So George Town is the capital of the state of Penang, which is mostly the island of Penang though it also includes a little bonus on the mainland, and as such it has the Penang State Museum which we marched through. It is not the most spectacular museum in the world, and you are not missing very much if you don’t go. But Harriet demanded that I take a lot of pictures of things, which I am now presenting here that you might get some kind of impression of the museum and what Harriet thought was important in it. Mostly jewels.

There was a picture of a Thai lady in a description of the various people who settled in Penang and Harriet thought she was important.

I think these are Malay wedding costumes, though I might be wrong.

Here are some rings.

Here are some anklets, poorly photographed. All of this was on my phone which doesn’t really do a good job in low light through plexiglass.

More jewels.

Why Harriet was interested in an official seal container I don’t know.

There seemed to be a lot of displays of elaborately constructed shiny fake flowers in the museums of George Town. Maybe people used to be bored and consequently made them. Harriet liked them, though it is hard to imagine any other appreciative audience.

Perhaps a suit worn by older Chinese women of Penang in historic times.

More blouses. Perhaps if Harriet had instructed me to take pictures of the placards accompanying these objects I would be able to tell you something about them but no. Also there might not have been placards? It wasn’t the greatest museum.

Another set of clothes.

I suspect that what she was most interested in here was the jewels.

A man’s suit with similar jewels.

Here you can read the description! which is maybe not very helpful.

I am not sure if that head goes with the body or not.

Harriet reliably loves a sari.

Small jeweled containers.

A large photograph of the Chinese mansion that we stayed in. I am not sure what this was doing in the museum. The photo is basically from where we ate breakfast every morning in George Town.

A lot of jewels.

More jewels, less attractive.

A lady with jewels.

Another lady with jewels.

And now you know what it is like to wander the Penang State Museum with Harriet.

Okay, I’ve been remiss in filling in what we did in Singapore and Malaysia over Christmas vacation in large part because most of the pictures I took were not very good. Malaysia is very pleasant! Singapore is very civilized! But! In the hopes of filling in gaps in documentation, here are some people that Harriet met while in Malaysia.

So this is some Malaysia champion bodybuilder who had a gym in George Town with a number of large statues of himself. I don’t know if he looked like that. I think he’s dead.

Going by the gym was exhausting so everyone got foot massages. Harriet thought this was basically the best thing ever.

We spent approximately twenty-four hours in Kuala Lumpur and stumbled upon a weird Malaysian cultural introduction which involved food and a lot of dancing and this man who let you feed monkeys. Also there were chickens, not pictured.

When one is traveling with small children eventually you just throw up your hands and go to the zoo, which we did, repeatedly. This is an elephant in Melaka who was still hungry.

Here Harriet attempts to become one with a turtle sculpture in the same zoo.

This guy was on a bench at a Chinese house museum in George Town. I don’t know if he was meant to be one of the deceased owners or if he was just there so that people could take pictures with him. Either one’s possible, I guess. Harriet liked him and I think we had to give him some money, which seems a little dumb honestly.

This guy was selling something – maybe congee? I don’t know. Harriet liked him a lot.

Despite being a Muslim country, Malaysia is full of robot Santa Clauses at Christmas time. Some of them play the saxophone, like this one.

We had to go back and see this guy on another day. This is what happens.