KP in KL

Paul was able to take this weekend to relax after his trips to Hong Kong and Perth, so we finally made it to the bird park here in KL. We didn't expect much more than the "rubbish" we experienced at the crocodile park, but the Bird Park turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The park is spread over 20 acres, and I believe it's the largest free flight bird park in the world. So there only a few birds actually in cages. The rest are walking and flying all over the place. It was ridiculously hot and humid I think because we were practically in the middle of jungle. But we saw all sorts of birds and I was able to take plenty of pictures and we weren't without the usual mishaps and surprises.

In the middle of all my picture taking, Paul and I were walking down some stairs to take us to the bottom of a hill. Of course there were trees all around and overhead, which is nice for the birds, but not so nice for the people walking below the birds nesting in the tree tops. Especially when they are fed papaya every day. Paul just happened to be the man of the hour because he stopped me abruptly from snapping photos to ask what was on his neck. I would have had no idea that he had just been pooped on by the way it looked, except that I'm sure blended papaya doesn't fall from trees unless it's from the rear end of the bird that is in the tree. Sadly, I was much too close to take a picture of the bright orange blended papaya poop running down Paul's neck and the face of my very unhappy husband because I had my telephoto lens on, and because I felt just a little bit sorry for him since the poop actually landed in his hair, and ran down his neck, and was still running down his neck and onto his shirt, and because he had become the subject of entertainment for several eye witnesses who were behind us. They quit laughing though when they realized Paul was not laughing about the incident. The problem was quickly solved though, thanks to the fact that I had previously leaned up against a fence that was covered in bird poop which then transferred in chunks to my shirt. We had purchased a pack of tissues to clean my shirt, and had enough left to clean the papaya poo off of Paul. This little guy was the culprit, or at least one of the hundreds that were eating papaya.

After we both got over our run in with bird feces, we made our way to the parrot area where we purchased food and coconut milk to feed the parrots. For some reason the parrots liked us much more than the other people around us and we became like the pigeon lady from Home Alone.

We were told we needed to go sit at the cafe to watch the birds fly below us while we sat at the balcony. So we did. We had no idea that when they said the birds will get close that they would get this close. This was without any zoom.

He was practically in my face and wanted to be in Paul's face so that we would continue feeding him french fries, which was a bad idea to begin with. I thought it was particularly interesting that he wanted nothing to do with the onions we tried to feed him, but gobbled up the fries. Apparently birds are picky eaters. While we kept feeding this one french fries, another bird was rather upset that it was not getting hand fed a feast. I would probably be mad too if I had to eat papaya for every meal. So I was getting the hairy eyeball from this guy.

On the way from the butterfly park to the orchid park, we were walking up the street on a sidewalk, and monkeys started coming out of the woodwork. Or rather, the jungle. The road was paved in case you're wondering how remote of a place we were. But, on either side of the road was pretty much jungle. So we literally almost tripped on two monkeys sitting on the sidewalk eating their lunch. Then we realized that the entire monkey clan lived in the plants on the other side of the street. One by one they started coming out of the trees and climbed on the light posts to hang out at the top. Others started crossing the street and before we knew it, we were in the middle of about 20 monkeys of all sizes walking around us. One looked like it was going to attack us, so we decided it was best not to make eye contact. Again we helped out all the Malaysians who don't want wild animals to rely on tourists for food by trekking back to the bird park to buy cookies in the gift shop, and brought them back to feed the monkeys. One large monkey really enjoyed the cookies more than the others, and Paul started playing catch with the monkey. Paul would make a clicking noise to get the monkey's attention while it sat about 2 feet away from us on a fence post, and then he would toss a cookie at the monkey who happened to be a very good catch. Then, the monkey must have been worried that we were dirty people, which was a little accurate seeing we both had been pooped on by birds, so he would rub each cookie thoroughly before eating it. All our fun ended when we were out of cookies and it started raining.

After being ambushed by monkeys we took the 20 minute taxi drive home, and I started thinking. If monkeys come out of the jungle on the way to the bird park, what kind of friendly creatures will come out of the jungle on the way to the elephant park? Should I pack some steaks in my pocket for hungry tigers?

