Hello Penang!! Part II (Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion)

Day 2: April 12, 2006
We started our tour today by going to Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. The guided tour started at 11am and we got there just at lil earlier than that so we had some time to look around and take some photos.
This place is absolutely gorgeous!! The wonderful indigo blue house originally owned by Cheong Fatt Tze, a Chinese guy from a poor family long time ago that migrated to South-East Asia (Indochina back then?) and worked very hard then became a weatlhy man. Well if u wanna know more about the history of it, u can go check it out here for a brief version or cown down to Penang to have a tour yourself :)

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside the house. We can take photos from the outside, that’s all. By the way, the fee to visit this place is something between 10-12RM, sorry I can’t remember exactly :P

The guide there was a Chinese woman. The stuffs she was telling us is about Cheong Fatt Tze, the history of this place, the restoration, and A LOT about Feng Shui, Yin-Yang and stuff like that which was interesting...only that I found her kinda annoying sometimes because she wanted us to participate too much and didn’t want us to fall asleep so she kept asking questions and really trying to squeeze the answers out of our mouths which made me feel like I was listening to a bitchy teacher or something.

The front part of this beautiful mansion.

I really love the decoration here..

After the tour of this place we went to Penang Museum which is not so far away from the mansion. The museum was fine, I guess. We were forbidden to take photos in there also but I did anyway, haha:P

Nothing much in the museum that I found it that interesting..mostly some props and photos. I’m sorry to Penang ppl but I’m just not a person who’s interested in history.This is the photo of a Chinese wedding bed in the old time..i think..

Oh I forgot to mention, on my way from Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion to the museum, it was like a lil after noon so the school was over or something. So many school kids were out and about and I saw the Penang(or Malay rather) school bus which I found it quite ghetto looking and more like a prisoner bus..

When we finished with the museum, we were trying to find St. George’s Church, the first church on the island or something like that, but the map we got for free(made by tourism Penang, I think) is really fucked up and we got lost. (And yes it was really fucked up, not that we were to stupid to figure out the map becoz we found the museum later on and we also compared the map with the free one..it was totally on different street!)
So we got tired of getting lost in the middle of nowhere and decided to go have a cup of coffee at Komtar instead. Since it’s a famous shopping mall..we were hoping to find something like..er..Starbucks :P

Well, well, well..I was being a lil optimistic. Komtar was actually quite old and a lil ghetto. It reminded me of a shopping mall by the Victory Monument in Bangkok called Center One which is ghetto also.
Anyway, we did find Starbucks :) here’s the proof, haha. And yes I did look terrible becoz it was very sunny and hot, ok??!

Me looking tired in Starbucks :P

We got some rest and having some Laksa noodle, the famous Penang food (that’s what recommended in the Lonely Planet book), it tasted weird, btw, some noodle with tamarind soup..tamarind!! Well, too bad I forgot to take the photo :(
Anyway, we decided to continue our journey by going to Kuan Yin Temple, a Chinese Buddhist temple. It was sooooooooo crowded when we got there, so many Chinese ppl there. Too bad I couldn’t get good photos becoz it was so bright and clouded with smoke from the incense sticks thingy.

According to the free ghetto ass map we had, Khoo Kongsi was supposed to be walkable from Kuan Yin temple so we decided to walk there. So here we go again, ladies and gentlemen, we went right where the spot was on the map and it wasn’t there…
After awhile I decided to forget it and got tired of walking..so I went back to the hotel and got some nap instead :POh on our way to Khoo Kongsi expedition..i found this interesting Islamic Place, though, I don’t know what it is and couldn’t find out either coz they were doing their muslim ritual in there.

Before ending my second day in Penang we went to have some food for dinner at another muslim restaurant next to SOHO Free House.

It’s pretty popular, according to the amount of ppl eating there. It opens until 4am and the food was great!! I had rice and honey chicken…so delicious!

I know it looks like kinda messy and dog food alike..but the taste is awesome. So there goes my 2nd day in Penang..2 more days to go :)

To be Continued: My 3rd day in Penang (The Kek Lok Si day)

Thanks to Wikipedia