Continued from yesterday”¦ This house is actually three shop houses side by side, with doorways through the structural walls so one can walk through all three houses without having to go outside. Two of the houses were for the family, and the third was the servants quarters. The outside looks similar to all the other Chinese shophouses, with European style shuttered windows and relief style decorations designed into the exterior walls. The doors are made of a heavy, dark colored wood and intricately carved. The foyer is in the center house, and as soon as you step inside, it is clear that all the furniture in the house and many of the dividing walls are made of the same really super intricately carved dark wood. The furniture is inlaid with mother of pearl and gold and silver leaf, as are the walls. The glass is etched with designs. Quite large and expensive tapestries decorate the walls. The floor is tiled. It is the kind of place you are terrified to bring your young children because there are so many breakable things around, and it is hard to believe that young children once lived in this house.

We got to see the kitchen with all of its old school appliances hand crank ice cream makers, hand crank pasta makers, wood fire stoves, ice box, mortar and pestle for grinding up food, and all those other things that make a woman so thankful for modern day appliances. Upstairs, there were displays of the clothes the family used to wear, showing the different trends in fashion over the years. And of course, the bedroom furniture was up there, complete with chamber pots.

The tour was guided, and as we toured the museum, the guide explained to us the significance of each item she pointed out and explained a lot about the culture. It doesn’t sound like a fun life to us. For example, the little girls were kept in complete isolation until the day of their arranged marriage. She also gave us glimpses into the character of the former owners. The wife was a gambler, and a few gambling tables were part of the furniture both upstairs and down. If you look at the photo, you will see that the bedroom upstairs extends over the porch. There is a peep hole in the floor of the bedroom, so you can look down and see if anyone is standing at the door. The husband used to empty his chamber pot on the head of someone standing at his door if he didn’t like the person.

For lunch we went to an Indian restaurant called Selvam. The seating is almost like rows of picnic benches and you walk in and find yourself a spot. There were a lot of people, but we found a place to sit with no problem. The people around us were all Indian, all eating with their hands, as is Indian custom.

Within a couple minutes of sitting down, a banana leaf was placed in front of each of us. A minute later, a man came by with three small buckets and ladled out three small scoops of food onto our leaves. Another man came by moments later with white rice and popadom crackers. Another came by with two small buckets and asked which one we want on our rice. We chose the Dhal (lentils) and we can’t remember what the other choice was. Then another man appeared with a tray of small plates of assorted foods, asking which plates we wanted. Eric and Christi both took chicken masala, which we know is something we like. Then they came around with silver cups of sweets, so we got one of those, too. All our food for the entire meal was in front of us in less than five minutes. Talk about lightening fast service.

Once it seemed that we were done being served, we dug in. One of the three mystery scoops of food was a cooked spinach-like vegetable with corn. It was too spicy to eat. The second mystery scoop was sliced cucumber, which was very salty. The third mystery scoop was okra with white beans and it was delicious. The dhal sauce on the rice was good a little on the spicy side, but not too much to eat. The chicken masala was good. The dessert was interesting. It was a thick cream seasoned with cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla and cloves. It had raisins and cashews in it, as well as spaghetti pieces and those corn starch balls we had mentioned at Zurnas. It was served warm. It wasn’t particularly sweet. We gave it a thumbs up, but we had to take a few bites before we could decide if we liked it or not. The meal was unbelievably cheap, costing about USD$2.00 per person.

We were all tired at this point. Belinda and Rob took the kids back to the hotel to rest. They were staying one more day, so they didn’t need to pack in all their sightseeing today. We were leaving tonight, so we needed to press on.

We went to the architecture museum, which showed really nice models of the local buildings with intricate explanations about the technique and styles. It is a nice little museum, housed in an old Dutch administration building near the town center.

We went to the remains of the A’Famosa fort, built by the Portuguese in 1512, which consist of an entrance gate and a couple of cannons.

Across the way from the fort remains is a museum called the Proclamation of Independence Memorial, housed in a neat looking building that was once a British villa. This museum tracks the progression from colony to independent nation. Like the Maritime Museum, it has a lot of reading, and we didn’t feel like reading anymore. We were tired. We moved through it quite quickly, watching the few videos and glancing at the displays.

Then we went to the Sultan’s palace. From the exterior, the Sultan’s palace looks huge and enormous. It is made of dark wood and it is literally rows of peaks with more rows of peaks above, topped with peaks. It is tall and grand. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a good shot of it. The picture below is of a couple of the lower peaks. Inside, it is much smaller than you would expect, and the décor is quite plain. The displays are a combo of the architecture museum and the naval museum. There is a model of this palace, as well as all the different sultanate palaces built in the area. There are several rooms with wax people reenacting events such as town council meetings. There are displays recreating what Melaka town looked like in its heyday. There are lots of clothes on display. We didn’t do much reading, but the displays were clear enough that we didn’t really need to read in order to grasp what the display was of. At the Independence memorial, at many of the displays you just didn’t have a clue what you were looking at without reading the sign.

There is also a nice garden on the sultanate grounds, but we didn’t bother going to it. Our feet hurt. We were tired and not feeling good. We decided to go to a reflexology shop we had seen a couple blocks away for a nice foot rub. Foot reflexology is huge in Hong Kong. There is a shop on every block there. Christi had been wanting to try it ever since arriving in Kowloon. He did both our hands and feet. Some of the pressure points he hit felt good. A lot of the pressure points seriously hurt. Each pressure point is supposed to be connected to another part of your body, so by hitting all the major pressure points, it is supposed to positively help your whole body.

Once the massage was over, we realized we only had 45 minutes to get dinner before the taxi picked us up to take us back to the marina. We decided to go to the same restaurant as last night because it was next to where we were being picked up, we already knew what we wanted to order, and we knew the service was fast. We were out the door exactly at 1900.

The road has street lights the whole way back. The taxi driver spoke fluent English, and we had an interesting conversation with him. We were back at about 2130 (9:30 pm) and collapsed from such a long day of walking.