The Case of the Awkward Tech Interviewee

It's been a while since I attended a job interview. As an applicant, anyway.

Recently, I was on the other side of the interview, reviewing candidates for a tech position within my company. The interviewee in question was a nervous-looking Malaysian. There wasn't anything that really stood out, except for his awkwardness. Which, in itself, was a problem. You see, for tech positions, sometimes one can get away with not being able to communicate that well. The stereotype of socially-inept but brilliant techies exists for a reason.

Brilliant but
awkward?

However, this particular position was for a leadership role. And lack of communication skills just wasn't going to fly. I could tell that my co-interviewer had already written our applicant off and was about to call it in, but I persisted. We'd already scheduled and allotted the time; I figured that I might as well develop the muscle memory I needed for being an interviewer.

Besides, it could have been just nerves. Some people have told me I can be intimidating, a statement I consider laughable. Please, look at this face. Nothing about me is remotely intimidating.

Either way, I decided to give him a question he could answer. I asked him to explain what he would do to combat SQL Injection. His answer, predictably, was "Stored Procedures". My follow-up, probably just as predictably, was why Stored Procedures? What do Stored Procedures do that normal SQL queries don't?

He stammered. Hemmed. Hawed.

After a few minutes, I put him out of his misery. I told him to Google the term "paramterized queries". And then told him that in future, if anyone ever asked him a question like that again, he should refer to that, rather than simply say "Stored Procedures". It would be a better, more complete, more correct answer. And more importantly, it would be an answer that instilled confidence in the asker of the question, confidence that the answerer knew his shit.

After we were thanked him for his time and bade him goodbye, my co-interviewer turned to me and asked me why I'd spent so much time on this guy. Did I see some potential that he'd missed?

I replied, simply, that we obviously weren't going to give him the job... so I might as well give him something.

People commented on my perceived generosity, or at least, on me "paying it forward". I don't think either is true. This was decidedly not about making the tech industry a better place, or even giving back.

Back then...

Upon further reflection, something similar happened to me in the days when I was the applicant. There were times when I sensed I had failed the interview, and when the interviewer asked if I had any questions, I ventured out of the box.

I asked for advice. And this paid off in spades. They proceeded to tell me more or less where I'd gone wrong. We all knew I wouldn't make it past this round, but they at least thought I deserved a fighting chance... somewhere else. They wanted me to succeed, again, somewhere else. I guess it helped that His Teochewness has such a winning personality.

Seeking answers.

I think that helping candidates along is a very natural instinct on the part of any tech interviewer who takes their job seriously. Of course, it helps if the applicant doesn't piss them off. One may object on the grounds that this helps applicants cheat on their next tech interview. That's only true if they get asked the exact same question next interview. Also, let's be real, answers are all over the internet.

And from a cynical point of view, even if it's true that you're enabling inferior candidates to "cheat", they'd likely be "cheating" at the interviews of your competitors. Nobody really needs me to explain this one now, do they?

It's probably also true that techies generally like to look out for other techies. Some little tribal instinct there. Us geeks against the laypersons.

To conclude...

Interviews need not be an adversarial exercise. Your interviewers want you to succeed, or at least not turn out to be a total waste of time. Selfishly, because they already invested the time and energy into prepping for this interview, and conducting it. From that point of view, they get nothing if you turn out to be a dud.

Therefore, they don't need to love you. They just need to not severely dislike you. And the rest takes care of itself.

Without question,
T___T

No Blanket Solutions

There exists in the spoken language, a supreme contradiction. A sentence that manages to be simultaneously profound in its humility and stunning in its arrogance.

"If I can do it, anyone should be able to do it." - every douchebag ever.

Why is this humble? Well, on the surface, it seems like people who say this are modestly describing their achievements as mediocre. They feel that they're not special, so if someone as unexceptional as them can do something, there's no reason why most other people wouldn't be able to do it. For example, I quit smoking almost two years ago. I did it far easier than many people did, with no lingering physical or psychological side-effects despite having been a pack-a-day guy for the better part of twenty years. No discipline was required; the struggle was non-existent for me. However, I'm also reasonably certain that this isn't that uncommon. There are plenty of people, wired the same way as me, who could accomplish that. Acknowledging that you're not special, is humility.

