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After the feasting in Penang Town, we took a quiet break at Holiday Inn, Batu Ferringi. Lovely seavew from the hotel room ... having a glass of red wine with a good book.
We continued our feasting with a great value high tea (MYR25/-), seafood dinner at the Golden Thai restaurant on the beach ! Went to the gym and swam a bit and got some sun by the pool.
It was a truly relaxing way to spend Christmas!
We took some time to also visit the Peranakan Mansion which housed a lot of artifacts that is uniquely Peranakan.
Peranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago and British Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore).[citation needed]
Members of this community in Melaka, Malaysia address themselves as "Nyonya Baba".
Nyonya is the term for the women and Baba for the men. It applies especially to the ethnic Chinese populations of the British Straits Settlements of Malaya and the Dutch-controlled island of Java and other locations, who have adopted Nusantara customs — partially or in full — to be somewhat assimilated into the local communities. Many were the elites of Singapore, more loyal to the British than to China. Most have lived for generations along the straits of Malacca and most have a lineage where intermarriage with the local Indonesians and Malays have taken place. They were usually traders, the middleman of the British and the Chinese, or the Chinese and Malays, or vice versa because they were mostly English educated. Because of this, they almost always had the ability to speak two or more languages. In later generations, some lost the ability to speak Chinese as they became assimilated to the Malay Peninsula's culture and started to speak Malay fluently as a first or second language.
While the term Peranakan is most commonly used among the ethnic Chinese for those of Chinese descent also known as Straits Chinese (土生華人; named after the Straits Settlements), there are also other, comparatively small Peranakan communities, such as Indian Hindu Peranakans (Chitty), Indian Muslim Peranakans (Jawi Pekan).
So good to see the preservation of what is truly uniquely Malaysian/Singaporean.
Made in Penang is a new attraction in Penang that opened in Nov 2013. (http://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Attraction_Review-g298303-d5772856-Reviews-Made_In_Penang_Interactive_Museum-Georgetown_Penang_Island_Penang.html)
It was a 'cool' interactive place to visit - the crowd seems to be more yuppie but we enjoyed it anyway. Kinda of cute to see Connie handing on the skyscraper waiting for spiderman to rescue her!
Took a short break with Connie back to our favorite food getaway (Penang). Actually I discovered I had some Singapore Airline miles that would be expiring and decided to use them. But the only place I had enough miles was for us to go to Penang.
Anyway - the food was great as usual. The Hokkine Mee behind Hotel Royal at the One Corner coffee shop, Gurney Drive's fried kuay teow, Penang Road's chendol and laksa ... the list goes on and on.
finally 7 months after buying the diamond, Jon had the stone set and proposed to Andrea. They took a short vacation to Hong Kong and he proposed. BUT the ring was too big and now has to be resized!
Unfortunately, they have also leased out their apartment for another year until Jan 2015. So wedding will have to be sometime in the first half of 2015. Lots of preparation ahead - including wedding preparation course, etc
They also did a guest count and came up with 300! for a what was supposed to be a small wedding.
