Winter Wonderland

A quick update from the other side of the world.  After a long, long trip home consisting of 3 roughly 8 hour flights it's been great to settle back into the cold and snowy Midwest.  My journey home was fairly uneventful, I managed to score a row of 3 empty seats for my Dubai-London leg, which I paid for dearly when I got stuck next to a woman who was 7 months pregnant and travelling with an 18 month-old for the London-Chicago leg.

Compared to Ian however, I got off easy.  This is what happened at Heathrow a week later:

Seriously, that's a jumbo-jet they are trying to dig out.

So yes, I lost dear Ian for two whole days.  He was in the air when they closed Heathrow and I later found that he had been diverted to Paris. He slept at the airport and then Emirates tried to send him back to Dubai!  Refusing, he bailed and queued for 6 hours at Gare du Nord in hopes of getting onto the Eurostar.  After a six hour wait, in which thousands of people (some even ticket holders) were turned away and the French army (who later surrendered to the passengers) came in to sort everyone out - Ian made it on the very last train that was not fully booked until Boxing Day.  It took him 58 hours to get home.  When I asked him if he felt a bit like Odysseus, he replied, 'yes, only more heroic.'

So here's to hoping that return journey is kinder to us both.  I've got just under a week left in the USA and then have just under a week UK before returning tropics where I can resume my regimen of swimming and food poisioning and shed this layer of winter fat that I've accumulated since arriving.

Holiday Hiatus

Well this will be a quick one just to announce my temporary hiatus.  I begin the long journey home tomorrow evening and unless I have anything particularly exciting to report regarding the packing process, this is likely all for the time being.  Hopefully I'll have a few updates from Chicago, but I've got lots to do with the impending wedding in April - and I really don't want this to degenerate into a wedding blog.  With that being said, no news is probably good news.

It's a bit grey today which is annoying as I was hoping to give my glorious tan a quick top-up before it starts to fade.  Beyond that I'll spend my remaining time tidying up the flat in the vain hope that it will be as tidy as I left it when I return.  (Ian's on his own for week before he heads to the UK, so there is pretty much no chance.)  Yesterday had what I hope is my last round of food, or rather water poisioning for a good long while.  Going to be extra picky about what I eat between now and when I get on the plane - 3 x 8 hour flights + food poisining is just not in the cards.  Otherwise hoping for smooth travels  - no lost luggage, snow or monsoon delays, missed connections etc. Catch you all on the other side.

Monkey Business

Taking advantage of clear skies and an urge to get out of the city we packed our sunscreen and bug spray and decided to check out FRIM (Forestry Reasearch Institute of Malaysia).  Located just 20 minutes away but what feels like a million miles, FRIM is essentially a 15 square kilometer piece of semi-maintained jungle.  It's main attraction is a jungle canopy walk

Now I'll be honest, I wasn't exactly heartbroken to find that this was closed for maintenance.  You can't tell from the photo how high up this is, but getting to the place where this photo was taken was a 1/2 km hike that was more or less vertical.  It's also narrow, wobbly, and largely constructed of rope.  The sign at the landing includes a multitude of warnings including: don't jump, don't run, don't sway and by the way we aren't responsible for any injuries.  Yikes.  There is a little note that says this bridge 'was constructed with the help of the Germans.'  This momentarily made me feel better, but I decided that sentence lacks a crucial component, 'was constructed and is maintained with the help of the Germans' would have made a world of difference.  After further reflection, I also decided that it's entirely possible that statement isn't even true, it's just to make chickens like me feel better.  In any event, this canopy walk looked like something out of Indiana Jones and in no way compared to a similar and much safer treetop walk we did in Western Australia with the Giant Tingle Trees.

Spared the treachery of the canopy walk, we had a perfectly pleasant walk through the jungle and saw monkeys and lizards.  I have also never been so hot in my whole entire life.  My hair was dripping, my tank-top soaked, it was quite frankly disgusting.

Thus we completed our walk and in dire need of air conditioning hopped in the car.  As we were in the area we thought we'd stop by and check out the Batu Caves.

The caves are the most holy Hindu site in Malaysia and are essentially several temples and shrines set in these massive caves.  Now I imagine it is quite a sight to behold if you come when one of the big Hindu festivals is on, but the caves are really fairly uninspiring.  There is a lot of junk kicking about - cables running everywhere and aluminum fencing which really takes away from it.  There are also a lot of thieving, mangy macaques hanging about and pigeons enough to make even a hardened Parisian shudder.  I'd call it a tourist trap but as it only costs about 25 cents to park and is donations only for entry, one can't complain.  As a geological feature the caves are interesting enough and there are some decent food stalls - we enjoyed a delicious dosa each for lunch which came to a mere 75 cents apiece.  Ian also loaded himself up with a myriad of Indian sweets.  All in all a pretty good day; between our hike and then marching up the nearly 300 steps to the caves, there was little left to do but pack it in and head home for a dip in the pool.

Mothers Ruin

Well we were due for an excursion to Penang this weekend, but for a lack of a single hotel room in all of Georgetown (Penang's main city and attraction) we'll be sticking to the greater KL area.  We could chance it, but our backpacking days are well behind us and ending up in a grotty, noisy hostel with shared bathrooms is just not in the cards these days.  In short, we're old and require a good sleep.