Well, the 20th of August marked our 100th day since we boarded the flight to KL! We’re making progress and adjusting still, as you may or may not have noticed from the past blog posts, and we’re realizing that KL is really where we will be living for the next 600 something days at least. This isn’t just a vacation! I’ve been staying busy turning the past 23 blog posts into a book through blurb.com which is coming together very nicely. This will be the last post for this book and I’ll have it printed since they only allow 160 pages. This post will make 155! Who knew I had that many words? If I was crazy I’d say this could very well rival my sister’s vocal abilities, but I’m not crazy. I’ve got nothing on her. So, once my book is printed it will be a hardback, with the dust jacket, layout, photos, and text by yours truly. If nothing else it will be fun to take a look at 20 years down the road. A KL yearbook so to speak. And at this rate, I’m going to have to start a savings account to pay for the dozens of volumes to follow because we all know the mishaps I get myself into are not over just because I’ve reached day 100. I’ve concluded the initiation is ongoing. So, for a 100 day summary and insight into a few things I may have left out, (in list form because I love to make a list for anything), here is my interpretation of the top 11 (10+1 for good measure) good, bad, and ugly of KL.

1.The Good: Swimming year round! I love the sunshine, and since I we don’t have a car for me to defrost in after it’s been baking in the heat with non-tinted windows like I’m used to, I lay out by the pool instead. And I can even do that in December!
The Bad: Sunshine=heat=sweating. All the time. The end
The Ugly: I have to dress like winter’s going to blow in any day with sleeves and shorts to my knees and turtlenecks practically. It’s a little difficult to enjoy the latest fashion trends this way. And while I’m complaining, there are a gazillion women wearing berkas everyday.

2.The Good: This place is animal friendly!
The Bad: The only animals I’ve seen around residences are wild cats, wild dogs, and nasty rats.
The Ugly: The rats like to cross the streets in groups, and if you’re lucky like Paul, you’ll catch a glimpse of a rat with a tail the diameter of a quarter that’s large enough to eat one of those wild cats.

3.The Good: They’ve not forgotten to indulge your sense of smell when submersing you into the culture. Sometimes that’s done by food like tasty Chinese dumplings.
The Bad: Lots of the time that food is durian, in which case your gag reflux is immediately triggered.
The Ugly: Most of the time it’s from smells coming through the gutter grates that are all over the sidewalks, in which case your gag reflux is immediately triggered again, unless you’ve been here 100 days and have learned to hold your breath before you cross over a gutter grate.

4.The Good: KL people work to live, not live to work. This is extremely convenient when needing a holiday since there are at least a few every month.
The Bad: Things move a lot slower, and sometimes you have to light a fire under their seat.
The Ugly: On occasion, they will move so slowly that your house floods. And then it floods again.

5.The Good: Local food is very inexpensive and pretty tasty.
The Bad: There’s a good chance you’ll end up with anchovies or guppies in your food.
The Ugly: 30 consecutive days of Chicken rice.

6.The Good: Sometimes public restrooms have western style toilets.
The Bad: Most of the time they have squatters.
The Ugly: Squatters, toilets, doesn’t make a difference. It always looks like someone took a bath while standing on the toilet. Good luck finding toilet paper.

7.The Good: KL is in the perfect location to travel anywhere in Asia Pac.
The Bad: Sometimes you go to the wrong place and happen to get sick on the trip.
The Ugly: Other times you plan a trip and then you find out there might be pirates or bombers.

8.The Good: It’s a multicultural city, where many languages are spoken.
The Bad: You make no attempt to learn the local language.
The Ugly: Instead, you decide to learn Spanish once you’ve left Houston.

9.The Good: Lots of things are smaller in Asia. People, appliances, beds, etc. This is ergonomically great for short people like me.
The Bad: I have to do lots of laundry because the washer is so small.
The Ugly: Paul sleeps diagonally in the bed squishing me to one corner because his feet hang off the end.

10.The Good: Taxis are all over the place honking and eager to pick you up.
The Bad: Sometimes they don’t know where they are going, so you have to give them directions.
The Ugly: Sometimes neither you nor the driver knows where you’re going, but the driver says they do know, so they drive you all around town and you’re an hour late to your destination.

11.The Good: People here are really nice and sometimes you’re blessed with wonderful neighbors.
The Bad: Or you’re given overbearing neighbors who think they live with you and won’t leave you alone.
The Ugly: Your neighbor turns out to be a money launderer.

I came up with the bright idea that while Ewan was still in town without Barry, his partner in crime, that it might be fun if we went to a Malaysian cooking class, since aside from Chicken Rice neither Paul nor I have really indulged too much in what we’ve heard is true Malay spicy goodness. I thought I might have to twist a few arms, but was delighted when I got a quick confirmation via email that both Paul and Ewan would be happy to test their knife skills in the kitchen.

