30 March 2014
We took the train from KL to George Town on the island of Pulau Penang, up off the northwest corner of Malaysia.
George Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site - which means it's a pretty special kind of place. Here's the info from the website:
"George Town, historic city of the Straits of Malacca has developed
over 500 years of trading and cultural exchanges between East 
and West
in the Straits of Malacca. The influences of Asia and Europe have
endowed the town with a specific multicultural heritage that is both
tangible and intangible.
Featuring residential and commercial buildings, George Town 
represents
the British era from the end of the 18th century. The town
constitute a unique architectural and cultural townscape without
parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia."
UNESCO granted this town status as a World Heritage Site because of the unique multicultural heritage of the people, the buildings, the ongoing community.
And it really is amazing! Gorgeous! Beautiful! All of these incredible buildings that date back to the 1800s, when this was a British center, mixed in with mosques that are hundreds of years old, as well as 
Chinese temples and 
buildings that are roughly 100 years old or more. History and heritage at every turn.
Our hotel is in this part of town, full of 
interesting buildings with entrances like Chinese gates, painted tile pictures on the walls, intricately carved doors and windows, and colours that vibrate in the humid and hot air. With ubiquitous red 
lanterns, floral garlands, 
tropical flowers like frangipani and bouganvillia, and rickshaws (well, bicycle rickshaws called trishaws) decorated with silk flowers and parked on sidewalks and along the roads.
It's beautiful, and so interesting. We walk around and I just stop and photography everything. And of course, it all looks different at night, when those lanterns are lit and everything looks mystical and you could swear ghosts are gathering under the streetlights.
We came planning to spend a few days, which have turned into a week, and will turn into ten days or so. This place is just interesting, 
fun, great for exploring with a free shuttle bus, and there always seems to be something going on. Maybe that's because there are special events the last weekend of each month - so we visited a street market in 
the Little India section of town this morning. Last night we saw fireworks as 
part of the festivities nearby. In the park right near our hotel, there's an evening flea market almost every day. As I said, it seems as if there's always something going on.
One of the quirkier things about George Town (I like quirky) is the street art - just sort of random little murals scattered around the town. According to a brochure we found, "it all started with a street art project called Mirrors George Town by the George Town Festival 2012. Since that time, street art has been popping up all over the inner city and has stirred up quite a media frenzy." The brochure includes a map indicating the locations of the various bits of art. But of course new paintings show up, so you never know what you might find.
Look closely at the bicycle and motorcycle, they're real and put in place permanently. The people are painted on, but really look as if they're riding around.
And of course, the hat wanted to get in on the fun.
There are also 
wrought-iron figures and caricatures scattered around - each one has a little explanation, telling why a street might be named something, or why a building is important, or 
who used to live and work in this area.
As I said, this is just kind of quirky! What's really funny is to see hordes of tourists, day-trippers from bus tours or cruise ships, who pose with the various murals and try to look as if they belong in the scene! (Since we're here for more than just a day, we can laugh at the tourists acting like tourists instead of acting like locals, the way we do.)
Just to add to our excitement - there's a British TV drama that will be filmed here in George Town, and Richard found a casting call for extras. They're looking for people of Indian or Caucasian descent - and apparently British-looking people aren't easy to find 
around here. So we've sent 
off our photos, and will go in for a casting call or audition or something like that. We'll see what happens - I'm sure they're just looking for people to fill in the backgrounds of scenes, and the two of us could most certainly handle that. Could be fun! (I, of course, am hoping for a ballroom scene so I can waltz or foxtrot or something - again, in the background.)
Today we found a temple or 
memorial or something, 
and they had huge joss sticks 
(incense) out front - these were the largest joss sticks I've ever seen! Our neighbourhood temple also 
had some special incense thing - there was a large pan on a tripod, with incense burning, apparently all day long. By evening, this giant wok-like pan was overflowing with ash and soot. Someone told us that today is a special festival to honour one's ancestors - which makes sense, since 
the hat insisted on sitting on one of the decorative joss sticks. I guess it was the hat's way of honouring Dad.
People in KL told us that Penang, this island, and this province, is known for having good food. And yes, we've been eating well here.
But the BEST place we've found is the China House, a 
wonderfully unique café, restaurant, bar, bakery, art center, theatre. Really, they have it all! 
http://www.chinahouse.com.m
y/
This is the longest café/restaurant in George Town, maybe in Malaysia. The front door is on one block, and the back door is at the end of the opposite block. Yes, the place is narrow and runs the 
length of the entire block, with a lovely garden and courtyard in the middle. They make their own cakes - each day, they must have close to 30 different cakes from their repertoire of over 100 different possibilities.
