The last month has been a lot of fun, and there is much more fun to be had, but more on that later.
We started off after the last blog with a little event put on by our friends north of the border (in the US). The people from C 'eh N 'eh D 'eh :D for those that don't get it, it's Canada. It was called Canada Rocks (although I beg to differ, hehe). We went with our Canadian friends and had a wonderful time. To support Texas at this Canadian event I sported my Astros jersey and Eric wore his Texas tie over his Calgary Flames t-shirt. It's a casual event, nothing fancy like the ball, which was nice. Got to wear shorts and flip flops! They had a live band, good people, actually met another young couple there like us (no kids) and turns out they moved into another building on our street, so we have been hanging out with them as well. The drinks at this event were you could get a single beer or a bottle of wine, no glasses of wine, had to get the whole bottle, so I did :)
Next event up, another rug auction. This time put on by the American Association, but done by the same rug company. This one was nice, all you can drink and eat for $10 each!! My theory is they lure you in with cheap booze and load you up so you feel really good about buying expensive rugs! We met up with a few friends there and had some fun. This auction wasn't quite as entertaining though as the last one because the people at this one weren't spending money or bidding like they were at the last one, which is all the fun. We ended up with another hookah, (this one is way cooler looking) and a small rug for the guest room. Take a look...
While Eric was away at work one day I attended another cooking class. This one all about cooking with local vegetables. The lady made some nice dishes. A soup, some greens, a dish with veggies and tofu, and a shrimp or pork dish. All pretty good food. There were a couple things I didn't eat as I'm really not that fond of most veggies. So, not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to go in the first place, but turns out it was nice and I'm glad I went :)
We've made some new friends!! So let me introduce you, as previously mentioned we met a new young couple at the Canada Rocks event, Dave and Leah, and they are Canadian (but we don't hold that against them ;) ). They are getting married next year and are about the same age as us. They live on the same street as us just down the road a bit. Have spent a little bit of time with them in the last couple of weeks getting to know them better, I think we can keep them around, they seem nice enough :) Next up is Liam and Jaime. We met them first time at the expat mingle we attended. They were here for a look see visit trying to find a place to live. They are also currently not married, but tying the knot in July, congrats to them! Liam has moved here in the condo building next to ours, while Jaime unfortunately is still in Scotland wrapping up wedding planning and does not arrive back here until September. She was here for a couple weeks and we all had a great time and will miss her until she returns to finally live here with her new hubby. One last new young couple is Jesse and Cynthia, who happen to be from Houston, Texas!! I met Cynthia for the first time in Jan/Feb at the Chinatown walking tour I did, then again saw her at a coffee morning and struck up a conversation with her, and turns out her and her hubby don't have any kids either...so we switched digits and tried to make a plan. We met her and Jesse at the rug auction, him and Eric hit off immediately finding out they both went to Texas Tech and through the mechanical engineering program. We've hung out with them a little as well. We have found a really good group of friends here and I am so happy we have. Not sure I could have made it without them! Here's a picture of everyone but Jesse and Cynthia, don't have any with them yet.
(from left to right: Dave, Leah, Eric, me, Liam, Jaime, Chantal, and Scott)
We headed to Penang, Malaysia, a little island off the west coast a little north of here at the end of April. Eric got Tuesday May 1st off work for Labor Day, so he took Monday off and we headed out for a long weekend. Left bright and early Saturday morning, took a flight out instead of driving the 4 hours, being it was a holiday weekend I was afraid we'd run into traffic like we did Chinese New Year weekend when it took us 5 hours to make a 2-1/2 hr journey. My first time at an airport since we had arrived. We had a wonderful time. We stayed on the beach side of the island, Batu Ferringi. Nice water, was bluer than the water at Pangkor Island, guess it gets nicer the farther north you go. Our hotel was great, good food, nice beach, nice pool, everything you need!