Now to introduce two more characters in this story of Malaysian living, Paul works with Murray, who I think I may have mentioned before. His wife’s name is Ellen, who I’ve been having coffee with on occasion. Their story is a little confusing, but I’m going to attempt to get it right. They are from Australia originally, so I’ve heard that makes them called Kiwi’s, after the bird not the fruit I’m guessing. Murray and Ellen lived in the UK for the past 30 years or so, and were transferred to Singapore just about a year ago. Now they have been transferred to KL thankfully, because we really enjoy their company. Ellen had originally mentioned the cooking classes, so I jumped the gun a little getting all this together and we invited Ellen and Murray along as well. Murray took a little arm twisting, but in the end the five of us ended up signed up with nametags labeled and ready to go at the LaZat cooking classes.

None of us really knew what to expect from a Malaysian cooking class, especially after the incident at our neighbors with the little guppies in my rice, but it turned out the menu was online for us to see. Saturday’s menu consisted of Potato Samosas, Dhall Curry, Fried Mackerel, Tomato and Mint Salad, and Fruit and Nut pudding, so at least we knew we were making something with an Indian flair.

Murray volunteered to drive us, so we packed into the Asian version of the Civic with almost no idea of where to go. Murray handed Ewan a giant book of a map and told Ewan the general direction we would be going through several pages on the map, and we were off. This is where we realized that the funny thing about Malaysian road signs/maps/intersections/toll plazas and anything else that you might need to get somewhere without getting lost, is it seems that none of it makes sense. The street numbers are not in any particular order in the neighborhoods, the signs on the freeway are actually right above the exits instead of before, so by the time you realize you need to exit, it’s too late. The street signs and labels on the freeway are not on the maps either. As you can imagine this created a bit of a problem for Ewan the navigator, who has only been here a few weeks. He had no help from Paul and I who have never really needed to know where we were going since we’ve always relied on taxi’s, and Murray and Ellen said they get lost every time they attempt to go in the direction of this cooking school. So after a few U-turns and mostly cluelessness, we realized we were actually in the right place the whole time we just didn’t know it thanks to a gas station we saw that was actually labeled on the map. In the end of it all we made it to the LaZat cooking school in time to get started around 10:00.

The school is actually in a traditional Malaysian house, right in the middle of a neighborhood. We walked through the front yard to get there which had all sorts of herbs growing and a large curry leaf tree. It’s run by three Malaysian women who appeared to have been cooking these dishes for years. Two of them wore their traditional Malay outfit including the head scarves while they cooked. We were joined by six other people who were just in town to visit. We started of the morning with a light taste of mangosteen and another little fruit, along with some tortilla like stuff called Roti and two curry dipping sauces. The mangosteen was a very slimy fruit and there’s nothing that I can think to compare it to. All I know is I don’t care for it too much. I was about to eat my whole plate of Roti with curry sauce but it was taken away when I went back inside to get my camera. We were served very very sweet tea as we sat out on the patio waiting for the events of the day to begin.

We were called inside to start the classes and sat around the demonstration area with our aprons and nametags on and took notes on our small cookbook they gave us. The first item was the potato Samosa. I would say this is the closest thing to an empanada I’ve seen here. The difference is it’s stuffed with potatoes and peas and the dough is folded into a triangle instead of a half moon. It all seemed like a synch to me. After all, I’m a veteran in the kitchen so I thought. There was nothing to it. Little did I know my husband would show me up.

We each had our own cooking station that had one burner and the smallest little bronze pot you’ve ever seen to fry things in. My first mistake was I bumped the spoon that was sitting in the potatoes and pea mixture, so of course it flies behind me and potatoes and peas are all over the floor. That of course was no surprise to the two of us given my reputation for spilling, and especially spilling foods that stain when I’m wearing my sister’s clothes. Well, I got over that and was on to the next mistake. My pastry dough must have been dryer than the rest, because my triangles were cracking open and all the peas were rolling out. After fixing this issue, I realized that this little tiny burner we were given apparently heats up very fast. As soon as I threw the samosas in the oil they basically turned black instead of a nice golden color. All the while, my husband who has a daily habit of sitting on the couch while I slave away in the kitchen is chopping away very meticulously, making sure everything is just right.

I think he must have had some sort of grid placed over his food in his head with the precise engineering formula and strategy to make all the filling fit just perfectly in these perfectly formed triangles with perfectly pointy corners. He probably just whipped out the perfect boiling point of the oil we were using and calculated a few things to be sure these samosas would be picture perfect. Because they were. He very nicely and concernedly looked at my dark brown, bent cornered, halfway opened samosas that I had clearly failed at and asked, “What happened to the corners?” That’s when I decided it’s time to let Paul work in the kitchen a little more at home! I think he’s been playing dumb, or else surprised himself with his samosa victory too. Either way, I’m passing my torch of knives onto this guy whose engineering approach to things seems to make everything that he does a success, including cooking. I wonder what else I could get him to do for me? I bet he’d get perfect corners folded on the laundry as well!

