Oh Penang. I can't even tell if Penang is just fabulous, or if the people I was with just made it all seem so sparkly and friendly. I think it's a combo of both. 

Before I went people kept telling me how sketchy Penang was and how I really had to be careful since I was traveling alone and all that, but I never once felt unsafe there. I mean, I met Chris like within an hour and wasn't alone after that, so maybe that's why. Benedicte said that she got harassed quite a lot and didn't feel very safe when she was on a street without many people on it, but I went around taking photos on my own and just imagined myself to be invisible and it was fine. A big problem that I have here is that I just imagine that everyone is staring at me. Like I just attract attention and people will see my every transaction at the ATM and pulling out my camera and it has inhibited me from doing a lot of things. So pretending that I am invisible and to just record what I see is really useful to overcome the irrationality of the myth of the south as like danger zone for white people. It's amazing how ingrained it is.

 So anyway it was REALLY refreshing, even if I was wrong, to just relax and stop worrying about every look I made and step I took. And so I got to enjoy the beauty that is Penang. You forget, after living in KL for a while, that there is such a thing as silence, and how wonderful that thing is. 

My favorite part was definitely the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion, aka the blue mansion. The house was built by this guy who was basically like Asia's vanderbilt or rockefeller. He just got into business and made tooonnnss of money. So he built this house in complete Fung Shui (sp?). It's all about Chi and energy flowing through, so when you walk in there is a kind of divider between the front hall and the rest of the house because chi is supposed to flow in and disperse and the then bad chi flows out the back. Not good to just have chi going straight through the house. It was also a courtyard mansion so when it rains there was a pool in the middle of the house that would catch it, and they designed drains from the gutters that went to the same pool so that the water would be constantly moving around and never stagnant. Water coming in means wealth in chinese culture. And then it drains out slowly to represent not being greedy. 

The whole house is symmetrical (sp) and there are tons of details around the whole place that make in Feng Shui. He also built it at an angle on the street so that the house would be facing water and the back would be against a hill (penang hill is directly behind the mansion). Facing water means success and facing a hill means protection. Symbolises sitting on the back of a dragon, I think. Since the hill was so far away he also built the back end of the house higher than the front end.

He was buddhist but he incorporated christian imagery into some of the sculptures because his business partners were christian which I thought was a neat touch. The house is pretty, but is also just so detailed. There are little bats sculpted in the corners of the room for good luck and everything that is like a drain or has something to do with air or water is in the sign of a chinese coin.

We couldn't take pictures inside the house though. Oh well. You'll have to go see for yourself!

The other thing was the Buddhit Temple which was gorgeous. However, it was SO HOT we felt really like we were boiling. On the way up to the pagoda there are just like halls that are lined with the most agressive hawkers I have met so far. Like I've never had hawkers touch me and these people would grab me and chase me yelling lower prices. It was intense. I UNFORTUNATELY had to buy a skirt from one of them because i was wearing jeans and just felt like I would faint if I didn't change.

It was really weird for the group of us as American and Europeans being around so many swastikas. I know rationally that it means something really ancient and peaceful, but it still just chills you a bit. the details at the temple were also just breathtaking, and the view was really beautiful. there are pictures in my guidebook but it just really doesn't compare.

Penang hill probably would have been amazing if we weren't too exhausted by the time we got to the top to go to the butterfly garden or botanical garden. The tram up was UNBELIEVABLY cramped and hot and long. So many muslim women were judging me on that tram. The picture of Ferret and Mike is really pretty perfect. So we just went to the top and chilled out in the cooler weather for a bit. I did see some really cool birds though. A couple had like crowns on their heads and another had a two very very long feathers on either said of its tail feather. There was just a monitor lizard chillin by the side of the tram tracks. The butterflys were many and very pretty (but too fast to catch on camera). We also saw this crazy spider web that was tied up and the spider that made it looked like a crab. See picture below.

When we got home we all insisted that we were going to go to bed immediately, not stay up and party like the night before, and were just too utterly exhausted. But, alas, we all ended up at the table on the deck again, and even though we were all EXHAUSTED, we were having too much fun to leave.

Luckily for me (not so much for Chris), I was able to bring him back with me and we've been having a really good time hanging out this week though we haven't done a lot of actually going out and seeing things since we've both been around the city quite a bit already. He's got most of this bank stuff sorted out and I believe he's leaving on Saturday.

<3

Clara