Trig's Birthday!

(Sorry, this was supposed to be posted last thurs.) Today our darling dog is astoundingly a year old. No more puppy chow for him. As a celebration, he got to eat half a bone, then get a bath. The bath he didn't like so much, but he's got to look good on his birthday! Actually, he just smelled bad after his week in the kennel while we were in KL. Don't tell him, but I might buy him a new toy as well. We are down to the kong, his orange rope which is decreasing in thread count daily, and a frisbee with no middle. Pretty sad. 

Puppy Trig

Adult Trig

A few more funny things I forgot about the KL trip. First, when we were staying with Brian at the Shangri-la Hotel, they had a really nice evening appetizers and cocktail hour that we would go to every evening. Well, one night they had a spread of cheeses, so of course I took one of each. At the table, I bite into one that looked like a small Laughing Cow wheel of something. Turns out it was a mound of butter. Now, who puts a plate full of butter mounds next to soft white cheeses? I mean come on. 

One day, I also spent a few hours at the KL bird park, which is supposed to be the largest open concept aviary in the world. It's basically a giant park with a mesh ceiling, so you get to stroll around with birds in the trees above you etc. 

Saw about five male peacocks strutting about, which must be a sure sign of spring fever. The females, however, seemed very indifferent. Honey badger don't care....

Also saw several owls that looked exactly like characters from The Guardians. I mean, not just the fact that they were owls, but the personalities lined up.

Now we know where the chickies go...

This guy is making the funniest face.

 Also saw lots of macaws, including these two blue and gold ones. I am changing my mind; instead of the cute Ghineau pigs, Drew and I are now represented by these two.

 

Shenzhen

On Sunday, Drew and I went to Shenzhen in mainland China to buy Drew a tailored suit. All of the skinny Chinese guys here wear really slimming suits, and Drew's American made stuff is noticeably baggier. This is like when I made the leap to skinny jeans. Went went with the couple we were originally going to go with, and we were so glad we did, as they were far more experienced than us in price haggling and how mainland China works. 

First, the lady, Jess, was kind enough to bring me a packet of tissues knowing I wouldn't know to bring my own. Why, you ask? None of the bathrooms have toilet paper. Even more so, there are no commodes, simply holes in the ground that you have to squat really low over. Yuck. The funny part is, Chinese people are so used to standing on the toilet like this that when they see a commode in say Hong Kong, they try to step up and stand on that too. There are actually signs around saying no standing on the toilet. Ha!

It honestly was not difficult to get there. It's about a 45 min train ride from our place, with a few transfers. When you get there, you have to use a walkway that crosses a moat separating China and Hong Kong. There is barbed wire on the HK side, but nothing on the Chinese side. It's obvious which way people are trying to go. 

The mall we went to was literally 50 yards outside of the train station, so I can't say we really got a taste of Shenzhen. We walk outside the station and a kid comes up to us and says "shopping?" He then leads us to his family's store in this huge mall. This mall has fake everything. Watches, purses, shoes, tailors, jewelry, etc. the other couple had a list of requests from family, such as a gold fake Rolex with a black face. So Stephy, if you want a fake Goyard or something, just say so! 

There is an art to haggling here. First, they jack up the prices so much for westerners that your first offer is only a third of what they tell you. They are very good actors and seem VERY offended at this. Then you show them on the calculator that you will go up a few bucks, showing you are serious and willing to negotiate. Eventually they will hit a price that they won't move from, and at this point you counter at your final offer, say half of where it started. They say no, and you walk away. It's amazing how far away you have to walk before they come chasing you down. Like 5 or 6 stores down the hallway. Luckily Drew seems to be a natural at this process, while I just want to practice my token Mandarin phrases like "tai gui le" "too expensive" to which they counter "pianyi pianyi" "cheap cheap". It's fun. 

At the end of the day, Drew had a suit ordered as well as a pair of prescription glasses they copied from his own on the spot. I got a pair of sunglasses, and we both found two pieces of art that we liked.  Hopefully we will get them framed here. Then we just need to figure out how to hang them up on our cement walls. 