Why is this arrogant? At the same time,  if I were to claim that I quit smoking without much fuss, and there is something wrong with people who can't simply follow my example; that's a problematic stance to take. Assuming that oneself is the standard on which everyone else should be based around, is both immature and pretty egoistical. It lacks self-awareness.

And both positions are wrong.

We're not all the same.

They're wrong for the very uncomplicated reason that we're all built different. We don't all come off some assembly line with the exact same characteristics. There are significant variances across data points like culture, upbringing, physical and environmental.

For example, people who spent their formative years in a Southeast Asian multicultural country like Singapore or Malaysia would have significantly less trouble picking up a third or fourth language as opposed to, say, an Englishman born and bred in the UK. Incidentally, that's why people coo and act impressed when a white guy speaks Mandarin (even if his pronounciation is dogshit). Whereas nobody bats an eyelid when an Asian guy speaks English well. Why? Because a white dude even attempting to speak anything other than dodgy English is impressive, whereas for an Asian guy it's just another Tuesday.

Is it fair? Well, of course not; but if we're going to acknowledge that everyone's built different, then nothing is fair.

The tech space

"There are no blanket solutions" is a favorite refrain of mine, because it's true especially in the tech space. You can have all the best practices in the world, but they have to be evaluated against the exact context in which you're applying them. The concept of best practices is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but only if not applied blindly.

Frameworks aren't always the way to go; I've said this before over and over. They're often the way to go in software development, but not in every situation.

Not every data storage solution has to include a database.

Not every 2FA solution
looks the same.

Not every 2FA solution looks the same - some involve texts to mobile phone and some involve a third-party authenticator app.

You wouldn't use Python to code every damn thing, just the same way you wouldn't use Java to do it. At least, I hope not.

While we're at it, almost every organization's implementation of Agile Methodology looks different from the next.

But while all I've said so far is uncontroversial, that's for the tech space. The software development context.

In a personal context

Someone once told me he wanted to be like me. I had a place of my own. I was doing well financially with no debt. While I wasn't filthy rich, I spent money without needing to think too hard about it. And above all, I was chill. I didn't let what I didn't have, bother me too much.

And all that was before I got blissfully married and really started stepping up my game at life.

Possibly, to an outsider who was just watching me live my life, it looked like I had everything without needing to turn to drugs or alcohol in order to cope. Furthermore, it looked like all that was needed to achieve what I achieved, was to live my life the way I did. Sadly, I had to disabuse this person of that fantasy. He was not going to achieve the same things I did by living like me, simply because he wasn't me.

There's more than
one path to the
rainbow.

My achievements aren't spectacular by any means. An apartment, a job and a spouse. Spare cash in the bank. The means to take care of my immediate family. These things are achievable by the vast majority of people. All I've really done is earn as much money as I can while living a very modest lifestyle. And that's the hard part.

You see, not everyone can, or wants to, live life the way I do, as if I were still drawing an income of just under SGD 3,000 a month. It takes a specific kind of person to happily sacrifice pleasure for stability. Not everyone has the same experience and needs. Not everyone has the same personality. I know plenty of people who would struggle mightily with a simple existence.

Overseas vacations, wine and cheese, cab rides, expensive pets, gym and club memberships - I won't miss any of those things because they're not the kind of things a guy like me cares about. But again, not everyone is like me in this regard. And honestly, for the sake of Singapore's economy, I really hope not. (Part of the reason why I can live the way I do, is because other people have this habit of buying pricey shit they don't need. So keep on doing what you do, guys; you're awesome.)

Therefore, it's not a simple matter of glibly saying "live life this way". Not everyone will take to my chosen lifestyle the way I have, or reap the exact same rewards from doing so. Why should anyone travel the same path and have the same outcomes as me when they're fundamentally different from me? That makes no sense, does it?

In a nutshell...

The mistake most people make is to assume that everyone wants the same things that they do, or at everyone is built the same way. That's why you have well-intentioned but severely misguided people going around advising others to have kids or go to Church or become a vegetarian because those things have benefitted them... and they assume that these things will benefit other people in exactly the same way.

People can certainly achieve the same things I have, or more... but they're going to have to find their own pathway to it.

Stay unique,
T___T

A Software Developer's Vacation in... Singapore (Part 1/3)

In recent years, I've been writing about my vacations in different parts of Malaysia to meet up with friends I made online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, I didn't leave Singapore at all. Instead, I still cleared my Annual Leave - but in Singapore. This was more than just me being a cheap bastard - I mean, I am a cheap bastard, but there's more at play here.

You see, back in 2019, one of my several uncles, David, died. He hadn't even turned sixty. I saw my Aunt Serene at the wake, in a wheelchair. For reasons we won't get into, Aunt Serene was only ten months older than me and we played together a lot as kids. This would be the last time I would see her alive, for she succumbed to a brain aneurysm just a year later. Then two years ago, the twin brother of one of my friends passed on from a heart attack. He was only a couple years older than me.

Rest well, guys.

Now, granted, I would consider myself a significantly healthier and fitter specimen than any of the ones who've died, rest their souls. This, however, taught me not to take anything for granted. Around my age, anything can happen. I am going to celebrate the fact that I am alive and able to walk... by being alive and walking.

The past five years of working from home meant that I hadn't really needed to leave the neighborhood very often. I hadn't really seen how Singapore had changed post-pandemic. 

Initially, I went through the places I hung out as a kid, but eventually, inevitably, this turned to revisiting old workplaces because my career took up so much of my life. And I've always had a soft spot for old malls compared to some of the more modern cookie-cutter fare out there. It's not that the old stuff is objectively better; there's just a certain charm about the old-fashioned double rectangular layouts that speaks to me.

Today, I want to go through some of the sights I saw in my wanderings as I revisited the places I used to work through my long and storied career. Bear in mind that I did not visit these places chronologically, but I will be recounting them in a certain order, for clarity.

Early to mid 2000s

My career began after graduating from University, amid an economic downturn around 2002. After months of temp work and putting myself out there, I landed a job as Desktop Support at a legal firm. The pay wasn't great, and the prospects sucked ass... but it was better than what I had currently, which was pretty much nothing.

North Bridge Road

Peninsular Plaza

The office was in Peninsula Plaza along North Bridge Road, a place mostly visited by the Burmese and Indians. Upon my visit during my vacation, the building seemed to now be inhabited by small Thai businesses from the collapse of Golden Mile Complex. It really seemed to be a case of seeing how many grocery shops and hair salons one could squeeze into four floors of an old-fashioned rectangular layout.

Aside from that, Peninsula Plaza didn't seem to have changed too much from twenty years ago.

Funan

Across the street was Funan, one of the places that my then-Manager often sent me to, to purchase tech supplies. The last time I ventured there was in 2018 (more on that later), and it had completely changed from the Funan I knew as a teenager, or even as a young adult. It had become all kinds of fancy. There was a hotel, and a rock-climbing wall. Upscale restaurants. The works. I don't begrudge evolution, but honestly I didn't want to rub my own face in it either. I had places that held memories that I could actually revisit.

Peninsular Shopping Complex

The basement.

Next door to Funan was Peninsula Shopping Complex (not to be confused with Peninsula Plaza) and Excelsior Shopping Center, which, if I'm being honest, are so old and decrepit and joined at the hip they might as well be one unit. The basement held all the stuff that enthralled me as a kid - I remember blowing much of my earliest paycheck on a belt and some rocker t-shirts. They still have this cool stuff down there, and it doesn't look like it's let up in the past three decades. If anyone's got a hankering to cosplay as some stereotypical badass biker, you could do worse than start here. Just for old times sake, I dropped a bunch of cash on some Iron Maiden t-shirts. Probably got ripped off, but whatevs, it's just money.

Excelsior
Shopping Center

This was creepy.

A little bit of exploration in Excelsior Shopping Center made me realize just how ghetto this place was. I'm all for it, but there were times it got a little creepy. Like this little stairway, for instance. Total horror movie vibes.

