Dominica Malcolm

There are 7107 islands in the Philippines. We limited ourselves to just one of the nearly 4000 inhabited ones so I suppose you could say we didn’t really explore much of the country. We still explored as much as we were able to with our limited time.

At 30.5 weeks pregnant, there probably aren’t too many women willing and wanting to get on a plane. To be honest, I’m not sure I wanted to either, but the flights had been booked since before I got pregnant, and I was already going to have to miss out on a trip to Macau in August, so the necessity of requiring a letter from my doctor didn’t deter me from the trip.

My first impression of the Philippines, upon looking out the window of the plane as we landed in Clark, was that it didn’t really look how I might’ve expected it to. In fact, I felt as though I could’ve almost as easily been landing in Australia. That impression didn’t last too long, though, once I experienced the congestion on the roads and realised they drive on the opposite side of the road as they do in Malaysia – that is, it seems the Philippines has taken more of an United States influence rather than the British like Malaysia. But this was perhaps to be expected, given their electrical power points and past histories individually… not that I was aware of the US’ specific involvement until later in the week. More on that later.

One of the things we like to do when visiting a new country we haven’t been before is to try the local foods – and fast food chains. When we arrived in Quezon City, where we were to stay for the duration of our stay since that’s where the friend we were visiting works, it was well after lunch time and we were hungry. Reileen (our friend) took us to check into our hotel and then to a nearby shopping complex to find some food. We would’ve eaten at Banapple, but it was too crowded, so instead we stopped in at the local fast food chain Chow King, which is basically the only fast food chain we’ve ever seen that serves Chinese-style food.

After lunch, Reileen had to head back to work, so we just stuck around the hotel until she got off and we could go to dinner – at a group of food stalls known as turu-turo (turo meaning point). Jeremy thought it would be good to try some local food at one of the cheaper local vendors. I ordered sinigang, which is a sour soup type dish, but I couldn’t eat. According to Reileen, they didn’t make it very well. Because I couldn’t stand to eat the sinigang, and Reileen said it was her favourite dish (before trying mine), I swapped it with her lechon silog, which is short for lechon kawali (deep fried pork) with sinangag (fried rice) and itlog (fried egg).

Since we had no specific plans for our trip beyond visiting Reileen, our morning was very lax and spent at the hotel until we decided to go out for lunch and see if we could get a table at Banapple again. This was mainly because the lasagna rolls I had seen on the menu the previous day had seemed too tempting to resist. They were so delicious that I will almost certainly have to see about making them myself.

I was going to get a pedicure next but I didn’t have enough time to before we were due to meet Reileen again, so Jeremy went to have his haircut instead. When we did meet up with Reileen again, she got us a taxi and took us to a museum at a nearby university. The museum had paintings by Filipino artists, as well as an interesting sculpture display in a kind of native basket weaving style that was making a statement about the Filipino film industry. We were told by a friend of Reileen’s that the film director who had overseen the project was expressing his disappointment about how their films were too Hollywood-styled and that they should be making more films that relate their own culture better. It was nice to have it explained to us. Doyle was just impressed by the figures with big penises.

Following the museum, Reileen walked us through the university campus because she thought it would be fun to take us to Malcolm Hall, which was the College of Law building – appropriately named considering our surname and the fact Jeremy studied law.

Though it was hot, we continued walking a little further until we got to a small shopping area, which was mostly filled with places you might need to go as a student, and some small food and drink shops. Outside the complex, we saw a man selling balut (cooked fertilised/empryo duck or chicken egg) but we were not interested in trying that. I did, however, get a nice strawberry flavoured drink from a shop called Zagu, but requested the removal of the tapioca pearls.

We then took a jeepney (public transport that is kind of a large tuk tuk, where passengers jump on board through the opening at the back – there is no door – and sit on a long bench on either side, squeezed between a bunch of other passengers) to TechnoHub, a shopping area in the IT district, in the hope that Reileen and I would be able to get pedicures. Unfortunately that didn’t work out so well, so we just took a taxi back to the area where we were staying to get pedicures there. We didn’t go to the cheapest place we could have, but considering we only paid the equivalent of about US$6, when I’m used to US$10 priced pedicures in Malaysia, or US$38 priced pedicures in Australia (none of which I had ever actually had), I was quite content to pay it.

