It's sorta like sitting around the dinner table and having a spirited conversation.

April 7, 2007

We left Yokosuka at the crack of dawn and got a taxi to take us to the train. After a little travel, we caught the first Narita Express to the airport. We neglected to get reserved seats and ended up sitting on the floor of the train freezing our tails off.

Arriving at the airport, we were required to show our passports in order to leave the train station and enter the airport. Huh? Very strange! We headed up to the departure area, found our ticket counter and were promptly told that our connecting flight from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi had been cancelled. Uh…not good. Twenty or so tense minutes later they came and told us that they had booked us on the next flight and that we would just be about an hour later! Whew! We happily headed to our gate. Note to self (literally - I never remember this and always end up eating at the same strangle little stands): EAT IN THE MAIN TERMINAL…preferably before customs, but definitely before going to the gate area!

So after eating a hot dog and French fries for breakfast, we boarded our plane, illegally switched seats and prepared for the 8 hour flight. Nothing exciting…unless you count the fact that you could watch whatever movie you wanted whenever you wanted and/or play Pong, Asteroids, Tetris, and many other video games, or the fact that I slept for a long time (due to the 4 am wake up time and 12 am packing/talking to Josh time). :)

In Kuala Lumpur, we had dinner while Evelyn mildly freaked out about the rain and lightning that we were obviously going to take off in. We were also kind of freaked out by the lack of people in the huge airport in the capital city of Malaysia! There was hardly anyone there! Too weird! Our next flight was only an hour long and eerily empty too…which we decided must be the reason that the first flight was cancelled (Evelyn and I were probably the only ones scheduled on it!).

We arrived in Langkawi at about 9 pm and that airport was very quiet as well. We hopped in a cab (that sounded like it was not long for this world) and went to the hotel. We commiserated about the fact that it was too dark to see anything in this new land and what a difference it makes to arrive in the light. Arriving at the Sheraton Langkawi Beach Resort, we were greeted at the curb and our luggage was whisked out of the taxi and out of sight. We were ushered into the hotel, greeted, and told to have a seat where they would bring us drinks while they checked us in. They brought cold cloths that smelled lemony and felt SSSSSOOOOOO good after flying forever, and some kind of blue drink that Evelyn described as kool-aid without enough sugar. Since it was wet, we soaked it up.

After handing over our reservation information, the concierge came over and said that they were out of the kind of rooms we had booked, but that they were upgrading us to an ocean view room with a Jacuzzi. “Well…if you must,” we said. Once that was taken care of, they took us outside, loaded us and out luggage into an open air bus thingy, and thus began the Malasian version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. They guy obviously knows every nook and cranny of the resort, but we were pretty sure that falling out and or crashing were distinct possibilities. Happily, we arrived in one piece. The driver brought our bags in and we looked around out lovely villa. It had pretty wood floors, a couch, Jacuzzi tub, and cute little patio area. Heavenly!

April 8, 2007 - Easter: Langkawi Style

Langkawi time is very different from Japan time! When I woke up this morning, it looked like it was rainy. Evelyn was just coming inside from checking the weather and reported that the sky was clear. Confusion struck! Well, where is the sun???? Not quite up yet seemed to be the answer. Now for a person living in Japan, this kind of discovery at 8am caused much bewilderment. The sun is up in Japan before 5 am. Therefore, many of us who live in Japan are also up before 5 am. Imagine a place where the sun does not wake you until 8 am!!! Must be paradise! :)

I happily rolled out of bed, did my Easter devotion, and waited for my turn in the bathroom. Shortly thereafter, we headed to breakfast. The walk was lovely and we were pleased with the resort and the boardwalk to the main lobby. It is very pretty and there were monkeys all around to watch. When we arrived at breakfast we found that Katie, Bev, and their families had beat us there. They were headed out island hopping. We chatted awhile and heard about how we shouldn’t bother going to Cenang Beach and what they were going to be doing for the rest of the week so we could align our plans to theirs if we wanted.

After breakfast, we continued exploring the resort and finally headed back to the room. Although the pull of the pool and beach was strong, we decided to go into town to see what was out there first. We got a taxi to the nearest area, Cenang. The ride showed us that many of the hotels and spas on the island obviously hadn’t made it, though they looked very nice, and it was pretty deserted between here and there. When we arrived, we explored to stalls and stand and shops. We enjoyed it and were unclear why the others didn’t enjoy it.

