Penang

After 30+ hours we checked into our hotel in Penang, an island  off the northwest coast of Malaysia.

 

The heat hit us as we stepped outside the airport - hot and humid!

Penang is blessed with a multicultural history, a combination of East and West. Claimed by the British East India Company in 1786, Penang is filled with colonial architecture, temples, and museums. Malaysia gained independence from the British  31st August 1957. 

Every street scene has so much to take in, either gritty and historic or bustling with activity, motorbikes, street traders - going for a walk is like being in a living museum and the smell of incense fills the air.

Quick facts for those interested

•  1.77m population,
• 1,048 km2 (405 sq mi)
• Malay is the official language 
•  English is widely spoken
• Chinese immigrants make up the majority of the population 60%
• 61.3 % follow Islam, 19.8 % Buddhism, 9.2%  Christianity, 6.3% Hinduism & 1.3%  Confucianism, Taoism, or other  Chinese philosophie

We have arrived in time for two festivals, tomorrow is Islamic New Year and from 25 Jul 2022 - 12 Aug 2022 the Hungry Ghost Festival is on and it's a chance to appease dissatisfied spirits.

  We saw small food offerings set up outside homes, joss sticks lit, paper money (hell bank notes) being burnt  to satisfy the needs of  hungry ghosts and  to ward off  trouble and bad luck. We saw lots of stalls selling paper money and incense for the festival.

We are still waking up on San Francisco time so started our day early as the city came to life. We wandered through the Chowrasta morning market as the locals shopped for their supplies. 

Lots of exotic looking fruits.

We saw a very busy fish market too.

The motorbike is the vehicle most people use and everyone is wearing masks.

We went into a large air conditioned mall to cool down  and came upon the FIBA World '3 on 3' basketball series. We watched Malaysia vs Mongolia - gals, Malaysia vs Vietnam - guys, China vs Vietnam - gals. The games were 10 mins and just watching made you feel exhausted even with the AC. The  Malaysian President was there  cheering on the home side.

This ginger pussycat was in a little side street stall, he was a rotund beauty but obviously wandered - he had a little bell on his harness.

Jet lag or the heat hit us and we retreated for some local laksa and lime& cucumber juice - delicious.

 

Konnichiwa

Narita airport is about 60 km's east of central Tokyo and we could see the city way off in the distance as we came into land.  

At the moment you can only visit Japan in an organised tour group or for official business so transit time in the airport only for us this time.

As we came into land we could see Kujūkuri beach which stretches 60km along the Pacific coast. The flight approach gave us tantalising glimpses of lush green fields and waterways - it looked so green after being in California.

Not much to report given our time was so limited. The airport seemed fairly quiet with not many  travellers. There were the usual range of suspects in the duty free shops with the additional of Japanese Hello Kitty stores.

There were complex looking vending machines and  it took a while longer than normal to work out the options on the toilet flush.

We noticed how clean the airport was and the boarding systems very regimented and everyone followed the instructions....no unorderly random behaviour allowed :)

Overall flying on ANA, All Nippon Airways, was a good experience, the crew were lovely, the food delicious and with the extra leg room seats we booked for  the two flights (totalling 17.5 hrs) we weren't in too bad a shape when we landed in Kuala Lumpur.  The catch was we landed at 2345hrs local time and had 8hrs until our flight to Penang - ouch! 

Sayonara San Francisco

It really has been a tale of two San Francisco's - San Rafael (see previous blog posts) and the City!

It's been fabulous having 10 days  right in the city. We've been blessed with having our good friends put us up and  show us the highlights - personal guides with all the inside knowledge - special thanks to Carol & John.

We've see modern art at SFMOMA and art across time at the de Young Art Gallery.

We oggled city  architecture, wandered the  botanical gardens, enjoyed a Hawaiian plate lunch  and we've loved getting out into nature in the State Parks seeing chipmunks and woodpeckers, butterflies and bird life. Check out the Night Heron in the picture below, we don't get them in NZ.

 I've especially loved seeing the Pelicans in the harbour, the Bristol Freighters of the bird world, they are everywhere and we saw them diving for fish from the St Frances Yacht Club  - very lucky to get taken to lunch there, one for the holiday favourites memory bank!

One of the last things we did was to admire the Palace of Fine Arts park down in the Marina district.

