Wedding, Bak Kut Teh, and Jalan Alor

Today started off early with a wedding that started at 9 am. I got picked up at 8:15 by Elder Dava. We had some time to kill and he asked me if i wanted to get some food; a traditional Indian breakfast. I'd already had breakfast and i was full from dinner the night before, but i decided to give in. He took me to the same place we got banana leaf the day before and order rawa tosai. It was a spongy pancake like thing that came with daal and some chutneys. It was pretty good. then we made our way to the wedding. It was the wedding of the daughter of the pastor of the church that i went to sarawak with.
After the wedding i went with some people from the mission trip to get bak kut teh. I'd never seen malaysians get so excited about a meal. Now i understand why they were so excited. Bak kut teh is a breakfast stew of sorts that has different mushroom, fried bread things, a really good sweet herbally broth, and big pieces of pork (malaysians get excited anytime pork is involved also). Then you mix it with flavored rice, sweet thick soy sauce, garlic, and small chili padis. it was amazing. I was offered a piece of the spare parts (intestines). It wasn't my favorite. It tasted pretty funky.

Then later in the night i went with my supervisor and his family to Jalan Alor. Its a street in downtown KL that has a bunch of food stalls. we decided to skip the toads...

but decided to go for the stingray.
I'm pretty sure i've gained like 5 lbs since i've come to malaysia. between not walking because of my foot and having at least 4 meals a day its hard to stay slim.

banana leaf

Today i got banana leaf with an elder that i went to Sarawak with. He had been telling me about it for a while on the trip and promised to take me when we got back to kl. Its a pretty simple concept. You sit down, they give you two banana leaves, then they give you rice and veggies. If you want you can order chicken, mutton, or fish curries to go with it.
Elder asked for these little salted chilis about half way through. After taking the first bite i didn't think that they were that spicy, but the second bite had a lot more seeds and my eyes started watering pretty badly because it was so spicy. I also got to practice with eating with my hands. I'm getting pretty good. I can manage to not get too much in my beard.

When you are done you fold the leaf over, they pick it up, and you go wash the curry and rice off your hand. One weird thing was that they they don't give you cold water. They only gave you really hot water to drink. This meal was pretty spicy and the last thing you want to drink it hot water. I asked for a kopi (coffee) tarik (pulled) with ice to cool my mouth down.

Touristy stuff in kl

Today i went into kl to get lunch and do some touristy wandering around. We got indian food which was amazing, as usual. They have this stuff here that i've never had in the states called chicken jalfrezi. I've had it twice so far and its ridiculously good. Its a creamy sauce with bell peppers, curry, chicken, and some other stuff i've never had. After lunch i split from the group and tried to find a way to send stuff back to friends in california. first i tried dhl, which was like 30 usd. then i finally went to the local malaysian post office, which is called POS. a lot of stuff here is an english word without the t on the end. Restaurant is restoran, post is pos, etc. It was only 3 dollars to send a package home. Then i wandered around Petaling street, which is the main china town, knockoff street. it was mostly just westerners buying knockoff shoes and purses. I decided to take pictures with my holga. Mainly i've just been taking pictures on my digital camera, but it was nice to take a break and take some black and white pictures. i brought 30 rolls with me and hopefully i'll get some more from my dad in January. I took the commuter train back to USJ (where i'm staying) and tried to get a taxi back to the house. Taxis are weird here. They are really picky of where they go and are usually jerks about it. they usually try to rip you off or just tell you they don't want to drive there. luckily today it didn't take too long to get a ride. No pictures today, since i was taking holga pictures. But i'll have some interesting ones soon. I'm going to a huge hawker market tomorrow, then a chinese wedding tea ceremony, so i should have some interesting pictures from those two.

broken foot news, the royal family, and joel osteen

i went to the hospital today. after getting another x-ray the doctor told me that my foot hadn't shown enough signs of healing, so i'd have to keep the cast for another month. i forgot to bring the old x-ray, but he still said it didn't look good enough. he saw that the cast is cracking and isn't in very good shape, but he didn't want to go downstairs and make a new one, so i still have my old smelly cast.
On my way out a motorcade showed up and some old lady stepped out of a s320 mercedes. After asking a guard i figured out that it was a member of the royal family. I took a picture of her car (below) then the guards got mad at me and told me i wasn't allowed to take pictures of any royalty (even though it was only her car).
then i took a taxi to the train station and took the train back to where i'm staying. The trains are really nice. they reminded me a lot of BART.
Near the train station i met up with the people that are hosting me for lunch and some shopping. They have a Carrefour here which is like Walmart in France. I wanted get some cheap clothes and they had lots there. I got three pairs of dockers like pants, a polo shirt, and a blank shirt for about 100 ringot (about 30 usd). And in the book section i was slightly surprised to see the new Joel Osteen book, being that this is an Islamic country and all. you can never escape him.