After our shopping extravaganza, we grabbed some lunch in that same mall, where a beer was only $4 instead of $10 which it is in HK. We then got hour long foot massages (still in the mall) for $10 a person. Pretty good huh? This was just a massage, not reflexology but still interesting.

Finally, Trig would like to thank Brian for bringing him his giant rawhide bones. He has been in heaven for the last few days. 

Eat, Pray, Love KL

I apologize in advance, this post is a long one. My last full day in KL, I took a tour called Eat, Pray, Love, put on by the Malaysian Heritage Center. The idea was to show us the history of Malaysia in KL both before and after it became a country through food and religion, hopefully prompting us to love and appreciate their city. Malaysia has only been a country since 1957, so it is really young. Of course, people lived there before that, as my trip to Malacca shows, so the history before it became a country is actually more interesting. 

We started off the morning at a food stall near the Central Market. This man is making roti, or batter made really thin by twirling it like a pizza. He then fills it with different stuff; one had banana with butter, while another was filled with kaya jam made from coconut. They were essentially sweet breakfast crepes. 

Accompanied by the roti is ginger tea, which essentially tasted like chai tea with ginger. My new favorite drink. It is technically called teh tarik, or pulled tea, as they dump the tea from one container to another from several feet up. The process mixes the ingredients of black tea, condensed milk, and evaporated milk, it creates a frothy top, and cools it enough to drink. It was fun to watch. Barely spilled a drop!

They also add these savory sauces to counteract the sweetness of both the roti and the teh tarik, which is something I think Western food needs to get better at. Waffles with fruit and whipped cream? Let's throw some syrup on there....

This is another roti covered with condensed milk. Malaysians like their sweets, therefore I like them. Needless to say, this was not the healthiest way to start the day, but man was it delicious!

Next, our guide took us to a Chinese temple. Now, at this point I have been to probably a handful of Chinese temples, but our guide was actually Chinese and was able to explain what exactly was going on. First of all, the temple was built, by a guy who founded the city, as a tribute to his master and good friend who died in the conquest. The guy had the statues made, and then took them to be blessed by the emperor in Beijing during the last dynasty (Ching I think), thereby making them deities. So, these "gods" were really just people who during their lifetime were particularly good at something, business and sound reasoning, for these two men. And the Chinese aren't worshipping them, as us Christians worship God or Jesus, they are paying them respect, asking them for assistance and guidance. So, this is the praying process. You bring them an offering, normally fruit or flowers, because the Chinese are all about reciprocity, even in business today. If I want help from the gods, I have to give them something first. Next you light three joss sticks, or incense, one to go to the heavens, one for the human realm, and one for hell. Your thoughts are conveyed through the smoke to the deity wherever they might be. When praying, you have to be very specific, stating exactly who you are, where you are from, and what you are doing. You can ask them a very specific question, like, should Drew and I visit North Korea in a few months? Then, you take out the fortune telling sticks, shake them around in a specific way until one meaningfully separates itself from the others. Then, just to be sure you pulled the right fortune, you take two wooden blocks and throw them on the ground. If one comes up ying and the other yang, then that stick is correctly yours. If not, you repeat the whole stick process, up to a max of three times. If you still haven't chosen the right stick after three tries, you have to come back and ask another day, as your intentions are not clear enough. If you succeed, you match the number on the stick to a pre-written message. These messages are slightly general and you have to interpret them to fit your question. Hopefully our message would have said something like "some things are better understood, but not seen." :) At the end of this whole process, you burn a piece of paper covered with stamped chants. Essentially, this is the Chinese being lazy. Instead of chanting out loud and burning more incense to communicate those words to the deity, you can simply burn the paper with the words written on it, and the result is the same; the deity gets the message. Pretty awesome huh?  

Whenever you make a donation to the temple you ring the bell and bang the drum while essentially yelling out your name. All of this is done so that the gods know that you, specifically, are making a donation. Reciprocity again, but it only works if the gods know who you are and that it happened. 

