Penang

On the tail end of my mom's visit in Singapore, we spent two days in Penang. Mostly, we ate, looked at cool architecture, relaxed and kicked mom's ass in hearts. Actually just Matt kicked ass. I just didn't lose.

Some highlights of our trip include the following:

Friday night we stopped at a few stalls on the street and ordered nasi kandar. Apparently nasi kandar comes from a long time ago when Indian guys used to take Indian food to the Indian foreign workers in Penang. They would carry a stick with rice (nasi) on one end and they would balance it with curry on the other. The stick is called kandar, so stalls are still called nasi kandar, and they basically have rice and lots of different curries. Definitely a food highlight of Penang (and my mom's favorite meal in Penang, which we figured out when we played "what was your favorite meal" on the plane on the way home).

We all got our food, but we could not find cutlery. Matt went to ask the guys for "three sets of cutlery." They seemed to understand. But...no cutlery. He went to ask again. Finally a guy came around with lots of spoons and forks (they don't use knives in Asia really), and handed them out to everyone. We were not the only ones waiting. Yes! We could eat. Then...a guy put down three sets of tandoori chicken on our table. No!! Three sets CUTLERY, not three sets TANDOORI chicken!! Oops.

Another highlight was going to the market with my mom on Sunday morning. Matt was sleeping. We walked all around the veggie and fruit area. We then waltzed into the meat area and the fish area. At one point there was an entire carcass hanging on one of those butcher hooks, right next to the aisle of the market. This guy pulled it over towards him, wacked off a piece of meat, and then he let the carcass swing. We were trying to walk down the aisle. We were talking jump rope moves - how do we cross without letting the carcass hit us? Some smart guy grabbed the hook at the top of the carcass. Much better idea.

We walked to the back, and we found the chicken area of the market. Live chicken area of the market. We saw live chickens on a scale. The guy who kills the chickens was so excited to get us to watch him kill the chicken. He had bright big eyes, and he kept gesturing that we should come on the other side of the wall. No thanks. We did walk down the assembly line, though, and we saw the guy who tears the feathers off the chicken (click here for our full photos, you can see it on the left), and the dead chickens ready to be sold - with no heads. Ewww.

Another highlight of the market was a cow's head on the table. Picture included.

Overall, I don't need to go back to Penang, but we really enjoyed the architecture, the food, the general feeling, and the food massages.

In other news, my mom has left Singapore - back to the cold United States. We also said goodbye to Koen and Clementine, INSEAD friends who are leaving to travel in Australia and New Zealand for three months. Awesome. We will miss them. We've enjoyed them for the last year or so.