Diary of an Internet Addict

Asked the hotel staff if we could check out slightly late.

Happily, it’s possible.

So we checked out 2 places, the blue mansion and chocolate boutique (hosts chocolate musueum).

Spent like 500 ringgit across 2 days buying coffee and chocolate.

Insane.

We did an insane and risky thing on third day. We went out, went to two places, spending quite a fair bit of time at both, and even went on a tour.

We made back to the hotel at about 45 min before the cut off check-out time.

As I’ve mentioned in the above live post, we went to two places, the Chocolate Boutique and the Blue Mansion.

We saw the banner outside our hotel on the first day, when we were waiting for the taxi that never turned up. It seemed interesting so we wanted to go.

The Chocolate Boutique is more of a chocolate and coffee shop rather than a boutique. It houses a “museum” but it really is tiny. I saw a description somewhere on the internet that calls it “two-room museum”. I disagree. It’s just a single room.

Inside are some chocolate-production-process-related items, and coffee beans, some chocolate-related stats, a video on a loop and something. It’s free, so if you are around the area, why not?

The place sells Beryl’s brands, which are not a bad range of chocolates (no, Beryl’s didn’t pay me to say this). There are some coffee beverages which are NOT Coffee Tree brand.

Outside, there is a cafe and a small sitting area to enjoy the drinks. The cafe sells coffee, chocolate and ice-cream.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, also known as the Blue Mansion for its infamous blue facade, is one of the UNESCO preserved site in Georgetown. Its owner was an extremely wealthy businessman and China official who had 8 wives. Eventually the house was passed on to a son who couldn’t was cheated out of his inheritance.

The previous evening, we googled for the opening hours for the Blue Mansion and it stated that the place opens at 9am. Imagine our surprise when we turned up at the gates at that time, only to be told to come back at 11am. And no, we couldn’t explore the mansion on our own.

We came back later, at precisely 11am, only to found out that the tour had already started for 10 minutes. Huh?

The man manning and the gate kept repeating that the guided tour was in English, and I had to resist from rolling my eyes at him. We said, yes, we’d be fine.

A couple of seconds later, a couple of tourists were at the gate and were turned away. But after some pleading, they were let in.

When we joined the tour group, they were still at the entrance of the house, where for the next 15 minutes or so, we were introduced to the history of the house and its reparation.

The tour went on to the courtyard and the 2nd floor into wife no. 7 room as well as a parlour of sorts.

There is a restaurant as well as lodgings in the Blue Mansion.

I think the most interesting aspect of the house is the rainwater drainage system. When the rain falls, roof gutter pipes would lead the rainwater into the central courtyard before being swirled around and slowly drained beneath the floorboards out to the street.