Friday, December 26, 2003
merry christmas ... i think
Ahhh, Christmas Day in Malaysia. It was so ... interesting. After Deanna woke me up around 8am (jet lag is such a drag!) we cracked our christmas crackers and christmas had begun. The breakfast buffet served up such christmas-y treats as fried noodles, samosas, buns with bean curd, baked beans and chicken sausage. i stuck to the orange and watermelon slices. we then headed out onto the pool deck and lounged on deck chairs for the morning. the entertainment was provided by the games organized on the beach. we watched grown, headscarved muslim women limbo to 'lady marmalade' and 'i will survive', among other great western hit christmas songs. they also took part in a potato sack race, an egg and miso soup spoon race, and a tug-of-war. all very entertaining and they had such enthusiasm! of course, all of the kids (and there are a LOT of them) were in the pool with deanna and i. one little boy was so enthralled with our white skin that he kept coming up and touching us. a few glares from me put him off. heh heh.
we ate lunch at the hotel and were forced to listen to the staff singing christmas carols very badly. or we thought it was the staff ... turns out it was the charges from the Penang Centre for the Simple (not my words) that were singing and well, all things considered, i guess they weren't that bad after all. For the afternoon we embarked on a tour of the island with a very annoying woman for our guide and we were very glad to get back to our room around 6:30pm. Dinner was had at the same hawker food court (nothing says christmas like gyoza!) and then we walked to 7-11 for water and treats.
and that was christmas day. not so bad, but we both missed our families i think. we've got only a few days left here, i imagine we'll be squeezing in lots of suntanning and pool lounging. on the 29th we fly to melbourne and it's back to living in hostels.
Ahhh, Christmas Day in Malaysia. It was so ... interesting. After Deanna woke me up around 8am (jet lag is such a drag!) we cracked our christmas crackers and christmas had begun. The breakfast buffet served up such christmas-y treats as fried noodles, samosas, buns with bean curd, baked beans and chicken sausage. i stuck to the orange and watermelon slices. we then headed out onto the pool deck and lounged on deck chairs for the morning. the entertainment was provided by the games organized on the beach. we watched grown, headscarved muslim women limbo to 'lady marmalade' and 'i will survive', among other great western hit christmas songs. they also took part in a potato sack race, an egg and miso soup spoon race, and a tug-of-war. all very entertaining and they had such enthusiasm! of course, all of the kids (and there are a LOT of them) were in the pool with deanna and i. one little boy was so enthralled with our white skin that he kept coming up and touching us. a few glares from me put him off. heh heh.
we ate lunch at the hotel and were forced to listen to the staff singing christmas carols very badly. or we thought it was the staff ... turns out it was the charges from the Penang Centre for the Simple (not my words) that were singing and well, all things considered, i guess they weren't that bad after all. For the afternoon we embarked on a tour of the island with a very annoying woman for our guide and we were very glad to get back to our room around 6:30pm. Dinner was had at the same hawker food court (nothing says christmas like gyoza!) and then we walked to 7-11 for water and treats.
and that was christmas day. not so bad, but we both missed our families i think. we've got only a few days left here, i imagine we'll be squeezing in lots of suntanning and pool lounging. on the 29th we fly to melbourne and it's back to living in hostels.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Malaysia at last!
After flying to London, spending the night and the next day, flying to Kuala Lumpur (12 hours), then getting on a train (11.5 hours), then a ferry, then a taxi, we have arrived at our hotel on Penang, in Malaysia. Yay! and man is it HOT! feels so good after the wet cold that is irish weather.
we got to our hotel at 8am, checked in, ate breakfast and then spent the day on lawnchairs either on the beach or poolside. very very nice. jet lag is present but is minimal. i was up from about 2-5 or 6am this morning and all of yesterday is a bit of a blur but today is good. and it's christmas eve! of course, malaysia being mostly muslim, you couldn't tell except for the constantly piped-in carols in our hotel lobby and the plastic santa flags near the pool.
we found dinner last night at a hawker style food court along the road and feasted on noodles and spring rolls. after dinner we tried out the 'lounge' in our hotel which featured that evening the all-girl band 'les femmes' from the Phillippines. It was a very sad, sad state of affairs. the band's only instrument was a synthesizer and they kind of looked like drag queens. there were maybe five people in there and the bartender was more intent on rearranging the display of bottles and glasses than serving drinks. so we had our token drink and got out of there. i was exhausted anyway and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
today we've ventured into town to do some emailing and buy sandals. many interesting things to see, lots of scooters running about, street vendors cooking unidentifiable things, dried cuttlefish snacks at the 7-11 etc. as you do in malaysia i guess.
