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| The gentleman on the left is the owner and 'hatter' |
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| Dave wearing songkok trying to look serious |
This last week here in Penang I also spent 2 evenings taking the bus downtown and then walking quite a bit to locate some special souvenirs: Trying to identify handcrafted items that are truly Malaysian is not so easy because of the strong cultural presence of both India and China here. I finally decided to get David (husband) a handmade hat/cap, called a 'songkok', as, due to his bald head, Dave has developed a real collection of hat specimens. The renown 'hatter' for handmade songkoks in Penang owns a small shop on Jalan King (Jalan is Malay for street) in the historicGeorgetown area part of town.
After getting the hat, I headed to the Chinatown area of the city. In a small shop on Jalan Campbell, I finally located a tiny very plain clay teapot set for daughter-in-law Sarah. I kinow - it's a chinese teapot, not Malaysian, but Peiching, one of my colleagues, drinks her tea in her really adorable and beautiful clay teacup every day at work, and she explained how the clay teacup is important in preserving each tea's special taste - each teacup is specifically used for only one type of tea - that way you never get the flavors of various teas mixed up or tainted by old residual flavors remaining in the cup. (I also learned this week - from Aussie friend Craig - he learned this from a recent tea tour expert - that perfect cup of tea is made from using the tea leaves multiple times - pouring hot water over the leaves and letting it steep for just 7 seconds before pouring it off into your cup - the best tasting tea comes on pouring # 3or 4, - you can use the same tea leaves maybe a total of 6 times before the tea tastes too weak, and the first 1 or 2 pourings the tea tastes more bitter.....) Anyway - the first tea shops I found had very beautiful pots but were priced way out of my budget range ($100 U.S. and upwards), but several shops later I made a successful purchase. A few shops later to locate just the right tea assortment..... Then on to Pete's gifts: I struggled with this gift - what to give Peter? Why, something to eat, of course! So I picked up some Malaysian chocolate, and some specialty green bean paste biscuits (once again, Chinese, I'm sorry to admit). I was non-plussed (sp?) with Pete's reaction to the filled biscuits "they aren't very sweet". - but perhaps it was more due to the fact that they got really squished during transit here, rather than to the actual biscuit's taste.
I am ending this entry at this point since I haven't dstributed any other gifts to other family members yet......
After getting the hat, I headed to the Chinatown area of the city. In a small shop on Jalan Campbell, I finally located a tiny very plain clay teapot set for daughter-in-law Sarah. I kinow - it's a chinese teapot, not Malaysian, but Peiching, one of my colleagues, drinks her tea in her really adorable and beautiful clay teacup every day at work, and she explained how the clay teacup is important in preserving each tea's special taste - each teacup is specifically used for only one type of tea - that way you never get the flavors of various teas mixed up or tainted by old residual flavors remaining in the cup. (I also learned this week - from Aussie friend Craig - he learned this from a recent tea tour expert - that perfect cup of tea is made from using the tea leaves multiple times - pouring hot water over the leaves and letting it steep for just 7 seconds before pouring it off into your cup - the best tasting tea comes on pouring # 3or 4, - you can use the same tea leaves maybe a total of 6 times before the tea tastes too weak, and the first 1 or 2 pourings the tea tastes more bitter.....) Anyway - the first tea shops I found had very beautiful pots but were priced way out of my budget range ($100 U.S. and upwards), but several shops later I made a successful purchase. A few shops later to locate just the right tea assortment..... Then on to Pete's gifts: I struggled with this gift - what to give Peter? Why, something to eat, of course! So I picked up some Malaysian chocolate, and some specialty green bean paste biscuits (once again, Chinese, I'm sorry to admit). I was non-plussed (sp?) with Pete's reaction to the filled biscuits "they aren't very sweet". - but perhaps it was more due to the fact that they got really squished during transit here, rather than to the actual biscuit's taste. 
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