Since Jeremy had gone back to the hotel with Doyle in the mean time, Reileen and I just picked up some supplies for our dinner, figuring Doyle would be asleep by the time we got back, which he was. I suppose after the lack of success with the Filipino food I tried the previous day, I was a little hesitant to try again. Though we did have some leche flan Reileen had made for us for dessert, which was quite delightful.

Reileen figured an early 7am start was best in order to avoid the worst of the traffic congestion since she hired us a driver for the day to take us down to Tagaytay, which was about two hours away from where we were staying. Our first stop in Tagaytay was the People’s Park in the Sky, which included a derelict, unfinished building/palace for a former Philippine dictator, President Ferdinand Marcos, and overlooked the town and nearby lake and Taal Volcano. Our second stop was to get a closer look at the lake and volcano from the back of a famous hotel in the town’s history, which was our driver’s suggestion.

We then made some other stops at a local market and Catholic church before stopping into a Filipino food restaurant chain named Densio’s, ordering a selection of foods to share. The best thing I had was probably the pineapple shake, but we also tried crispy sisig (pig ears, which thankfully we weren’t aware of until we finished eating), pinkabet (a vegetable dish with ampalaya and okra, squash, string beans with shrimp paste), kare-kare (oxtail in peanut sauce), and more sinigang, which I refused to try again. Though we were full by the end of such a large meal, we also ordered the Filipino dessert halu-halo (which literally means mix-mix, since it’s a mixture of lots of different things like jelly, jack fruit, tapioca, and other things, and was served with yam ice cream).

On our way back to Quezon City, we stopped in to buy some buko (coconut) pie, as well as pineapple and apple pies. We didn’t eat them right away, instead saving them for the next few days, but I would say the pineapple one was my favourite.

We also stopped in at the Mall of Asia in Pasay City, which is said to be the 3rd largest shopping mall in the world. I’m not really sure how the judge these things because although the Mall of Asia takes up a lot of land, it’s only two floors high, and felt comparable to Malaysia’s Sunway Pyramid, which might not use as much land, but still has a fair chunk of it, plus a lot more floors. Both malls have indoor ice skating rinks, probably of similar size.

From the mall, there was a magnificent view of the ocean, and the sea breeze was excellently strong, which is demonstrated by my hair in the following photo.

We detoured off the main highway on our way to our last stop, where I noted quite a few streets had been named in an American fashion – from Connecticut St to the numbered 11th, 12th, and so on streets. Is there any part of the country that hasn’t been influenced by the US? Our last stop before returning to the hotel was Reileen’s house, where she collected a movie for us to watch in the evening after Doyle went to bed. Dinner was simply leftovers from the previous night.

After a long day on Saturday, and expecting a long day on Monday, we decided not to get up too early today. The first thing on the agenda was to head out to a market for breakfast and to look at the stalls. This was actually where I found my first Filipino dish that I loved – embutido, which is like a pork meat loaf roll mixed with eggyolk, pickles, capsicum, raisins, carrots and celery. I ate it with a serve of white rice and a spring roll on the side.

There was a wildlife park across the street from the market, which we decided to visit next. Here we got to see a few native species to the Philippines, as well as some non-natives like Australia’s cockatoo.

Plans were made to meet some of Reileen’s friends in the afternoon, so from the wildlife park we took a jeepney to a train station, had lunch at a Jollibee (another Philippine fast food chain) at a nearby mall, then took the train to meet them. Unfortunately their plans to take a ferry down the river had to be cancelled due to the fact that the ferry didn’t run on Sundays.

After some quick thinking, the plans were changed, and we took a couple of taxis down to Manila Cathedral, which I believe was the first church built by the Spaniards in the 1500s.

From there it was just a short walk to Intramuros, which is the Wall City built by the Spaniards in the 16th century and houses a museum about the national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, who led the Philippines to their independence from Spain 112 years ago (the anniversary being June 12th, the day before we visited). At this location is where I learned the US occupied the Philippines not long after, which is why the Philippines seems so influenced by the US. I also learned from Reileen that the reason there are so many Filipinos in the US state of Hawaii is because the Americans wanted to basically steal the superior Filipino way of growing pineapples. Before we left Intramuros, Doyle decided he wanted to go on a horse and carriage ride.

