[Long post]

My last babysitting duty for FHM saw my two (2) year association with the magazine end with me bringing Girl Next Door 2010 winner Yvonne Sim and finalists Katherine Ng, Dalvin Parsh and Steffy Ng up to Hard Rock Hotel (HRH) Penang to party at the HRH Summer Break 2010 Party! Summer Break was Hard Rock Hotel’s first sun down pool party in conjunction with another first – the Miss Hard Rock Hotel Penang Search, and as FHM was official magazine for the event we packed our bags into the shiny new Honda Freed on loan from Honda Malaysia and headed north on the morning of 21 August 2010.

Along the way we stopped by Ipoh for lunch at the famous chicken rice place – Restoran Onn Kee. Well let’s just say it’s been a while since I saw girls eat so much and I do wonder where they store all those calories as all four girls are pretty slim. Maybe they have high metabolic rates being as young as they are. The food was pretty good and we ordered one of everything…literally! Steamed chicken, pork ball soup (ok we ordered two of this), fishball soup, char siew (my fav!), chicken spare parts, and of course the taugeh.

 

Back on the road the girls took the opportunity to nap and I must say that for a premium compact MPV – the Honda Freed is spacious on the inside. In fact if I wanted I could have walked inside the MPV all the way from the driver’s seat to the back row and back without moving any seats/ girls.

Anyway not too long after leaving Ipoh we were crossing the Penang bridge and making our way to the Hard Rock Hotel which is located along the Batu Feringghi Beach. Upon arrival at the hotel driveway I opened the rear passenger doors with just a push of a button (individual buttons for each door) which pretty much surprised the doorman. Coolness factor = 5 out of 5 (especially when you have four hot FHM babes exiting the MPV)!

Ignoring the guys checking out the girls, we quickly checked-in to our rooms and changed for the pool party. Now I was in a hurry to get to the pool so I dumped my bag in the room when woah – an LCD TV with a DVD player and a micro hi-fi! Damn! I could have a little party with the girls in the room! Hmmm maybe later.

 

Down by the poolside we chilled and enjoyed the live performance by the Bongga Bongga band, and hip-hop dance by Danzity while sipping downing our drinks and enjoying the famous Hard Rock pizzas.

The Miss Hard Rock Penang Search soon began with the 23 contestants (aged between 18 to 23 years old) strutting their stuff on stage followed by a question and answer session. The top 10 finalists were then selected and they went through another round of strutting before the judges (which included the delectable Chelsia Ng as FHM’s representative for the night) and the winners were:

First Place: Diana Chin Lei Chen, 23 years old

Second Place: Jackie Heah Boey Ling, 18 years old

Third Place: Jenny Lim Chiew Eang, 19 years old

Best swimwear: Jenny Lim Chiew Eang, 19 years old

The winners walked away with prizes by Hard Rock Hotel Penang and swimwear sponsor Roxy.

 

As the night was still young we made our way over to the Hard Rock Café where a live band was rocking the house with the latest hits as well as rock classics like Guns N’ Roses, Bon Jovi, Deep Purple, etc. etc. After a few hours of partying, head-banging and dancing with loads of beer and vodka, we walked stumbled back to the comfy hotel room and no I’m not going to give you any juicy details on what happened after that.

The next day we stopped by for some Penang hawker fare before heading back to KL with boxes and boxes of Penang biscuits courtesy of Erica (who flew back to KL after lunch and got home before us – ish!). All in all a fitting farewell trip and one last awesome adventure to cap what has been an awesome two years with one of the best lads mag in the world.

More photos from the trip on my Facebook page.

Photo credits: Author’s own and http://eyedear.info