LP Records and PC Files: Guilty

So, as Lisa stated in her last posting I actually wrote this before her entry but just the threat of me posting first got her moving. Since it was already written I figured I'd upload it anyway if you have some time to kill.

Who would have ever guessed I would be the one to break the blog dry spell? But for these two holiday weeks things are really slow, so let's see if I can get this going again.

It’s been sooooo long since the last posting we’ve actually been on 3! trips of a life time in that period.

· Maldives, which is a series of islands with pristine white beaches and crystal blue water that you see in magazine advertisements or movies and have trouble imagining that someplace like that really exists.

· Bhutan, a mystical and mysterious country near the Himalayan mountains that is somehow frozen in time and so remarkably beautiful that it's often thought of as the real Shangri-La.

· New Zealand, though less exotic than the other two trips, its location in the middle of nowhere makes it quite difficult to imagine getting there from the US (it took us over 10 hour from Singapore). But this was a place both of us always wanted to visit and it lived up to expectations (more so than its more popular neighbor Australia had for the two of us).

Knowing I couldn’t possibly give the proper journalistic justice to such monumental trips with my diminishing memory and limited vocabulary I’ll leave those for Lisa, and I’ll update you on our very last trip of 2010: Kuala Lumpur.

For some reason I got a bug to go somewhere the last weekend before I needed to cover at work for year end. It may have just been a desire to get my passport stamped for the tenth time this year (that’s right double digit trips in one year!). But most likely it was that ten months in, and Singapore still has the same impression on us which is mostly just boring. When you throw in the heat and how expensive everything is, it’s amazing we don’t travel even more.

I know we haven’t written much about our experiences since living here but we are still mostly unimpressed. Nothing is particularly bad outside of the prices and heat, but nothing is particularly great either. We’ve found only one restaurant we frequent which ironically is for pizza. Yes, we found good pizza in Asia! Owned by actual Italians, they make a pretty damn good pie – good enough that we find ourselves there pretty much every Sunday and they know us well by now.

However we do pay for this privilege. Two personal pizzas and one soda cost us about 65 SGD a week (just over $50 USD) and I sometimes leave a little hungry. Also I’ve once again learned the lesson that the grass is always greener after complaining about the price of beer in Hong Kong. A pint of beer here will usually run about 18 SGD (about $14 USD). Plus every place charges tax and a service charge, so if we go out and have two pints each it runs us about $60 USD. Yes, it’s insane and yes, I think it’s time to admit I have a problem because I still drink beer here.

Anyway with little time to plan and only looking to take a day or two away from work we searched for places close by for a quick and hopefully cheap trip. As it is rainy season most places here, eventually we ruled out any beach areas (though Bali was making a case for itself). We also considered Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam but realized we really wanted to plan that in more detail.

So eventually we settled on KL (as it is more commonly known) - The capital city of Malaysia which you may know for Petronas Towers pictured below. It is only about a four hour car ride from Singapore or a 40 minute plane ride. Plane tickets can usually be had with enough notice for as little as $2 to $4 and you pay more in fees bringing the cost up to about 50 bucks. It’s a place we knew we’d eventually get to because we lived so close, though we really had no specific draw to the city.

Day time view of the towers

Of course we were booking last minute and near Christmas so the prices were higher and we contemplated taking a bus up (which is common) but decided to just jump on a plane for the convenience. However after we had an hour delay on the runway and a 45 minute cab ride from the airport we realized the bus was probably the way to go. Just because we travel so often doesn’t mean we are good at it.

We realize going some place simply because you feel like you should is not ideal. But as we were just looking for an escape and for a couple of decent meals and reasonably priced drinks, the city didn’t
have any high expectations to live up to. And that is pretty much all KL did.

Many people go there for the shopping but as we now live in the Country of Malls this was not anything special for us (coming from HK may have been different). Walking the streets we could have been in any other city in Asia with its similar stores and predictable crowds. But we did end up having one very nice meal in a Thai restaurant outside the city, set in the jungle.

Here they are at night - Not many other photo ops in KL

We get my corporate rate in hotels in most major cities. The rooms typically have no view, are on low floors and never include breakfast (which is fairly standard in Asia). However we get to stay at 4 and 5 star hotels fairly cheap. We chose a high end chain hotel in Asia called the Mandarin Oriental but after several frustrating attempts to reserve a room we settled on our second choice called Traders.

The hotel has a very popular “sky bar” on the roof around their pool. We stopped up one night to check it out and grab a quick drink. As we sat in our window seat we paused for a minute to think how lucky we were to be discussing a fairly uneventful day in a back drop of one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks in the middle of Malaysia. We’re very aware that we are getting to live a life we would have dreamed of but probably never thought it could be a reality when sitting back in our house in Fords.

So with that let me just wish you all a Happy New Year! and say Thank You! to all of you back home that do so much to make our lives easier as we live out this adventure. From checking on our home, to shipping us the things we need or just really want, or helping keep us entertained. It is still recognized and appreciated as much now as since we’ve moved and all you’ve asked for in return is to include you in our experiences. (So do you think that should do the trick to guilt Lisa into writing again?).

Blog ya’ later!

And here's a few teaser photos from the blogs that should be just around the corner...