After we finished browsing, we found a restaurant that looked clean and new, and went in for lunch. It was different from any restaurant I’ve been to because it had fewer tables than space allowed, the decorations were very simple, and they windows had no glass even though they opened out like regular windows. There were only men working and there seemed to be lots of them even thought there was only one other group in the restaurant. I ordered sweet and sour chicken and iced blended chocolate. It was all yummy! Once finished with lunch, we wandered to the end of the shopping and decided to get a massage before heading back to the hotel.

There are many spas and massage parlors around the island, and we had seen several in the short distance we had covered. We ended up picking the one closest to the restaurant. After much indecision, we both decided to do the one hour Thai massage for 119 Ringgits (about $40 or less than half of what an hour long massage would cost in the US). With that settled, they ushered us into a room with cots on the floor and linen clothes to change into. Uhoh thought I…these people are no bigger than the Japanese…the clothes will never fit me. Wrong – the pants were the largest things I had ever seen and hung even on me and the top was fine too. Poor Evelyn, however, was swimming in hers since it was obviously one size fits all…and they do mean all!

The massage was heavenly! They used a combination of pressure points and stretching and pushing and pulling. They used their hands, feet, elbows, knees, and whatever else was needed. It was very different from any massage I had had before, but completely awesome! After talking later, we found that both of us had been plotting a midweek massage in addition to the end of the week massage that had already been agreed upon! :)

Thoroughly relaxed, we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel, changed into swimsuits and headed to the beach. The ocean was the perfect temperature and we read and swam until we got hungry. We headed back to the room to shower and change, learned that we had missed dinner with the others, and headed out to the Spice Trader in the resort. It had some traditional Malaysian food and some Indian food and a children’s menu with chicken fingers and burgers. You will all be shocked to know that I ordered traditional Malaysian chicken cooked in coconut gravy and actually ate it even though the sauce turned out to be green. More importantly, I liked it and would order it again! Go figure!!! After dinner we headed back to the room to relax and blog and now I am contemplating going back for dessert. Mmmmm….

April 9, 2007

After breakfast, Evelyn and I decided to do the unthinkable…we went shopping with Katie and Bev! This is notable because Evelyn and I noticed in Australia that we are well suited for shopping – which means that we take one walk through a shop and are out in no time flat! Katie, on the other hand, asked before we ever left Japan, “Are you shoppers?” Non-shoppers recognize this out for what it is and generally do not subject themselves to shopping with a shopper (no matter how much trouble this gets them in with their shopping mothers).

But, this being a small island, the driver having only been hired for three hours, and an explanation – up front – that we would only be shopping until we tired of it, we set out. The driver was very friendly and took us first to a shop that specialized in batik. I was the only one of us uncultured enough to be completely clueless as to what we would be seeing. It turns out that it is a method of painting on fabric where they use wax to outline the picture, paints to fill it in, and then they treat it somehow so that it is perfectly safe to wash. From what I could see, they can frame them or even use them for making clothes. We saw several very pretty prints in progress and then, of course, you could buy them inside.

After that, we headed to the Malaysian Craft Center. The place was huge and had crafts as well as several museum type areas. Building led to building which led to another building…but I zoomed through all that in search of the glass blower. I read somewhere that you can try doing it on your own someplace on the island and I think that would be neat. Not as neat as throwing pots, but still pretty cool. When I finally found it, there were three guys sitting around watching a fourth guy do all the work. Shortly I realized that they all had their jobs and switched off often, but always completely silently. It was a little eerie. When I was too sweaty and hot to care that what they were doing was way cool, I walked trough the humidity and blazing sun back to the craft store to catch up with the others. As soon as Bev heard about the glass guys, we headed back up there to sweat some more. It was totally worth it, however, since I find the whole process fascinating.

Our last stop was at the oriental bazaar. It was very touristy, but nicely laid out. I bought a couple of things there AND was the last one to finish shopping. No matter that the first thing I did was find a diet coke and sit and read a little, but I still got props from the shoppers! ;)

That experience complete, we headed back to the hotel for lunch. Evelyn and I had to switch from the superhero room to the mortal room, but it’s still very nice. We then met everyone else poolside and enjoyed food and sun until it was time to get ready to leave for our adventure to Kuah. We had a van take us there so we could see the giant eagle. This was an important stop because the word Langkawi means brown eagle. After a few goofy pictures and a little more shopping, we headed over to dinner. Boy was it yummy! I had “sliding beef on hot sizzling platter” with rice and it was great. I also had two sodas and my whole bill came to $8.