The dodgy-looking ladies at the upper floors rapping on the glass windows as I passed, certainly did nothing to make this experience less creepy.

The Adelphi

The colorful building known as The Adelphi was another stop. They still sold vinyl records and CDs, imagine that. There was even a shop that dealt in vintage action figures. That took me way back. Now I've never ventured to The Adelphi much even when I was working nearby, but on this occasion I'm glad I stepped in.

Mid to end 2000s

After three years, the firm relocated to Beach Road. This was the more upscale end of Beach Road near to the Esplanade.

Beach Road

The Gateway was an acutely-shaped building where I spent another three years of my career.  The shelter between the towers, pictured below, wasn't there during my time.

The Gateway

The area in between the two glass towers was where I took my smoke breaks. I'd forgotten how beautiful the surroundings are.

The Gateway's gardens

Back in the day, I spent time around Shaw House along Beach Road. This is what Shaw House looks like now, being reconstructed, but back then it was my goto for horror movies. I distinctly remember watching Ringu here.

Shaw House

The surrounding areas have also evolved. Tan Quee Lan Street and Liang Seah Street appear to have undergone the most changes, with regards to the shops and businesses open. These days it's a lot of Chinese restaurants.

Golden Landmark
Shopping Complex

Another stop I made was at junction of Victoria Street and Ophir Road, where the decaying sight of Golden Landmark Shopping Complex stood. I can't believe that dump is still around; I used to go in to get my hair cut.

2008

In 2008, I ended my Desktop Support career and moved into web development. This was at a little company inside Bylands Building along Middle Road, just a couple streets away from my previous company. Now, if there's ever a timeless spot, it's the entire area around Middle Road. 

Middle Road

Bylands Building

On the other side of Middle Road was the Four-face Buddha and Fu Lu Shou Complex. This remains a classic. It looked like this almost twenty years ago, and looks the same now when I visited it last month. Really took me back to the evenings spent wandering this area while I ruminated on why my code was failing.

Four-face Buddha and temples

Fu Lu Shou
Complex

Just a bit further pas this was Bugis Night Market, and to my everlasting joy, it was going strong! There's a certain charm about it that rivals Kuala Lumpur's Petaling. that since this is Singapore where space is a premium, things were a lot more claustrophobic.

Bugis Night Market

Parklane Shopping Mall

At the ass-end of Middle Road, I took a few minutes to go through Parklane Shopping Mall. Back in the day, as teenagers, my buddies and I came here for pool and gaming. It was still going during my professional years, but that day when I visited, it was like a morgue - cold, lifeless and dull. Damn, this is sad.

Next

Revisiting offices I worked in 2009 to 2012.

A Software Developer's Vacation in Malacca

Somewhere in the past month, I was flirting with the idea of taking a trip to Malacca City in Malacca, Malaysia. The wife was away, and I basically had free reign. One of my friends from Kuala Lumpur that I'd met on the Clubhouse app, had a counter-suggestion - we could meet up in Kuala Lumpur and take a day trip to Melaka!

Didn't sound too bad an idea, to be honest. I could use the company. And a local guide could help point out all the beautiful places I might miss.

My company was entering the busiest time of the entire year - the December festive period - and if I wanted to clear any leave at all, it was going to be then. Fingers crossed, my colleagues wouldn't bother me much during my trip. Being the head of a one-man Infocomm department comes with inherent liability, and these were the risks I had to manage.

The trip begins!

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur to spend the night in a hotel room, then my buddy came over in the morning in a charmingly beat-up Toyota the likes of I haven't seen since childhood. We had a simple and leisurely breakfast, then headed off. The morning traffic was horrendous until we hit the highway, and then we were looking at miles of open road as the palm trees whizzed by.

When we finally arrived in Malacca after a couple hours, I was greeted by the sight of what looked like a huge inflatable dragon coiling around the main archway. It was a weird cross between cheesy and oddly majestic. It did occur to me that this area looked strikingly Chinese.

The day was hot, but due to a sudden shower an hour before, the ground was wet with puddles. Not a great combination.

