week twelve: miscellaneous happenings

hello hello! i realized i have a. not blogged in a while and b. not blogged about little things that on their own don't make a full blog post. so here you go, a few different things that have happened in the past month or so:

sunway
on the list of largest shopping malls in the world, malaysia holds spots # 4, 6, and 9 (seriously, i belong in this country). sunway pyramid is #9. aside from being a massively large mall (to include an ice skating rink), it also has an adjacent amusement park/water park/zoo. we went up for the water park, and it was decent enough. the amusement park did not have many roller coasters, or at least not enough that were running. the ones that were running were pretty good, but i have difficulties enjoying roller coasters without my roller coaster buddy matthew! in the zoo, i was brutally attacked by a duck, but the other animals were nice. see see:




lazy, sleepy tiger.


i'm pretty sure this is who attacked me. is that even a duck? i don't know. i'm bad with the bird family because mostly i don't really like birds. all i know is a took a photo of it, then i walked away to take a photo of another animal, and then when i came back it pecked my leg. and then we were done being friends. so rude.


these ones are cute though.


the amusement park made an attempt at theming, but kind of failed with it. this was in the "western" portion of it. i didn't know dinosaurs existed in the old west.


and finally, one of the entrances to the mall! so big.


malaysia apparently loves unhealthy excess just the same as america.

latin festival
for four years (i know this because it was the fourth annual.. haha) the latin american ladies association of malaysia has put on a festival to showcase latin american culture. so, obviously, a break from asian food = must attend. it did not disappoint. i think beyond panera, and chick fil a, and sonic, and my panini place, and every other food i miss, i miss mexican food the most. the next time i realize there's something else i miss, that will take the #1 spot, but you know. so anyways. this was a treat.


it was held in this little tiny area. there were a lot of people. a lot.


we had brazilian caipirinhas.


and saw dancings.


and had tacos, which fell apart but were still so good.


and more dancings.

it was a nice break from southeast asia, even if only for a couple of hours. mostly for the food and drinks.

on the way to my church, there is a group of ladies who run a little nail salon outside. i have been waiting to get a perfect little sneak shot of it because i don't want to be totally rude/creeper, but seriously. this can't be hygienic.



i end today with this! some of the grocery stores sell flowers or have flower shops next to them, but i have not been able to find actual bouquets/things i want. so i asked my helper and she told me exactly where to go and i found so many flower vendors! there is nothing that makes me happier than having fresh flowers, and now i can get them on a weekly basis right after church and be happy all week. that would be another thing i miss from DC: the flower men on every street corner. there were a lot of different options, but since sunflowers are my favorite they were the only ones i paid attention to.

i also got a little baby daisy bouquet to put in the little neat vase-thingy i got at the wine & chocolate festival in wilmington. it has little spikes in the base to hold the flowers up, and supposedly it makes the flowers last for a while. we shall see. they're going to my desk at work so we'll see how they hold up.



that's all for now. before june is finished, i will have my scuba certification (maybe), and take my next outside-malaysia trip, but you will have to wait and see where! i am super excited for this trip, for multiple reasons, but mainly what it will do to my closet. my budget is going to hate me.

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week two: "i won't kill you, just torture a little. like the saw movies."

two weeks down! this week was actually not interesting. maybe. whereas i was super-excited and hyper all last week, i think my jet lag finally set in at the beginning of this week. i was sick, the kind of sick that makes you operate at 25% of your usual operating-rate, and that is never fun. at least now my appetite is sort of back. but i did do fun things!


on sunday, i walked over to KLCC. KLCC is the central park for KL, and houses the petronas twin towers. it is about a 10-15 minute walk from my apartment, at katelyn-pace. the park has a running path, which i haven't been on yet, but seems safe enough to go alone during the daytime. the petronas twin towers are the tallest twin towers in the world, and tied (duh) for sixth as the tallest skyscrapers in the world. in other words, they are really tall. at the bottom sits a six-story mall - suria KLCC. this is really the only important part of this entire paragraph.


this isn't the best angle for a photo inside the mall, but it is the best angle to capture one of the only two stores in the mall i actually really care about. bonus points if you find it. kate spade opened in early march, right before i arrived. i think they planned that. i walked through, mentally comparing the prices, and did not think anything was too outrageously expensive compared to the american prices. i also went to banana republic, which i was surprised to find because when i searched banana's website after i found out i was moving here, they didn't have malaysia listed as an international location. i bought a shirt that was only $5 more expensive, which is not too terrible of a price to appease my need-for-instant-shopping-satisfaction. considering my two very favorite stores don't fall into the "way more expensive in KL than the US" category, i think i will be okay here. i think i'll stay.


do you know how sometimes you enter a mall and smell auntie anne's, and then you can shop for three hours, but still smell that yeasty-pretzel smell, and cannot leave until you satisfy your palate with cheap mall pretzel? i hate auntie anne's for that. it got me this time, but mainly because i am still a little scared to try the local fast food places. suria has a food court that seems to always be insane (after two visits), and it's just a little too intimidating to do by myself right now.

later in the week i was taken to a second, seven-story mall, pavilion, by new friends! pavilion is just over one mile away from suria. it has different stores though! such as forever 21, which is pleasing. we ate at morganfield's, which has "safe" food. at least, chicken without bones. i had a chicken sandwich and so i was happy!! we went back to pavilion last night to see the hunger games. without having read the books, i liked it. the violence was very :| but it was good. and when we came out, there was a fashion show!


i have never seen a real life fashion show, so that was exciting. for a bit. then we went out to some bars on changkat bukit bintang. it is a street filled with bars and restaurants and kind of cute. although tired, i was happy to sit and drink and relax and people watch. as we were leaving, one of the waiters at a bar we were at tried to make us stay. he offered to take me as his fourth girlfriend, using my title quote as a reason i should consider. he was joking, but it was entertaining. i like the people here, for the most part.

week two was not easy, what with the many hours of sleeping and headaches, but i am slowly adjusting. hopefully. overall, it was a good week!

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