Another day of sensory overload yesterday.

Honestly, more happens to me in one day here than in one week back in England.

I think my brain might explode.

In theory, Saturday began as Friday night’s gig ended: meeting more new people in the bar, going nightswimming by moonlight (which deserves a quiet night - and we got one), and going to bed at 5am. Not a terribly smart move given that we had to get up to an alarm, but still.

And the reason we were getting up to an alarm was that a lovely businessman here, who’s been to the bar a few times, absolutely insisted that V and I used his chauffeur-slash-bodyguard to drive us wherever we wanted around the island while he himself was away on business in London.

TK’s act, I’m learning, is typical of Malaysian generosity - which goes completely above and beyond what you usually encounter in the West.

And so it was that B collected us in a ridiculous black 4×4 with chrome bumpers - although this actually turned out to be less ridiculous when we had to scale Penang Hill in it. First off, took us for a multi-course Chinese lunch, over which he presided like a generous father figure (my life as a film, part three: Eat, Drink, Man, Woman) before driving us to Kek Lok Si Temple.

Kek Lok Si is supposedly the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and it looks something like this:

and this:

It was breathtaking, made up of multiple buildings on different levels (which are still being added to), decorated in brilliant colours - and made even more colourful by the hanging red and yellow New Year lanterns which currently adorn it.

I had another Lost In Translation moment when, as Scarlett does, I wrote and hung a wish on a wishing tree (in LiT the wishes were white, but here they were multi-coloured). My wish is in the foreground, on red. No, I didn’t write it in Chinese. It’s on the back:

I felt quite emotional when I wrote it, too.

After the temple, B drove us to the botanical gardens, which V and I mainly wanted to see for a) the greenery and b) the monkeys.

The monkeys apparently bite, and there’s a fine for feeding them, but I couldn’t get enough of them. Especially this one:

I even saw them fighting and having sex. Yes, the monkeys were that good.

From the botanical gardens, we drove up Penang Hill - which is a) a four-hour walk, and b) an incredibly steep gradient, and therefore c) only to be attempted by lunatics.

Or by softies in 4×4s.

Here’s the view from the top:

- which in parts was just so, so beautiful:

The English, shortly after setting foot on Penang in the late 18th century, built homes up on Penang Hill (and originally cultivated it for strawberry-growing - hence its old moniker Strawberry Hill), because it was cooler up there and therefore more bearable to their delicate English constitutions. Apparently, in the days before the road and the furnicular, they used to be carried up by sedan chair. As I remarked to V, going up in an air-conditioned 4×4 is probably the modern-day equivalent.

More pictures from our Big Day Out here.

Just a quick line before today’s outing. V is currently having some sort of turbo massage in the hotel’s spa, and I’m about to do the set list for tonight (and am currently typing this on her Macbook Pro - oh joy!).  Because this afternoon, we’re off to the beach.

A1  - the lovely woman with the deep laugh - is picking us up at 1pm to take us to Batu Ferringhi, Penang’s main (as in: nicest) beach.  Yes, it may look like there’s a beach outside of my window, but in fact, it’s mud:

Whereas Batu Ferringhi, it would seem, looks like a Bounty advert:

I’m imagining it to be something like Ibiza… And funnily enough, they used to film Bounty adverts on Ibiza (or rather, on nearby Formentera). Fancy that.

I’ll be back with pictures, and a beach ball, later. 

V and I went for a wander through Georgetown today - and as we mooched around, poking our nose into shops, eating curry, stopping for a drink at a hostel - I completely fell in love with the place.

Photographically, at least.

Not that I didn’t fall in love with it on other levels - it’s just that it’s such a photogenic town.

The colours, the light, the architecture (a mixture of colonial and Chinese, delapidated and not), the signs… and of course the things which are simply unusual to our Western eyes: tiny shrines holding burning incense sticks, scooters with trays of eggs strapped to the back, bananas hanging in mid-air… I can’t wait to return with the SLR camera that B leant me and really go to town. Quite literally.

I’ve uploaded the photographs onto Flickr here - and added them to the start of the Penang set here.

Meanwhile, here are some of the choicest signs:

For S:

For J:

For my American friends:

 And for everyone else:

I didn’t stay in last night and watch Night At The Museum. Instead, I went out to explore and to get something to eat. Foraging, if you will.

