Little Penang Street Market – Part 1

I stopped by at Little Penang Street Market last Sunday. I have not dropped in since a year ago (exactly), thanks to my new-born who has just turned 10 months old recently, it was just too inconvenient to bring him along to the shop and explore around the street market, yeah…. put the blame on him, I am a good excuse-finding mummy huh~  😈 I really missed those good times exploring beautiful crafts and handmade there as I will always be surprised by their new crafts every month!!!!

Just some background about Little Penang Street Market, it is Penang’s premier street market which takes place in Upper Penang Road every last Sunday of the month, it is run by a committee of volunteers under the auspicious of the non-profit Penang Arts Council. This month, July marks the 3rd anniversary ever since Little Penang embarked on this street market in 2006. Coincidentally, it is also George Town’s 1st Anniversary being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The street market not only sells handmade, but they also showcase cultural performance like traditional dance, martial art demonstrations, children activities, and hand-on craft’s lessons. Besides that, we also get to eat lots of local delicious food there too, just to point out a few – laksa, Malay delicacies, pasembor, prawns noodle, ice kacang, and some local snacks, yummy yummy.

As  I walked into the market, the first stall that ever grabbed my attention was the stall selling Natural Handmade Soaps. They sell soaps and related products made from natural ingredients such as herbs, milk, honey, fruits, vegetables, beans and etc. All the soaps are free from chemical, not like commercial soaps, these handmade soaps don’t contain synthetic detergents, fillers, preservatives, coloring, and fragrances.
I bought a few to try and I really like them a lot, as they don’t dry up my skin, non-sticky, and the natural fragrances from the herbs are so refreshing.

See this cute little leave grasshopper below? There was a live illustration in the market showing how to make it (they have different craft illustrations for each month). Too bad I don’t have much time to watch all the steps as there were simply too crowded and too many things to explore. With the weather here in Penang/Malaysia, I sweated so much that I would faint from dehydration and heat if I didn’t get enough fluids and shades.  The length of the handmade/craft street market is about 300ft in a row, there are 2 rows side by side, which come to 600ft in total, so, let say I were to spend just an average of 10 minutes in every stall ….. I would not finish browsing through the whole street market before they drew the curtain for the day 🙈 .  Consequently, as I said before, you will never get bored visiting them every month.

Coming up next, more crafts showcasing in the market…