Sunday, November 13, 2005
DAY 68: Singapore and Malaysia
OK, so I'm sitting here in a crowded Internet cafe in Beijing surrounded by literally a dozen teenage Chinese boys playing some kind of interactive war game on the Internet, wearing headphones, and quite unaware of the volume that they are yelling at each other at. I'm wishing I had brought ear plugs. I guess the stereotype of the demure and quiet doesn't really fly here. Ahhh, the things you learn while traveling, I feel so insightful.
We've definitely got some updating to do. I could have actually added Thailand into the title of this one because we never even actually finished updating you all on our trip there. We left you with Leslie off to get her dream massage and me, Meridith, about to try out my bargaining skills at the local market... As it turns out, Leslie's Thai massage was a bit masochistic (sp?) which sadly took away from the joy. From the way she describes it, it basically consisted of a small Thai gymnast pulling at her limbs with all her might while Leslie tried to simultaneously hold back her tears and envision herself in her "happy place" (Leslie probably should have asked for a lighter massage, but she figured she was in the hands of a professional). In other words, she isn't really recommending it. I, on the other hand, despite Leslie's lack of confidence, did my best yet with bargaining at the local market. I might have gotten a bit carried away though when I learned that I do my best bargaining when I could care less about whether or not I actually walk away with the item. Later, upon our return to Bangkok, we actually spent our last morning at the grand "Weekend Market", a mass of stalls selling everything from clothes and housewares to fried bugs and squirrels on leashes. Needless to say, we had to ship a box of stuff home to NJ.
Singapore and Malaysia marked the half-way point of our trip. Singapore felt amazingly like a city in the US, just without all the Americans. My friend Laura and her fiance Anthony live there while she's attending an international business school and it was awesome to be able to stay with them and of course, have someone to show us around. We visited the Rodeo Drive-like Orchard Road, toured the city with a bus-load of folks who doubled us in age, kicked back on the island of Sentosa, enjoyed the Indian, Chinese and Malay cuisine offered at hawker stalls, and experienced the nightlife with the largest ex-pat community we've seen yet (and what limb-flying, foot stomping dancers they were - be warned!). The best part by far though, was being around friends. Not to say Leslie and I aren't company enough for each other, but that, for those of you who know us both, two months, 24-7 is a LOT. Amazingly enough though, we've managed to get along very well and have had no major disputes to date (knock on wood). Ours hosts, Laura and Anthony were awesome and we didn't even have a chance to do something without them anticipating our needs. Thanks guys!
Our relaxing continued in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we stayed with another wonderful pair of hosts, my friends Kim and Alex. Kim is teaching at an international school there and has a fantastic set-up which we were happy to take advantage of. Our timing, exquisite as always, found us in Kuala Lumpur for the Muslim holiday of Hari Raya, which for non-Muslims, basically translates to everything-shuts-down-for-four-days (conveniently, the exact amount of time we were there for). We went our first morning to do a canopy walk in the rainforest, wary of Kim's story of leeches that fall from trees "although I don't think they're in that rainforest". Besides for mild paranoia on that front, and for the fact that the canopy walk ended up being closed, we had a great hike, leech-free, through our first rainforest. (Our exciting wildlife spotting was highlighted by several millipedes that reached at least 8 in long!) The next day, having not learned our lesson, we woke everyone up really early to go to the top of the Petronas Towers, which also happened to be closed. (I know that is as big a shock to you as it was to us, but let's face it, who's really thinking clearly that early in the morning?) Luckily for us and our survivor instincts, we were more than happy for the rest of our trip wandering around the city, shopping (you can always count on the malls), eating at Chilli's (don't judge!), searching for the notoriously repugnant-smelling durion fruit, and lounging on the couch, watching DVDs and munching on nachoes. Despite Kim's unjustified sense of guilt at not predicting that everything would shut down, we had a wonderful time and in fact enjoyed the excuse to just relax. Thanks to you guys too, and your amazing DVD collection of course! (Oh, and you all have Kim, technology teacher extraordinaire, to thank for us actually getting our photos onto this blog. Yeah, don't hold your breath for any more photos until January, it was quite an undertaking to say the least.)
