Artful Penang...

Early mid-section of this month, my family and I made a trip down to Penang. I guess, we wanted to spend some time with friends, our son, JWee and also,the artistic trails in Penang. I guess, I am quite intrigued by the artistry wall art that are displayed near Armenian Street and Chulia Street in Penang. I am very much intrigued too by the metal art works that adorned certain walls on these streets too including Indian Street. 

Yeah, I must admit that I am an art lover and I am such a sucker for rustic buildings, artifacts, art houses and even paintings. I get overwhelmed when I see rustic architecture of great buildings, cobblestones verandah or even wooden buildings. I find these structures to be fascinatingly rustic, old and wonderfully made. Some creative skills and craftsmanship like the stain glass works or even ceramic colored hand painted works had been lost as time progressed into the modern era. Today, everything is mass produced , light , composite and discardable. Whereas in those olden days, things were made with so much painstaking degree of skills and artistic ideas. 

That's why walking down Armenian Street and going into some of these olden days shops brought a lot of wonderful memories. I managed to see some stained glass pieces and some stained ceramic pieces that got my creative juices jumping with joy. I knew some of the skills for these artful pieces are long gone but being able to see one in its condition was good enough for me. I thoroughly enjoyed my walk at these arts pieces and getting to see what was in store for art pieces enthusiasts like me.

As we took the walk along Chew Jetty, this walk reminded us very much of our time spent in Kukup, Johor. Stilts houses in the sea, arid, salty , breezy and quite hot, one would get sticky real fast. Some of the houses were real small in size while others had sprung up plying as homestay accommodations as tourism industry caught up with these fisherman folks. I can imagine seeing the sunrise and the sunset off these wooden jetty construction. I would have loved that very much. 

I think, what was interesting is simply to spend time with family and friends who made us felt very welcomed. I really appreciate the strengthening of friendship, the fellowship, the laughter and the food,of course.

For me, I am most happy to have some time off for myself and reflected on so many happenings in my life lately. Suffice to say that this was quite a good break from the routine crunch of stress and deep thoughts. Life is never about the easy way out but if you could catch a breather once in a while, take it, it might safe your life as well. A good cup of good coffee wouldn't be too bad either!