Jonker Street 

Now this was one part that reminded me of Armenian Street in Penang's Georgetown. Tourists milling around was a dead giveaway, but also the little quaint cafes here and there that looked too "touristy" to be authentic. The numerous shops selling all manner of Malaysia-themed knick-knacks was also a huge callback to my time in Penang.

I succumbed to the temptation and bought a refrigerator magnet. And only because it looked hand-made.

Somewhere along the street was this cheesy monument of some seriously ripped dude with this shit-eating grin. To this day, I'm not sure if that bust was built in earnest or mockery. This guy was apparently a bodybuilder in addition to being a politician.

I had the chance to look out along the Malacca River. Nice. Reminded me of Singapore River, except without the glitzed-up banks.

Food 

We had a break at one of the numerous places advertising Vietnam Coffee. Let me just say, for the record, that Vietnam Coffee just isn't Vietnam Coffee if you're not drinking it while squatting on the roadside on a tiny stool in Saigon as motorcycle traffic roars by you... but on a hot day like this, it worked in a pinch.

Later on, we had chicken rice in one of the numerous shops. The specialty appeared to be balls rolled from chicken rice... but honestly I ate it just to be able to say I've done it before. What was more interesting were the bean sprouts - they were large, fat and crunchy. I was told that they were a special breed known as "Ipoh" sprouts. Nice!

Museum and Art Gallery 

Lunch was done and we headed off across the street to this red building, called the Dutch Square. It used to be a fort and was now home to a museum and art gallery, among other things. For lack of something more obvious to do, the museum was first.

Now, honestly, there've been many people who told me to "read a History book" during online arguments, as though that qualified as the final word in any debate. History just happens to be one of my least favorite subjects. What I was about to see, however, was a virtual smorgasbord of violence.

You see, Malacca used to be an object of contention between Malaysians, the Dutch and the Portugese. Apparently the Malacca Straits were very important territory. We went through floor after floor of paintings, text and dioramas depicting acts of bloody battle. Stabbings, shootings, blood and agony, it was all there. Not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

I saw weapons on display too - sabers and guns, with bullets the size of the chicken rice balls I'd eaten earlier. Military uniforms. Model ships. And my absolute favorite... miniature replicas of Malacca back in the day, depicting how it looked like at different periods in history. I could have stared at this shit for hours.

This was capped off by the sight of this badass statue of Admiral Cheng Ho at the rooftop.

The next part of this visual tour was the art gallery just next door. And, to be honest, there was quite a bit of art on display that I just didn't get. Some of it was historical, and those were actually the easiest to look at. The more abstract pieces? Call me a Philistine, but not so much.

The last part 

After leaving Jonker, we made a side detour. It was a white building by the seaside called the Encore Melaka, and it was an absolutely beautiful theater. Neither of us really felt like shelling out a hundred bucks for about three hours of their entertainment, so we just hung around outside.

And, in my case, took pictures like some tourist. Which I was.

By the sea, this sign proudly proclaimed the area to be The Maritime Silke Road, and even provided coordinates. Shit, this place was all kinds of fancy.

The curse struck again... 

Almost every day, I'd review my messages and see that there was stuff to attend to. Some of it I could defer till I got back; the others I had to attend to by the next day.

Honestly, it was annoying AF. It was like, the effort I'd put into an automatic vacation message and informing my co-workers, just didn't exist.

But this is what happens when you're a one-man Infocomm department - there are no reasonable expectations of a complete day off. Something goes wrong, and even if it could be looked into by someone else, the first instinctual response is to contact me by WhatsApp or send me a MS Teams message.

I'm not blameless in this regard though - I get such a summons and even though I'm supposed to be on vacation, I can't help myself. I just have to respond. This is something I need to seriously work on. As to how, for the moment, I have no clue.

What a vacation!

Short, but sweet. For real, though, this struck me as a good place to chill out for an entire afternoon if I felt like it. Maybe even for a few afternoons. And as of last week (or earlier) there are direct flights from Singapore to Malacca.

Speaking of which, I actually experienced the biometric scan when returning to Singapore's Changi Airport, days after it was reported in the local paper. Pretty cool. Traveling in and out of Singapore as a citizen wasn't a huge hassle to begin with, but this is going to make things even easier.