You know those paintings by Wayne Thiebaud, the canvas covered with rows and rows of cakes or pies? That's what the display table at China House looks like - a Thanksgiving table overflowing with carrot cake, banana cake, pear and ginger torte, raspberry frangipane tart, chocolate chocolate and more chocolate, berries, vanilla, bananas, and on and on. It is AMAZING!!!! (And I'm being nice and not showing photos of these cakes - also known as food porn. You don't need to drool on your computer.)
My favourite is the Chocolate Tissimo - or Chocolatissimo, which makes for a very long name. This is chocolate to the max. The cake is almost like a dark chocolate brownie, with walnut bits; the topping is a rich chocolate mousse; and the mousse is covered with chocolate flakes. Fortunately, serving sizes are about 1/12 to 1/16 of a cake, so even though this is a major calorie fest, it isn't one of those spots where a slice of cake can be half a day's worth of calories. No, these are reasonable slices of rich, delicious, totally worth the splurge cake. Oh, yes, they also have some tarts, tortes, and maybe pies. And brownies. But I'm stuck on Chocolatissimo, and don't see any reason to move on.
So yes, we're having fun. We'll see what happens with our auditions, we'll head back to KL at some point, and til then, we'll keep having fun here in George Town!
24 March 2014
Over the weekend, we finally made it to the Perdana Botanic Gardens, or Taman Botani Perdana in Malaysian. Lovely green oasis in the 
middle of the city, the way many large city parks tend to be.
I enjoyed the ASEAN sculpture garden. ASEAN stands for Association of SE Asian Nations, and includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
So the sculpture garden contains not only sculpture designed and created by artists in those countries, it also is designed to represent those nations and to promote peace and 
understanding amongst the member 
countries.
The sculptures have names like "Progress" and "Growth" and "Peace" - each one was created by a different artist and represents their vision of the ASEAN region. Some appear very industrial, like the giant metal thing that looks like a huge fan, or maybe some mad scientist's nuclear reactor or something. Another looks like monstrous jacks from a giant children's game.
Then there are marble columns turning into steps and winding their way skyward - obviously growth. Even though it kind of looks like a wing, from a distance. And the walkway was 
equally decorative!
We had fun walking around viewing all of this, and enjoying the quiet green of the park. We walked, wandered, lost our way, found the road we wanted, found it was under construction and blocked off, backtracked and formed a new route through the 
park. All in the tropical heat and humidity that characterizes KL and Malaysia.
We had a nice
long walk around part of the park, and somehow found a Malaysian TV
drama being filmed - the man in the plaid shirt plays the father of the
little girl, whose head you can just see over his left shoulder. She
had to sit as if she just fell off the bottom of the slide, and 
sat
crying for her dad. He runs in.
Well, of course we somehow ended up chatting with some of the production staff - the guy at the food center, the production assistant or something, eventually the "talent" (also known as actors). Richard asked what the story line was - I told him the father was a single parent, this was his 
little girl, and he probably was dating a slutty woman on the side who the little girl hated. (It's a formula for daytime TV, right?) The food center guy laughed and agreed that was pretty much the plot.
The funniest part was when the very cute little girl, maybe age 6 or so, came over and shook Richard's hand and then 
mine - I guess maybe she's a local celebrity? We also chatted with the 
guy who plays her father, and joked with the director about being extras in the show - but they didn't need any white tourists wandering around.
So, after that excitement, we found the little golf-cart-bus that goes around the park. For two ringgits each (all of $.60 US) we could ride around the park. After our two miles or so, in the heat, we decided to ride. It was well worth our two ringgits! Plus one of the riders ran up to the driver and co-driver, 
offered them mini-cupcakes, they said to give them to us - I said I didn't need one so they gave it to a little girl in back of us, but Richard enjoyed his very ornate little cupcake!
So we rode around the park, seeing the lovely grounds, a 
variety of bridges over the man-made lakes and connecting channels, and went by some of the attractions: the bird park, the herb garden, the orchid garden, and of course several tea houses.
Oh, and remember 
how some of the previous KL posts had photos of the lovely decorative street lights? Check out the gorgeous hibiscus street lights around the garden! How absolutely appropriate to have giant red hibiscus blossoms on the multi-lane highway cutting through the city! I think the hibiscus must be the national flower, or maybe the state flower for whichever state this is - the currency has a red hibiscus, we see it on signs, the national emblem, and now these Alice-in-Wonderland-like street lights! I love it!
Our taxi on the trip back went past several beautiful old government buildings. These were over 100 years old, and are wonderful examples of what is called Moorish architecture - meaning the design is based on the mosques built in northern Africa and Spain. The buildings definitely had a mosque-like look, with towers, domes, intricately-shaped arches, and even the alternating stripes of stucco and brick. So exotic, and so unexpected in the middle of SE Asia! Really, they were reminiscent of the Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain, which we visited several years ago - so they seem (to me) just sort of incongruous in Malaysia. But the sultan who converted to Islam way back in 1400-something apparently invited some Muslim architects as well as scholars to come to Malaysia, as did subsequent sultans, and so Malaysia has a heritage of these gorgeous Moorish buildings. One more unexpected treat!