Our last stop for the day was Ocean Park, a mall that overlooks the ocean, in the hope of seeing the sunset. Unfortunately it was a little too overcast for that, but we still enjoyed some drinks overlooking the ocean. Then we went indoors to a mostly Asian food court styled restaurant, where most people ordered Malay food and were unsatisfied. I was the only person who ordered Western food, and the only person who didn’t have anything to complain about.

We rose at 6am this morning since we had booked a cruise to Corregidor, only to be told when we arrived that I was “too pregnant” to board. Despite saying I was fine and would sign a waiver, they insisted that the lack of medical facilities on the island meant they weren’t willing to take that risk. This ended up being a wise decision by the cruise company since I fell ill only a few hours later, but in the mean time we wandered around some buildings nearby and eventually took a taxi to a Jollibee. We stayed there until we would be able to walk to the National Museum in time for it to open at 10am.

Unfortunately we were unable to explore the entirety of the museum since that’s when I started to feel sick – possibly from the heat (my face had been soaked in sweat even sitting outside at 7:30am), dehydration, or something else entirely. I don’t think it was something I ate, but who knows? It was a pretty bad stomach bug. So without getting to see any of the 4th floor of the museum (which was interesting, what we did see), I insisted we take a taxi back to our hotel, where I stayed for the rest of the day. In the evening we met a couple more of Reileen’s friends, ate a giant pizza, and watched Doctor Who. So much for trying to enjoy the local culture!

Since I was still unsure of how I was feeling from the previous day, I pretty much spent the whole day at the hotel again until we went out to have dinner at a Turkish restaurant across the street. Had it not been raining so much, I am sure we would’ve attempted something else, but as with most travel, you really must be flexible when the weather doesn’t allow.

The following day was another early start and simply included a trip to the airport. Jeremy had already left at 3am for a flight to the US, so Reileen rode the bus to the airport with me and Doyle.

The main lesson I learned is that sometimes it really is better not to have specific plans about what to cover when you’re travelling.

Copenhagen airport is pretty well hooked up to the city, with a train that takes only 12 minutes to get there. When we were collecting our luggage, we saw an ad for the Copenhagen card, which sounded like it could be pretty good value, so I told Jeremy to go ahead and get a 24 hour card, thinking we could start using it any time, and he got it to start immediately. My lack of communication of desiring to meet a friend in Sweden the following day meant that it wasn’t to be, since we now had to make use of the Copenhagen card. This card allows you to use as much public transport as you like, and gives the visitor free entry into a range of museums and other sights around the Copenhagen area. We bought the card at around 8:30pm, so all we used it for on the first was our train into Copenhagen, as we then walked to our hotel since we didn’t know there was a bus. When we arrived and saw the reception was already closed (it was before 10pm, and I thought it wasn’t supposed to close until then), and a note on the door for us to call a number to get our key, panic started to set in. Especially when we didn’t have a phone we could use. Luckily some other nice guests let us into the hotel, and then other guests helped us with the passcode to get our key, so we were able to have a bed to sleep in!

Though the weather was clear when we arrived in Copenhagen, it snowed overnight, and it was the first snow we’d seen since Manchester, so I was certainly unprepared for it again. Still, we ventured out and took a couple of buses to start with, to see a bit of the city that way, before getting off in the Norreport area and visit the Rosenborg Slot (castle), which is now a museum that houses royal antiquities and part of the treasury (including crowns). It’s amazing how much they’ve squeezed in covering every inch of walls and ceilings!

We took a break for lunch, which was Turkish pita sandwiches, as there seems to be a lot of this style of food around Copenhagen, and it’s fairly cheap compared to other options. Then we took the S Bahn out to Hillerod, which was about an hour away, in order to get to Fredericksberg Slot, the castle that was used by Danish kings after Rosenborg. Unfortunately when we arrived, it was already half an hour until closing, and Jeremy had lost his Copenhagen card somewhere, but since I still had the ticket from the last place, was able to convince them of the truth so we could both get in and see the castle. It was a rushed trip for a castle probably at least twice as big as Rosenborg, but everything was more spaced out so we did, surprisingly, manage to see the majority of the rooms inside. The Great Hall was especially impressive, with its paintings and carved ceiling, and probably worth the trip on its own.

