This I have since found out. Everyone in Penang has a favourite place for street food. The conversation here is always centered around food. Whenever someone bring up the subject of a favourite food stall, someone will always say "No, you should try so-and-so place. They have the BEST x-y (fill in the food in question here) food there."
The hokkien mee was indeed good here. Kong Chan asked for extra-liau or extra ingredients. With that you get two spare rib bones. To me, this is probably not worth the extra cost. The rib bones are tasteless, and fatty. I chewed off what I could swallow and left the rest in the bowl.
The char kuay teow was good too. Very full of wok-aroma. The ingredients are skimpy and does not have anything unusual. Kong Chan and i shared the one plate.
Our mission, after lunch, was to travel to Muntri Street to see the Temple of the Goddess of Ma Chou. Our journey took us through C.Y.Choy Road towards Beach Street.
Along the way, we came upon a family temple, the Tan Family Temple. In China, there are many of these family temple. It is usually built in the style of the wealthy Chinese domiciles. This would be a compounded building. The front compound is big, about 80 to 100 feet deep, before you reach the front door. There are three front doors. The main door is wider, about 20 feet wide. The two side doors are about 10 feet wide each. The entrance to the building would be through the right side doors usually, the others being closed until some big occasions call for all the doors to be opened, like weddings, New Years. Beyond the front doors is the first parlour. The parlor will usually have an altar in the middle, where ancestors and some gods are worshipped. On both sides are chairs, for greeting guests, but not necessarily for entertaining them. The good guests are further invited into the deeper sanctions.
Behind the parlor will be a sky well (atrium). An opening of sorts. There is usually a well in the middle. Getting water for washing, cooking, etc from the well, and moving the water to the back kitchen etc. The sky well also serves as a wind catcher. It allows the hot air in the house to move out, and cool air to come through the entire house, thus fanning and cooling the inhabitants.
After the sky well is the second parlour. This is where the ancestors' name plagues are arranged in the right order for historical purposes, and are worshipped. Some temples will have a few (three usually) long-burning lamps, make of a glass jar three-quarters filled with oil, and a wick. The lamps are lit throughout the day to illuminate the ancestors.
Behind this parlor is the living quarters. First the masters' rooms. On both sides, usually facing East or West, will be family quarters. The family on the East side, the guest rooms on the West. In the old days, it is fashionable to have live-in tutors for the children. He would be the West Wing guest.
That said, the Tan Family temple follows this scheme pretty well, except that there is no family quarters. I took some pictures of the temple.
After we left the temple, we walked towards Beach Street. On the street, someone had laid down a blue tarpaulin, on top of which is some herbal twigs. This is similar to the ginseng roots, but are much more common and inexpensive. Kong Chan said that they are used for making soup. It gives off a nice ginseng-like smell, but cost nothing like ginseng. On another tarp is a large quantity of yellow barks being dried in the Sun. This smells very fragrant and familiar to me. I believe the yellow barks are further ground to yellow powder, added to preserved olives and other snack foods. Very interesting place.
We further walked down Achen Street, Armanian Street, and stooped at the Sun Yit Sun memorial house. It is believed he visited Penang before the WWII war and raised money from the local Chinese merchants for the war effort. This was his head-quarters for overseas fund raisers.
We came upon another family temple, the Yap family temple. This temple is slightly smaller than the Tan temple,but it has a very large meeting place building next door. The main temple proudly displays a "Imperial Emperor's Order", as an edict would come down from the Emperor to the Yap family. In the old days, the person who was to receive this Order will have to bathe, change into an official greeting robe, put out an altar, burn incense, and bow on the floor in front of the Imperial messenger to receive such an important and auspicious message. Kong Chan and I didn't think the family actually received any imperial messages from an Emperor. It was probably just a fake to make the family look important. As if the emperor of the time would know about these people. "Hau Siau (very laughable, or lol, as Theng2 would say)"
Further walks took us to the Kapitan Mosque, a very large Muslim mosque.
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