In Love With Georgetown

Georgetown. One of the highlights of our last Singapore-Malaysia trip. The moment we got there, we knew that we’ll love it there, right away.

To get there, we took a bus from Cameron Highland to Butterworth, Penang. And then from Butterworth, we took a 15 mins ferry ride straight to Georgetown (which is also in Penang). It’s pretty straight forward.

We walked from the ferry terminal with our easy-to-carry cabin size luggage straight to the hostel: Armenian Suite. It’s a pretty unique hostel, we should say. You might want to check that one out!

So after checking in, we decided to walk randomly to find something to eat. We didn’t expect much but what we found made us want to stay in Penang just a bit longer.

So we found this local food court named “CF Kedai Makanan dan Minuman”. I randomly picked Hokkien Mee and Fred had his favorite dish, Bak Kut Teh. Both are ridiculously good. Especially the noodle. It’s crazy!!

With our dizzy head and oily hair, we immediately thought: Hey, Penang is great! This food we are having is a good start already, isn’t it?!

We then randomly followed a bunch of people (most likely are tourists like us) walking toward a temple nearby which then lead us to this cool “hidden” place: Chew Jetty.

It’s not that hidden because it seems that this place is quite popular among tourists, it’s just that it does not appear as an interesting place from the outside, but once to step in, you kinda get it. There’s even a ‘hotel’ there taken place at a local traditional house. So it’s like sleeping at the local’s.

So Chew Jetty is actually a settlement of wooden houses which is said to be initially built for the Chinese immigrants who worked near the sea shore. Or near the port. Those houses are built on the water so we walked on a wooden bridge.

But today, those local houses are transformed into local souvenir shops, restaurant, and my favorite, ice cream shops. We found one shop that we really like. They sell amazing durian puffs and ice cream. Both were super delicious. We even came back the next day for the ice cream.

There is other flavors as well like matcha, oreo, chocolate. Just in case you don’t like durian. But seriously, the durian one is the bomb.

We spent the rest of our day strolling around Georgetown. Just because we’re in love with it.

We found a lot of street arts, heritage houses, temples, and great local eateries. Oh, it’s so easy to fall in love with Penang…

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The food here is generally… amazing. I have no other better word lol. Like the standard is high. You can’t just randomly pick a local eatery and get a bad food for dinner. You just CAN’T! :O

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Another thing that I love about Georgetown is that it is very easy to find a coffee shop or cafe which sells great coffee at an affordable price. We really like The Daily Dose, they serve not only great coffee but also decent brunch meal.

We also really like The Alley, for their coffee ❤

People are generally friendly. We met Austin at a random temple we found when walking around Georgetown. It was a beautiful temple so we tried to take some picture of it. There, Austin was standing while sipping his whiskey.

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So we chatted for about 15, 20 minutes? And it was really nice and warm. And btw, what we mean by “chat” is actually him giving us marriage advice. We wondered if it was him talking or the whiskey 🤔

P.S: Austin, if you see this, say hi!!

Georgetown is pretty small and yet so full of surprises.

You could just walk around or rent a bike. It’s full of tiny stores, great cafes, temples, and yes, the famous street arts.
What we really like about the city is that there are still a lot of old Peranakan buildings here, and all of them are all under the government’s protection.

One of the most iconic heritage house in Penang is Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion or a.k.a Blue Mansion. We joined the guided tour and got a full explanation about the mansion and also about the previous owner, Mr. Cheong Fatt Tze. The mansion is beautifully conserved and now is a UNESCO World’s Heritage Site.

There’s one interesting thing we found about Blue Mansion. (Thanks to our local guide). It’s that… what’s inside the Blue Mansion is not very blue! 😆

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That large pillar on the left was bought from Scotland hundreds of years ago. Mr. Cheong Fatt Tze was indeed rich. He has eight of them because 8 is a lucky number for Chinese. And for the same reason, he managed to have 8 wives.

Interesting, right?

So have you been to Penang before? What do you like the most about the city?

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Sharon Loh
www.fredricsharon.com
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Email: lohh.sharon@gmail.com