We had planned to go to the Hans Christian Anderson museum on the way back to our hotel after that, but by this time, I was feeling too unwell to do anything else – probably a case of doing too much (and outside in the cold) over the course of the previous week. So I sentenced myself to bed rest for the rest of the night and then stayed in the hotel for the majority of the following day, leaving only to find lunch (when I’d hoped to meet Jeremy, but must have just missed him). Jeremy, on the other hand, walked around the whole city seeing sights and taking photos in -5°C temperature, so I’m not sure who got the better end of the deal (I stayed with Doyle, which was Doyle’s choice).

I was feeling much better on the 3rd, which was Monday (I know, I’ve been having a hard time keeping track of the days of the week). Jeremy planned on taking us to the National Museum in Copenhagen but when we got there, we found out it was closed on Mondays, so we decided to change our plans completely and hop a train to Malmo in Sweden, seeing as it is only about half an hour away by train, and we get to see another country that way. Not that this was totally spur of the moment, as we would have gone on Tuesday otherwise. We didn’t even have to go back to our hotel to collect our passports because there’s no border checks on the other end – that’s definitely one plus to the European Union. Speaking of the EU, if you were like me and assumed that the UK is the only country not to adopt the Euro as the official currency, you would be wrong. Both Denmark and Sweden also have their own currencies, which made things rather interesting for us, when we had no clue what the exchange rate with Sweden was when we got there, and decided it was perhaps better for us not to know.

Most of Malmo’s attractions are fairly close together, and close to the train station, which was really convenient. We decided to head over and see what their Slot/castle had to offer, which had also been turned into a museum. And compared to its Danish competition, it didn’t live up to expectation, though the museum itself was nice. We had lunch here, and showed our silly need to have traditional national foods by ordering Swedish meatballs with potatoes and gravy, much like what you would find at any Ikea around the world (speaking of Ikea, we didn’t go, but we did go past one on the train on the way into Malmo!)

Our museum ticket entitled us to entry to another museum down the road, so when we’d finished with the first one, we headed on down there until it closed.

Before we left Copenhagen, I’d also sent a text message to my friend Lova to see if she might be able to meet us for dinner. When we left the second museum, we found that she was, so we headed back to the town centre to meet her. It wasn’t quite time for dinner yet, given it was only about 4:30pm, so Lova took us to the local “nerd” shop, which she was pretty proud of. I like it when my geeky Internet friends take me to such places when I meet up with them, even if I have been to shops like that all over the world. I possibly shouldn’t have bragged about how many geek shops we have in Kuala Lumpur, however… Oh well! I actually didn’t spend that much time looking around the shop, instead favouring general chit-chat with Lova.

For dinner, Lova took us to a Danish restaurant chain called Jensen’s Bofhus that she recommended. I was glad that we had the opportunity to still meet up, despite missing out on Saturday, because I had a wonderful time with Lova and she was lots of fun. The food was definitely worth it too.

Lova joined us on the walk back to the train station since she could catch her bus from there, and then we said our goodbyes, and got on the train back to Copenhagen, arriving back at the hotel pretty much around bed time.

On our last full day in Copenhagen, we spent pretty much the entire day at the National Museum, except when we left to have lunch at a nearby restaurant, Riz Raz. I would’ve enjoyed it more if the majority of the “hot” buffet wasn’t already on the cold side, because the food was pretty nice otherwise. The national museum is incredibly large, and we didn’t even have enough time to see everything. Like the castles we saw on Saturday, this museum used to also house royal figures in Danish history. I thought it was a good look into Danish history, and it was interesting also reading about how some of the collections came into the museum’s possession, especially the artifacts from Ancient Rome and Greece.