Remember that scene in Lost In Translation where Scarlett Johansson goes out walking through the streets of Tokyo alone, just sort of quietly drifting through this alien environment? This should jog your memory, although I don’t remember her turning to camera and smiling at any point:

Anyway, that’s the LiT moment I had last night.

Just 100 yards from the hotel, there’s a tarmaced area which houses a whole load of food stalls - or ‘food hawkers’, as they’re known. I’d been down to see this place a couple of times before: the first time, at around 5pm I think, when it was pretty quiet; and then again one lunchtime, when it was very quiet. Because they were all closed.

So, realising that the best time to go to this place was probably the evening, I went down there last night. And this was the scene that greeted me:

It was unbelivable. Absolutely rammed with hundreds and hundreds of people, all eating out (or eyeing me suspiciously. I can see you, woman in red!). It was part funfair, part beer garden minus the beer and plus lots of food. Clearly this is what Malaysians - or at least Penangites - do for dinner: they go out to eat with friends, family or presumably work colleagues at one of these street food places, gathering together round rickety old tables on little plastic chairs (the people, not the tables).

The choice of food was similarly incredible - although I really need to revisit this place with someone who can actually tell me what most of the dishes consist of. Because, as the sign below proves, a translation into the roman alphabet doesn’t help much if you still don’t know what ‘Koay Teow Th’ng’ means in the first place:

That said, some stalls were more obvious:

Thoroughly confused by what I could and couldn’t eat, I ended up by opting for what looked like stir-fried noodles with prawn, being made fresh in a giant wok by a man who looked about 80. Or was that a giant man with a wok which looked about 80? Either way, it tasted amazing and looked like this (foreground only. I’m not a pig):

Looking for a soft drink to wash it down with, I was intrigued by this sign:

And the further explanation in this sign:

Yes, salt plus fat may equal flavour, but sugar plus lime equals… no, not Sprite, but ‘Sugar Cane Special’! Which is made by following the method below.

Step 1: Cut a hole in the box. Chop your sugar cane:

Step 2: Put it in your slicer-masher-blender-thingummy:

Step 3: Pull out the mashed-up sugar cane from the machine:

Step 4: Repeat steps 1 and 2 until enough of this mixture is produced:

Step 5: Sieve this mixture and add freshly squeezed limes and ice (step unfortunately out of shot).

Step 6a: Drink whilst wandering around, Scarlett Johansson-like, through the crowds. (Optional Step 6b: Photograph own hand):

There are more pictures from my night out eating prawns and drinking pure sugar here on Flickr. I walked the entire length of Gurney Drive and beyond into Georgetown, where I ended up watching a fantastically cheesy covers band for a short while (I think I left after ‘Smooth Operator’) before taking a taxi back - through the window of which I took this shot…

…which is, of course, my favourite of the whole night.

I’ve finally uploaded the pictures I’ve taken so far onto Flickr. They include pictures of the jazz club, Georgetown at night, and the views (as in: same view, looking different) from my room.

Many of them are snapshots, just sharing the things I’m seeing over here - but there’s a few that I like, including these ones below. The first of which was taken one afternoon just before a rainstorm, when the view looked like a watercolour painting. A split second after this picture, a bolt of lightning appeared in the sky. See, I’m great at timing:

(Btw, the annoying Flickr uploading tool puts the photographs on their site in a completely random order. The correct order is here in the ‘Penang’ set. To see them with captions explaining what some of them are about, choose ‘Detail View‘).

I was released from captivity today by S, a local bass player and all-round nice guy who, with his friends K and J, had invited me out to lunch.

We drove to a sea-food restaurant down by the water’s edge, at the end of a dusty little road full of ramshackle, shack-like little bungalows (a typical Penang residence, I’m finding) - and right next to a temple. In front of which there were enormous, pink incense sticks burning:

The restaurant itself looked like this:

And this:

And we ate this:

(Alongside clams in their shells, some sort of egg dish, baby pak choi, rice and spring rolls).