The strip of beach area where all the hotels are host a night market, every night from about sun down to midnight. It's all knock off watches, clothes, bags, etc and crafts. We ended up buying a few local crafts and some antique stuff from a store across the street from the market. I brought our travel book with for the trip so we could decide what we wanted to do, day 1 was pool, beach, dinner and night market. The island is well know for their food too, we ate pretty good while we were there! :) Day 2 was a little more beach, lunch, and then we headed into George Town for a little culture. First, on the beach we were warned that there was going to be a tsunami drill that morning. It came, and lasted for like an hour with the horn and the message to evacuate and got a little annoying. Eric took a walk down the beach and came upon a bloody body lying there, after a closer look discovered it was part of the drill. They we having a full on drill, bodies laying over the rocks covered in blood, bodies on the beach, people in the water 'drowning' and everything. They had the rescue boats and people all over the place, he said he was pretty funny. We went and had lunch down the road and ate probably the best calamari I think I've ever had. So good! Then we headed into to George Town. Saw the Cheong Fat Tze Mansion first. It's a big blue mansion that you can stay in, that's really old and very fine. Was listed as one of the top 10 mansions to visit I believe. Everything inside and outside is very detailed and intricate. The floors, walls, paintings, posts, everything is really nice.
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, only outside, so I have those.
Then stopped at the E&O Hotel, a nice old hotel on the water known for it's high tea. We ended up just having a drink in the bar instead of tea since I don't really like tea. Nice hotel, apparently Charlie Chaplin has stayed there. Next stop in town, Fort Cornwallis. A British Fort built in 1786, that was pretty cool to see. Went through the rooms and read a bit of the history and got some good pictures. After that we just kind of walked around town a bit, through Chinatown and Little India until we decided to head back to the hotel. On our way back about a minute from the hotel I noticed a couple people that looked familiar, and realized that some friends of ours from KL were walking down the street in Penang! The couple that was actually on the flight we moved here on with their teenage daughter. We stopped and said hi and decided to meet them after dinner at the Hard Rock to watch some live music. Had a nice night with them there. Next morning was Penang Hill. Had to get out early for this one to beat the lines for the cable car. Took a taxi ride past the town up to Penang Hill. It's a really cool little spot with a cable car that takes you all the way up the hill and gives you a great view of the island and the bridge to mainland Malaysia. On top of the hill is a hotel, bird park, Indian temple, Mosque, Owl Museum, restaurants, and a little buggy that takes you and shows you around a bit. It was really nice up there, a little cooler being on a hill top. Got some great pics of the amazing views. Here's one pic I took that I absolutely love love love because it ended up looking like a heart framing the island.
After we came back down the hill we went to check out this massive Chinese Temple. It was really cool. The main temple had 3 main huge statues and had 10,000 little statues on the walls, surrounding the entire inside floor to ceiling. You keep walking around the grounds and there are several other temple rooms beautifully decorated, then you take their little sky car up to the top where they have this massive statue of one of the gods. It's the largest one in the world or this god. Unfortunately, I didn't get a great picture of it because it was under a bit of construction.
There is also an air force base on the back side of Penang Hill, and while having lunch one day at the hotel we hear this deafening Whoosh come by and a jet that looks about like it's flying just over the water off the beach. This thing was so close and so loud it was crazy and pretty cool. Anyone napping by the pool or on the beach was rudely awoken!
Oh, and the first night we actually saw stars!! It was the first time we had seen stars since we got here. For some reason, they just don't show up here, not sure why. Even on the clear nights. Actually saw a planet first at sunset, then later more stars came out. Second night saw the big dipper, and it was upside down.
Since then, back in KL we have seen
stars like twice, but only a few.
Went home the next day and said goodbye to the beautiful island, fun shopping, and great food.
We had our first BBQ with friends
here at the house. Eric used the Old Smokey on one of the side balconies and
did a great job. There was 8 of us for dinner, cooked some chicken and lamb
chops on it and they were all wonderful!
Lots more coming up in the next blog
as our friend Mitch arrives from Houston and we go to Singapore and Bangkok!!
Here's the link to the picture album
from Penang, enjoy :)