Stay tuned for more vacation updates!

Your travelling techie,
T___T

A Software Developer's Vacation in Penang

His Teochewness goes on vacation again!

This time, instead of the bustling Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur, I visited some Clubhouse friends in the little city of George Town, Penang. How did this come to pass?

Street mural
in George Town.

Well, it all began when my sister-in-law came over to stay for the month of April. She shared the bed with my wife, while I crashed on the couch. On many levels, this was inconvenient. Even if you take away the fact that it was one of the hottest spells in Singapore weather, I work from home the majority of the time, and my work area just happens to be right beside the couch - which results in removing that one last (albeit artificial) barrier between personal and work life.

That's when I figured - hey, if I'm going to be sleeping on a couch, I might as well be sleeping in a hotel room. In another country. That's when I made the arrangements, bought the ticket and booked the hotel room. It happened to be a pretty busy time at work, but my boss was OK with it as long as I brought my MacBook along and remained contactable.

I would be going to George Town, a historic site in Penang. I envisioned myself taking long walks in the day and venturing into multiple museums and art galleries. Mrs TeochewThunder would probably hate this shit, but whatevs, she wasn't coming along. I could concentrate entirely on what I found fun, for a change.

April 14th, 2024

The day started off pretty well. I made it to Changi Airport early, had a nice breakfast and even found time to write some code I'd been tinkering with while waiting for my flight. The weather was blazing like Singapore's, just the way I like it.

I arrived at Penang International Airport ahead of schedule and soon after, I was picked up by a sweaty but dazzling young lady (she was pretty hot, in all senses of the word) in her car, and we greeted each other like friends who had only known each other online for the past couple years.

First meal at a
roadside coffeeshop.

Astonishingly fancy coffee.

After checking in to the run-down dodgy-looking hotel I'd picked out for my stay (the less said about this, the better), we headed off for some street food, where I got my mind blown by the Ice Yuen Yeung (coffee and tea, mixed) that turned out to be an ultra-fancy deconstruction of what I expected, served with a spiral glass stirrer. Holy shit.

Trust me, the other
stuff was weirder.

She then took me to George Town's Hin Bus Depot to attend what had to be the most macabre art exhibition I ever laid eyes on. The paintings looked like entries in some serial killer's fantasy. 

Bizarre.

At the same venue was a sculpture exhibition which was a nightmarish hellscape of squished body parts rendered in clay. Was I disturbed? That's an understatement. Was I fascinated? Also an understatement.

Something relatively normal.

We capped this off by attending a third exhibition which looked somewhat normal, and also easier on the eyes.

Nyonya dinner.

Dinner was at a Nyonya Restaurant where her mother joined us and we absolutely demolished a whole bunch of stuff. Her mom was excellent company, by the way. I took great pleasure in showing off the pictures of my papier-mache tree to her.

The night went well. The hotel itself wasn't much to shout about, but for the first time in weeks, I got to sleep in a proper bed!

April 15th, 2024

Got up bright and early. George Town exploration awaited! The sun was blazing overhead like it had something against humanity. No worse than the Singapore heat I'd left behind yesterday. In other words, business as usual for me. It was easy to tell that I was a tourist, despite my skin color fitting right in with the demographic - I was grinning like an idiot in the oppressive heat and obviously happy to be here.

Interior was
great, though.

I got some  breakfast at this place called English Hainan. Name sounded promising, but the Full English Breakfast I got was a bit of a disappointment. After breakfast, I wandered around, looking at various street art and the architecture of the buildings. It was like a replica of Singapore's Chinatown and Bugis Street, expanded by ten times to an entire district. Shophouses and temples abounded. I was getting a sense of how my grandparents lived in Singapore.

Food museum.

Pretty soon, I came upon this building, and decided that this was too good to pass up. A Food Museum! I've always loved miniature art, and this museum had it in spades. The amount of detail was incredible.

Great detail.

This was so interesting.

I could have spent another hour in here, but it was the first full day in George Town and there was plenty more to see. Further down the street was another tourist attraction advertised on Google Maps - Fort Cornwallis.