I must have really made an impression on the head cooks because one came over to me after seeing all the mistakes I made and repeated herself three times telling me not to grab the hot pot of boiling oil with my bare hands. First of all, why would I do that, and why am I the only one she’s saying that to? I guess my pile of mistakes made me look inexperienced in the kitchen, thus making the cooks assume I was very young. She said to me, “It happens all the time! Teenagers like you forget and grab the pot and it’s just too hot!” So there you have it. I failed at my samosas and she thought I was a teenager. A wonderful start to the day of cooking. Later on the same woman gave me a hug when I said she needed to be patient with me, and I guess like it was some sort of conciliation she assured me, “But! You are very pretty!” According to her I guess I should rely on my looks instead of my cooking skills to get me through life. At that point it would have been nice to have a mimosa to go along with that samosa. I probably would have been carded for that request.

We took lessons and cooked until 2:00 in the afternoon, taking breaks to wash the chili pepper off our hands and step outside into the breeze. The house had only one a/c wall unit which doesn’t do a whole lot of good when there are 11 people frying food in one room. But, we managed, and most things went without a hitch, besides that Paul and I chopped up our red and green chili for one sauce and didn’t for the other sauce which was completely backwards. I think it turned out better that way though because the curry wasn’t as spicy as it should have been.

We got back into the car with plans to follow the directions backwards. Really any plan we had would have been the best one I guess because again we ended lost and turned around. We were trying to keep our eyes on the Petronas towers the whole time, but we never got any closer. After a detour through a museum area, up a hill with a very windey road which closely resembled the drive in Taipei from my first blog post, and an hour drive later, we got back home. After a day of cooking and quite a scenic drive, I think we were all ready for a nap.

That evening we all went over to Ellen and Murray’s place for a wonderfully western feast of a dinner Ellen cooked. After that I decided I am quite partial to western food over Malaysian.

(You asked for more pictures. I've got you covered on this one!)

In an effort to capture the essence of Malaysia as much as possible in the short few weeks Barry van Helsing and Ewy Lewis and the News, (as they’ve asked to be called) are here, they decided to take a trip to Malacca this past weekend and asked Paul and I to join them. Malacca is a town two hours south of KL that used to be the biggest port city in the region. Now it’s mostly a historical tourist attraction with lots of museums and old buildings to tour.

We passed miles of palm tree covered hills while listening to Paul, Barry, and Ewan crack jokes for most of the ride, and I learned a few things. 1. The large gas tanks in the trunks of all the cars are actually for natural gas. I didn’t even know it was possible for cars to run off natural gas. 2. Palm tree oil is actually used in one type of gas which explains all the palm tree plantations. and 3. Muslim people actually do not use toilet paper ever because wiping isn’t clean. Instead they take a mini shower every single time they use the restroom. This would explain the lack of toilet paper in the restrooms, the presence of water hoses in every restroom, the inevitable abundance of water on the floors, toilet seat, and walls in public restrooms, and the reason for the drains and step down in our bathrooms in the apartment! I think I slept better last night having a logical explanation for those drains.

For those of you needing a picture of exactly what these two Scottish jokesters and Paul look like in front of the camera to give you a better picture of our trip, Barry was happy to oblige you.


Ewan claimed he doesn’t do pictures, but his true colors came out later in the afternoon,

and Paul pretty much has to be forced to even look at the camera. If my shutter speed is fast enough to get a shot of a half smile from him, I’m lucky. This one's a keeper.

We arrived at Malacca with the weather overcast luckily, so melting from the heat might only happen halfway through instead of half a minute into the trip. The town looked old and run down with vacant buildings scattered on the streets and people were eating their lunches under the lean-to’s built next to the vacant buildings.

Traffic was jammed bumper to bumper and side mirror to side mirror with tourist getting into the town so close that I could clearly see the small bobble head Chinese tiger waving at me from the dash of the car next to us. Still the dirt bike riders managed to finagle their way through the cars, barely skimming ours. When we finally got to the town square, Mr. Saiful parked the car right in the center of town without a designated parking place and we agreed to meet back in two hours.
We clearly had no idea where we were going or what to do first, so we followed the crowd into what we learned was the literature museum, but turned out having all sorts of interesting artifacts like guns, knives, antique furniture, and lots of history about the colonization of Malacca and the British forces taking over after WWII. This particularly peaked Barry’s interest because his grandfather had been stationed in Malacca. So after being patriotically pumped up, the rest of the afternoon was accented with outbursts of “Rule Britania!” with his fist on his chest and “let’s take this place back!” After making it all the way through the many British flags and models of British soldiers, they decided the three of them would fight to take the place back while I cooked for them to keep them energized. What a plan.