Back on the streets of KL, we went to a food cart where an old man was making sugar cane juice using an old fashioned press. Wonder how long he has been doing this!

Street drinks are traditionally served in a plastic baggy like this. Not sure why.

A bit farther down the street was a dried goods shop. Again, I wonder how many years this man has been shopping here? These kind of stores are nice because everything is bought by weight. You can take as much or as little of a substance as you want. But they did have everything, from sardines, to seaweed, to mushrooms, to onions etc.

Same street again was a fruit stand. We tried all tree of the bottom fruits, which I had never seen before. The one on the far left is a purple mangosteen, which has a white fruit in the middle with sections like an orange but the texture of a concord grape. The middle is a langsat, like a smaller, milder mangosteen. The far right is the rambutan, which has a white middle similar to a grape.

Next stop was a Hindu temple. Outside of the temple were several booths making flower garlands that are placed around the gods. 

We got to wear a jasmine bracelet!

Every morning, afternoon at 12:30, and evening they bathe the gods. After all, the gods are just like us, and need to be kept clean! The priests, literally dump different liquids over the statue and then rinse it away with water. There was several rounds if this: Saffron water, water, milk, water, fresh juices (like he squeezed an orange and dumped just cut coconuts over the statue), water, purified water from bottles, done. It was more complicated than that, but you get the idea. It was really cool to watch. To get an idea, the statue below is black and is being bathed in I think saffron mixed with water below, making it look orange. 

Being bathed in milk. 

The best part was the music being played the whole time. It was loud and dancy. There was a reed instrument and a drummer. The reed instrument is called a nadaswaram, and it sounded like a mix between an oboe and a trumpet. It actually used a double reed and was surprisingly loud. He was going to town, and it was awesome.  

This is also the same temple that the pilgrimage to Batu Caves starts from every year. The followers walk from this temple to Batu Caves, and it's not a short distance. Can't remember what the ceremony is for. 

Next, we went to a Chinese food market. This is a man shaving ice for drinks. Notice the old fashioned clamp holding the ice in place. It worked incredibly fast, meaning the blade was super sharp and probably not very safe. 

The resulting drink! Shaved ice, coconut milk, some caramel something, and green rice strings. Again, delicious and sweet, but not exactly healthily. 

At the Chinese market, we also tried asam laska, which was a hot sweet and sour soup with seafood and veggies. Super good. There is another spicier version of this that uses a coconut milk broth instead of this one's clear broth that we tried in Singapore. Also tried fried noodles with ground pork (purple bowl). 

After a few more stops, we went to a southern Indian place. Similar to what we tried in Singapore, this is eaten with your hands, off of a banana leaf. Meat and seafood was in the bowls, while rice and veggies are on the leaf. Hot! but very good. 

The last stop was a mosque right in the middle of the city. We couldn't tour it (not sure if this is was a prayer time or if they were renovating it) but it is beautiful! 

Malacca

Yesterday I took another day tour with the same guide as the day prior to the historical town of Malacca, which is located about an hour and a half southwest of KL. This town has the most complicated history I've ever heard. I'll try to explain briefly. It started with a Hindu sultan arriving in town around 1400. He wanted to attract Muslim traders, so he married a Muslim princess, and became a Muslim himself. He developed a town for trade based upon a fresh water source, a river called the Sungai that empties into the Strait of Malacca, or the waterway between the Malaysia Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Portugal realized people were trading spices there, so they came and took it over in the 1500s. During this time THE Francis Xavier, one of the first ever Jesuits even lived there for awhile. Yay Jesuits. Then came the Dutch, overtaking the Portuguese in the 1600s. Then came the British in the 1800s, around the same time they took over Hong Kong. And during all of this, the Chinese were there as well making millions behind the scenes while the Europeans tried to manage the place. So, when you think about it, not only were there so many countries involved in this tiny town, but so many religions as well. Hindu, Islam, Catholic, Protestants, and Angelicans! Yikes! Today, the town is not so tiny, with about 600,000 residents, and its an interesting mix of very old and relatively new.