We didn’t do much in the morning before leaving Copenhagen to travel to Amsterdam. Since we had some friends who live in Amsterdam, Jeremy took charge with the directions they gave him to their vacated apartment (they were in Australia themselves), which is where we were to stay for the duration of our trip. Unfortunately we ended up waiting several hours for the bus we should’ve taken, but it never came, presumably because of the snow. So we caught another bus to who-knows-where and got off near a shopping area to have dinner, and was fortunately on a tram route. Since Jeremy also had tram directions to the apartment, he managed to get us to our destination without drama after that.

After travelling for a few weeks already, and having found out I was pregnant when we were in Geneva, travel and morning sickness had really started to take a toll on me. And the snowy weather in Amsterdam wasn’t very friendly to my desire to leaving the apartment, which meant that I didn’t really do much over the few days we were there. I had hoped to trek down to The Hague via train but for a 45-60 minute trip, it was considerably more expensive than I’d expect to pay, and the day we planned to go was the snowiest yet. So, in the end, all I really got to admire was a lot of external architecture because even the museums in Amsterdam I might’ve been interested in viewing were more expensive than we were interested in paying. I think if I ever head back to the Netherlands, I’ll be better off staying in The Hague; at least I know there is art I’d really like to see there.

When we arrived back in London, the plan was to stay just one last night. Yet we were met with even more unfortunate circumstances on our day of planned departure when my handbag was stolen from the library in the suburb we stayed the night in. The afternoon was spent talking to police officers and the Australian High Commission in London, and our flights had to be changed because all of our passports had been in the handbag and there was no way we would be able to leave the country without them. So we stayed in London a few days longer than we originally planned, stressed out from these events and having to sort them out, though luckily for Jeremy’s sake, Consumers International has an office in London, which meant he was able to work from there rather than have to take more time off work. And while he worked, I took advantage of some free museums, taking Doyle to both the British museum (which was only a few blocks from our hotel) and the Natural History Museum. When you’ve just had to pay a huge chunk of cash to change your flights and buy new passports and you’re unsure if insurance will pay you back for it, it really is the time to take advantage of the free things you can.

We had more issues to deal with Malaysian immigration once we got back due to our visas being in the stolen passports but, despite the unfortunate ending to the trip, there were definitely countless worthwhile moments.

We arrived in Nottingham in the late afternoon of December 21st to spend Christmas with Jeremy’s family. Jeremy’s brother, Matt, moved to Nottingham with his family a couple of years ago to study a PhD in Theology, and his sister, Annie, and her family decided to trek over for a year at the beginning of 2009, so we thought why not have an English Christmas together? Jeremy’s parents have also been staying in the general area since October.

We didn’t do a great deal in Nottingham during this stay, mainly because we had visited in 2007 and also because Doyle vomitted as soon as we arrived at Matt & Bec’s door, so we knew it was best not to take him out to do too much. We did, however, have to buy a birthday present for Cara (Matt & Bec’s eldest), and our share of the Christmas dinner supplies (bread, fruit, cream, food and drink for the children, and table settings/decorations). Since Bec was also more than 8 months pregnant, it was nice for us to be able to help around the house a little bit. One of the highlights was Jeremy making murtabak from Malaysia to share with the family.

We also got to have a lunch at Annie and Matthew’s place, and we met their new baby Paige, as well as catching up with their other children, Ethan and Holly.

On Christmas Eve, we had a “high tea” at Matt and Bec’s place, which consisted of various finger foods, both savoury and sweet. Then the Christmas Day meal was a nice roast lunch at Annie and Matthew’s. Of course, before that, there was some initial present opening – I was expecting this would just entail Doyle from my immediate family, but no, I was incredibly spoiled and given John Barrowman’s CD by Doyle, as well as a large and heavy fitness device to hook up to the PS3 from Jeremy. You see, I thought getting to see a panto in Cardiff and a musical in London was my Christmas present from them! But more on those later. The main present exchange between family took place at Annie and Matthew’s place between the main course and the fruit/cheese course. Here I’ll make special note to highlight how brilliant Matt & Bec’s Brussels sprouts were (it was cooked with cream and bacon).

Of course, being the geek that I am, the biggest highlight of Christmas Day was getting to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special right as it aired!

