April 8, 2007

The days are flying now. We’re 8 days into April with only 4 ports left…not counting Hawaii. We just spent 4 days in Malaysia where I got to explore Kuala Lumpur for a couple days. I loved the city! After being in India and seeing some of the poorest people in the world we did a complete 180 and wound up in a beautiful city with hot (very hot) weather and enormous malls. Tyson’s is huge and takes up a lot of space, but it doesn’t force itself to be 6 levels of intimidation. They don’t have department stores, but they do have a Border’s type store called Kinokuniya that has every book ever made in English and Japanese. It was big and awesome and I found HELLO! Magazine with Angelina and a young Pax Thien which made me very happy.

My first day in Penang consisted of a city orientation where we had a tour guide take about 30 of us around the island so we could get a feel for it and see the place before I left for my trip to Kuala Lumpur. It was nice and I got to see a lot and was excited that worked out well. Our first night we were in Penang and decided to be cultured and eat some Thai food. In America, our Thai food isn’t spicy at all. The Pad Thai we ordered made our tongues and lips burn and our eyes water. It was very difficult to finish and my Carlsberg beer could do nothing to help the situation. After that we headed to Penang Bowling which was awesome. It cost us about $3 to plays two rounds of bowling and to snag some very sweet Malaysian bowling socks. We were the only white people at the alley and I figured we’d be a sight to see, but the locals were SO into their bowling game. High-fives and cries of ‘so-close!’ we’re flying around. And the best part was that, because it’s a mostly Muslim country, they don’t sell beer at the bowling alleys like in America. These funny Asian men and women were just having a great time throwing their big, colorful balls down the lanes. I don’t get to bowl often so that was fun, and I think I got a 118 or something. Not my best effort.

We left for KL the next morning and because it was a group trip, our lunch was already paid for and made available to us at a local restaurant along the way. That was exciting. Rice, tasty chicken, fish still on the bone (they were kind enough to remove the eyes) chicken broth with chicken’s feet still available to gnaw on—it all looked very tasty but I just stuck to rice and chicken, and then treated myself to a tasty soda.

The cultural food was making our stomachs a little uneasy the past few days, so we took advantage of the food available in the city. Hard Rock Café has never sounded or tasted so good. We split a large order of nachos which we finished in less than 4 minutes and I ordered myself a big bacon cheeseburger, extra messy. That night we went to CPK (yes, California Pizza Kitchen!) in the mall which was great, but not as good as home. Blue Cheese dressing just isn’t the same outside of America. The previous night we had gone out to local bars and that turned out to be an expensive event, so we opted to go see “300” our second night instead and it was awesome. Very handsome and extremely well built Spartan men kicking the butt’s of their opposing Persians in red robes and small underwearlike shorts. Needless to say I enjoyed it and can’t wait to buy it on DVD. I might even have to name my first born son after a Spartan warrior if it makes him destined to grow up to be that strong and tough. The weirdest thing about the movie was a commercial that played before it. Four young Malay boys were walking down the street, slightly close to the traffic that was driving up behind them. Numerous times they were honked at and warned, and then eventually one boy gets too close to the street and the next thing we hear is the sound of screeching tires and a collision, and then one of the boy’s faces gets splattered with blood. We’re all sitting there like ‘what just happened?!’ thinking this could be a drunk-driving commercial, but it was a public service announcement warning kids that when they walk by the street, to walk FACING traffic. I think they’re could have been a more subtle way to make that statement, but I guess they were going for the shock affect. We were obviously surprised by the turn of events that faced the young boys.

We went to a very late movie and didn’t get to sleep until 2 AM, but Caitlin and I ventured to the Patronas towers at 7 AM the next morning. You’ve got to get there early and get a ticket because they only allow 800 people up a day, and we were leaving at 11 that morning to head back to Penang. We got up around 9:15 and it was very cool to get up there even though there isn’t much to see once you’re inside the towers. They’re usually what you look for when you’re in other buildings and other parts of the city, but once you’re in them its like ‘ok, what should I see?’ It was something we had to do though- you can’t go to KL and not go up the tower (you can actually go up on the bridge).