Gunpowder chamber.

Boom!

This was a gigantic bore, to be honest. It was nice and quiet, but this only served to highlight how few people seemed to really want to spend their time here.

Should've saved
my money.

A quick lunch later, I checked out an exhibition near the hotel that promised "Trick Art". This turned out to be a waste of time, possibly a bigger one than Fort Cornwallis, which is no mean feat. You've been warned.

Ssssss!

There was a pretty cool painting of a snake in a tunnel, but it was cool only compared to the rest of the uninspiring and insipid stuff in there. If anyone from the Trick Art Museum is reading this and feels triggered, tough titty. Do better.

That's a spread.

Dinner was great, though. I bought my friend and her mom a nice quiet seafood dinner in a pretty retro restaurant and had the place almost entirely to ourselves.

More food!

After that, we adjourned to another roadside joint where my friend introduced me to Penang Hokkien Mee and their local Otak-Otak. Mmmm!

Checking my email and work notifications that night, thankfully nothing seemed amiss. Would have been nicer if I didn't need to check, but oh well.

April 16th, 2024

More walking abounded! I got up bright and early, and had breakfast at one of those little roadside food courts.

Street art.

I especially liked
this one.

Then I made my way to Armenian Street, where a lot of the street art and art installations were congregated. Here, footfall was noticeably heavier as I was sharing the space with tourists and trishaw riders.

Why did I ever
go in there?!

One good exhibit.

Somewhere along the way, against my better judgement, I paid for a ticket for an entry into the Upside Down Museum. Much like the Trick Art Museum, this turned out to be pretty much a waste of time, with only a couple exhibits worth looking at. No more gimmick museums!

TeochewThunder
waz here.

I like to think I was a good sport about it, though. I paid for coffee and a postcard, and added my (fake) complimentary review to all the other (hopefully) genuine reviews stuck on their wall. I even stuck mine upside down! (hur hur) Might as well spread the love. Why should I be the only unfortunate soul to get suckered into parting with his money?

What followed was a slow saunter westwards to meet a couple Clubhouse friends at a cafe. As it turned out, I had severely overestimated the distance on Google Maps, and got there a full hour earlier than expected.

Much better.

It was lunch-time, so I stopped at White Chapel Cafe, and ordered their Full English Breakfast... for lunch. Decadent, eh?

A couple hours later, I met my friends at the other cafe. I remember the place being nice, but at this point I'd been in so many cafes that they were all starting to look the same.

The really exciting part of the day came when one of them gave me a ride to Komtar Tower, the tallest building in Penang. There, I could get to the topmost floor and view Penang from above. There was also a whole host of attractions in the theme park.

View was amazing...
and terrifying.

Up I went to the 65th storey, paying about RM 80 for the experience. This would include a trip outside of the perimeter of the top, tethered only by a safety harness. Honestly, just looking at the view from the glass floor made my stomach lurch. But I'd already paid, so what the hell...

...except that at this very moment, the ugly side of being the only software dev in the department kicked in. People from work called to tell me that one of our sites was down. And I just happened to be 65 storeys above ground, with my laptop in my hotel room. I made some calls and got people to patch some stuff until I could get to it proper. By the time I turned my attention back to the breathtaking view, the moment was well and truly lost. I went back down, and couldn't even muster up the enthusiasm to try out the attractions. Although, after having already been taken for a ride by Trick Art and Upside Down Museum, I wasn't really up for any more overpriced gimmicks anyway.

Tan Jetty, viewed
from the side.

The sun was going down in two hours. I was heading back to the hotel on foot, but this looked like a good time to visit the Clan Jetties of George Town. The air was thick with flies, but I made it out to the rickety planks that made up the Tan Jetty.

This was surreal, yo.

There was a little hut and what looked like an incense pot midway, then the rest pf the jetty led out to sea. It was surreal. I was on a flimsy piece of wood surrounded by the waves, and the odds of any stuff I had on me falling into the water (me included) were more than decent. With the evening sea breeze howling in my ear, even.