And a couple of days ago i saw a huge lizard thing on the side of the road. it was like 3 feet long.

sitting around in kl

The past two days haven't super entertaining. Yesterday I went to the Islamic Art Museum in downtown KL. Then today I want to the Sunway Pyramid Mall. It's one of the larger malls in Malaysia. It has its own exit off of the freeway. Then when you get in the parking garage there are arrows telling you where to go to find a parking spot. Each row tells you how many are available and there's a green or red light that tells you if the spot is open. I wandered around the mall for a while but got pretty bored. A mall is a mall. I never really liked them in the states, and they aren't much more interesting here.
The next few days aren't much different. The people I'm staying with back are coming home tomorrow. Then on Monday I'm going to the doctor to get my foot looked at. My cast is starting to smell, but I doubt it will get taken off.

Here's some pictures from my trip in Sarawak that I like.

Wall e + Food courts

Today wasn't super exciting but it was a good one none the less. The people that I'm staying with went to Singapore for the next couple of days, so today I tagged along with another family that is with the mission organization I'm interning with on this trip. Around lunch I went to see Wall e. They have 4 little kids so it was fun to see them running around and watch them get all excited about seeing Wall e. The movie came out about two weeks ago here and it was only 6 ringot(2usd) to see it.
After Wall e I want back to the house to watch 12 channels of the Olympics. I realized how boring handball is and how enthusiastic Europeans are about canoeing. Nothing really exciting. Then around 7 I got picked up again for dinner. I really love eating in Malaysia. It seems like every time I eat something here its new. Small food courts are really big here. You sit down, get your drinks from one person, then go to different stalls to get each individual dishes. They have a fried noodle guy, a satay guy, chicken rice, and tons more. I went for a teh tarik (sweetened tea that is poured from cup to cup multiple times in a pulling motion), popiah which was like a Malaysian burrito of sorts, and chick satay. Another great part about eating here is the fact that everything is so, so cheap. The popiah was 1 usd, the teh tarik was less than a dollar, and the satay (split between the three of us) was about 4 dollars.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Islamic Art Museum and hopefully trying more interesting foods.

Back in KL

So I was supposed to be in Kuching until the 22nd, but after one day of trying to get around I realized that there wasn't much I could do without walking a long ways. I switched my Air Asia flight to this afternoon. Now I'm back in KL with the modern conveniences like air conditioning, inernet, and a real shower.

Inner Sarawak Mission Trip

So I've just arrived at the hostel that I'm staying at for the next three nights. Its been a long day of traveling on multiple different modes of transportation and I'm thankful to be done for the time being.
The whole excursion started At 4:30 am in KL. I caught a taxi to the airport and flew to Miri with a couple of people from a church in KL. When we got to Miri we had to get supplies for the next few days. We mainly got candy and prizes for the kids that we were going to be teaching. After getting the supplies we had dinner at a local pastors house. His family prepared food from the local indigenous tribes. They are from the Kayan tribe. I had lots of Kayan food on this trip. I really don't know what much of it was, but it was amazing.

Lots of very fresh chicken, fish, and very interesting vegetables that I've never seen before. One thing I didn't enjoy was blanchan. Its a flavoring that is common in Malay food. Its dried salted fermented mini shrimp. Its super fishy and really really gross. The Malaysians I was with told me that they love it.

The next day we met up with some more people from the church at the airport and piled into four wheel drive cars to make our way up to the first village.
It was a 5 hour drive. The first half of it was paved, then the rest was extremely windy roads through the jungle.

We finally made it to the village and were welcomed with rice desserts, milo (malaysian hot chocolate), and tea. The locals saw my broken foot and I was told that they wanted to massage it to make it heal faster. We had to explain that it was in a cast and wasn't coming off any time soon. I don't speak bahasa Malaysian or Kayan (local language) so people were translating for me most of the time.
On Saturday the group did a childrens ministry program and also worked with the adults to do childrens ministry later on. I couldn't really help out much with this because I didn't speak the language(s) and I couldn't really walk around that much. So I read and took a nap.
After the church service on Sunday (which was only partially in English) we got on a long wooden boat to go to another village down the river.

Here the group was greeted with more milo, tea, and snacks. Followed shortly after with another big meal. This included mostly fresh water fish from the river. There were larger catfish in a stew, some local green vegetables, rice, and small whole fried catfish. I really liked these. At first I was pretty skeptical, but once I got over the fact that I was eating the bones and skin it was really good. It was like a slightly fish, really crunchy potato chip. I only ate part of the head, but other people ate the entire thing.
Then today was all travelling. We got up at 5 am, ate, showered, packed, and got on the local express boat at 6:30. These express boats go up and down the river during the day. you just have to yell from the dock/log and the boat comes over to pick you up. I got tired of sitting inside the boat, so I sat on the top for about 2 of the 3 hours with Elder Dava from the church in KL. It was amazing to see the mist in the jungle as we winded our way through.

We finally arrived in Marudi where we had a quick lunch then got on an 11 am boat to Miri. This boat wasn't nearly at nice. It was super cramped, stuffy, much louder, and altogether much more uncomfortable. I was so happy when this 3 hour boat ride was over.

