ALL OF THE FOOD.

for two weeks, i had my best friend here! i got to take her to all my favorite eating places here, so let me show you where we went!


the first day, we took it pretty easy and just walked to klcc to see the towers and get some things from the mall. we stopped at nando's, where she had some chicken livers portuguese-style.


the next day we ate at the food court inside of ampang park for lunch. she had some claypot chicken and spring rolls (not pictured).



in the afternoon, we went to paint batik at the craft complex. it was super super easy to get to (although once there, we got a little lost in the complex), and the batik + frames were only 15 ringgit. for dinner, we went to the apartment at klcc. i had a tomato and mozzarella salad, she had some spring rolls. for dessert we had chocolate bread pudding! it was delicious.



the next day for lunch, some of the ladies at work took us to a chinese restaurant that has barbecued duck. as you can see, i don't like the ducks. but i knew she'd love it, and it's pretty authentic chinese malaysian so i wanted to make sure she'd get out there. and of course, she loved it. we also saw a bread bike, which is pretty common to see running around kl.




for dinner, we went to one of my favorite favorites, din tai fung, located in pavilion. we had spicy cucumbers, the famous xiao long bao, pork fried rice, spicy shrimp wontons (for her), and garlic baby kailan. it was all delicious, as usual. i think this is also the day that we went to see the fast and the furious 6. we showed up for a 5 pm show at pavilion at like 4:50, thinking a 5 pm show would be empty, and we were wrong! the whole theater was full. we had to sit in the front row. the front row is set back a bit farther over here than it is in america though, so it wasn't so bad. my friend was, as everyone is, impressed that the cost of our tickets + a large popcorn + 2 diet cokes was $10.


the next day for lunch we ate at antipodean, at the bottom of menara tan & tan. i had the roasted veggie salad, and she had the thai beef salad (pictured). for dessert, we had butter-free chocolate cake. it's one of my favorite places, and the food is all light, so it was good.


we ran around the towers in the afternoon. the "golden hour" for photography doesn't work at the towers, because the best place to take pictures is on the park side, but the sun sets behind the towers from that side, so it just doesn't work. unless you have a good camera and do the settings right, but i was running around with my phone all week.


we ate dinner at a vietnamese place on the top level of klcc called du viet. we had spring rolls, i had a chicken soup and she had a beef soup. i didn't like the soup, because i accidentally ordered it instead of my usual just plain lemongrass bbq chicken and noodles, but it was still good.


our whole purpose of hanging out around klcc this night was to see the fountain show. the fountain show starts at 7:30, but this night it had no music! i have no idea when the music starts, but the fountains always start up at 7:30. we saw it with the music another day, but never sat through for the whole thing.


we ate at delicious for lunch the next day. i had some kind of pasta, she had a teriyaki chicken dish. they were both .... delicious.




that afternoon, we went to batu caves. it was about a 20 ringgit taxi ride out there, and coming back we had a taxi who didn't want to take us all the way to klcc, and tried to convince us to go to the next lrt! considering there is a monorail station at the caves that we could easily take if we wanted to use the trains, that was dumb. he relented and turned on the meter with the agreement that he'd add on 5 ringgit at the end. annoying, but that's how the taxis are. unless it's after midnight and i'm somewhere crazy, i'll never get in a taxi that won't turn on the meter. i use the myteksi app now so that makes it much easier to get a reliable, non-shady taxi.

but, with regards to the caves, we saw tons of macaques that day! they were all hanging out at the bottom of the steps. we climbed the 270some to the top because i promised my friend that there are tons more at the top, but they were all hiding this day! oh well, we got our exercise anyway.

my friend also got a quick henna for 5 ringgit. it washed away within a week! when i got the same kind of henna there in january, it stayed on my hand for like two weeks. who knows.




for dinner we went to bulgogi brothers in pavilion for some korean barbeque. i really don't like beef, but i LOVE the beef here. it's so good. and now that i know what some of the other sides are a little better, i love them too.

i'll pause here, because the next day we did a tour and there is much to say about that!

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week three: the smelliest and lowest yet.

i cannot believe today that i have been here for three weeks. sometimes i sit and think how i really only have two FULL years here (as in january - december years), and that doesn't seem like that long. i conveniently forget i have from now until december 2012, and january until march 2015. for some reason the broken-up time doesn't seem like time to me. that's weird.

anyway. i have still been resting and taking it easy. by "taking it easy" i mean i take a lot of naps and don't work out. it's like the world is giving me a giant refund on the past two years, wherein i had no naps and a lot of working out. i like it. at least i like it until i'll start gaining weight.

tuesday evening we had an officeandfamilies going away dinner for my predecessor at din tai fung. everyone said i had to try the xiao long bao, aka soup dumplings, but i was nervous, as usual, because the meat was not chicken. but then there on the menu, there was "xiao long bao" and "xiao long bao chicken. i win. so we ordered those for me, with a backup of sweet and sour chicken. also spinach with garlic.



and wouldn't you know, i loved the dumplings. i didn't love the sweet and sour chicken. i suppose when you go to a place that is known for one thing, you should expect everything else to be subpar. but they were so tasty, i ate the whole thing (i think six)!

