Day 4: Tour of the island of Penang

It is actually Jan 2nd right now (Happy New Year!), and of course I am already falling behind on my posts.  Just as a quick update, we are in Melaka, Malaysia right now, hiding from the mid-day heat and pending monsoon rain.  Tomorrow we leave for Bali. 

On Friday, Dec 28th Seth and I went on a little tour of Penang island that Kevin had booked for us and some of his friends that also flew in for the wedding.  We were a nice diverse group: us two Americans, a guy from Tokyo, one from Seoul, a Londoner, and a couple from Johannesburg, South Africa.   

The first stop on our tour was Penang Hill, accessed via Swiss funicular.  While waiting for our turn up the hill, Seth had a flash of illness, which tapered off but lingered for most of the day.  Ironically, we were just talking to some of our tour-mates how we loved the local food and being 'adventurous'. I will blame Seth's illness on dehydration and the heat.

Buying tickets for the furnicular

The view from the top of Penang Hill

There were lots of little exhibits and places to walk.  It was also a few degrees cooler up on this hill, providing a nice retreat from the heat down in the city.

The next stop was Kek Lok Si, a temple atop another grand hill

Uncle Kevin described the massive sculpture of the Goddess of Mercy as 'Statue of Liberty size'

The temple was beautifully decorated with hundreds of these red lanterns, and it really seemed like we were on the top of the world

The Goddess of Mercy

For lunch our tour guide wanted to take us to McDonalds, but thankfully we were all game for going to a local hawker stall instead.

Chicken rice

Indian self-serve food on a banana leaf.  I found an opportunity for vegetables so I took it

We were all feeling better after lunch, as we needed our strength to visit the Snake Temple

The temple was full of sleeping Wergler's pit vipers (venomous!), which for some reason moved into the temple shortly after it was built.

The Snake Temple

After a drive around Penang island, we headed back into Georgetown (the main city in Penang).  Here we went inside the Peranakan Mansion, a rendition of a typical Baba Nyonya mansion. These were the people of Chinese descent that were very good at adapting Malayan culture.

Peranakan Mansion (Baba Nyonya)

Inside the mansion, these ladies were preparing tiny round biscuits (they smelled like Christmas cookies)

Our final stop was Khoo Kong Si, a prominent Chinese clan house (basically the headquarters for an association of people from a similar region of China).

Khoo Kong Si clanhouse temple

A view of the stage from the temple

I really loved the drawings of these creatures, as well as the elaborate lanterns

Bird calligraphy

At the close of the tour, we returned to our respective hotels, got cleaned up, and met for a sort of big rehearsal dinner.  For Seth and myself, this involved taking the public buses for the first time outside of town. It was actually fairly easy, except that it was rather slow, due to Penang's traffic congestion.

Dinner was a big, long affair, and was 10 courses of more traditional Chinese foods.  I don't know the names of any of the dishes, but I will give you a short description of each. I didn't take a picture of all of them, but Aunt Dee did (maybe I will add them later). 

Course 1: a mix of seafood, salads, and small fried things. (Uncle Kevin looks a little wary...)

Members of Course 1: baby octopus and dragon fruit balls

Course 2: roast pig - head, feet, and all

Course 3: jellied century egg with ginger on the perimeter, and fried fish fins in the center

Course 4: Mushrooms on the outside, cabbage on the inside, and very fishy dried abalone/scallop things on the top center

Course 9: Noodles

Final course (10): a white fungus and ginkgo nut dessert soup, with lotus cakes on the side. 

Our table: the Baileys, Donnellys, Seth, myself, and Kevin's mother and brothers (who were helpful in explaining the foods).  There were probably 5 other tables.