We walked around the square and were passed by many rickshaw/tuk tuk like modes of transportation that were made from a full bicycle on one side, and a half bicycle on the other, that had radios tied to the back blaring music by Elvis Presley and the like with an umbrella on top and mercedez benz hood ornaments on their cash boxes that doubled as dashboards.

We made it up the hill in the center of town to St. Paul’s catholic church, where only the shell of the building had withstood time, and was now filled with large gravestones.

We walked down to the canal that ran through the town and down the street that would become a busy china town district at night. There was a narrow sidewalk only on one side of the street, so foot traffic was coming and going in a chaotic mess, and cars, mopeds, and trucks were trying to push their way through the crowds of people.

We came across some guy lip-singing for a music video that was being filmed, and if you’ve never seen someone mouthing the words very passionately while there is no music to be heard, it’s pretty funny looking. Hawker stalls were sprinkled along the street.

There’s a particular dessert that is very common wrapped in banana leaves which I probably should have tried after I took the picture, but I had to run to catch up with the guys who were already across the intersection planning their next point of interest. I think Paul spent most of the day looking behind him because I kept stopping for pictures everywhere and the three of them were subconsciously determined to keep up a good pace. My short legs didn’t help the situation.

Then back in the town center we came across two very large pythons that you could have you picture taken with for 10 ringit. The three guys were too chicken.

Ewan was stopped by two Malaysian girls who wanted their picture with him, and low and behold, Ewan who doesn’t do pictures started posing for the photos like it was America’s next top model. The girls claimed they were students and the picture was for their assignment, but I’m pretty sure the girls blushing in the picture proves otherwise.

Back in the car, Mr. Saiful suggested we see the crocodile habitat, so we went. This place ended up being the worst theme park you’ve ever seen in your life, and as a result we were the only people in the place. We passed the haunted house hut and coconut selling guy to find a few dozen crocidles who might as well have been dead, because they were all motionless. There was no Malaysian version of Steve Erwin trying to stick his head in the croc’s mouth, which was really what the four of us had in mind. We attempted a pit stop at the restrooms on the way out before getting back on the road for the two hour drive home, only to realize those were the worst restrooms I’ve ever seen in my life. I won’t go into details. Mr. Saiful asked how the crocodile habitat was, and to very accurately describe it so perfectly, Barry’s response was, “Mr. Saiful, that was rubbish!” So on the road Mr. Saiful put in a Celine Dion video which automatically put Barry and Ewan to sleep. Paul and I sat in silence.

When we returned, Ewan and Barry planned on taking Paul and I to High Tea Sunday afternoon to show us what real High Tea was. Being newbie’s to the whole idea of drinking hot tea in scorching weather as opposed to iced sweet tea, we got the whole explanation on how as a generalization it’s for the hoity toity basically, and you eat little finger foods and desserts while you have your hot tea. I was then told that you have to dress like Jackie O. and a hat and gloves are common. Ewan would be in his tux, and Barry and Paul in suites. Most of the women wear hats apparently, which I do not have. Oh, and the hot pink dress I have that’s the closest to Jackie O. in my closet, would probably not be an appropriate color for high tea. Hmmm. Who knew tea drinking was such a formal event? After hours of trying to come up with a solution for the appropriate attire to wear to drink tea, I came to grips with the fact that I would have to wear my hot pink dress and just look like the life of the party instead of blending in with all those tea drinkers who looked like they had come from a funeral. I had it all planned out, made sure Paul had his suit and white shirt cleaned and ironed, and was mentally preparing myself for this high tea drinking with apparently high fashion people. It all seemed a bit overdone if you asked me, but I was going to be a good sport about it all and play dress up while we have tea and scones or crumpets or biscotti’s or whatever else they serve.

I should have known better that to succumb to the stories these boys put together so thoughtfully. A few hours before we were set to leave for High Tea, Paul sent an email saying it was all a joke and I could wear whatever I want. So, I did just that. I wore exactly what I wanted which was almost the nicest dress I own with the biggest bow you’ve ever seen around the waist, complete with pearl and crystal earrings and heals. While they might have expected me in shorts, I tried my very hardest to give them the closest thing to Jackie O I could. With Barry and Ewan in shorts and jeans, and Paul making an effort to dress with his bright orange fishing shirt and boots, I will gladly accept the award for best dressed. So we sipped our Moroccan Mint tea and ate egg sandwiches and biscuits with clotted cream and I tried to capture the true essence of High Tea.