Mansions and Museums

March 14

We met for breakfast at 8:00 and had a terrific meal at the hotel buffet. We decided to take in a free Old Town guided tour .We had an excellent guide, a retired teacher who infused the tour with some time honored values like ‘there is only one race, the human race, make money quickly and spend it slowly (the Chinese way he said).  

We took the free bus back to the hotel and headed down the street for pho, Vietnamese beef noodle soup and washed it down with some really good ice cold lemon tea. We rested briefly (it’s hot here and humid) and then took a free bus to see the Blue Mansion, a 38 room gorgeous house built in the late 1800’s. It was bought in 1989 and lovingly restored over an almost seven year period. It won awards for the authentic restoration completed with high standards. Part of the mansion is now a B and B and high end restaurant. Our tour guide was quite enthusiastic.

Kay and Bill

On the way to catch the free bus we passed a chocolate shop. Scored 70% and gave Bill and Kay one of the three boxed we bought. Rushed back to the hotel to keep it from melting in the heat. We rested until Happy Hour on the roof top then headed out to a fabulous dinner at a restaurant off Armenian that was housed in a building that was three shop houses that had been combined and that housed two restaurants, shops, a wine and an espresso bar. The bakery there makes 50 desserts a day!! We shared a piece of Louise cake which had meringue, coconut and raspberry filling. OMG. YUM.

March 15

 After breakfast we went to Starbucks for a coffee then caught a bus to Dr Sun Yat Sen’s Penang base. He was the father of the Chinese Revolution of 1911. This was his home during that time. Many of the houses here have an interior courtyard that is open with no roof to allow light in and rain which is collected by way of a depressed floor and that channel the water into a well beneath the courtyard floor. Ingenious. 

The guide there showed us a great photo trick and took our picture through an antique mirror.  We then did it for Bill and Kay.

Antique toothbrush holder

Afterwards we stopped by two shops Kay and I had spied. I tired on a jacket but I didn’t like the fit although I loved the fabric. Kay got a couple of items and our husbands had a place to sit in the foyer of a hotel that was part of the complex.

We walked to the Penang State Museum, a small but lovely museum. We were leaving just as the school children were entering. We made a fast get away. The entrance fee was 24 cents! We grabbed lunch at a traditional eatery that served Nonya (Peranakan) food, a flavorful cuisine that married Chinese with local herbs, spices and ingredients. We had fired chicken, curried chicken, wing beans and eggplant with rice of course. All quite tasty and inexpensive ($25 for four people).

Next we visited another mansion, the Pinang Peranakan. The Peranakans, also known as Babas and Nonyas, are a community of acculturated Chinese. They are also known as the Straits Chinese, having settled along the British Straits of Penang and Singapore. They adopted Malay ways and British colonial lifestyle. This mansion was a typical home of an affluent Baba a century ago and was recreated to allow visitors to glimpse the opulent lifestyle, customs and traditions in those days. It was more ostentatious than the Blue Mansion so there was a lot to see and take in. There are over a 1000 pieces of antiques and collectibles of this era on display.

I loved the women’s clothes and the myriad of batik prints. The textiles blew us away, embroidery with real gold thread for example with the tiniest, finest stitches. I would have loved to be able to buy some but nothing like that was for sale. We had a great free guide who added humorous comments. The tour took about an hour and there were just six of us in our group. It ended with the Straits Chinese Jewelry Museum. Good lord, what opulence. The bead work on shoes, purses and wall hangings was the finest I have seen with the tiniest beads imaginable. There were many items from England (furniture, fine glassware and china) and Scotland (iron columns, tiles) and China (china, textiles, furniture). We saw jewelry made with feathers from the Australian Kingfisher that was just brilliant with color.

We came back to the hotel for high tea delights, rested before happy hour and then went out to dinner at a Muslim restaurant and had another fine meal of lamb biryani. It sounds as though we are eating our way through George Town!