the next day, or maybe the day after (every day runs together now), we went out to lunch at kelab aman. it is a very old club (aka older than me) and the name means "club peace." there is a field for sports, and while we were there menly men were playing cricket. the food is northern indian. we ordered butter chicken, rice, naan, another kind of chicken, spinach and cottage cheese, and something else. mostly i don't remember anything else because all i ate was the butter chicken, rice, and naan.





it was really very tasty!!! i liked that chicken. i feel as though i was confronted with the most serious, intense, native chickens at the beginning, and now i am finding normal-katelyn-chicken is not so hard to find. and then, i saw my very first monkeys!! unfortunately, it was while we were in the car driving away, so i did not get a photo of them. i was so excited though.

now, i will talk about today in reverse. the world should know by now that i am one of those people who is crazy about disney (seriously, i told my mom earlier this week i think we should plan a family vacation to disney world while i'm home on my r&r. a time when most people would want to relax, i want to go to disney world. and you know i'm going to make my way to as many of the parks in asia as i can). attached to that is my affinity for chip n' dale. maybe it's because we speak at the same high-pitched level, or maybe it's because i think most people overlook them. i don't know. but i love them. i have always loved them. see?


pure love.

so anyways. you can understand why when i saw these cookie cut-outs at isetan (a japanese department store/grocery), i had to have them.



i also found a recipe to make cheese-nips from scratch (here), so i thought that would be the perfect thing to use them on! however, as with most things i bake, they did not come out as they did on the website i got them from. the dough was pretty sticky, and that was ruining my munks' faces, so i only made a few. they are tasty, but really very greasy. i might try to find a butter substitute and see if that cuts out the greasiness. i don't even know if butter substitutes exist here. you have to go to each of the different grocery stores to truly find everything you want if you want specific things. for example, my rainbow chip is at one grocery store. it isn't at the others (that i have found). my oatmeal is at another store. for this reason, i have to figure out a grocery-shopping-plot. this will come in time!


see, they're not the prettiest things. but i tried. it just needs tweaking. i bought parmesan so i can try to make some parmesan/garlic ones too.

before i did that today, i went for a run outside. i have been avoiding working and running out because i have a sick feeling in my chest/stomach/body, but this morning i was determined. it was sprinkling outside, but it wasn't so bad. one thing about walking around in KL is that you have to look at the ground while you walk. the reason is that there are things like this all over the place:



in fact, on the route from my apartment to KLCC park (where i ran), there are 2"x2" holes with nothing over them. they're just there. so i did fairly well to run there and run back and not fall down or get stuck in a hole. the running path in KLCC park is only 1.3 km, so i am anticipating i will not like running there for very long because i hate repetition and even four loops to make 3+ miles is too much looping for me. still, it's a very nice path, and you smell the flowers the entire time, so it makes for a very peaceful run. my nose was so happy while i was running.

then. i returned home. i watched my path the entire way, until i reached my apartment gate. i let my guard down. suddenly i felt something splash my leg as i walked down into the garage. i looked down and saw two brown specks, which i tried to wipe away thinking it was mud. it. was. not. mud. a quick smell of my hand confirmed it was not mud. it was from an animal. an animal with an inconsiderate human (at least, i assume it was one with a human and not a stray, because there's no way to get in without going through the gate). i did not see the real damage until i got up to my apartment and noticed it covered my entire right running shoe. how did it splash onto me? i have no idea. i don't want to think about it anymore. i cleaned it and showered and now the bathroom needs to be cleaned also, but at least my shoes are clean and i am clean and i don't need to think about the bathroom until tomorrow. i suppose because i haven't seen any dogs around my apartment building, i assumed they just were not here. this was really an unfortunate event after my lovely smelling run in the park. i guess now i have learned i must not only be on the lookout for holes and random things on the ground, but also for animal excrement. just as you would anywhere else in the world, though.

but, on the topic of dogs (i mean this is really the only reason why i included that lovely tidbit of my day), this weekend is a very big weekend for my very dear best friend's non-profit organization, paws4people. paws4people is a wonderful organization in so many different ways. the dogs are trained by federal inmates and placed with adults/children with physical and mental disabilities, veterans with ptsd, volunteers who take their dogs into classrooms/hospitals/nursing homes/etc. it's just all around wonderful. and founded by my best friend! so anyways. it's a big weekend for them. they are having their first "family reunion." they are having their fourth annual 5k race on UNC-wilmington's delightful campus tomorrow, and clients and volunteers from the past and present will all be getting together for a weekend of fun. today they are holding a conference to talk about paws4people's development and graduate a whole new class of service dogs! i am so very proud of kyria and all she has accomplished. i am only (as the title indicates) very upset that i am not by her side through it like she has been by mine for so many big events.

i think that is why this was a little bit of a difficult week. it is finally hitting me a little bit that there are going to be a lot of big events like this one in the next three years that i cannot make it home for. i won't be there to see my new nephew once he is born. i can no longer call my best friends when i just need to talk to them, because they are likely asleep or doing their own work. that is difficult. but if that is going to be the most difficult part of being on the opposite side of the world, then i am not too very concerned. things will adjust, we will work out phone/skype schedules, things will be fine. overall, i am still very happy and feel so lucky to just be here.

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