georgetown

a giant rat scurrying across the gutter, a bicycle rickshaw driver blaring bollywood music, a guy on a motorcycle getting tagged by a car, a german woman wearing a tasmanian devil t-shirt--oh the sights of penang.

of all the things i could talk about, i think i'll focus on the german lady staying at the guesthouse, who wore a tasmanian devil shirt. 

she had tatoos covering most of her arms, and walked in the strong, brash manner one would expect of someone who wears a t-shirt which on the front displays the front view of the tasmanian devil donning the garb of a ninety's rapper, with baggy clothing and earings, arms across its torso, the way an old white guy would have done in order to be ironic in acting like a ninety's rapper. the back of the t-shirt had, predictably, the back of said tasmanian devil on it.

this tasmanian devil shirt clad, tatooed german woman would have remained just a passing comment of "that woman is awesome" had she not appeared while ang and i were eating chinese food on a stick in the streets of penang.

great street food--this cart, attached to a bicycle of course, contained two pots of boiling water and no less than twenty different food on stick options. the ends of the sticks were color coated by price. reds were 40 ringut cents, silvers were 80. there were also several bowls of delicious sauces to dip your stick foods in. a young man and an old woman worked diligently, slicing food and sticking it on sticks, changing the boiling water and counting sticks, taking cash and giving change.

at first unsure of the proper procedure or ettiquette for consuming these treats, we watched the locals. some of them didn't dip their treats--hardboiled eggs and squid, spring rolls and crab dumplings--while others dropped there sticked food completely in the rolling, bubbling pot, letting it dance around freely, without even monitoring it. some of them dipped their food completely into the bowls of sauces, others had plates. it was a sticked-food-boiling water-delcious sauce free for all. the perfect environment for a brash, tasmanian devil shirt clad german woman with tatooed arms.

her motto was to dip whatever you wanted to dip, in the sauce or in the boiling water. she didn't know what many of the unknown treats were that i sampled freely, only slightly worried of the possible sharp stabbing pains in the stomach they may create. but she was certain that one of them was tongue, and that was one she really enjoyed. left with only a styrofoam plate of sauce, hot red sauce mixed witt dark maroon sweet and some brownish peanut type  sauce, she licked the plate clean, savagely licking it the way a tasmanian devil would. "i love it" she said.

she then spun around furiously in a circle, and bounced off, leaving only spinning dust and empty styrofoam plates behind her.