OK, we're going to save China for a blog on its own. It definitely merits it. Coming soon to computers near you!
We've definitely got some updating to do. I could have actually added Thailand into the title of this one because we never even actually finished updating you all on our trip there. We left you with Leslie off to get her dream massage and me, Meridith, about to try out my bargaining skills at the local market... As it turns out, Leslie's Thai massage was a bit masochistic (sp?) which sadly took away from the joy. From the way she describes it, it basically consisted of a small Thai gymnast pulling at her limbs with all her might while Leslie tried to simultaneously hold back her tears and envision herself in her "happy place" (Leslie probably should have asked for a lighter massage, but she figured she was in the hands of a professional). In other words, she isn't really recommending it. I, on the other hand, despite Leslie's lack of confidence, did my best yet with bargaining at the local market. I might have gotten a bit carried away though when I learned that I do my best bargaining when I could care less about whether or not I actually walk away with the item. Later, upon our return to Bangkok, we actually spent our last morning at the grand "Weekend Market", a mass of stalls selling everything from clothes and housewares to fried bugs and squirrels on leashes. Needless to say, we had to ship a box of stuff home to NJ.
Singapore and Malaysia marked the half-way point of our trip. Singapore felt amazingly like a city in the US, just without all the Americans. My friend Laura and her fiance Anthony live there while she's attending an international business school and it was awesome to be able to stay with them and of course, have someone to show us around. We visited the Rodeo Drive-like Orchard Road, toured the city with a bus-load of folks who doubled us in age, kicked back on the island of Sentosa, enjoyed the Indian, Chinese and Malay cuisine offered at hawker stalls, and experienced the nightlife with the largest ex-pat community we've seen yet (and what limb-flying, foot stomping dancers they were - be warned!). The best part by far though, was being around friends. Not to say Leslie and I aren't company enough for each other, but that, for those of you who know us both, two months, 24-7 is a LOT. Amazingly enough though, we've managed to get along very well and have had no major disputes to date (knock on wood). Ours hosts, Laura and Anthony were awesome and we didn't even have a chance to do something without them anticipating our needs. Thanks guys!
Our relaxing continued in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we stayed with another wonderful pair of hosts, my friends Kim and Alex. Kim is teaching at an international school there and has a fantastic set-up which we were happy to take advantage of. Our timing, exquisite as always, found us in Kuala Lumpur for the Muslim holiday of Hari Raya, which for non-Muslims, basically translates to everything-shuts-down-for-four-days (conveniently, the exact amount of time we were there for). We went our first morning to do a canopy walk in the rainforest, wary of Kim's story of leeches that fall from trees "although I don't think they're in that rainforest". Besides for mild paranoia on that front, and for the fact that the canopy walk ended up being closed, we had a great hike, leech-free, through our first rainforest. (Our exciting wildlife spotting was highlighted by several millipedes that reached at least 8 in long!) The next day, having not learned our lesson, we woke everyone up really early to go to the top of the Petronas Towers, which also happened to be closed. (I know that is as big a shock to you as it was to us, but let's face it, who's really thinking clearly that early in the morning?) Luckily for us and our survivor instincts, we were more than happy for the rest of our trip wandering around the city, shopping (you can always count on the malls), eating at Chilli's (don't judge!), searching for the notoriously repugnant-smelling durion fruit, and lounging on the couch, watching DVDs and munching on nachoes. Despite Kim's unjustified sense of guilt at not predicting that everything would shut down, we had a wonderful time and in fact enjoyed the excuse to just relax. Thanks to you guys too, and your amazing DVD collection of course! (Oh, and you all have Kim, technology teacher extraordinaire, to thank for us actually getting our photos onto this blog. Yeah, don't hold your breath for any more photos until January, it was quite an undertaking to say the least.)
OK, we're going to save China for a blog on its own. It definitely merits it. Coming soon to computers near you!
# posted by Mer and Les @ 5:16 AM 