It was just one of those crazy days!
21 March 2014
Today we headed to the northern part of KL for the National Visual Arts Gallery of Malaysia, or Koleksi Balal Seni Visual Negara (in 
Malaysian). Somehow, this turned into a typical Phebe and Richard adventure.
First, we managed to find our way to the train station behind the bus station that is downstairs from our hotel. These are the intra-city trains, 
mostly elevated. We figured out how to use the machines and bought our tokens. We used the maps to find which train to catch, and got on the next train. We even got off at the right station. Where we asked for directions to the art museum.
"Oh, take a teksi, just outside," we were told. "It is far."
"How far is it?" we asked.
"Oh, 500 meter."
Five hundred meters? Half a kilometer? That's nothing! That's a stroll down the block.
So off we went. We double-checked with a taxi (teksi) driver - oh, 500 meter from the taxi area. Near the big building with the blue roof in the distance. Okay, now we had a point to head to - we could do this.
We walked on the sidewalk in the 90-something (30-something C) heat and humidity. Along some speeding highway. 
And then, the road veered off in the opposite direction from the blue roofed building. Seemingly going around the back and away.
But there was an underpass. We stopped a few men 
heading to the mosque (there was quite a gathering, it must have been time for the midday prayers) and asked - yes, take the underpass. Yes, next to the blue roof building. How far? Oh, maybe 500 
meters.
Not much else to do, having already walked at least 500 meters - we went down the stairs, through one pedestrian underpass, through a little park-like area, through another underpass, and came out on the other side of the multi-lane highway. Continued walking. Realized we 
were on the opposite side of the highways from the blue roof. Walked on. Eventually passed the blue roof building, and found the art gallery. Complete with a pedestrian OVERpass this time. Ugh, I hate those things - I get vertigo, and the cars rushing by below makes it worse. Up the stairs, quickly walk across, down the stairs, voila, we are there. Finally! (My pedometer clocked about a mile and a half walk at this point. NOT 500 meters!)
The art gallery was definitely worth the trip, and we both enjoyed our trip, crazy as it was to get there. The website is: http://www.artgallery.gov.my/home
You can't take photos inside the gallery, just in the entry area or outside. But the two huge pieces of artwork in the lobby were great - there was the giant multi-coloured almost grafitti piece, looking like a long quilt made from strips of colour with random animals, flowers, and street or people's names superimposed over it. It may have had a deeper meaning, but since I don't read Malaysian I couldn't quite get what it might have been.
The other piece, in more muted earth tones, was more interesting to me - it was comprised of five canvases (making it a polyptich) with a giant numeral 1 in the center; to each side were designs, calligraphy, random little gold things. This called for closer viewing. Ah, one side has writing in Chinese, the other in Arabic. Oh, and look, the Chinese side has tigers, and the national seal of Malaysia. Okay, the side with Arabic writing has the national seal, but designs that are decidedly Arabic in origin. Hmmm, and there's some kind of writing, like Thai but not quite, maybe Malay? So put it all together and I interpret this piece as saying that Malaysia is comprised of all these diverse cultures, the Chinese, Indian, Malay, Muslim, minority groups - but the country is one. United.
Of course, the narrative about the piece is in Malaysian, so I talked with the lady at the desk (who had limited English) but yes, we managed - and yes, my interpretation was accurate.
The portrait gallery was interesting, and one gallery downstairs had some lovely abstracts as 
well as other paintings - architectural, cityscapes, landscapes, animals.
But the third gallery was riveting - the show was entitled ABSURD(C)ITY - focusing on the paradoxes that surround us, especially within the context of a modern city such as KL. 
Paintings tended to focus on the traditional meeting modern - farmers and their oxen next to guerrilla warriors; a robot-bodied boy with sneakers and balloons.
And the absolute best piece in the entire place was by Haslin Ismail, entitled
"The Way Things Work." (Photos of this piece from the web, because
I obviously couldn't take photos in the gallery.) Just an AMAZING
piece! One side of this three-dimensional work was sort of a small
cardboard village and a large 
bookcase full of altered books - pages cut
into shapes, glued together or folded or painted, each book telling a
new and different story from the printed pages, telling a story in form
instead of words.
The other side of the bookcase was almost like those pop-ups in children's books - you know, you open the page and a house or animal or something opens up and is 3-D. That's
what was this was like, a fold-out-pop-up castle, with rose windows and
a tower and various animals, people, and mythical creatures, possibly
from the stories in the books. And
posterboard flames shooting up from the top of the bookcase, in back of
the castle, as if it was on fire. It was all made of paper and heavy
posterboard, everything in brown, beige, black, white, grey.
