Chinese New Year in Penang

Penang was full of Chinese New Year celebrations

This year we got a 5-day weekend for Lunar New Year, so we decided to meet our friends Patrick and Cassie in Penang for the holiday. Penang is known for its mix of Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures. We had a great weekend checking out the city and catching up with our friends.

We rented an AirBnB on this narrow street in the old part of George Town

We decided to stay in the old part of George Town to be near the main sights, and despite the throngs of people coming in for the holiday we found a great little apartment in a historic house on the edge of the heritage zone. Every direction we walked was past old buildings, so just heading to a restaurant was a fun exploration of the city.

Old buildings were around every corner as we walked in the neighborhood.

One of many pretty temples in the heritage zone of George Town

Penang has a ton of great street art in the heritage district. It was fun to keep our eyes open to spot the graffiti art as we explored. There are also a number of metal sculptures with captions that tell stories of old Penang.

Some of the graffiti art is interactive, like this piece where you can ride the swings with these cute kids.

There are a number of fun pieces by this same artist.

On Chew Jetty some of the homes had street art, too.

This colorful piece was painted on metal doors

This piece modified a functioning sink on the street.

One of the series of metal sculptures telling stories from old Penang

The sculptures are located where the story they told took place.

Love Lane historically was a district where wealthy men kept their mistresses. Now it seems to host noisy bars.

One of the days we decided to go out of George Town to check out the Spice Garden and stop at the beach at Batu Ferringhi for a beer. The Spice Garden was a lovely retreat from town. We were especially intrigued by the poison garden section. There were helpful signs depicting parts of the body the plants were bad for and good for, because all of the plants were both poisonous and medicinal. What doesn’t kill you makes you better?

Lots of pretty plants at the spice garden

The helpful signage at the poison garden told what the plants were good and bad for in multiple languages, plus cartoon drawings.

This plant was both bad and good for your stomach? And somehow good for your butt?

Angie had to take advantage of the obligatory Instagram wings shot at the spice garden.

The beach at Batu Ferringhi was a good place to sit and enjoy a beer, but you can’t swim there due to the risk of box jellyfish stings.

Penang is known for its ice cream, so one afternoon we went for a hunt for the best ice cream. We tasted a lot of great ice cream, but the hands-down winner was Mellow. They top their fresh-made gelato with burnt marshmallow – yum!

Cute Chinese New Year-themed ice creams!

We saw lots of temples over the weekend!

Our last full day we decided to do a food tour. It started at 9 am, and we thought it was supposed to be a three hour tour. It turned out to be 6! But it was filled with delicious food, and a bunch of insight on Chinese New Year from our tour guide, who took us to some extra places because of the holiday.

First stop on the tour: Spice market. These are fresh nutmeg fruits, along with mace and the nutmeg seeds from inside. Our guide told us they make a juice from the nutmeg fruits.

It was pretty cool to watch how these folks made stacks of rice paper discs in seconds.

Adam eating a snack made from the fresh rice paper we watched the street vendors making.

One of the great things about Penang, and Malaysia in general, is that it has done an excellent job of making sure that the health and hygiene of food stalls is very high. I always feel safe eating from street stalls in Malaysia, which meant we could really take advantage of everything on offer during our food tour. By the time we finished, we were filled to the brim with yummy street food!

In the morning many shop owners put out offerings to ancestors in front of their establishments.

Delicious Indian snacks on the food tour

Our guide took us to the only place in Penang that still makes handmade joss sticks. We bought some that are supposed to keep mosquitoes away.

Lots of the temples were burning very large joss sticks outside their entrances. Most don’t allow them to be burned inside anymore in a nod to higher air quality for people praying.

The people who provided these joss sticks to the temple are hoping lots of blessings are coming their way for the new year.

The last stop on the tour was a great Indian vegetarian restaurant. It was amazing food, but difficult to sample too much on our already-full stomachs.

In the evening after the tour, we were all too full to eat more, but we did go out for some fabulous drinks.

The streets of the heritage district were pretty at night with the lanterns to celebrate the new year.

Our last morning we went out for a walk to get breakfast at one of the places our guide had recommended the day before. It was the actual Chinese New Year morning, so everywhere we went we came across lion dancers. It seemed like every shop and restaurant were hiring them to bless their business for the new year.