After flying to London, spending the night and the next day, flying to Kuala Lumpur (12 hours), then getting on a train (11.5 hours), then a ferry, then a taxi, we have arrived at our hotel on Penang, in Malaysia. Yay! and man is it HOT! feels so good after the wet cold that is irish weather.
we got to our hotel at 8am, checked in, ate breakfast and then spent the day on lawnchairs either on the beach or poolside. very very nice. jet lag is present but is minimal. i was up from about 2-5 or 6am this morning and all of yesterday is a bit of a blur but today is good. and it's christmas eve! of course, malaysia being mostly muslim, you couldn't tell except for the constantly piped-in carols in our hotel lobby and the plastic santa flags near the pool.
we found dinner last night at a hawker style food court along the road and feasted on noodles and spring rolls. after dinner we tried out the 'lounge' in our hotel which featured that evening the all-girl band 'les femmes' from the Phillippines. It was a very sad, sad state of affairs. the band's only instrument was a synthesizer and they kind of looked like drag queens. there were maybe five people in there and the bartender was more intent on rearranging the display of bottles and glasses than serving drinks. so we had our token drink and got out of there. i was exhausted anyway and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
today we've ventured into town to do some emailing and buy sandals. many interesting things to see, lots of scooters running about, street vendors cooking unidentifiable things, dried cuttlefish snacks at the 7-11 etc. as you do in malaysia i guess.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
To Miss, or NOT To Miss
What I'll Miss about Limerick:
1. Being told I'm grand a hundred times a day by my customers at La Cucina. This is what the Irish say when you ask if they need something and they don't. Instead of "I'm fine", they answer with "You're grand". Much nicer, don't you think?
2. Trying to understand our roommate Tom, the fastest speaker in the world.
3. Our lovely landlord Eric. May all our future landlords be as sweet as him and fix things just as quickly.
4. The brand new gym at the college.
5. The variety of chocolate bars (i think i've mentioned this before)
6. The chocolate yogourt (again, already mentioned this)
7. The big fat sheep that are in all the fields, everywhere.
8. Incredible rainbows
9. Bus drivers giving change
10. The wee lads on the american football team
What I Won't Miss
1. Incessantly ringing cell phones
2. The weather (rain,wind,sun,rain,rain,rain all in one day)
3. Chips (french fries) served with EVERYTHING
4. Erratic bus service
5. Walking along the main route/highway to Dublin everyday on my way to work
6. Nonexistent recycling - everything gets thrown out. It's so wrong!
7. The exchange rate and how expensive everything is
What I'll Miss about Limerick:
1. Being told I'm grand a hundred times a day by my customers at La Cucina. This is what the Irish say when you ask if they need something and they don't. Instead of "I'm fine", they answer with "You're grand". Much nicer, don't you think?
2. Trying to understand our roommate Tom, the fastest speaker in the world.
3. Our lovely landlord Eric. May all our future landlords be as sweet as him and fix things just as quickly.
4. The brand new gym at the college.
5. The variety of chocolate bars (i think i've mentioned this before)
6. The chocolate yogourt (again, already mentioned this)
7. The big fat sheep that are in all the fields, everywhere.
8. Incredible rainbows
9. Bus drivers giving change
10. The wee lads on the american football team
What I Won't Miss
1. Incessantly ringing cell phones
2. The weather (rain,wind,sun,rain,rain,rain all in one day)
3. Chips (french fries) served with EVERYTHING
4. Erratic bus service
5. Walking along the main route/highway to Dublin everyday on my way to work
6. Nonexistent recycling - everything gets thrown out. It's so wrong!
7. The exchange rate and how expensive everything is
Winding Down
Only two full days left in Limerick, we leave Saturday morning for London. Our Spanish adventure ended well, unfortunately we had a terrible 10 hour train ride back to Barcelona from San Sebastian (let's just say that 6 people do NOT fit comfortably in a compartment the size of a queen's size bed, and Deanna spent the night literally spooning my new boots), but other than that it was grand.
