PENANG TRIP!!

For this Semester 3, we are working on Forgptten Culture, that is why our lecturer decided on Penang, the culture city.

First day, we arrived at the hotel around 4 and freshened up.

After that, we took a 5 minutes walk to Sekeping Victoria which is a cafe inside an old building with a very raw style with which includes concretes and exposed brickworks.

Front of Sekeping Victoria

Interior of Sekeping Victoria

It was raw and brutal which is very interesting to look at, it also has a lot of ceiling light from the middle open space of the building as a lot of Peranakan houses do. It has the same concept as Sekeping Serendah which I visited last semester.

Next, we walked around the Street art area and follows through to Little India.

That's the end of Day 1 itinerary. So we got to explore the area and try out some food.

Next morning, we had a 2 and a half hours of a walk around heritage tour around Georgetown.

I learned a lot of interesting facts from the tour guide like how if you look up to the Peranakan houses roof you will see symbols like

The elements what shapes represents it

Rounded rooftop means metal/gold

It is based on the Chinese zodiac element : Water, Fire, Earth and Metal/ Gold

And we also learned about how different religions execute their way of praying like how Hinduism and Buddhism has almost the same elements.

After a few good food places recommended by the tour guide we went to Chew Jetty, a harbour area where the traders to used to stop by and did their dealings.

In the evening we just explored on our own and we also proposed what we wanted to do for our project and I chose Peranakan Beaded shoes. Its intricate beadwork sewn one by one with all the colours really fascinates me.

Peranakan beaded shoes is a dying culture that is now very hard to find, the Baba Nyonyas used to wear this shoes to events to show it off because they handmade their own attire.

My proposal got approved and I am relieved.

In the evening I brought my friends to Gurney where we enjoyed our dinner.

The next day we went home but before that we still had time to walk around and explore for 2 hours so we did.

This Penang trip was really fun as I get bond with all the new classmates and learn about all the cultures, explore the town a lot more than I did from my last few visits. I really enjoyed it!!