There is plenty to do in KL that we've not got round to yet (Islamic Arts Museum, Chinatown, Bird & Butterfly Park), so a good weekend is still promising.  That being said, the sky is looking pretty ominous at the moment and since we didn't get our usual afternoon monsoon yesterday, I suspect we're due for double today and that could turn out further hamper our weekend plans.  If all else fails, I suppose we must suck it up and make what is god-willing our last trip to Ikea. 

If you think Ikea is popular in the rest of the world, you've seen nothing.  It is packed morning, noon and night all day every day.  The majority of people don't appear to even be buying anything, it's just a hangout.  Hordes of awkward teenages swarm the place like they do any mall in America.  Our first week here, we went to Ikea on a Friday night thinking it would be fairly quiet and a good chance to grab some essentials.  WRONG. What do you do on Friday night in a country where half the population doesn't drink?  Go to Ikea.

And whilst on the topic of alcoholic beverages (sort of), Ian, in true colonial form has been in search of the most affordable gin and tonic in Malaysia.  Thus far we have found this:

It's Malaysian and not very good, in fact it's rather terrible and doesn't really taste like gin.  However, if you absolutely douse it in lime, it's drinkable.  And at a mere $3.50, it's very drinkable. You'd think that for all the Brits did in Malaysia and for as long as they were here, they could have taught them how to make a decent bottle of gin, but alas, that was apparently not a priority. Oh well, in this part of the world I consider a good gin and tonic to be a health drink, it's cold and packed with quinine.  It's essentially liquid medicine.

The Lizard King

Well our little lizard has stuck with us and a good little lizard he is.  As far as I can tell he has been very respectful of boundaries.  He seems to stay in the living room sticking the the ceiling and walls and hiding out behind light fixtures and pictures.  He seems to come out mostly at night or when we aren't home - we occassionally see him scampering away as we come in the front door.  Mostly I am pleased that he seems to stick to the living room.  Little as he is, I think he would give me a bit of a scare if I found him in the bath or clinging to the shower curtain or worse on my pillow or something.

More than anything I am to the point where I will welcome with open arms anything that helps keep the mosquitoes under control, I'd quite happily have a dozen little lizards.  I have a stockpiled an arsenal of spray, citronella candles, and coils to get rid of the little buzzing bastards.  I keep the windows closed as much as is practical without having to run the AC full blast all day everyday and spray myself every 5-6 hours. Regardless, I reckon I'm still sustaining 1-3 bites a day and walking around with at least 6 bites at any one time.  One actually got me inside my nose this morning. 

We are probably going to go bankrupt on anti-mosquito contraptions but I suppose that is the price you pay for living in the tropics.  I think a mosquito net for the bedroom may become a necessity in the not too distant future.  We're off up north to Penang this weekend where I'm sure there will be plenty of mosquitoes lying in wait for me.  Beyond that, I'm homeward bound a week today via Dubai and London and just dare any mosquito to follow and survive that journey, if that doesn't do it, I'm sure the Chicago cold will.

Also, I've decided our lizard is worthy of a name. Suggestions?

Fruits and Veggies

Despite having had my fair share of food poisioning over the past month (we've been here nearly a month!) the food, as expected, has truly been one of the highlights of the move.  I think my favourite find thus far has got to be what is alternatively called water spinach, morning glory and kangkung or kangkong.

As far as I can gather it is technically a Vietnamese vegetable, but it's everywhere around Malaysia both in the supermarkets and restaurants.  Below is my favourite way of preparing it, but it can also be added to curries or stir-frys etc.

1. Blanch a bundle of kangkong in boiling water, just long enough for it to come back to the boil (this is really imporant, we skipped this step once and the stems ended up a bit on the crunchy side.)
2. Whilst boiling, toss a couple of crushed cloves of garlic into a hot wok with a splash of oil and brown them nicely.  Also, chop finely another couple cloves of garlic.
3. Drain the kangkong well and add to wok with chopping garlic.  
4. Stir-fry for a minute or two and add a good splash of fishsauce and mix to combine.
5. Devour. (I don't think a bit of chopped fresh chili would go amiss as a nice topping or even some crisp fried shallots . . .)

I'm sure this can be found outside of Southeast Asia fairly easily, especially in Asian supermarkets in bigger cities.  That being said, I would bet this was not available in Galesburg, Illinois when I was growing up and would be suprised if it was even available now. 

I still have a whole treasure trove of leafy Asian greens to work my way through and been enjoying the availablity of things like fresh kaffir lime leaves and curry leaves - no more dried leaves for me!  Herbs like holy basil and coriander have a completely different (better) taste to those in the UK and things like lemongrass and galangal don't cost an arm and a leg.  That being said, for every up there are a few downs and I'm sure at some point we will very much start to miss things like asparagus and proper English peas.  Tomatoes are a bit on the expensive side and mostly taste like those horrible Tesco Value Dutch greenhouse grown ones you get in the UK.  I'm holding out hope though as our local grocery stores seem to cater mostly to the Chinese and Malays, if I can find a good supermarket in Brickfields on Little India I may find that the Indians have horded all the good tomatoes for themselves.

It's the same story again for fruits - pineapple, starfruit, mangoes, bananas, papaya, limes and durien (YUCK) are widely available and incredibly cheap.  Strawberries appear to be widely imported from the US (Driscoll's) and raspberries I assume simply can't even survive the shipping process.  Lemons also don't do particularly well as it is a bit too damp for them and blueberries go the same way as the raspberries. 

Fruit and veg does also go off incredibly quickly due to the heat (and for not being genetically-modified I suspect) so it does mean a daily trip to the store, which is fine while I'm not working but I suspect we'll be eating out a lot more when I get a job.