It all started with a little picnic Eric and I took at a park called Lake Titiwangsa just outside the city. It was a nice night so we picked up a little subway and headed over. Walked around and found a nice spot by the water and had ourselves a nice time and watched the sunset over the lake.
The Expat group here put on a fashion show brunch at a nice spot and Leah and I went down, it was after all free food, a fashion show, and as it turned out free booze :) We arrived and we were quickly introduced to a new friend, Kimbra, who recently moved here with her husband David and we learned they were yet another couple without kids, we are finding them everywhere now! Shortly after we arrived we discovered that the fashion show was a lingerie fashion show...definitely unexpected in this very censored country. We had a great time. The brunch was delicious, the wine/champagne was awesome, and the fashion show was great. They had a a girl that sang a few songs for entertainment, she was great and even got some of the women (a few older ones) up dancing, very entertaining. They had a lucky draw, we didn't win anything :( Then the fashion show after we ate. Fashion show was very nice, gorgeous girls in beautiful lingerie. All in all a fun time!!
Our Scottish friends Liam and Jaime got married on July 14th in Scotland (congrats!), but before that the boys put on a little stag do here for him. Had Jaime been here, we would have done the same! That day Eric had a boys day and I had a girls day! The boys went and played golf and enjoyed many adult beverages, got cleaned up and headed out for the night. I tried to get Eric to take a pic of all the boys in their golf gear at the course, but of course he forgot. I headed into town with Leah for a girls night. We ran a couple errands then started our evening. First stop was Marini's on 57, it's a bar on the 57th floor of Tower 3 at the Petronas Towers. Was a very nice bar with a great view and happy hour champagne! Next stop was Changkat Bukit Bintang, the smaller version of 6th street in Austin, for dinner and dancing. Dinner was nice, after that we sat on a balcony bar and had a couple drinks and we saw the boys walk by, they declined to join us for a drink and headed their own way. A couple other friends joined us and then we headed to Havana for cocktails and dancing! Good times!
July 4th was not a huge celebration for us here. We were invited to an event at a bar for a little American party. Wasn't much, a few people in this private bar, it was kind of made to resemble a speak easy they said. They had free finger foods and free bourbon based drinks for an hour or so, mint juleps and various other ones. We met Kimbra and David there and hung for a bit celebrating America's birthday and then took it back to the casa and called it a night.
That weekend Eric went to Singapore and then took a ferry ride to Indonesia for a guys golf weekend and then back to Singapore for work for the week. I had another girls night with two friends Debbie and Alexia. We had a couple delicious mojitos at a bar and then we went to Zeta bar for some dancing fun! That Tuesday I decided to test out the bus that goes to Singapore to join Eric for a couple days. The bus pick up and drop off is less than a 10 minute walk, so it's really close, which is nice. They said it's supposed to take 5 hours and 15 minutes, roughly. I figured I would check it out and see if it was a better option than flying. The bus ticket was a little cheaper, but not much, and I thought if I flew it would take roughly 4 hours total travel time, so not too much longer in the bus. The bus actually wasn't bad. It was nice to just sit there and relax the whole time without running all over the place. The trip there did take 6 hours, which felt like forever, but still wasn't terrible. The ride home was a much nicer 4 hr and 45 min. Singapore was fun. During the day I hung out with Natalie and her kiddos, our friends from Houston that recently moved to Singapore, and at night we hung with Natalie and her hubby, Aric. They had us over for dinner and some cards the first night. Ate delicious food and for a few hours it felt like we were back in Houston! The second night we went out to dinner with them and ended up at the Raffles Hotel for a couple Singapore Slings since Natalie had yet to try them yet! An absolute must in Singapore :) Called it a night after that and I headed home the next morning. Until next time Singapore.
(sorry for the flash eyes!)