After dinner, I had a chance to ask the big question of the day… “What the heck is up with the toilets?” I used one before dinner and had to pay 30 ringgits ($.10) to get in. There was also a sign near some tissue packets that said 30 ringgits, so I went ahead and bought those too. Upon entry, I found that there was no TP, TP holder, or anything to indicate that anyone had ever heard of TP. There was, however, a small hose next to the toilet and a drain in the floor. Since it was a regular western toilet, I couldn’t fathom how it all worked. After dinner, I got the full explanation from Katie. Basically, she explained why you don’t use your left hand at all here in Malaysia…except in the bathroom. Eeeeewwww!!!!! That issue settled, we headed back to the hotel and off to bed!

April 10, 2007

Sightseeing was the order of the day and it was lots of fun! We started at 9:45 am and piled into the biggest van we have seen yet. We had the same driver as yesterday and he is very knowledgeable, kind, and tolerant of our many questions. Our first destination was the Seven Wells…a waterfall that we had all seen pictures of in various places. When we arrived, the van could only get to the bottom-most point (though we saw parking much further up the hill). We all started the hike up and were soon wishing that we had never heard of the Seven Wells. A few hundred stairs later, we were glad there were seven wells as there were seven teachers who were ready to throw themselves into the wells and be done with it all! When we reached the last stair (stair #772 to be precise) we were thrilled and chagrined. Thrilled because we were finally up there and chagrinned that we didn’t hear any water. Katie assured me that it was one of those silent waterfalls that uses insulation to keep the people on the path from having to go to the bathroom because of constantly hearing the waterfall. Hmmm…a little further and we were rewarded with a view of the wells…minus the waterfall. Oh, there was a trickle of water dribbling down the side of the mountain, but we all agreed that Michael had sweat more of a waterfall than that. We did stick our feet in the water while we mumbled about the dry season and whose bright idea it was to climb up there, and then we headed back down.

The next stop was Taman Awam Teluk Yu. I have no clue what that means, but it was a pretty beach and the driver told us that the mountains in the distance were actually in Thailand.

This being the beach portion of the tour, we next went to Pantai Pasir Hitam (Black Sand Beach). According to the sign, the sand was black because of some mineral interaction or because a mermaid was mad at a fisherman and she turned it black…I like that one better, so I didn’t bother to remember the scientific explanation.

Our last beach was listed in my guide book as the best beach in Malaysia…not just Langkawi, but all of Malaysia! Called Tanung Rhu, it truly was beautiful. The beach was completely clean and flawless while the water was a crystal blue. We all walked down to stick our toes in and it was delightful! Hmm…a return trip may be in order. As we were leaving the beach area I noticed that one of the many cows on the island had wandered over and was standing on the beach. Now, as a Florida girl, I have been to a LOT of beaches and I have NEVER seen a cow on one! It was one of those weird moments…somewhere below standing in the Japanese bookstore and realizing that I could only read the books in the foreign section, and above the moment when the math teachers were leaving the school office for the math conference and our boss told us not to get too drunk. ;)

Our last stop was at the Summer Palace – the set of the movie “Anna and the King.” Apparently, they had to film here because The Thai government wouldn’t allow them to film there and they built the palace as a set for the movie. It was pretty run down since it has been closed as a tourist stop for a while. We couldn’t figure out why our driver kept trying to talk us out of going there, but as soon as we arrived, he hopped out and walked around the whole place. I think he was worried that it wouldn’t be safe since it was in bad shape and some of the boards were missing and broken. It was neat to see anyway…and we had fun trying to remember what we had seen in the movie.

Since our time was up and we had seen the main attractions (with the exception of the easy to reach ones), we headed back to the resort. Everyone decided to head down to the pool for the afternoon, but since we had done that yesterday, I decided to go into town to rent a moped. No one else really wanted to do that and I really did, so I headed off. Evelyn was funny…she said, “Where will I tell Katie you went because you know she will ask.” Since I didn’t have a specific destination in mind, I told her to tell them that I would be back around 5ish.

I grabbed a taxi into Cenang Beach and the adventure began. I had already picked the place I wanted to rent from because their scooters looked nice and new, not run down like some of the others. I walked in to pay and they told me that there was a sale today and I could get a scooter for $10/day. Fun, fun! What happens if I want to keep it longer? No problem, just call us! Hooray! I signed my life away…never showing them a drivers license or a credit card…and I was off.