So this was how the Tans lived, in Penang, all those decades ago. My ancestral cousins.

Delicious, but
almost couldn't
finish it.

I didn't bother with the Chew or Lee Jetties. It was more of the same, and I had least shared a family name with the Tans. Instead, I headed back to the hotel and had a nice (and extremely filling) dinner at the Peranakan fusion restaurant nearby.

Cozy.

And that was it for the day. Somewhere before midnight, I got restless and took a little stroll around Little India and ended up at this cafe where the ultra-friendly staff served me cake and juice.

April 17th, 2024

The day started off with breakfast at a humble cofeeshop where I ordered a standard breakfast set - two soft-boiled eggs, kaya toast and coffee. To my pleasant and everlasting surprise, they not only broke the eggs for me and put them in a nice shallow cup, they even brought everything to my table! Well, damn.

Straits & Oriental Museum.

A trip to Penang Chinatown brought me to a Porcelain Museum. In contrast to the last two, this one was actually pretty educational.

Interesting pictures.

I totally didn't get
this one.

Just across the street was a small art gallery which seemed to be beckoning me. Not being one to resist a siren call like that, I ventured in and took some pictures.

Now, I'd been constantly walking all around George Town for the last few days, and the inner linings of my bootleg Converse shoes were worn out,. I thought it was time for a massage, so off I popped into this place called Revive Reflexology. I opted for the Thai package, hoping that these were "serious" masseurs. Unfortunately for me, the one I got turned out to be entirely too serious. I had underestimated the strain all that walking had put on my aging legs, and when she grasped hold of the ligament in my inner thigh near the left knee, I'm not ashamed to admit I screamed like a little bitch. And then she started on the right leg.

Suffice to say, I had walked in, and now I was crawling out. I took a lunch break at a nearby bar restaurant because I just didn't feel up to walking around to find something more interesting.

An elaborate
gateway.

My next stop was at the Pinang Peranakan Mansion which was nearby the hotel. I had passed by a couple times along with a whole host of big-ass Chinese temples. Through the past few days, I had come to realize that there were a lot of temples in George Town and I would need more than a couple days to cover them all, if I were even so inclined. But... there was only one Peranakan Mansion.

Check this out...

What followed was a feast for the eyes. Did I say feast? It was more I was pigging out on a visual buffet. It was a visual overload. There was so much detail in everything - elaborate carvings, designs, architectural features, old furniture and so on. Everything had a historical explanation.

My second favorite place was probably the kitchen, where I could pretty much imagine how a meal was cooked back in the day. But my absolute favorite was their Ancestral Hall. There was just so much going on there I can;t even begin to describe it. Check out the pictures!

Not quite a mansion, but
still interesting.

My next stop was, again, right next to the hotel where I visited The House of Yeap Chor Ee. Yeap was a Chinese immigrant who plied his trade in Penang as a barber (there were samples of his tools in the museum, quite a visual treat) and ended up being a very wealthy man despite not knowing how to read or write. Even his signature was written wrongly.

I was the only visitor in the place, and the guide obligingly took me on a tour of all three floors, explaining the history behind each exhibit. The tour cost RM 20. She didn't have change for my RM 50 bill, but I told her to keep it. It sounds like a sizeable tip, but honestly, after wasting time and money on Trick Art and Upside Down Museum, this was more than worth it.

The Last Supper... in Penang.

Later in the evening, I met up with a couple friends for a supper of some chicken wings, oyster omelette, fried dumplings and milo. And that was a wrap for my final night in Penang.

April 18th, 2024

Bittergourd with duck egg.

It was my final day here in George Town. I had some breakfast, wandered around, and checked out early. One of my friends from last night bought me lunch, and then dropped me off at the airport, where I headed home to Singapore... and back to the couch.

So long, Penang!

My little vacation there went pretty much as expected. A lot of walking in the hot weather, museums and art galleries. And food. And having to respond to work emergencies at the most awkward times possible. But hey, at least I got to sleep in a proper bed. And work on Python at night, along with some of my other little pet projects.

I suspect I've barely scratched the surface, though. At some point, I'll be back.

Your travelling dev,
T___T