you guess.

Looking up into the sky now, you can see the moon and what looks like two bright stars, but they are actually Venus and Jupiter. It looks pretty amazing.

Keep in mind that this head-turning display of three celestial objects crowded together is merely an illusion of perspective: The moon is only about 251,400 miles from Earth, while Venus is nearly 371 times farther away, at 93.2 million miles. Meanwhile, Jupiter is almost 2,150 times farther away than our natural satellite at 540.3 million miles.

Source

This list is for Aussies currently working or traveling in Asia as to where they can see the Melbourne Cup. If you are showing the event in public in Asia let us know and we can add it to the list.

Beijing

AustCham & ANZA will be hosting an event to be held at the Hilton hotel. Further details can be found here.

Shanghai

Big Bamboo

Tokyo

Possibly shown at Hobgoblin or Tokyo Sports Cafe.

Bangkok

Australian-New Zealand Women’s Group is holding a luncheon at the Amari Watergate Hotel.

The Sports Corner (Sukhumvit Soi 20) and Big John’s Backpacker Hostel & Restaurant are two Aussie run places which might be showing the Cup.

Jakarta

The ANZA group in Jakarta have canceled their luncheon over security concerns with the upcoming execution of the Bali bombers.