January 2 George Town Walk

 We spent another day resting on January 1.  Did laundry to celebrate the new year!

Monday, December 2 is still a holiday here.  I think people here spend it with family as we had no problems getting to George Town by Grab.  There were very few tourists there. A lot of things were closed.  The Penang History museum has been closed for years and no one seems to know when it will reopen.  That was at the start of our walking tour today.  So we skipped on to some government buildings.

I think this is the City Hall. There is a bike race in progress.  Though I think the aim is to finish the race, not to be the fastest.  It is all the way around the island or about 80KM.

What amazes me in Malaysia is that it seems all the statues like this and fountains feature western looking people.  A lot of the time, the manikins in stores also look Western.  

One of the things Michael is excited to try is the "White Coffee".

This was one of the many StreetSide  places to offer food to the gods in Malaysia.

We walked to the water front - not a whole lot to see.

This young girl kept playing the pigeons.

The finish line for the charity bike ride.

Near by a memorial to all the soldiers who have died fighting for Malaysia.

I believe this is still the city hall from another side.

And maybe the town hall - as they were right next to each other.

We had to take a photo of this as we have come across so few crosswalks so far in our tours of Malaysia.  The button actually worked!

Sidewalks are an adventure here.  Sometimes there are nice ones like this one.

But a lot of times they are like this one - they abruptly end.  You can go around it but again it shortly ends with some steps down into the street.

 But mostly you just walk in the street.  Traffic is slow - but you do need to be careful.

These photos are in Little India.

If you remember our first week here we stayed in a Peranakan style home.  That was nothing like we saw today at the Penang Peranakan Mansion. This was the home of a Peranakan Merchant.

The house had two dining rooms.  One for the locals - and

One in Western style.

Our English guides theme was of the marriage of a young Peranakan  couple.  She would have been about 13 or 14 at marriage.  He would be a little older.  Before marriage she would have to cook a meal for the grooms family and also show her needlework.  I kept waiting for our guide to say what the boy had to prove - but there was nothing.

The house had a secret passage to their own temple.

Needle work samples.

Jewelry - the blue comes from bird feathers.

There was a cafe as part of the mansion complex.  I had this chicken curry with blue rice.  The rice is colored by the Butterfly-pea flower.  This is unique to Malaysia.

Still in Little Indian.

And more street scenes.

Part of the tour was to be a street where there were several Straits Chinese Clan houses.  We somehow missed them except being on the backside of this one.  It is the Cheah Kongsi.  We plan to go back tomorrow to locate and visit them.  There was a sign outside this one that said you needed your vaccination record - which I did not have with me.

We are getting very tired and ended up at this food court to get something to drink to cool us off.  It is supposed to be 90F today.  I'm thinking we might eat at this food court tomorrow.