Out of things to do
Out of things to do, and I like it that way! The travel brochure lists some 20 odd tourist destination within Penang, but none of them looked particularly interesting. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m much more of a doer than a seer but going to and taking pictures of various temples and gardens isn’t exactly something that I’d go out of my way to do… (unless, of course, if it involves monkeys!) and by not going out anywhere, I probably had the most relaxing day that I’ve ever had in a long while.
Maybe this is the real charm of Penang - relaxing and eating. I dragged myself out onto Gurney drive to a coffee house called Mr. Pot where I had White Coffee (as far as I can tell, it’s their name for coffee with lots of sugar and cream), buttered toast (which is buttered and has some sweet substance on it), and toast with chicken curry. As with everything else here, the food was delicious! After hanging out there for an hour, perusing through the Sunday Times (or Sunday Strait?) where I learned that entry level Kia sedans are considered low level executive car here, I walked another couple of blocks down to the Gurney Plaza where I bought a book (Blind Willow, Sleeping Women by Haruki Murakami - damn, books are relatively expensive here!) and went to another coffee shop where I curled up with some fancy banana / strawberry drink, chocolate cake, and my new book. I got back to the hotel, then went and got a hair cut (another interesting experience - I was served tea to drink while I waited for a seat to open up… and the haircut was followed by a full on scalp massage as part of the wash process, all for less than $10 USD!), then headed to the Gurney Hawker centre for even more delicious and amazing food before finishing the day at the hotel’s coffee shop. The city hustles and bustles, but you can also slow the pace of life right down and be completely oblivious to everything else around you.
Couple of interesting things that I’ve noticed: my status as a Canadian citizen born in Korea but living in US and visiting Penang for 2 weeks seems to completely confuse the locals here. They don’t seem to be able to fully grasp it, though I suppose it actually is rather confusing. Growing up in Canada where everyone is basically an immigrant, I tend to take people moving countries for granted but I suppose it is a fairly rare thing if you actually think about the number of people who actually make that jump. The other thing is that everything here seems to be labour intensive, even the things that needn’t be. Everything from McDelivery motorcycles (yes, McDonald’s delivers here. So do KFC. Free as long as you buy 5 ringgits worth, or ~$1.50) to the way that hawker centres operate, it’s seems to be designed to be as convenient as possible for the consumer at the expense of labour requirements. As someone who’s grown up with doing things on my own and who’s used to that style, the difference is rather jarring, but I’m starting to see the human side of it all. Maybe I’m starting to actually prefer this humane side of commerce as opposed to the western we’ll increase efficiency by removing all trace of humanity from our interactions thing that we’ve got going.