fatty crab, jungle trek, and a couple of mangy birds

We had a wonderful, wonderful visit with Ash and Turner - thank you SO much for making the trip to come here youse two - and as usual it felt very homey to have them around.  It is great having friends we like so much who we are also so at home with.  Kind of like family, only you can't yell at them and expect them to come back the next day.  So, like a politer version of family relations. 

But yes indeed, a good time was had by all... Ji and I went out to the airport to pick up A & T and enjoyed going out on the train after a lunch at the central station.  (As a side note, I love the way the Dutch write central station:  Centraal Station)  Ji had had a bit of a hard day the day before, not entirely sure why he was such a punk.  Maybe because I'd been away in Bangkok and he'd had Phet all to himself and got treated like a king and then had to readjust to mom's hardcore rules.  I don't know, but whatever it was was wretched.  Plus I was all tired out from staying up until, like, 3 am because of having been on my own staying up watching HBO for 3 days in Bangkok.  So we weren't really at our peak form to see the Turner Bristowes, but we were certainly extremely happy to have friends arriving. As usual Ji loved hanging out at the airport, and was thrilled to see friends coming through the gate.  Maybe one day he will have a super fondness for airports akin to my brown corduroy craze.  We'll see. 

Ash looked AMAZING, even more so amazing given her recent travel schedule.  Her tummy is, I am happy to report, now a definite pregnant lady tummy, but still at the point where it looks fairly comfortable and not ridiculously unweildy.  Heh heh, that time is just around the corner.

On A & T's first night in town we headed over to Phet's all time favourite joint, Fatty Crab for heaps of crab and chicken wings and fried rice galore with Kit, her Dad, Nelson, and Adrienne.  I'm not a big fan of the whole smash-n-crush shells business, especially when they are covered with sticky sauce but everyone else seemed to chow down contentedly.  Turner was also pleased to have bought himself his first of many kilos of mangosteens, and we passed around some rambutans he'd picked up as well. 

After getting sprayed repeatedly with crab sauce, and with Ji continuing on in his baaaad mood, I went off for a walk to the nearby pet store with Ash, Ji and Adrienne.  We saw some excellent creatures -- scorpions, a tarantula in it's flossy web, some crazy ass green snakes, and a python curled up in a water bowl. 

The next day we hung out at home and by the pool, and while Turner was doing interviews Ash and Ji and I went downtown to the bank with Phet and then through the central market.  In the evening we met up with Phet and Sunil for dinner in Bangsar.  Ash very smartly chose Korean barbeque and we demolished several plates of beef with garlic, some fantastic sliced pork rib meat, spicy shrimp, and all the itty bitty accompanying dishes.  Dad, you oughta have been there.  It was a serious feast. 

Post dinner we dropped by a fancy schmancy bar (with JI, hurrah for no laws against kids in bars!!) and Ji danced up a storm and charmed the ladies who were in black latex suits serving champagne for a moet & chandon promotion. 

Phet headed off to Sri Lanka the following day, and we went on an EPIC adventure downtown, starting with KLCC.  After spending aaaages trying to hail a cab in PJ (Note to Mum:  we actually live at deSa pesona, not deFa pesona, and we're in Petaling jaya, not Tetaling jaya...but it makes me giggle to get the envelopes, so feel free to keep them the same since they're getting delivered anyhoo) we were in a cab for 45 minutes just to get to KLCC.  Bad traffic, dumb road.  Grrr.  We toodled around KLCC, visiting the massage chairs (Ash's BIG favourite), the post office, and a few shops.  Then we hopped on the LRT and went to the central market, where A & T bargained down a couple of seriously hardcore chinese ladies for some very nice handicrafts - a lovely wood carving, some lights in the shape of flowers, some very very nice square wooden boxes. 

Amazingly, we kept going after that through the batik shop, over to Petaling street for some stall food, all the way through cramped chinatown, then back around in a loop to get the day's fix of mangosteens.  Ji slept from 3:30 to 7:00 in his stroller, and the rest of us had been going non-stop from 1:00 to 9:00.  And this with a pregnant lady!  We rule!

ROAD TRIP

On Saturday we got in the car and headed out on an adventure -- off to SHAH ALAM!  Ash intrepidly drove us off into the suburbs, and very incredibly parked us right next to a party outside the blue mosque, complete with free heaps of food and free balloons.  It was so perfect; had we gone around the usual way to the mosque we would have been amongst the crowds who'd come by bus and had to pay to eat at the stalls, but as it was we were treated by the municipal and munificent government to chicken satay, rice cubes, rice cylinders, regular rice, awesome beef rendang, funny spicy fruit stuff, flat rootbeer (REALLY refreshing, surprisingly enough) and dessert goodies.  Ash acted all pregnant and also got us some water bottles from the VIP table.  Right on! 

After feasting and feasting (this IS a continuing theme of this trip) and sweating and sweating (it WAS the middle of the day in the tropics out on a flat park under a plastic tent after all) we thankfully returned to the air con car and set about finding the Bukit Cherakah agricultural farm and gardens that we'd been planning to visit. Got turned around several times due to my semi-crappy map reading, but finally made it to the park in the burning hot sun.  We wisely decided to hop on the park bus and Ashley smartly decided that we'd just go around in the loop rather than get off and hike (S-M-R-T), so we got to view the park in comfort and trundled past the orchid garden, some cinnamon trees, some rice paddies, an elusive monkey, and vast tracts of jungley forest. 

