Penang, you beautiful thang

Did I mention how much we liked Penang!?

Here are some more things we did here that made us love Penang and George Town even more.

The Cheong Fett Tze Mansion, aka The Blue Mansion

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This was a house built by a rich chinese man named Cheong Fett Tze towards the end of the 19th century. He built the house with a close attention to Feng Shui, from the front face of the building to the location of the inner courtyard and even the height of the floors from the back to the front of the house. Apparently the back of the house should be higher than the front of the house, so as to symbolize “promotion in life” as you enter and go through your house. He had this house in Penang built for his favorite wife, which was his 7th wife. She was around 17 when they got married, compared to his 70something (gross!). This wife’s son was his last living heir and it was written in his father’s will that the house could not leave the family’s posession until this son died. So anyway, the son died and the house went into a serious direpair until 1989 when it was bought by some locals and was heavily invested in to repair it to its current state. Besides being a museum with a super adorable and lively tour guide, it is also a hotel, has a restaurant inside, and has been used in many films including the recent-ish movie, Crazy Rich Asians (haven’t seen it). So this house susprisingly turned into a very interesting visit… and for only 17 Ringgits each (3.75 Eur / 4.17 USD)!

In addition to the Blue Mansion, we also came across this house on our way to the food court near our little hotel. No entrance fee and we were the only ones there. It had mannequins standing around displaying typical Malay clothing, style, jewelry and had lots to read about how people here used to live and how the houses were designed. Quite neat little diy tour.

On our further explorations through the city, we found some more of the wall art. As you can see by the discoloration and deterioration of the wall, alot of people touch the wall and try to incorporate themselves into the picture. Which is both stupid and disresrectful, we thought. For some, it was intentional that you get involved but others had peoples oily hands and sweaty backs on the wall so many times, you can see it. Eww.

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We haven’t really had alot of desserts over here, but here below are two of the sweets we indulged in. First one is a oreo cheesecake at a bakery downstairs from our hotel that we think was owned by a German, or at least a European. It was very good! And the next picture is a gooey ball of sticky rice with a plop of sugary caramelized coconut on top. Strange but quite delicious. The other pictures are some kind of noodle dishes that I forgot the names of, and the last is the MOST amazing Indian meal I might have ever eaten.

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The Chew Jetty

This brings us to New Years Eve, which we spent inside a food court drinking very cheap beer and then we went to a wide open square near the water where we thought, surely there will be fireworks here. There were not, but the night was just as spectacular! What a city to begin 2020 in! Here are some pictures:

We spent some more days in George Town basically only eating amazing food and enjoying our surroundings (we also got hair cuts!) and then 2 nights in a small beachside town only 30 minutes away. There is not much to say about that but there are some pictures!

That’s it for Malasysia! After this, we flew over to the Philippines where we are still now and I will share some of the Philippino stuff soon! 🙂 We are currently in PARADISE!