It’s a culture day today! The four of us from last night regrouped and set out, eager to see what the city’s really made of.

We started at the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy, which is a Chinese style Buddhist temple in the city centre. It’s not fantastically impressive in itself, but it gives a great insight into the practising traditions of the community. Incense, charms, offerings and sparrows in cages adorn the bricked paving before the temple gates, and fake money is splashed liberally around burning-urns and beneath water-washed Buddhas. We witnessed a man spending over 100 Ringgits on the release of some sparrows. Whilst this may sound like an act of consideration towards nature, actually the deed is performed as it’s thought that the release of the sparrows will bring good luck to the purchaser – something about a spirit being freed. (By the same logic, does this mean that whoever catches the sparrows in the first place accumulates really bad luck?).

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Passing by the usual array of beautiful architecture, we enjoyed some more of Penang’s street art. Art here is utterly inspirational, and as mentioned before, there is a special post on this (right here!) – but that didn’t stop us interacting!

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I enjoyed wandering into a local photography workshop run by a Computer Scientist called Howard.

He had a few interesting photographs featuring the various shutters on the protected, colonial buildings around Penang, though as he only had large prints, I decided I would have to create my own gallery. This, I have done here:art

Feature on the shutters of Penang

Of course, there’s far more to Georgetown than just the shutters!

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Wandering further whilst sipping on fresh coconut juice we encountered a café advertising the renowned “Kopi Luwak” coffee, a phenomenon from Indonesia. These are coffee beans that have been passed through the digestive tract of the civet, a lemur-like creature native to South East Asia. Looking at the menu, I had a normal coffee, while Luke took one of the civet poo coffees at 4 times the cost. Having a little sip of his, I can honestly say that to my (clearly untrained) tongue, it didn’t taste 4 times better. But, it was certainly unique, and if I return or see it elsewhere in the future I’ll probably get a full cup to see if it’s really worth it.

Being a coffee fan, I was quite interested in the alchemy-style contraptions they arrange around the café to concoct their various brews:

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There are certainly too many hip coffee-stops in Penang to have a drink in each without suffering a heart attack. But, we did our best, and numerous quirky spots, buns, snacks and coffees:

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Later we found ourselves at the jetties, where a slightly different breed of Penang residence abides, atop floating houses and canal highways:

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Leaving the jetties, we made a beeline for the highlight cultural stopover of our day – THE UPSIDE DOWN MUSEUM. Don’t let the name fool you; as this is not a museum. It’s basically just furniture glued to the ceiling, and a bunch of locals in T-shirts standing waiting to help you take pictures. The rooms are mainly laid out as mundane domestic and street scenes, but that just makes the photos all the more intriguing! OK, I’ll stop teasing – here’s a bunch of photos of us upside down:

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And…. er?

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And in upside down shops!

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And… what?

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Nuts. After leaving the upside down museum we were left with the utterly bizarre feeling that the real-world was upside down. Turns out it wasn’t, so that’s OK!

We wandered on up the street and found ourselves drawn into the doorway of a quirky-looking hostel – “100 Cintra Street”. Though the name may be unimaginative, the building had a real air of character from the outside, and wandering in we were greeted by some Western folk who offered to show us around, as the place was empty. The architecture, layout and decoration, although faded, made for a photographer’s playground:

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We were told that the top floor in the past used to be an antique Chinese furniture museum, but the owner locked it up as he didn’t care too much for history. A shame, in my opinion, but peering through the bolted shutters brought a ghostly sense of mystery tingling up my back, so in a way, people are still enjoying its treasures.

There are tons of buildings like this around Penang, and the mixture of history, culture, and business opportunity which I saw in these outwardly tired but internally buzzing communities just added to the growing itch to come back and live for a while. Do you feel the buzz? Do you?

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Feeling our tummies rumble, we wandered on down the road to Little India, where we stopped for (fantastically good) curry:

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Though Clara and the others were tired at this point, my plan was to wander on over to the Penang Time Tunnel museum, to learn a little more about the history and origins of the city. Unfortunately, when I got there, it had closed, so I postponed the visit and instead decided to go to the shore to catch the sunset. Though cloudy, the skyline from the beach is relaxing, and I worked my way through the last few pages of my book in true tranquillity:

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Worryingly, standing to leave I noticed that the graze I’d picked up diving had gone downhill rapidly, and was pretty badly infected. I’d have to look after it well to stop it from getting in the way. Although medicine is cheap and readily available out here, in the heat, sweat and dust of the day that sort of injury is rather annoying and can take a long time to heal up.

Anyway, after hobbling my way back, grabbing the others, catching some street food for a snacky dinner, watching a local band play Western covers and playing around with more street art on the way back to the hostel, I’d decided Penang is a city I could really see myself coming back to live in.