After getting Miri, I took a taxi with a Joseph from KL to the airport in Miri and got a plane ticket. I didn't have one booked and I didn't know if I would be able to get a flight tonight to Kuching. Miri wasn't my favorite town and I'm happy I got a flight out. I'll be here until the 22nd, then its off to KL for about a week and a half. I'll post video of the boat/car rides when I get better internet in KL.
Overall it's been an amazing past few days. I didn't really know what was going to go on during this trip. I thought we were just going to be staying in Miri and doing stuff there the entire time, but I'm happy that it turned into much more of an adventure than than.

Youth Leaders Conference

I've spend the last three days at a southeast Asia youth leaders conference. It was delegates from the Presbyterian church from a bunch of different countries around the world sharing ideas and discussing issues that they all have in their own countries. There were people from Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, and a couple of western countries. I was there as an observer because I'm not from an east Asian country, but it was really interesting to meet people from so many different countries. On the last night we went out into KL and went to a Mamak stand. Mamaks are Indian Muslims. One of the main things they sell at these stands is a crepe like thing called roti. I got one with banana in it. Then they give you different curries (fish, lamb, lentil) and you dip the roti in it. I thought banana and curry would be gross but it was actually amazing. Then we had pulled tea to wash it all down. Who knows when I'll have internet since I'm going to Sarawak. So it might be a while.

Church and Durian

Today I went to church to meet the people that I'll be going on a short mission trip with in a few days. I'm going to be flying to Miri in Sarawak (an island southeast of Kuala Lumpur). There I'll hopefully be going into the jungle (foot permitting) and helping out with the indigenous people of Malaysia. It was a little awkward at times going to a church where I knew no one, but once I met people that were going on the short mission trip it wasn't so bad. Afterwards there was a pot luck with fried rice, chicken curry, and BBQ pork. Then I got picked up and met some people at a mall for lunch. The malls here are crazy. There are tons of them. The one I went to was big by American standards, but I was told my the Malaysians that it was pretty small.

After lunch there was a durian eating festival for charity. For 10 ringot (3 dollars) you got to eat as much durian as you wanted. I've been looking forward to trying this for a while. If you haven't heard of it, its spiky fruit (if you could call it a fruit) with a bunch of slimy balls inside that have just about the most complex taste of anything I've ever tried. At first it tasted savory, then it was kind of creamy, then custardy, then kind of bitter. About and hour has passed since I ate it and my hands still smell kind of like cinnamon and curry? I really can't explain it. I'm not even sure if I liked it. But at least I ate an entire piece.

my foot is broken

I saw a doctor today and my foot is broken. I'll get the x-rays up later, but the little piece of a bone on the outside of my foot snapped off. I was almost sure it was broken right when it happened because I pushed on where it hurt and I could hear the free piece of bone clicking against the other bone in my foot. I have a nice blue cast and I'll be in it for at least 4 weeks. I'm going to see the doctor in about two weeks to get a checkup and make sure its healing straight.
Going to the doctor was kind of fun. I went to a privately owned hospital that is mainly used by wealthier Malaysian citizens and expats. It was all marble. Overall the visit was pretty cheap. Getting the x-rays was about 13 dollars and getting the cast and seeing the doctor was about 200. Its a lot cheaper than it would have been in the states. And I got a free tuna sandwich and instant coffee while I waited for my x-rays.

Kuala Lumpur

So I landed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia yesterday at about 1pm local time. Phil, who is in charge of all the mission operations in south Asia, told me he'd meet me at the airport to pick me up. After getting my bags, my wheelchair was taken way, and we ran some errands around the city. At the end of the day I went with his family to get Pakistani food. It was really interesting to watch his family because none of their kids had ever grown up in America, but as far as I could tell they seemed as American culturally as I was. They all laughed at me when I made a comment about them being normal American kids.
The city here is amazing. I haven't had much time to walk around and see stuff, but I'll have some free time in the coming days. I'm going to the doctor soon and hopefully all that gets sorted out.
Here's a picture of the mountain north of Kuala Lumpur. Besides the major cities here, most of Malaysia is dense jungle with no roads.

First Day of Traveling

So this last week has been a rough one. I finished taking my typhoid vaccine about a week and half ago. Just in the past few days the vaccine has been starting to give me really bad side effects. I had two days of nausea, fever, and a few other things. Then I had a day of feeling fine. Then last night I started getting a really high fever. I think at one point it was close to 103. I wasn't sure if I was still going to get on the plane. It ended up going down at about 7:30pm and I left for the airport at 10:45. As we were walking to the international terminal from the parking garage I decided to jump over the railing on the moving walkway and go on the moving walkway instead of walking. I landed wrong heard a crack in my foot and now I can't get my shoe on or put any pressure on my foot. The flight went by surprisingly fast and my foot doesn't hurt that badly, but I'm pretty sure it's broken. I'm sitting in the gate in Taipei waiting for 2 hours for my flight to Kuala Lumpur. Then I guess I'll be going to a doctor first thing. A woman on the plane told me I should skip the doctor and just go straight to the acupuncturist. I think I'll stick with my plan.