Since I missed lunch, that was my first order of business. I found a place on the beach called Oasis. It is funny how easy it is to tell which places are for tourists and which ones are for locals. I ordered chicken fajitas and waited for my diet coke while soaking up the sun and watching the waves. Newly fortified, I set off. I had planned to try to cut across the middle of the island (we have been going around the outside of it mostly), but it looked like rain, so I just decided to drive until I was tired of it and head back.

On my travels, I saw a rice field with a little hut in the middle. Inside sat a woman whose job it seemed to be to assist the scarecrows with keeping the birds away. If one came too close, she would pull a cord that shook the tin bucket of rocks nearest the bird. There were several strings, so I think she had the whole field covered.

After that, I went along the coast until I found some residential looking areas. I wanted to see what a typical house looked like. They weren’t as run down as I imagined, but there were chickens running around all of them, and none of them looked like they had any kind of air conditioning.

Of course, in a typical neighborhood you find your typical school and outside of your typical school you find your typical candy store! The kids were mobbed around it and very happy. After watching that for a few minutes, I wandered near the school to see what that was like. The gate was open, so I walked slowly inside (in case someone wanted to yell at me and send me away). They didn’t seem to care so I walked nearer the building looking for an adult to sanction my presence. Before I found one, I was surrounded by kids…they were laughing and giggling and one finally said, “Hi!” I said, “Hello.” They were so funny! I finally saw an adult watching and asked if I could take a picture. She nodded and that was all the kids needed to see…they went wild! Grinning and pushing and smiling and making the peace sign…I only took a couple of pictures because it seemed like a riot was about to break out!

Putting away the camera I asked if any of them speak English. They looked at me blankly, but someone off to the right said, “No, we don’t.” Hmmm…whatever…so I asked if they could count in English and holding up a finger I said, “One.” That was all the encouragement they needed and off they went to ten! By that time, I figured I better get out of the way and leave them alone so I waved and started walking away to a chorus of, “Bye, bye.” It was pretty cute! Kids are the same wherever you go!

By then it was about 4pm and since I had no idea where I was, I decided to try to head back to the hotel. I asked for directions and was, unfortunately, pointed in the direction of the big storm cloud. A few more stops for directions later, I was back at the hotel, sopping wet, but completely thrilled with the adventure! And just think…that was only about 3 of my 24 hours with the moped!

By the time I got back, it was just about time to get ready for dinner. We met in the lobby and headed out to an Irish Pub. Luckily it was right across the street from the moped place, so while I was waiting for my burger, I went across the street and told them that I would be keeping the moped until I leave on Saturday! ;) Hehehehe!!! The only problem was that during dinner there was a downpour that ruined my images of zipping around in the cool darkness. Oh well…there is always tomorrow night!

April 11, 2007

Today was our day out on the dive boat. We woke up at 7:00 am – and it was still dark, by the way! We headed to Kuah after breakfast and it took us about an hour to get there. Once there we sat around for a long time, which made us wonder why we had to get up so early. Jim took the opportunity to take more pictures…who invited him anyway…and eventually we headed out to sea. After another hour or so on the bog boat, we arrived at Pulau Payar Marine Park. It was basically a small island with lots of sea-life around it. Evelyn got off the boat to snorkel and the rest of us got onto a little boat that took us to the dive site. We were in a group of four with Jim and I being dive partner and Thomas partnering with the dive master.

The visibility on the first dive was much better than I thought it would be since the sun was stuck behind some clouds. Within the first few minutes we say a moray eel who wasn’t too happy to see us. He was sticking his neck out showing us his fiercest side…he must not have been sure which that was because he kept waving back and forth. There were also small yellow boxfish, lots of Nemos (he sure gets around) and Dory fish, a lion fish, and one puffer fish that was about a foot long. After a while, I also found a HUGE moray eel who was longer than I am tall and very large around! He was impressive! Shortly after that, our time was up and we hit the top. I was pleased to find that I had 1000 psi and Jim and the others had about 1100…not bad for a beginner!

After a box lunch on the beach, we headed back out for dive #2. That one was even better than the first since the coral was prettier. There were lots of shades of purple interspersed with white…very pretty! We saw many of the same fish, plus lots of huge grouper and two little rock fish. I may have missed some because I didn’t get the same mask for the second dive and the new one didn’t fit quite right so I was always trying to get the water out of it and out of my nose. Then my regulator was leaking and I ahd to switch to my alternate air source. After that, I heard a clinking noise and started rising to the surface. Luckily I realized right away that I had dropped two of my weights and I swam down to get them. I wasn’t sure where to put them back and obviously I chose the wrong spot because I lost them once more. All in all, it was good to practice the skills we had learned during dive certification. :) No need to panic…just fix the problem. And now I have 16 dives under my belt…and I’ve loved every minute of swimming with the fishies!!!