WOW! First there was the visual impact and the child-like joy at such a
cool piece of art - it was like a toy! But then I noticed how
intricately cut and folded this was, how much work it would take to
create this piece out of huge sheets of posterboard. Just the planning -
it wasn't quite Escher-esque, but almost that convoluted. (I was absolutely blown away thinking about how the artist conceived and then executed this piece!)
And
then - what does it mean? Again, I couldn't read the information, so I
just looked and admired and thought. I think it's all about
imagination, the imagination to write a book, the imagination sparked by
reading a book, the story coming to life and growing and building on
itself. Part childhood, part education, part reminding parents to read
to their children? The power of the written word, the permanence of
something that is written down, that our civilizations are built on the
written word. Our stories are our foundations, our history, our
culture.
I'm
not sure. Any and all of those interpretations. It just was such a
fun but deep piece of art, and so different from the paintings around
it. I just loved it.
The
upstairs galleries were being renovated, or new exhibits put up, or
something, we weren't sure. At this point, my brain was full, Richard
was finished looking at art for the day, and we were ready to go. The
sky looked ready to rain, thunder threatened from the distance, and so
we went out to the highway and hailed a cab. (Sorry, taxi. No one
knows what a cab is, here they are always called taxis. Or teksis.) We
explained to our driver where we wanted to go, somehow he was confused,
and we had a lovely sightseeing tour around KL as he drove one place
and then another trying to figure out where we meant when we said "Plaza
Rakyat bus station" - apparently Plaza Rakyat is the train station, not
the bus area. We figured it out eventually, and made it back to the
hotel.
So - yes, go to the National Visual Arts Gallery. Take the train. From the train station, take a taxi.
The place is worth a visit. And it's free!
20 March 2014
Yes, I'm a bit of a fashionista. I like my clothes. And I notice the clothes that other people wear.
I also adore ethnic clothing. Clothing from India is always a favourite, because the colours are 
wonderful, the combinations lovely and unexpected, and there are so many varieties. There's the sari, which is easily identified and comes in such gorgeous fabrics. (And I wish I could figure out how to wear one and look good - I'm afraid I'd look like I'm wearing drapery, I'm just not great at the fold and wrap aspect.) There's the kurta, 
which is the long tunic top, often adorned with embroidery, worn with contrasting trousers. (I think 
this is the outfit from Punjab.) And there's the kalidaar (sometimes called a kalidar saalwar kameez, I think - I've found contrasting opinions on this one) - this is sort 
of a variation on the kurta, more of a dress than a tunic. This is my favourite one, although it may not flatter my shape. The kalidaar has a yoke or bodice, embroidered and embellished. The body is made from wedge-shaped pieces of cloth sewn together to make a dress that's fitted in the middle and flaring out at the bottom - sort of like a 
gored skirt, but with maybe 20 or more gores or wedges for the whole thing, so the midriff is very fitted and the hemline flares way out. The hemline usually is also embellished with ribbon or embroidery. Gorgeous!
So, today has been rainy - pouring rain at lunchtime. We finished booking our train travel north, and were ready for something to eat. Went downstairs to the bus station, 
and crossed the street using the covered pedestrian bridge. (That's part of why we're staying here.) Went to a Malaysian Indian lunch. Yes, we were the only people of European origin.
Anyway, there was a beautiful young woman having lunch. I noticed her because she was wearing a bright pink kalidaar with a pink and orange scarf - I know, it sounds odd, but trust me, the combination worked, especially against her creamy dark skin. Might not look as good on pale me.
Well, after lunch this gorgeous woman in pink was outside with her child and a few other people, and I turned to her and said that her pink ensemble was one of the most beautiful dresses I've seen, that it was just lovely. The woman smiled, but looked rather confused. A man from another group turned around and said that this woman was a foreigner, didn't speak English, didn't know what I said, could he help. I said that I was telling her how much I liked her outfit. The man just laughed, head back, and then went back to his own conversation.
So I turned back to the woman and motioned over my head (scarf), down my body (dress), motioned to her, and gave her a big thumbs up with a big smile. I don't know if she understood, but she gave me a big thumbs up back!
Richard, of course, maintains that she was still confused and had no idea what my version of fashion charades was all about. I'm confident that, in the women's intuition and kinship society, she got the concept I was trying to put across - that her outfit was gorgeous and I was complimenting her.
It was just one of those little vignettes of travel, and part of being a fashionista on the road.
PS: These are photos I lifted from Indian fashion websites online. Beautiful, aren't they? After confusing this woman, I didn't want to further embarrass her, or myself, by asking if I could take her photo. She really was gorgeous, I would have loved having her photo in this incredible outfit, but I don't have quite that much chutzpah. Really, I don't.