When the bus got back to the starting point we were stupendously thirsty and even *I* drank a soda.   AND I let Ji have a popsicle.  So ya know it was damn hot.

In the evening we went out to eat roti and curry nearby, but very sadly Ash suffered from TUMMY (stomach, not baby area) DISASTER and had to be taken home after having to use crummy bathrooms at the McDonalds and the mall.  Orgh.

The next day we continued our adventures UN A BA TED and went downtown for famous runny egg breakfast.  Despite yet another wrong turn on the way into town and a massive detour as a result, we were well fed once again and had the energy to get out to the zoo.  Again, I led us on the wrong road (painful, continuing theme...) but we re-routed and got out to the zoo after a long while.  I loved the zoo, Ji had a great time, but Turner was depressed by people flinging food at the orangutans.  So that wasn't so good.  But Ash enjoyed the bird section, and we heard the lion howl, and I grossed myself out looking at a ostrich that had de-feathered itself.  Imagine the turkey that got stuck on Mr. Bean's head in the christmas episode, only with some shreds of feather stems left and a few bleeding spots and you'll have a very good mental picture of what the ostrich looked like.  Oh, and of course with an ostrich neck and head.  And legs.  Yeech.

And then, after the (pretty good if sort of depressing) trip to the zoo, I got us hopelessly, endlessly, universe of suburban evilllly lost on a ring road circling KL.  We had no one-page map, only a map book, and I could NOT figure out the best way to get home.  We wanted to go to Bangsar to eat, and kept following signs that were at least in that direction sort of, but we could NOT get anywhere.  I kept seeing signs for PJ, but then we never got to any place I even remotely recognized (except for a spot near where I took my cantonese lessons, but I'd only ever gone there on the LRT and didn't really know where it was).  The ring road just kept going, and going and goooooiiiiing.  And it wasn't marked on our map.  Later we found out that it WAS marked, but that its name changed about five times.  ANGRY!!!  I WAS ANGRY WITH THE MAPMAKER.  Somehow, unbelievably, Ash and Turner managed not to kill me and were MODELS of patience.  Then, after circling KL we ALSO circled PJ.  I kind of felt like I actually was on the highway to hell...just in the company of good friends and my (thank god!) sleeping son.

About an hour and a half after we'd gotten on the ring road, we exited at Bangsar.  We went directly to the restaurant where Turner and I polished off some beers and all of us chowed down on Indonesian style grilled fish.  Curse the gods of the highway.  I think it was all because we were trying to go somewhere other than Shah Alam.

Bangsar Shopping Centre was all festive with christmas stuff -- trees, carolers, free ornament-making for Ji, face painting (ok, not christamassy, but still rather festive).  I Dunno, I just can't get worked up about christmas when I'm in a tropical country in an air conditioned mall.  I used to like being in Hanoi for christmas because even though it was obviously not the major holiday of the year, it was at least cold.  Like, you needed a sweater and a hat to go walk around by the church downtown and check out the ladies selling the santa masks with fake beards. 

Here, yeah, it'll be christmas but I think we'll just be hanging out by the pool and working on our tans.

Recently watched Harold and Kumar, which Ji very much enjoyed, though he did keep wondering why it was that they had to so specifically go to White Castle, and why didn't they just go to McDonalds.  Without making any pot references, it was a little hard to get him to understand, but he did find the racoon-attacking-Harold part HILARIOUS.

JI'S THIRD BIRTHDAY

Then, on their final full day in KL Ash and Turner helped us celebrate Ji's Incredible Third Birthday.  A stupendous delivery-receiving/webcamming/balloon popping/robot walking/fried chicken eating/cake munching time was had by all.  Thanks, thanks, thanks so much.  Ji LOVED all of the gifts he received.  After much hilarity, Ash and I went out to do some shopping and came back beloaden with groceries and party stuff.  We all napped and then prepped for the party - cooked spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and iced 3 cakes.  Ash and Ji put together all the loot bags, which were a big hit (and contained all Ji's favourites -- seaweed, chocolate, candy, rice crackers, plastic insects, and haw flakes). 

Although the guests all came a bit late, around 8, and were wiped out from work because it was a Monday night, we had a fun time.  Everyone was well-fed, there weren't too many leftovers, the green tea cheese cake (!) however received a poor reception.  Ah well.  Ji was a bit over the top with his party-related excitement and Ash, Turner, and Phet and I had to take turns cooling his firey jets.  But he didn't puke and he didn't cry, so for a kid's party that's pretty good in my books.

PS:  Oh yeah, yesterday a pigeon came to die on my balcony, that was the other mangy bird.  It came, set down, puked up some whitish stuff, leaned down, keeled over, and DIED.  I was like "Uh Phet, can you come home and remove the dead pigeon from our balcony, pleeeease?" [Malaysia-2-December-2004]