When we got back to the hotel, most people had decided to go back to Sundays for dinner. Since I wanted to go driving, I decided to go into Chenang Beach with Evelyn, Michael, and Craig. We ended up eating at the one and only Italian restaurant on the island. It turned out to be owned by an English couple…but they sure made some awesome pizza! Mmmm! And they made it fast, so I got to go zooming around in the dark. Wow! What a blast that is! I got to see real life on Langkawi…all of the previously deserted road-side restaurants were full of locals, traffic was busy, the mosque was full of people, and the stores were jammed. I was really glad because all of the other times, it kind of felt like a dying island because everything was deserted. In reality, most of the people were probably just staying out of the heat of the day…unlike the crazy tourists who try to do as much as possible all of the time! Go figure!

April 12, 2007
We headed off into the jungle this morning for our Langkawi Canopy Adventure. The guy who showed up to lead us was a bit scary because he was uber-fit and very brusque. He piled us into the van and we headed off. Once we arrived at the park, he immediately got us into our harnesses and climbing gear. Directions and questions were fired and insufficient compliance or answers brought some much displeasure. “No sunglasses allowed… Tuck your shirt in… You must take a backpack… How much water do you have?”

Once we were all set, he headed off and up the 714 stairs that we had to climb. I don’t think he stopped once! The rest of us, however, stopped whenever we felt the need, and that was fairly often. We thought that we were home-free once we got to the top, but not so much! That just marked the beginning of the trek through the jungle – no easy task. By the time we reached the first ropes, we were all pretty exhausted. Bev was looking quite out of whack, as she is diabetic, but once she got some juice, she sprang right back into action.

Our first task was to cross a ravine by shuffling across one rope at our feet and hanging onto two ropes above our heads. It was more difficult than it looked, but overall, not too bad. Once across, we walked a little further to a spot where we got to jump off a rock and fly across another ravine. That was LOTS of fun and we all enjoyed it quite a bit. The view from the other side was very pretty, but the pictures don’t show it quite as nicely because of the shadows of the trees. Oh well!

The next adventure was rappelling, so we had to have a demonstration of that. We climbed three ladder steps and rappelled down the rock in hopes that would make us ready for the next challenge. Apparently it did, as we had a great time climbing down the next big rock. I decided that I really like rappelling…it is much easier than I thought it would be. Thomas is the only one who had a major stumble. His feet slid out from under him and he got caught upside-down. Katie cried because she though he was hurt, but he was fine and made it down in one piece. The others followed without incident.

The last section of the course was a longer rappelling section. This one was a little trickier and a couple of us, including me ended up crashing into the wall (I got an owie on my elbow L). This caused the guide to yell at us in, what Evelyn assured us, was a typical German way. He was a very gruff character and told us later that he was a mean SOB…we readily agreed! ;) All in all, however, it was a lot of fun to go flying and climbing through the jungle. And, we made it out before the torrential downpour that began as soon as we got into the van to head back to the hotel!

Once back at the hotel, we were too hungry to go change out of our sweaty clothes, so we ate down by the pool indoors. Luckily the rain stopped soon after and we were able to play a little in the afternoon. Evelyn and I decided to do a little batik painting since Bev and Katie recommended it so highly! It was great fun! The designs were already outlined in wax and all we had to do was paint them whatever colors we liked. We had a blast experimenting with different techniques and color mixes. Evelyn’s batik was much more artistic, but I was impressed when I saw mine all finished later that night. Joe, of course, couldn’t miss the opportunity to tease us about paint-by-number and warn us that shuffle board and nursing homes come soon there-after.

After that, the others went to the pool, but I opted to go out on my moped again. :) I love that thing! This time I decided to head into uncharted territory and ended up in beautiful Datai Bay. The road was windy and fun to drive, but since the sun was out, it got pretty hot. No matter…at the end of the road was the Datai Resort. I drove right in, parked my moped, hopped off, held my head high as I walked into the hotel, scoped out the pool, grabbed a towel and went for a swim. It was very refreshing and made the drive back even more enjoyable. I got back to the hotel in time for another dinner at the Spice Trader, this time with the whole gang.

Lambert Polacek Dwyer

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Laura the Looker

Goofy Guy

Good Looking Guy

Blog Rebirth

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Langkawi, Malaysia - Spring Break 2007

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Langkawi, Malasia

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