On Friday we went to Montserrat, a Benedictine monastery about an hour from Barcelona. It's a beautiful place, and we even got to see two weddings, well, two brides getting their photos taken after their respective ceremonies inside the cathedral.
On Saturday we went to Figueres, a town that is unremarkable except for its Salvador Dali museum. Dali lived outside Figueres for much of his life and bought the building now housing the museum specifically for that purpose. It looks typically Dali - bizarre purple walls with gold turrets and funny looking fleur-de-lis all over the place. He produced a lot of paintings in his time, 99% of them absolutely bizarrre.
Sunday we flew home, took the dreaded 4 hour bus back to Limerick and got spoiled by friends from the states who made us dinner. It was a nice welcome back.
These past two weeks have been pretty routine, i've been working, Deanna has only to proofread her LAST PAPER OF LAW SCHOOL ever and then she's done done done. The last challenge is fitting all of my things back into a box to ship home before embarking on the next leg of our adventure. Bring on the sunshine!!
Only two full days left in Limerick, we leave Saturday morning for London. Our Spanish adventure ended well, unfortunately we had a terrible 10 hour train ride back to Barcelona from San Sebastian (let's just say that 6 people do NOT fit comfortably in a compartment the size of a queen's size bed, and Deanna spent the night literally spooning my new boots), but other than that it was grand.
On Friday we went to Montserrat, a Benedictine monastery about an hour from Barcelona. It's a beautiful place, and we even got to see two weddings, well, two brides getting their photos taken after their respective ceremonies inside the cathedral.
On Saturday we went to Figueres, a town that is unremarkable except for its Salvador Dali museum. Dali lived outside Figueres for much of his life and bought the building now housing the museum specifically for that purpose. It looks typically Dali - bizarre purple walls with gold turrets and funny looking fleur-de-lis all over the place. He produced a lot of paintings in his time, 99% of them absolutely bizarrre.
Sunday we flew home, took the dreaded 4 hour bus back to Limerick and got spoiled by friends from the states who made us dinner. It was a nice welcome back.
These past two weeks have been pretty routine, i've been working, Deanna has only to proofread her LAST PAPER OF LAW SCHOOL ever and then she's done done done. The last challenge is fitting all of my things back into a box to ship home before embarking on the next leg of our adventure. Bring on the sunshine!!
Thursday, December 04, 2003
sangria, siestas and san sebastian
Arrived in San Sebastian today after an hour´s bus ride from Bilbao. We´ve spent the last few days on the north coast of Spain where the weather has been lovely but no-one speaks English. I continue to slaughter the Spanish language daily while Deanna stands behind me and grins. It´s an act that has worked so far but wasn´t good enough to stop the ticket agent at the San Sebastian train station from closing his window on us for siesta today.
Yup, shops here close between 1:30 and 4pm for siesta and entire cities shut down. We have no idea where everybody goes, perhaps there are cots in the back rooms of all the shops.
Last night in Bilbao we went for traditional local tapas, or pintxos. As these are almost all comprised of seafood, we had to stop at the Burger King on the way so I could eat a cheeseburger and thus not starve overnight. The pintxos all came on wee bits of baguette, some had anchovies, others had egg and tuna, some type of shellfish and lots of butter (that one I could eat), or egg and tuna. To wash it all down we had the local wine, txocali - kind of a mix between young white wine and cider.
We also visited the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao yesterday and it was fantastic. We spent four hours taking in the modern art and the architecture of the building itself. Outside it had two permanent sculptures: one massive spider you could stand underneath and look at the eggs in her sack, called maman, and another even more massive puppy covered in flowers, simply called puppy. The building was designed by a canadian and is covered in thin titanium plates. It´s really quite spectacular.
tonight we´re booked on an overnight train back to barcelona, this time in turista (second) class. on the train here we were in first class and it was grand: lots of leg room and almost fully reclinable seats. Second class didn´t look so nice - eight seats to a compartment with no reclining space and it looked very squishy. we´re going to do our best to avoid this at all costs.
Arrived in San Sebastian today after an hour´s bus ride from Bilbao. We´ve spent the last few days on the north coast of Spain where the weather has been lovely but no-one speaks English. I continue to slaughter the Spanish language daily while Deanna stands behind me and grins. It´s an act that has worked so far but wasn´t good enough to stop the ticket agent at the San Sebastian train station from closing his window on us for siesta today.