To avoid acting like Darryl Hannah in Splash, I took advice from the guys on how to eat the giant prawns. Those of you who know me will know that I have embraced fish-eating again after an 18-year hiatus; and so I’m a bit of a newbie when it comes to the art - nay, skill - of sea-food consumption. I learned that basically, with giant prawns, you pull their head off, remove their ’shell’, and eat the rest. I tried not to look as I pulled the heads off. It’s one thing to start eating fish again - it’s quite another to embrace decapitating an animal. Small steps.

(Incidentally, I’ll blog properly about the food in Malaysia when I’ve experienced more of it - ie. not just the buffets in the hotel restaurant. Marvellous as they are.)

I think today marked a turning point. I’ve felt slightly guilty for not exploring much beyond the hotel in the first 10 days or so that I’ve been here; but I think it’s been due to a combination of jetlag, rehearsals, getting used to the climate (trust me: it’s too hot to ‘just pop out for a walk’), getting used to this rather bizarre lifestyle, having those down days, and knowing that I’ve got two months to explore this place. I think also that it’s taken me a full week of work - tonight will be our sixth straight night of performing - to get used to the true musician’s lifestyle: namely, doing other stuff in the daytime and not going to work until 9 or 10pm. At first, I was clock-watching during the day, and would find myself sitting in my hotel room in my Little Black Dress, twiddling my thumbs, far too early. Now I’ve got used to it; and plan to go out exploring during the daytime, go take photographs, go on day trips, and not return to my hotel room until it’s time to put on that Little Black Dress and head down to the bar. Just like the pros do with their residencies, I’m sure. (I’m thinking Celine Dion, Tony Bennett and Jane MacDonald, here).

Today also marks a turning point because I spent time, erm, socialising. Like, erm, properly. And I’m going out tomorrow too, with another group of people. Short of that first supper out on my first night performing - and any chatting to people in the bar after my gigs - all my downtime has been spent alone. Which is fine in many ways - as I said before, I’m used to being alone, and often love and crave it - but now that I’m starting to go out with people, I feel like I’ll be getting a new, happier balance between social time and solitude. And of course, it will be great to start getting to know the people I’m meeting better, as I did today with S and his friends. Otherwise, as I told someone the other day, being out here risks feeling like one long party: full of introductions and smalltalk.

It’s quite a nice venue for a party, though. Here was the view at lunch today:

Not too shabby, eh?

Well, except for the bits that look like this:

Still, that’s the charm of the place.

…I think this hotel has quite the most stunning lobby I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen at least, ooh, three posh hotel lobbies in my lifetime:

It could all have gone so horribly wrong… And yet the space, the lighting, the furniture, the design… it’s all wonderful:

(Yes, the bar comes in multiple colours.)

(Those three red flags are up for Chinese New Year.)

And the restaurant isn’t too shabby, either:

And as for the rooftop swimming pool, which I went to take a look at tonight… Well, put it this way: I don’t say “wow” out loud very often. In fact the last time I did so, I do believe it was when I first met The Love Of My Life. Clearly, the second love of my life is a swimming pool. Here’s an arty, ie. blurred, picture of it. I wasn’t about to fall in; it’s just that my camera can’t compensate for the lack of light:

I had my leaving drinks tonight (a fact which my friend Eddie couldn’t quite get his head around. “You’re only going for two months? And you’re having leaving drinks?!”). Anyway, I took my camera along with me to take photos, expecting full well to upload one or two here tonight.

Only: I didn’t take any photos.

Yet cameras symoblise that - and I’m about to use the ‘d’ word - dichotomy.

They symoblise taking part in the world. Interacting in, and connecting with, it. I took my camera because I wanted to capture this event and the people involved in it. And yet it never left my bag. Because I was, exactly, interacting and taking part in my world. I was so involved in it that it didn’t occur to me at any point to stand outside of it and take pictures thereof.

There’s one dichotomy.

And the other (does that make it a trichotomy?): you also don’t record the world when you’re not connecting with it.

ie: A lack of pictures can mean the exact opposite of the above. A lack of involvement.

Hmmm.

And thus endeth the Thought For Today. (That’s right, that thought is: “Hmmm”.)

I would write more, but I’m terribly tired. Thank you so much to all those who came out to play tonight. I would love to show you the photos, but unfortunately I don’t have any.