Built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition and recently saved from ruin by the  good people of San Francisco,   the park has beautiful gardens with a lake,  rotunda, Roman-Greco  columns and the resident ducks, herons and turtles all seem to coexist happily in the ponds - perfect!

The street art in our local neighborhood is wonderful  and it doesn't appear to get vandalised like it would back in NZ. Not sure how long these lovely pottery butterflies would last on a front fence in NZ.

Even the trash bins look fabulous!

We've explored beaches and basins and watched the marine craft go by - this is the harbour that never sleeps and the sound of the fog horn is quite lovely.

We enjoyed a walk along Crissy Field and even with the fog rolling in there were so many people out with kids and dogs  - picnics and parties - everyone  enjoying the waterfront.

A cool little adventure park for kids looked to be a hit judging by how busy it was and the happy sounds filling the air.

We have loved our time in San Francisco.  Like everywhere in the world,  San Francisco has not been immune to the impacts of Covid.

There are noticeable changes since our last visit - so many more homeless/people with addictions sleeping on the streets. You could get high on the smell of some of the dope actually being smoked in public as it's not illegal here. The lines we saw at 7th Street shelter for homeless support were sobering - there are a lot of people really down on their luck .

Everywhere we went we saw 'We're Hiring' signs in stores and even saw a big freeway billboard with a $1000 sign on incentive.  

All the folks we've met or interacted with have been so lovely and welcoming, helpful if we were asking for directions and happy to share local insights which is always really interesting.

We have felt really safe in the city. We walked home after a dinner out one night and it took approx 30mins walking up Market Street and through the Castro - no problems!

We've seen more Tesla cars here than you can shake a stick at - they're everywhere.  We also saw  Waymo self driving cars in the city, driving about in a testing phase with a driver onboard. Hmmm, not sure if I'd been keen to totally trust a driverless car. 

As we flew out from SFO we could see all the container ships moored off waiting for industrial action at the Oakland container terminal to be satisfactorily concluded.

Sayonara San Francisco, we've had  a wonderful  time, loved every minute! Next stop Narita, Tokyo.

 

Jack London State Park

Wonderful visit to Jack London State Park in Glen Ellen, home and ranch of  the writers Jack and Charmian London.

Jack was famous for his writing as well as his 'daring do' adventures, his hard life in his early years on the docks of San Francisco and world travels/adventures he and  Charmian shared.  Together they created a ranch in the Sonoma countryside.

It was fascinating to see the cottage where they lived while they built  their dream home 'Wolf House'  nestled in the Redwoods. 

You can see where they both wrote and then wander through the ranch grounds.

Tragically the big house burned down two weeks before they were set to move in.

You can walk through the ' House of the Happy Walls' Charmian built after Jack's death. It's fascinating to see the photographs of their adventures and momentos from their voyage to the Pacific - sailing together in a yacht called The Snark - adventurous stuff! 

I found Charmian's life equally as fascinating as Jack's - she was quite a gal, ahead of her time, adventurous and in one old black and white photo from their sailing days she is pictured on a beach in the Pacific with a small gun on her hip! She refused to ride side saddle and created her own riding outfit so she could ride astride and convention be dammed. It was Charmian's wish that on her death the ranch be preserved in Jack's memory.

Both Jack & Charmian are buried on the property in a little grave site on a knoll in a grove of trees. Jack died aged 40, thought to be due to kindney failure from the use of mercury cream while sailing in the Pacific. Jack is said to have remarked to Charmian “I wouldn’t mind if you laid my ashes on the knoll where the very early ranchers, the Greenlaw children are buried. And roll over me a red boulder from the ruins of the Big House". On November 26, 1916, in a silent ceremony, Charmian placed Jack's ashes on the knoll under a large rock from Wolf House. After she passed away in 1955, Charmian’s ashes were laid under the same rock, next to Jack.

I found Charmian fascinating. She published four books and edited /  ghost wrote many of Jack's works.

Charmian refused to adhere to the gender norms of her day.  She didn't marry young knowing that if she did she would lose her job (no working married women allowed in the 1890s). She dated men and enjoyed a social life as part of San Francisco’s literary circles until much later marrying Jack.

 We also drove past the home of General Vallejo.  

Check out this beauty - a resident at Beltane Lodge which looks so beautiful and a great weekend escape.

We saw a redheaded woodpecker - not my photo as mine was pretty blurry - these guys are busy moving and pecking :)

Wonderful day in the Gen Ellen and Sonoma area with the best tour guides - Carol and John 💓