Here are a few photos from Kuala Lumpur. The skirt I am wearing is the new skirt I bought in Singapore. The flowers on the light pole are the national flower of Malaysia. The pool was the pool at our hotel. Unfortunately, the photo does not really do it justice. The towers are the Potronus towers, which were the largest in the world in 2004. That's what big oil does for you. We went up to the observation bridge on teh 41st floor and you can see the view from there.

A Few Notes On Malaysia

Apparently I can actually be halfway good at haggling. I bought some (very fake) Gucci sunglasses. The guy offered them to me for 110RM. I laughed and walked away. As I was walking away, he started shouting other prices to me, going down to 70RM. This was still way too much, so I refused to go back. A couple of minutes later, he came to the stall I was at and dragged me back to his stall. He offered "just for me" 50RM. This was the price a friend bought for his sunglasses, but it was still too much, so I offered 20RM. He said no, so I walked away again. He came back to get me again. He finally went down to 30RM. I offered 25RM and refused to budge from that. He finally relented and gave them up. So yeah, went from about $30 to about $7. Not too bad.

Nobody in Singapore or Malaysia uses knives. A lot of places have forks and spoons rather than chopsticks, but never knives. I've already gotten used to this to the extent that I got halfway through my eating my lunch with my fork doing all of the cutting on Saturday before I finally realized there was a knife I could use.

Malaysia is a Muslim country. Everyone who went this weekend knew that. However, it didn't really sink in until we realized all of the hotel rooms had a copy of the Koran instead of the Bible.

I had the two scariest taxi rides of my life this weekend (admittedly, I have not ridden in too many taxis back home). I will go into details tomorrow, but for now I will simply say I am thankful to be alive.

I realized why Asians are all skinny. They eat just as much fried food as us and just as many carbs, but all of their portions are about 1/3 the size of ours.

I gave in and had American food this weekend. A prize in the form of one of the first postcards I send to the US to anyone who can guess which fast-food chain I went to.

We went to a bar Friday night. We had to pay 20RM for the first beer and each subsequent beer was 1RM. For those who don't know the conversion, that means we were buying beer for 35 cents.

I spent a three day weekend in a foreign country and spent under $300, including all lodging, airfare, and food. Beat that Western world.

I will post pictures tomorrow, I promise.

Typos

So I just reread my last post. Yes, I do realize there are 50 million grammar/spelling mistakes. no, I am not going to fix them. I'm too tired/lazy.

Shop Til You Drop

Today was my second time in a Singapore mall but the first time to do any actually shopping. I can now say that I am going to end up doing much more shopping. I did not look in any of the American stores (Gap, Nike, etc.), but from glancing in them, they look very similar to the stores in the US. However, all of the other stores are rather different. The stores are very small and jammed full of clothes. The fashion is pretty cute. There tends to be more variety in styles and less variety in sizes, though I could find things that fit. Also, no two stores had the same things. I kind of think that each store has its own little sweat shop associated with it. The clothes are a little cheaper than in the US, and the shoes are much much much cheaper. I bought a skirt and 3 pairs of shoes. As those of you who know me well can probably imagine, I easily could have bought 10 more pairs of shoes, but I eventually made myself stop looking.

So the first pair I bought (the ones on the bottom) were S$30, so about $20. The strap around the ankle and then hook on a way that is really cool, but I have no idea how to explain. Anyway, I thought that was a pretty good deal for really cute shoes. But then I found my other two pairs. Those were each S$10, or about $7. They are honestly a little higher than I would normally get, but for that price, I could not resist.

I know it's a little terrible that the first pictures I'm posting are of shoes, but I will get more pictures up soon. In case your wondering, the spot on the lower right corner is from when my camera got into a fight with a pond in Central Park over spring break. Oops!

Tidbits

• I just booked plane tickets to Kuala Lumpur that cost $35 including taxes
• They take the term "ice cream sandwich" very literally here (think dyed wonder bread)
• Durians are as gross as they smell (though some people disagreed)
• According to some of the guys here - in the US, all of the ugly girls go to tech schools. In Asia, the pretty girls go to tech schools and the ugly girls study liberal arts and do nothing with their lives
• I don't think I've paid more than S$3.5 for any meal

Culinary Experiences

As most of you know, I am what is commonly referred to as a "picky eater." The only vegetable I genuinely enjoy is lettuce. There are only about five fruits in the world that I like. Oh, and I don't like rice. So before I left for Asia, everyone was very curious about what I was going to eat. To be perfectly honest, I was also very curious.

