Friday, December 19, 2008

Tokyo!!

After managing to sleep a couple hours on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo, we braved the cold and headed into the city. It was quite a switch from 80-90 degrees to 40 degrees, and to top it off, it was raining. First purchase, an umbrella. Then we just ran (literally since we only had 6 hours before heading back to the airport) through the city to keep warm and had a fantastic time. We went to the Senso-ji Temple, saw the huge pagoda, and walked through stalls and stalls of fans, swords, dolls, tea sets, etc. In order to escape the cold, we found a museum and amused ourselves playing any kind of drum you could imagine. Most of our time though was spent eating (no surprise there). The best was a sushi restaurant that we were pulled into by a man yelling at us from across the street in Japanese. As soon as we got in the door, there were waiters/waitresses everywhere also yelling at us. We couldn't stop laughing since they could have been yelling absolutely anything at us, and somehow managed to figure out the computer at our table to order our meal. It was delicious! We also found these crazy desserts which look like tiny billiard balls, but were flavored like green tea, red bean, coffee, etc. Despite the weather and our short time there, it was one of our favorite days of the trip. Tokyo is definitely worth another trip.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

A few more random photos...











Ko Tarutao











Krabi











Overlooking Phang Nga





Heading out to the fishing village island

Kuala Lumpur (again)




Our plan was to head south to Kuala Selangor from Pulau Pangkor, but once again we were thwarted by mobs of people trying to travel during a Malaysian holiday. So instead we returned to KL and see if we could see a new side of it. Somehow we couldn't avoid the mega-malls, but we also were able to explore some new markets, watch a battle of the bands (Xmas style), and have our feet nibbled on by pedicure fish (this was wierd! believe us). Then we headed north to a Hindu temple situated in a set of huge limestone caves. The temple was crawling with monkeys who could care less that humans were around, except for the fact that they could steal their food....Got Milk?










Sadly, we did not luck out as much on food in KL, which is surprising given its size. However, we did stumble upon the best breakfast ever and plan on bringing it back to the US for the State Fair. Here it is just french toast, but we'll sell it as "fry bread" and make a killing. It's three pieces of white bread with the crust cut off, layered with peanut butter in between, battered with egg and fried. Then, it is topped with sweetened condensed milk. If you've never tasted heaven, this is it.



One last stop in Malaysia before flying out on Tuesday....seems like we've been here forever and no time at all simultaneously, strange!


See you soon,
TeamWander

The promised photo as well as some other food photos






ABC




Laksa and Beef Curry

Dim Sum


The best fish dinner we had

Our Thanksgiving dinner

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Whirlwind through Malaysia

So only a week has past, but we're another country and four stops later which might make for a lengthy blog post, but we'll do our best to keep it short. Our first stop was the island of Langkawi. This is the duty-free beach haven of Malaysia, a long cry from our last island stop...about as far as it could possibly be actually. The Lonely Planted touted beaches so bright that you would need shades and they weren't kidding. Accompanying that was every ounce of tourist economy you could manage so we didn't stick around long. The guesthouse we stayed at was adorable though, and run by a Japanese women who had lived all over the world. When she found out we had just gotten married, she made every person who passed by wish us well in their native language. She handed out beer at the same time so quickly we amassed a table of people from all over the world and spent the night in great conversations, only interrupted by her playing the wedding march to keep everyone in the spirit.

The next stop was Pulau Penang, another one of those legendary places that you hear about, but would never imagine going to. It was much much more of a city than we imagined, however that turned out to be for the best, since it made for more places to eat. The cuisine in Penang is where the legend comes from and the food we got to eat certainly lived up to it. Yeah, we did some other stuff too, including hiking through a national park to monkey beach and dropping in to an icy theater to watch "Bolt" and the new James Bond movie... both of which we put on the recommended list for anyone who hasn't seen them yet.

After that we cruised up to the Cameron Highlands in the interior of Malaysia and spent a couple of days shivering. It's amazing how much the temperature can change over a five hour bus ride (the pitch of the road should have given it away). We didn't stick around too long as the weather was pretty wet, but we did take the time to tour a local tea plantation and have a pot of strawberry tea on the veranda.

The last stop in this post is another Malaysian island: Pangkor. It is much different - again - from any of the islands we've seen thus far. The biggest thing here is that there are very very few caucasian tourists. Apparently Pangkor is the Malaysian tourist getaway, and as we decided to come here during a school holiday, we got to meet that fact head on. It's been wonderful though, with some island side snorkeling and a decent collection of Malay food stalls to keep us fed. Ooh... a good story about that actually. In Malaysia they have two deserts that we have never come across before and will certainly be doing our best to bring home with us (in some way, shape or form): Cendol (pronounced chin-dool) and ABC (hopefully you can figure that one out). Both of them are basically like a big snow cone covered in anything syrupy you can imagine - in all combinations. We've had them both covered in molasses, sweetened condensed milk, cherry flavoring, gummy bears, peanuts, pinto beans, black beans and the piece-de-resistance green jelly-wormy-noodles. If it sounds intense, it is, but it's also perfect on a super hot day. We'll eat another one tonight and post a picture.

Much love, don't freeze!
TeamWander

P.S. We heard a rumor that NC State is in a bowl game!!! Party time at Mama Wander's house....

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Last Hurrah in Thailand

So we finally made it away from the hordes of people who travel to the beaches and islands in the south of Thailand by heading to Koh Tarutao national park - it is the lonely, blue/green watered island that you would imagine when you think of the perfect place!! To get there, we first had to stop in the port town of Pak Bara for the night before catching a ferry to the islands. The town was not much to speak of, but we had one of the best dinners of the trip in a little bungalow on the beach at sunset. Almost too perfect, but the mosquitos came out in a fury to remind us of reality. They also found a way to infiltrate where we were staying the night, so needless to say between them and the mouse (yup a mouse) also sharing the room, we didn't get much sleep.

Once on the island though, we couldn't have asked for more. We had a cute, clean bungalow, a set of half a dozen new friends that we had met en-route, and stretches of unpopulated, beautiful, white-sandy beaches. We spent a day riding around the island on a long-tail boat (basically a canoe with an 8-cylinder diesel engine strapped to the back) and our new friends, stopping off to explore vacant coves and try to do a bit of snorkeling. Other than that, we took our sweet time doing nothing - we finished books, laid on the beach, and had a blast for our last hurrah in thailand.

Next stop - Langkawi island in Malaysia, possibly the direct opposite of Tarutao... we'll report back soon.

Heard the wolfpack might make a bowl, yessssssssssssssssssssss!!

Go Pack,
TeamWander