That weekend, Sunday, we had a go at white water rafting for the first time! Holy cow!! What an experience! We went with Dave and Leah and drove about an hour to the Slim River to meet up with our group and tour guy. We started off just chilling and waiting for them to set everything up and get us started. Eric and Dave took a stroll to the river and played in the water a bit and were walking on a tree log that had fallen across the river dirty dancing style. Very entertaining seeing those two walking and trying to maneuver the log and each other! Once everything was ready we loaded up in the back of a pick up for a '4 wheel drive adventure'. The 4 of us were standing up in the back of the truck holding on to the roll bar trying to stay standing as it was an easier ride standing than sitting. That lasted about 15-20 minutes then until we arrived at our destination. We got our life jackets, helmets, and paddles then they gave us a safety briefing. This included commands, such as, front of boat, left and right of boat, and so on and how to rescue someone if they go overboard. Apparently if you can't be thrown a rope then you are too far away and therefore screwed ;) just kidding. Once the instructions were over it was time to put our skills to the test and head for the rafts! There was 5 rafts in all, anywhere from 4-7 people on each boat plus 2 guides, one at the front and on at the back. Our raft was first out and on the way, the first little drop we came upon had two huge rocks on each side of us that we had try and squeeze through. Our guide yells front and we all head towards the front of the boat to see if we can use our weight shift to squeeze through. Made sense until our raft was parallel with the trees and directly over our heads. That was some scary stuff. Oh did I mention we FLIPPED!! Our raft flipped over on top of us right out of the gate, get it over early I guess. Leah banged her head on a rock and they got sent down the river about 50 ft or so. I was able to get my footing and stand with the guide that had been in the back of the raft, I was hoping that if I stayed there I wouldn't have to body surf down to meet the others and we could flip the raft back over and I could hop in, no, I was mistaken. Not fun cruising down the river all on your lonesome, it was scary. There's water running in your face and your moving, not a 100% sure you will stop where you want to. We all made it and got back in our raft, and would turn out that we would be the only group to flip out of everyone. Oh well, better story I guess. The rest of the time was good, still scary as hell in some spots, but fun. On one of the bigger drops Eric hit his head on a rock that almost smacked my face too, that's not a good sight to see, a rock right where your head is going, luckily I was able to move inward and avoid it. The whole ride was about 2-2 1/2 hours and we stopped a couple times, once for a snack and some water, and just a couple other random pit stops, and one stop where they took the rafts from us and made us body surf down. Not happy about that. I got freaked out and was having trouble catching my breathe and then I've water shooting up at my face. I was happy when that part was over. Once we were down we hopped back in the truck and headed back to start for some lunch and good-byes. We got some great pictures because they had a guy taking pictures of everyone along way. Here's a few good ones. The rest can be seen in the link at the bottom of the blog.
Last weekend we took a trip to Melaka with Dave and Leah. Only about an hour and 20 minutes or so drive, so not bad at all. We made a weekend of it and spent the night at a very nice resort. The Philea Resort and Spa. After a painful lunch that was terrible and took ages to come out we were ready for the pool. The pool was beautiful, it was surrounded by the river and a waterfall and rocks, and beautiful landscape. We lounged around for a bit and relaxed, that was the main thing. We made it into town about 7, walked around a bit, grabbed some not so great dinner (not a good trip for food, for me at least), and bar hopped around a bit. We took a Trishaw ride, it's a three wheeled bike with a bench for two people around for a few minutes. They drove us by a car show that was in a parking lot and what they were showing off wasn't the cars, it was the sound systems. It looked like Pimp My Ride Malaysia Edition. Crazy, huge sub woofers and speakers in the trunks and screens and neon lights. They were insane and incredibly loud! The next day around lunch we went back to town to check out the sights. Melaka was a Dutch and British settlement and is known for the red buildings there built in the 1700s. It's an old town. Loved the buildings, and the colors were so vibrant with the flowers and the little stalls set up selling their goods and the trishaws. Colors everywhere. We walked around the town square, Jonker Street, an old Church and fort. We were so tired when we finally decided to head home, weren't there very long, but long enough to be worn out from Melaka. It was a good weekend getaway though. A very nice town, quieter and easy going.
Looks like I made it in under the wire for getting a blog out in the month of July, but I did it! Woohoo! Now we have some visitors that I need to attend too. Enjoy. :)
Pics from white water rafting and Melaka...
http://photo1.walgreens.com/walgreens/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=10827591001/a=4748092_4748092/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=walgreens/