The tour began by seeing the oldest working Catholic Church in Malaysia, St. Peter's Church, from 1710. Based on the dates I mentioned above, you can probably deduct that this church was built actually during the Dutch reign for the leftover Catholics to keep them happy. You know how cranky Catholics can get when they don't have a church. Bring on the guilt ... :)

Next was a river cruise on the Sungai river. This river is ultimately what started everything! Some of the waterfront buildings had these beautiful murals painted on them, depicting a broad range of things. 

Then, we went to a Baba Nyonya Heritage Museum that was one of the best museums I have ever been in. More history. When a Chinese man immigrated to Malacca and married a local Malay lady, the resulting match was the Baba (man) and Nyonya (woman), and they created more babas and nyonyas. The Chinese man was often times British educated, and he made lots of money as a business man. This family was particularly wealthy, so their house was unbelievable. Every room was stuffed full of furniture and decor that was priceless. For instance, this blackwood table covered in Asian marble (which has way cooler patterns than say Italian marble) with tons of mother of pearl inlay. Stunning. And the whole house was like this. Right after I took this picture, I was reprimanded, as photos were not allowed. Oops. Not only was the furniture incredible, but they left all of these little artifacts that really allowed you to visualize what is was like to live there. Like unopened bottles of Hennessy cognac from the 1800s. Or bottles of perfume, or coffee grinders, or noodle presses. It was like the family one day decided, you know our house is so awesome, I bet people would totally pay to see this. Ok, let's leave everything here and just go. Ok.    

Next stop was a Chinese temple. This one was unique with the dark wood and golden detail. Most of the temples I have seen are painted with a ton of colors, in an almost overwhelming way. 

In the back of the church were thousands of urns with pictures of the deceased. Sad but cool at the same time. Some of them were really old, and some (the black ones in the back) had obviously survived a temple fire way back. 

After the temple, we walked around Chinatown for while, in particular a place called Jonker street. We tried durian puffs, which was a puffy pastry filled with durian flavored cream. Based upon that one experience, durian is not my favorite fruit. But, I still need to try just the straight up fruit. The worst part was I kept (sorry this gets graphic) burping up the terrible flavor for several hours afterwards, exactly like what happens when you take a fish oil pill. Bleh. After Chinatown, we went to the old Dutch church, that was later turned into an Angelican church by the British. So confusing. Notice the elaborate rickshaws waiting for hot and sweaty tourists. The next pic is another example of Dutch influence. That was the best part of seeing Malacca, finding how all of these countries left their mark on the town. 

Next, the original Catholic church built by the Portuguese in 1510. 15010!!!  It is up on a hill overlooking everything else. The Dutch used it as a cemetery, hence the really cool tomb stones in the next pic, and the British used it for ammunition storage. I love just standing in a really old place. You can feel how many lives have been influenced by it. 

At the bottom of the hill was the last remaining gateway for the Portuguese fortress that at one point encircled the entire city. Notice the worker sitting on the top. 

Last museum was a recreation of the Sultan's palace from back in the 1400s. Lots of dark wood and intricate carvings. Plus a garden that reminded me of the palace in Aladdin. Inside that garden was the craziest tree I have ever seen. It had a few trunks, with leafiness at the top, but coming out from the trunks were all of these tubular things stretching towards the ground, crisscrossing in a crazy way. It was difficult to decide if the tree was growing up or growing down. 

 The strait of Malacca! On the other side is Sumatra Island!

Near that sign was a new mosque, built out over the water. Again, another example of a religious space incorporating the natural beauty around it. 

On the way back to KL, we stopped at Putra Jaya, a preplanned city 20 years in the making where the majority of the government buildings will be located. In the picture below is a beautiful mosque (Islam is the national religion), and the Prime Minister's Office Building located right next to it. I can just hear Americans screaming "Where is the separation of church and state!" No comment. 

A close up of the Prime Minister's office building. Aladdin anyone?!?

A nice evening twilight shot of the majority of Putra Jaya. 

Last, but not least, a great pic of Trig. Apparently he has been having ALOT of fun at his kennel.