Matt's Travels: Random pictures of stuff

Not much time to post, so this will be brief.

The Intel site here is in a "Free Trade Zone". Big high tech companies locate on one of these 3 zones Malaysia has set up here in Penang, where the otherwise expensive taxes on facilities and output are reduced or waived. Intel has multiple buildings scattered in this particular zone. Each zone is fenced in and secure, and apparantly has it's own "customs" guards around it monitoring what goes in and out. This building is the newest/nicest here, called PG12. The CPU design team sits there. Yes, there was a thunderstorm shortly after I took this.

More shots of PG12

This is PG2 (and the PG2.1 add-on) where the Validation team sits. They got moved there when PG12 filled up.

This truck was parked outside the FTZ. I thought the description on the side was funny.

So, you know how Intel Jones Farm is right next to the Hillsboro Airport? And we joke at work about what would happen if a plane hit the building? Yeah. So the Penang site is in the landing pattern of Penang International Airport. Huge wide body airplanes fly so low over the building on their way in to land that the furniture shakes. This picture below doesn't do it justice!

On the way home one evening the taxi driver told me that these are Pinang Palm trees, for which the island is named. They grow small fruit that some people chew (look carefully, they're in there!).

A bad shot as we drove by, but this is the biggest McDonald's I've ever seen! It is 2 stories.

I believe this is the state mosque. You know how in movies they show the daily prayers being blared out over middle east cities? Well, they do that here, and it's kind of unnerving.

Unfortunately, the camera didn't pick it up very well, but this very old kind of run down laundry place, just inside the doorway they have a very modern computer. Anyway, zoom in and check out the detail in the beautiful flower tile on the outside wall. They don't make stuff like that anymore.

Sunrise this morning. It doesn't start getting light until about 7:20am, and gets dark around 8pm. It only changes by about 30 min either way with the seasons, since they are so close to the equator.