Once, one of the busiest streets slapped in the middle of Georgetown, Penang with tonnes and tonnes of people going over there to shop for textiles, gold jewelleries, shoes, bags, food products from china, restaurants, chinese medicines and herbs, it is now just a road busy with its traffic than anything else. In the morning, this street is extremely busy, jammed with cars as this is one road that has accesses to many other roads and streets and even one that allows you to get into Chowrasta Market.
Today, some of the old shops selling thrifts and such are still in operation. You can still find all these shops in their original post war architecture (many has repainted) on both the left and right sides of the street. The street has been facelifted years ago by the government, but sadly, not many frequent these shops anymore now with so many shopping malls in the island as competitors. The pavements are now paved with nice cobble stones, planted with trees (that never seem to grow an inch) to beautify the busy street and steel-piped seats (which is not so comfortable for the elderly and definately not for anyone in the hot scorching sun!!!). Having all these white elephants, someone up there decided to close the road from traffic for certain nights in a week and hav
e stalls ala "pasar malam". This too, die naturally since night markets do not appeal that much to the townfolks. Although you find Hameediyah Nasi Kandar (great food, but you can skate on the oily floor) and Tho Yuen, Kwang Tuck (selling food products from China...ranging from preserved olive to wax meats), many goldsmiths and others, it is more of a tourist attraction as it still depicts the picture of the good old chinatown - a nostalgic street...a street that holds so many memories to those who used to be there when Sin Kay is the "in" place to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment