I went back to my hometown Penang for Christmas. I haven’t been back for a few months but this time is the first time in many many months that I actually took the time to go around Penang. The previous trips back I hardly went out. Spent all my time at home.
This time I noticed quite a number of things that are different in Penang. Before, the streets in the town area around Komtar and all that have always been infamously known for being dirty. Now they are clean. So clean that I hardly find any waste around the whole area. I drove around to the other parts of Penang and notice the same thing. It’s so clean that it reminded me of Singapore.
For a long time I’ve been hearing about the great work the Penang state government has been doing with the state but I’ve never really seen it for myself until now. There are a lot of other things. Every Penangite I talk to knows what the state government has done and is really really happy with it. So to that I just have to say. Kudos to the Penang state government for doing a great job!
The other thing I noticed about Penang this time round is the huge development. There are countless new apartment buildings in places that I never knew existed and even malls in the oldest places of town. One of the new developments that is pretty cool though is called Straits Quay.
It’s sort of like a mall-restaurant-bar-area in the new housing area Tanjung Pinang. The best way to describe Tanjung Pinang for me is that it’s kind of like a Desa Parkcity but by the seaside. When I went there, most of the shops of Straits Quay weren’t open yet but I could see from the shops that were already open that it was going to be really cool.
For one, the shops that you had there weren’t your common shops that you find in ever other shopping mall ie Giordano etc etc. There were a number of boutiques or even art galleries there. Then comes the restaurants. They were restaurants that before were never found anywhere else in Penang and were the kind of places that I would really love to eat at.
I took a walk out of Straits Quay and walked around the seaside.
Around me were people walking around or taking their afternoon jog. The houses nearer to Straits Quay are newer so they still haven’t got anyone living in them yet but I hear they’re all sold out.
In fact I hear that a Terrace house in Straits Quay now costs over a million ringgit. Notice how the houses in Tanjung Pinang though have a very colonial kind of theme. The houses here don’t look anything like the typical home and they’re all white. I feel that theme though gives it some identity…. especially in a place like Penang that’s one of the World Heritage Sites.
I just realized now while blogging that I didn’t take any pictures of the inside of Straits Quay. What I did take a picture of though was the entrance where they had this huge Christmas tree there.
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and an Audi on display in front of a luxury car showroom they had there.
In the next few months though I’m sure I’ll be back. Once the rest of the shops open up and Straits Quay really comes to life, I’m sure it will be a big thing in Penang. Something Penang has always needed.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space