Penang

The last weekend of the Singapore trip, some colleagues and I took a quick trip to Penang, Malaysia. It's just a short one and a half hour flight away.  We stayed in the Georgetown area, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It's known for its street art and street food. :)

The hotel I picked had a view of the water, which was awesome, and it was also an easy walk both to the clan jetties (which were originally "floating villages" where different Chinese clans lived, and now they're sort of touristy dock areas) and to the historical part of town. There weren't many people out on the jetties when we were there (and it was very hot!), but it did have some nice views of the city across the water.  

The historical city was really interesting to walk around. They have a variety of murals painted on the walls, and they also have a series of wire sculptures that commemorate different historical events or show how different places got their names. It's fun to try to spot them all!  There were also a couple of elaborate temples and mosques, and a "Little India" area. 

There are also lots of street cats around!

For dinner that night, we tried to go to hawker center stands that were recommended by a travel blog, but they were both closed that night. (Unfortunately, this happened more than once -- when you have places that are run by just one or two people, sometimes they don't stick to the usual business hours!)  So we tried this other stand where you pick out your ingredients, and then they cook them and mix them together with a sauce on top. It was an adventure because we didn't always know exactly what it is that we were eating, but it ended up being pretty tasty!  (It was also interesting because we were probably the only non-Muslim people at that hawker center -- but nobody seemed to care.)  

Afterwards we went for a drink at the food court/hawker center near the hotel, and there was a local band playing (doing a lot of covers of American music, some in the origianal English and some not), and lots of people hanging out watching -- it was fun!