Penang - Part 2 - Heritage

Choeng Fatt Tze Mansion - Looks like a blue version of our old Singapore house
The tour is about to begin.
Indigo - great word, great color.
Detail of the work made from broken dishes.
Click to make it big.


No photos in the house - but here is the entry way.
Rickshaws from back in the day.
The lady of the mansion?
A tourist disguised as a tourist.
The Hainese Buddhist Temple and our guide, Joann.



Passing politicians extolling the virtues of their hometown.
The shrine outside is for Gods traced back to Islam. Can't be inside because pork is served their on occasion.
Even the ceilings tell a story.
The dragon guards the gate.

Stone, hand carved in Hainan and shipped to Penang.

Tools for the Buddhist fortune telling ritual. Stones to determine if the Gods want to answer your questions and sticks with numbers that lead to detailed answers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kau_Cim
A shop house in the Straits Eclectic style (1890-1940)
In need of repair but still very beautiful to see.
This (and many other) shophouse is used solely for allowing the owner to collect "bird's nest" or swallow spit. Very profitable. The entire house is closed except for small holes where birds enter and exit. They say there can be thousands of birds in the house. Think of the poop! Think of the neighbors!
Local kopi roaster. They add sugar, nutmeg, chocolate, salt and even sesame seeds to give their blend a distinct flavor.

Drying Joss sticks outside the Joss Stick maker's house. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_stick

Real Joss Sticks are made from sandlewood powder (great aroma), sticky powder and sawdust.
Mr. Lee is the last joss Stick maker in Penang and one of the few old time Joss makers in the world. Now most are made cheaply in China.
Mr. and Mrs. Lee and their "factory".
Joss stick come in many shapes and sizes from tiny to jumbo temple sized.

Penang is kind of like what Singapore would be like if they hadn't torn down most of the interesting and historic buildings to make way for modern boring buildings which have already been torn down and replaced by even more modern, more boring buildings.

In Penang there are still many shop houses, old Buddhist and Hindu Temples, mosques and hawker streets. There are also some very cool restored old homes built by people who arrived in Penang and made their fortunes. Georgetown, along with another Malaysian city, Malaka have been given the UNESCO "World Heritage" designation. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1223

Our first stop was the Choeng Fatt Tze mansion. http://www.choengfatttzemansion.com/

Mr. Cheong left China at age 16 penniless and built himself a huge empire. He had many homes and many wives. The Penang home with it's classic Chinese style adorned with many Western eclectic touches is said to be one of only two such buildings found outside of China. We took a tour with an excellent guide, Joann. She was extremely well versed in the history of the home, the architecture and more importantly the fung shwei. It should also be noted that several movies, including Indochine http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104507/ were filmed on location in the mansion.

After the tour we learned Joann was a heritage tour guide for the city of Georgetown and we promptly signed up for her walking tour scheduled for the next morning.

Saturday afternoon, as the rain ranged from a drizzle to a monsoon, we trudged around the city look at buildings, popping into temples, eating and exploring Penang's Little India.

Sunday, while it was still very cloudy and gray, at least it wasn't raining. We met Joann and the small tour group at 9AM and we were off on an extremely interesting and informative 3 1/2 hour tour of Georgetown. We learned so much about shop houses, Chinese architecture, Victorian architecture, the rituals of some of the Chinese Buddhist religions, joss stick making, food, kopi making and bird's nest harvesting that I am hoping to apply for some college credit for it.

More pictures posted soon!

Soggy Penang - Part 1 - Lodgings

Welcome to Malaysia!
Stately and Elegant - the E&O
Nice pool, too bad it rained the whole time.

Protected by her umbrella she steps onto the veranda.
Our view. Attacks by sea strongly discouraged!
It was dry inside.
But freezing with the aircon. Needed the soggy warm outside air.
Tempted but I didn't steal one.

So much going on - so little time to write.

While we have lived in Singapore for over 2 years Sophia has never been to Malaysia. It is not only Singapore's closest neighbor, but as many of you know Singapore was part of Malaysia until 1965 or so. So in anticipation of a possible move out of here we are trying to see some places we've passed up so far. Last week was Penang.

Penang is an island in the Northwest part of the Malaysia peninsula.

http://www.tourismpenang.gov.my/ It is the site of the second largest city in Malaysia, Georgetown. It's an old colonial port so there is a bit the colonial era mixed in with the cultural and architectural flavors of Malaysia, China and India. It's about an hour and half flight from Singapore.

Not being resort people we stayed at the oldest grandest hotel in the city the Eastern and Oriental. http://www.e-o-hotel.com/eoh/index.htm The hotel was built and run by the same people who built and ran the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

While the food at the hotel was average at best, the location, room, grounds and view were outstanding.

Now if only it hadn't rained like a monsoon the whole time we were there!