Yup, shops here close between 1:30 and 4pm for siesta and entire cities shut down. We have no idea where everybody goes, perhaps there are cots in the back rooms of all the shops.
Last night in Bilbao we went for traditional local tapas, or pintxos. As these are almost all comprised of seafood, we had to stop at the Burger King on the way so I could eat a cheeseburger and thus not starve overnight. The pintxos all came on wee bits of baguette, some had anchovies, others had egg and tuna, some type of shellfish and lots of butter (that one I could eat), or egg and tuna. To wash it all down we had the local wine, txocali - kind of a mix between young white wine and cider.
We also visited the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao yesterday and it was fantastic. We spent four hours taking in the modern art and the architecture of the building itself. Outside it had two permanent sculptures: one massive spider you could stand underneath and look at the eggs in her sack, called maman, and another even more massive puppy covered in flowers, simply called puppy. The building was designed by a canadian and is covered in thin titanium plates. It´s really quite spectacular.
tonight we´re booked on an overnight train back to barcelona, this time in turista (second) class. on the train here we were in first class and it was grand: lots of leg room and almost fully reclinable seats. Second class didn´t look so nice - eight seats to a compartment with no reclining space and it looked very squishy. we´re going to do our best to avoid this at all costs.
Monday, December 01, 2003
Still Loving It in Barcelona
This morning we woke up to rain. Well, we thought it was rain, we couldn´t look out our window because we don´t have a window in our wee room, and it did turn out to be wet. However, once we got outside it stopped and it was once again warm for our wanderings about town.
We decided to start the morning in true Spanish style: by eating the national breakfast of churros (deep fried bread sticks) and hot dipping chocolate. it was fantastic and went well with espresso. All fueled up, we headed for the train station to arrange tickets for our overnight trip to Basque tomorrow night. The ticket attendant spoke absolutely no english so the three of us spent about 15 minutes grinning and nodding like mad fools. In the end we got our tickets and went away happy.
After this it was on the metro to La Sagrada Familia - a Cathedral that was started in about 1906 but is still under construction. Guadi was the main designer and the architects are still working from his original drawings. It was fascinating to walk around and watch the cranes, builders and designers working. What is finished so far is also gorgeous, very interesting modernist sculptures and kind of a dreamy style overall. The climb to the top of the tower was breathtaking, in more ways than one, and the trip down was welcome.
We took in more architecture this afternoon and then hit the shops. The shopping here is fantastic - gorgeous shoes and bags and the prices are all quite reasonable. Downright cheap compared to Ireland, but everything is cheap compared to there. And before we knew it, it was dinner time and here we are.
Tomorrow is market day and hopefully a Dali exhibit. At 10:30 tomorrow night we hop a train, hopefully fall asleep and wake up in Basque country. Chau!
This morning we woke up to rain. Well, we thought it was rain, we couldn´t look out our window because we don´t have a window in our wee room, and it did turn out to be wet. However, once we got outside it stopped and it was once again warm for our wanderings about town.
We decided to start the morning in true Spanish style: by eating the national breakfast of churros (deep fried bread sticks) and hot dipping chocolate. it was fantastic and went well with espresso. All fueled up, we headed for the train station to arrange tickets for our overnight trip to Basque tomorrow night. The ticket attendant spoke absolutely no english so the three of us spent about 15 minutes grinning and nodding like mad fools. In the end we got our tickets and went away happy.
After this it was on the metro to La Sagrada Familia - a Cathedral that was started in about 1906 but is still under construction. Guadi was the main designer and the architects are still working from his original drawings. It was fascinating to walk around and watch the cranes, builders and designers working. What is finished so far is also gorgeous, very interesting modernist sculptures and kind of a dreamy style overall. The climb to the top of the tower was breathtaking, in more ways than one, and the trip down was welcome.
We took in more architecture this afternoon and then hit the shops. The shopping here is fantastic - gorgeous shoes and bags and the prices are all quite reasonable. Downright cheap compared to Ireland, but everything is cheap compared to there. And before we knew it, it was dinner time and here we are.
Tomorrow is market day and hopefully a Dali exhibit. At 10:30 tomorrow night we hop a train, hopefully fall asleep and wake up in Basque country. Chau!
