Hurrah for Georgetown! OK so its a bit sad to have a visit to a museum get you all wired but it has, so there you go. It reminded me very much of the museum in Hong Kong which as you know, I went to 3 times! And of the museum in my beloved Canary Wharf. I just love the history surrounding trading ports, I know that sounds a bit wierd. But you see who arrived, what they traded, how the look of the place changed.. I'm sure part of it as well is that I seem to really like the places that were colonised and for that reason Im excited for Singapore (and its museum ;) too). I just find it fantastic when you see the colonial architecture or old black and white photographs of a sports team where half the faces are white and half are local. Whatever local is. That is what is so amazing about Malaysia, Ive never been anywhere where there are 3 solid ethnic groups (malay, chinese and indian) who are all living together but still hold to their own traditions, beliefs, dress and food! I mean everyone knows that London is an ethnic melting pot but theres still a massive proportion of whites. Here, in the street, there are equal measures of chinese indian and malay and LOADS of other ethnicities too. The Japanese, people from Java, Sumatra, Burma, Eurasians, arabs, jews and wherever there has been inter-racial marriage you get these generations of mixed race and they all look good. I liked seeing all the different traditional clothes and the different things that brides wore.

The streets of Georgetown are gorgeous. There are big Malay style mansions, lots of Chinese shops (mainly revolving around trading, good old chinese..), Indian lending shops, beautiful colonial homes that look portuguse and some moorish stuff. Its so interesting to see. Probably the most obvious is in the places of worship. I had my first ever visit to a mosque today and in fairness the guy that showed us round sat us down and actually talked to us in a very respectful way; I didnt feel he was preaching really so much as just trying to inform us. Although he did seem fairly shocked about our lack of knowledge of the crusaders (?) and anything at all about Jerusalem. I blame school.. It was so hard not to laugh at times tho cos he kept breaking into verses of the Koran (i.e. singing at us, in this little room..). But I liked him cos he thought all my questions were 'beautiful questions' even when they were "What does Islam say about women" or "The chinese will pray for prosperity, or longevity, what do Muslims pray for" answer: To be shown the way (now you know). They even let us sit at the back during their worship which I thought was pretty inclusive. Then on the same street (this is what I mean..) we went to a Chinese temple with all the incense etc and also an old Chinese residence where a sweet little man showed us round and got very excited to show us that in the paper theyd run a story on Tony and Cherie Blair visiting too. We also (busy day by my standards!) had a drink in a bar that looked completely out of place on the street it was on; all dark wood etc. Reminded me very much of Hoi An, Vietnam.

Ive been wanting to visit Georgetown for a couple of years now; since adopting The Georgetown as my favourite restaurant in London. I always thought it was a cool concept that the menu has 3 parts, 3 cusines (and excellent Singapore Slings), now I know why..
Im so glad Ive actually made it over here. Its just been declared a World Heritage Site, come see it!