So far, I am making an effort not to eat any American food. First of all, it's more expensive. Some of us actually almost went to Hooter's last night, but back out when we realized it's price about the same as in the US and we've already grown accustomed to $3 meals. Instead, the only American food I have had is Poptarts for breakfast, which I hope no one will fault me for as asking me to be adventurous first thing in the morning is simply a bit too much.

So without further ado, here are some of the notable foods I have had so far:

Pig's ear (kind of tastes like bacon, but the cartilege gives it a crunchy texture that is rather disgusting)
Chicken feet (no one else was willing to try these since they were still in the shape of feet, but they really weren't bad)
Duck tongue (supposedly a delicacy and actually good enough that I may get it again)
Rice water (absolutely disgusting. I was really thirsty when I had it and still couldn't force down more than two sips. It was like water mixed with sugar and butter.)
Roast pork and duck (both good and not really adventurous)
Eel jelly or maybe it was squid jelly, I don't really remember (pretty gross. It's basically black jelly that tastes terrible)
Seasoned peaches (just dried peaches, but they put a little bit of seasoning on them, hence the name)

I will keep updating the list as I try more interesting foods. So far I've realized that I'm more adventurous than other people when it comes to meat, but there are fewer non-meat dishes that I enjoy.

Welcome to the East

Hello from Singapore!

We're going to start this post with something competely unrelated to Asia and say, hooray for the Cardinals sweeping the Cubs! During all of my layovers, I made a point of finding internet if only to allow me to check on the Cardinals progress.

I'll start this all out by telling everyone of a little fun I had with my parents. Before I left for my trip, my family and friends all decided it was a great idea to tell me all kinds of travel horror stories. These stories consisted of everything from losing papers, to booking plane tickets on the wrong day, to getting stuck in tsunamis and much more. As such, before I left I was having a little bit of anxiety over my own travel plans, especially as I was completing the first part of the trip on my own. I arrived safely in Singapore, but I decided to go ahead and let my parents think otherwise, sending them the following email:

Hi Mom and Dad.

So traveling is certainly an adventure. As planned, I met up with the group in LA and flew to Hong Kong. However, things got a little interesting in Hong Kong. Apparently, something was wrong with my reservation and they did not think I had a seat on the flight to Singapore. So instead, I was supposed to fly to Laos and catch a connecting flight there to Singapore. So I flew to Laos. And now I am still in Laos. The plane I was supposed to catch apparently had mechanical problems and could not make it to Singapore. I'm being told that I should be able to get on a flight in the morning. They gave me money for a hotel, but some people told me that it's really not safe to go to one on my own as a female here, so I'm planning on spending the night in the airport.

I will try to update you again in the morning. I'm not sure I'll be able to. As you know, my laptop battery doesn't exactly last long.

Love you!


Now, I will go ahead and say (much to the dismay of some of you), that I am not pure evil. As such, I sent my brother and sister the following email:

Hi Joe and Maria!

So as I had said to both of you before, I decided to freak out mom and dad a little. Here is the email I sent them, and then a real email you can forward on to them.

insert email here (no need to repeat it)

So here is what's really going on:

I am now safely in Singapore and staying at the dorms in NUS (National University of Singapore). The flight to Hong Kong was incredibly long, but I slept for almost all of it. I probably slept for at least 10 hours. I met up with the group in LA, and most of the people are really nice. However, no one was really seated next to anyone else on the flight.

The Hong Kong airport was my first experience in Asia. Some people bought some food and I trid a little, but did not have a whole lot. In Hong Kong, we had to go through security again. I was amazed by the number of people wearing masks. Some of the people without masks were simply covering their mouths with a cloth. There were also a few people on the plane wearing masks, including all of the flight attendants!

The flight to Singapore was not made. Again, I slept for a couple of hours. The food on this flight was pretty bad, though it probably would have been better if I liked eggs.

Once in Singapore, we went through immigration. Walking up to immigration, they had a heat detecting camera looking at everyone to see if anyone had a fever. Luckily, nobody did. From the airport, we took a bus to the dorms.

Singapore is absolutely gorgeous. It almost reminds me of Miami with the tropical climate and the very open buildings. The architecture is amazing. The buildings all have crazy lines and twisting shapes. I don't really know how to describe it, but I'll try to take some pictures.

The weather here is even worse then I had been warned. Think of the most humid day you've ever experienced in Missouri. This is worse. I want to be able to do some running, so hopefully it won't be terrible in the mornings.

We have to get up earlish tomorrow, so I am going to sign off now. I hope you enjoyed my first email! I will talk to you more soon!


So my mom immediately called my sister and was definitely freaking out, so my sister took pity on her and told her the truth. However, my dad did not think to talk to Joe or Maria, and had to wait until I emailed him the next morning to learn the truth. I know, I'm a great daughter.

Anyway, I will write much more, but just wanted to get things started here.