We actually did have a leisurely day today, doing a bit of shopping in the stores and markets along Jalan Penang late morning, and then returning to Campbell House for the afternoon. Ted is frankly exhausted from the heat (and, maybe, from all the walking too), and he’d been up early filing our 2025 income tax returns, so an afternoon doing not much at all was welcome.
I took the opportunity to curate our snapshots of George Town’s incredible street art into an episode of memories to make us smile all over again someday.
Last year (Episode 634) we’d joined in being one of millions of tourists who have photographed Penang’s most photographed piece of street art (“Moto Boy”) since it was painted in 2012 by Lithuanian street artist Ernest Zacharevic.
This year we added many more works to our photographic collection, focussed especially on the steel-rod caricatures that can be found all over George Town’s UNESCO quarter.
The artists who created the sculptures were well known for their cartoon drawing, but turning those kinds of drawings into sculptures makes them whimsical in a way that just painting them on the walls wouldn’t.
We didn’t make it an intentional quest to find all 52 of the steel-rod caricatures, but simply going about our days meant we saw quite a few.
One of our favourites was this one just around the corner from our hotel, which pays homage to Spy vs Spy, the iconic, wordless comic strip created and originally drawn by Cuban-American cartoonist Antonio Prohías, which featured regularly in Mad magazine.
Each of the installations has a brief explanation worked right into it in steel rod script. They’re amusing to look at and photograph, but if you read them they also impart a bit of George Town’s history.
Some are cheekier than others.
The piece below is my absolute favourite. The young Western tourist with his apple laptop is ordering as if he were at a Starbucks. The proprietress translates it: “Coffee – black!”
Adjacent to Kimberly Street, famous for its hawker stalls:
In addition to the metal works, we found plenty of other street art – some sponsored by businesses and including their logos, some sponsored by individuals or city initiatives, and some simply spontaneous.
Sometimes the art just depicts the small joys of life, like this mural on the side of a home on Chew Jetty.
In this case, an actual car that belonged to the teaching brothers at St Xavier’s was turned into a piece of art projecting from the school’s wall.
We particularly enjoyed the interactive pieces.
Our final piece of street art was on the outside wall of the restaurant where we ate dinner: Lagenda.
Similar to Campbell House where we’ve been staying, Lagenda House & Cafe is a hotel on the upper floor of the building, with a restaurant open to the public at street level. Where Il Bàcaro at Campbell House is an Italian restaurant, Lagenda Cafe serves Asian dishes with special emphasis on Malay and Indonesian cuisines, as well as some western/Malaysian fusion.
Since this is our last dinner in George Town before capping our visit with dinner at Il Bàcaro tomorrow night, we both ordered classic Malaysian dishes, which were elevated by gorgeous plating and perfect heat and spice temperatures. (We have to thank Kumar again for his recommendation; he has never let us down!)
Both dishes came with ulam-ulaman (literally translated “religious texts”, but in this context side-dishes/relishes) in small dishes (a congkak platter): raw cucumber, kacang botol (winged beans) and daun pudina (mint leaves), plus condiments air asam (tamarind sauce), sambal oelek (spicy paste) and acar jelatah (pickled cucumber, carrots and shallots). There were also some light crunchy crackers to add contrast to the soft meats, rice, and sauces.
We both drank iced nutmeg juice with lime and basil seeds, which nicely complemented the spicy dishes.
We didn’t order dessert, because we knew that we had toasted-sesame-coated, peanut butter-filled glutinous rice balls waiting for us, bought before dinner from the mobile hawker stall across from our hotel. Thanks to a recommendation from the young owners of Campbell House, we were forewarned that the hawker cart selling these only operates between 6 and 8 p.m., and always sells out, so we bought them warm and stashed them in our room.
It was a delicious dinner, to end a day that finally matched Ted’s expectation of “leisurely”.
Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 