Just Another Day of Errands, but Check Out Our Home Depot!

I have been so glad to have Craig with me during the days, he's such a good buddy to go out on errands with me around our new city. His school starts sooner than I want to think about, but here is a pretty typical day of errands for us. To make "errands" sound a little more fun, we call them "adventures." This is my absolute favorite street to shop on right now, Lebuh Chulia. You can find just about everything on it, and it's just a 5 minute drive (or more acurately for us, a $3 cab ride) from our apartment.
Craig's first stop is always the bakery, since they make really yummy brownies, and after that we headed to our version of The Home Depot. It's this alley off of Chulia that sells just about any tool or hardware item that you need. What do you think?

Craig gets pretty tired carrying that bread around so he asked if we could stop for a little lunch. Today we decided to try a local Malaysian favorite, Chicken Rice. The restaurant is right on our favorite street, and Craig is always treated like a little King there! Everyone in restaurants around here love our little man. Last week he hopped off his chair, and I thought he was just making small talk with the waiter a few feet away from the table. But about 2 minutes later a large bowl of ice cream appeared in front of our clearly expectant boy. Apparently Craig had requested it during his conversation with the waiter. And, they didn't charge us for it, they said it was a treat for Craig! Here is Craig and the restaurant owner (the man holding him) and the waiter/cook. You can see the chicken hanging in the window behind them.

We ordered one set of Chicken Rice, which comes with soup. This is a perfect meal for us because the chicken is roasted in a delicious bar-b-que soy sauce and served with bean sprouts and cucumbers (odd combination - but definitely tasty!) This alone is tangy but very mild, but look at that tiny little bowl of sauce next to the plates. That sauce has enough heat to make even my Uncle Richard (king of spicy foods) happy. Craig gets the mild version and I can kick mine up with that wonderful spicy sauce. We were extra thirsy, so we both got a soda and ice. We were charged 9 ringitt for our meal, including drinks, which comes to a little under $3. You can see why I don't cook much!!

Now this day we only walked around 3 blocks of Georgetown, enough to get us to our shops on Chulia, lunch and a few extra little goodies. But look at the streets we walked around in such a short distance - each street is it's own little world, but they are all connecting! Here is a small part of Little India - look how the ladies are dressed! The other sections of Little India, primarily the Muslim sections are pretty quiet during the day right now. Due to Ramadhan they are fasting from about 5:30 in the morning until around 6:00 at night.

This is why I love this area of Penang so much - there is so much diversity all living together. We're currently enjoying the culinary delights of Ramadhan (in the evenings) while also attending operas and puppet shows celebrating the "Hungry Ghost Festival" of the Chinese population of Malaysia. I needed to stop by a little jewelry boutique (not for me - for a gift for a friend!!) and this is the wonderful Hindu family that runs the store. Craig was not delighted to be looking at accessories. I really can't understand why, but he was promised a little treat for being so good.

After purchasing my gift (and maybe something for myself - 5 earrings for 10 ringitt = 5 earrings for a little more that $3!!) We passed this Chinese Temple. This is a Taoist Temple, and the oldest one in Penang. The large red/pink sticks that are being burned are joss sticks, and they are offerings to gods in hopes of good fortune for a business, or another circumstance. We didn't have time to walk in, but we will soon!

Still on our way back to the car we stopped into a Chinese shop, where Craig was able to find a Luigi "figure" (not doll!) that he got in exchange for trampling along the streets of Penang with me.

We also passed an Indian Hindu Temple. I believe this is also one of the oldest in Penang.

And finally a Muslim Mosque! This Mosque will allow non-Muslims to enter at certain times for tours, but we haven't been inside yet.

Now, if I hadn't cared about the heat or Craig's aching feet we could have walked 1 more block. On that block we could have seen a Buddist Temple and St. George's Church, the oldest Christian church in Penang. But, we'd had quite an adventure already! Can you believe what we can see just walking around three blocks? And tell me, what do you think of our Home Depot?!