Thing To Do & See

Toy Museum

If your kids have seen Toy Story 2, they might feel bad for the more than 100,000 toys locked up in the Toy Museum with nobody to really love them; no one has tried to break Woody free yet. Don't miss the Chamber of Horrors (not suitable for very young or sensitive kids), Chamber of Monsters, Cave of Dinosaurs, Hall of Cartoons, Chamber of Comic Book Heroes and Hall of Beauties (for lovers of Barbie).

Kek Lok Si Temple

The largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia was founded in 1890 by an immigrant Chinese Buddhist. To reach the entrance, walk through arcades of souvenir stalls, past a tightly packed turtle pond and murky fish ponds, until you reach Ban Po Thar, a seven-tier, 30m (98ft) tower. The design is said to be Burmese at the top, Chinese at the bottom and Thai in between.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

Built in the 1880s, the magnificent 38-room, 220-window Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion was commissioned by Cheong Fatt Tze, a local Hakka merchant-trader. The future entrepreneur left China as a penniless teenager and eventually established a vast financial empire throughout east Asia, earning himself the dual sobriquets 'Rockefeller of the East' and the 'last Mandarin'.

Chinese Clan Houses

There are five great Hokkein clans that formed the backbone of early Penang: Cheah , Khoo, Yeoh, Lim, Tan. Between the mid-1800s and the mid-1900s Penang welcomed a huge influx of Chinese immigrants primarily from the Fujian province of China. In order to help introduce uncles, aunties, cousins, 10th cousins, old neighborhood buddies and so on to their new home, the Chinese formed clan associations and built clan houses to create a sense of community, provide lodging, help find employment, and more, for newcomers. In the associated temples the clan would worship patron deities.

Municipal Park

The well-maintained, landscaped Municipal Park, formerly known as Youth Park, has good playgrounds, some splash pools, basketball courts, walking trails, biking and roller-blading trails and, generally, lots of room to run around. For older kids there are chess tables and an internet station, and there's a cafeteria where you can get basic fare. It's near the Botanical gardens, and signposted as Taman Perbandaran.