I was unsure that we would be able to fit everything back into our suitcases after Christmas, but somehow we managed it, which was a good thing since we had to get a taxi at 9:30 the next morning. The taxi took us to the bus station where we were to catch the first leg of our bus trip to Cardiff for the day. It had a quick stop in Leicester, then we changed buses in Birmingham, and until the first stop the second bus made, I sat in front of a guy who was bragging about how much money he’d make on New Year’s Eve selling something for 15-30 pounds per gram. I don’t know what it was, but I can’t think of it being anything other than drugs. What was worse than sitting in front of a drug dealer was finding out that he was studying to become a surgeon. Not sure that’s the kind of person I’d want performing surgery on me.

Our bus arrived in Cardiff about half an hour late, but luckily I had accounted for the possibility when I booked the trip. We had enough time to check into our hotel and drop off our things before heading to the New Theatre to pick up our pantomime tickets and still have dinner before the show. It amused me that the panto was Robin Hood, set in Nottingham, where we had just been that morning.

Now, one might wonder why we would travel to Cardiff just for a panto, leaving early the next morning. Well, we had been to Cardiff on our last trip to the UK so we didn’t necessarily need to see it again, but this particular panto starred the aforementioned John Barrowman, who people might recognise from Doctor Who, Torchwood, and/or The Producers. I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly big Barrowman fan, as I was more interested in going for the novelty factor of seeing someone from Doctor Who live in stage. However, that didn’t stop me from feeling like I was squealing inside like an excited fangirl every time he was on stage and did something I particularly enjoyed.

Robin Hood’s major drawcard was Barrowman, which meant the first act was littered with Doctor Who and Torchwood references, the first being when Robin Hood said to Maid Marion, “I know a guy with a TARDIS,” and she replied, “Who?” to which Robin Hood replied, with a wink, “That’s the guy!” Of course, there were other pop culture references, such as the cross dressing Friar Tuck calling himself Mrs Doubtfire, and doing a couple of Catherine Tate lines from her sketch show. Catherine Tate was itself somewhat of a Doctor Who reference since she played one of the Doctor’s companions.

Being a pantomime, the story of Robin Hood was changed somewhat. First of all, there was no Prince John, just the Sheriff of Nottingham, who had the help of a witch named Cassandra. She made Maid Marion completely disappear via a magic act, which in turn somehow made Robin Hood decide he had to find Excalibur and go to Camelot – where they then sung a number right out of Spamalot. Claiming the magic sword then made Cassandra switch sides, and then show Robin Hood his future – with an ice skating number to end act one! I wasn’t really sure of what the purpose of the ice skating was except that it gave them a reason to show off and a reason to cast some television ice skating stars, who were unfamiliar to me since I don’t live in the UK.

Maid Marion wasn’t the only cast member involved with a disappearing magic act, however, as Robin Hood was too. He reappeared in the box in the middle on the right, closest to the stage, and made me wish I’d gotten a seat there, because it looked like fun to be the boy that John Barrowman was somewhat flirting with while he prodded the Sheriff with his mistakes. I know I said above that I wasn’t a big Barrowman fan before, but after this panto, I could definitely see the appeal that I’ve known others to see. And he’s probably even more attractive in person than he is on TV – and I was only in the 5th row. Maybe it would’ve been even more improved if I’d got to meet him! (LOL).

All in all, I thought the detour to Cardiff on our trip was well worth it just to see this panto, though even walking through the city (and not needing as much protection against the cold as elsewhere we’ve been on the trip so far) reminded me that I did rather like Cardiff, and perhaps we should’ve spent another night there. Then again I probably would’ve been too tempted to try and see Robin Hood a second time before leaving.

We got up early the next morning so we could make sure we had time for breakfast before we headed off to the train station. We had to collect our tickets and then take a train to Newport, rail replacement bus to Bristol Parkway, then another train to Didcot Parkway before making our final connection to Oxford.

Unfortunately the streets weren’t labelled what I was expecting them to be when we arrived, so I took us around in a circle before ending up right around the corner from where I initially decided I was lost, before I found our hotel. It’s a shame, because it meant we had much less daylight time to see Oxford before it got dark around 4:15pm. Despite this, we did manage to see a lot of amazing architecture around Oxford, and the outside of Oxford Castle (which we were staying down the road from), which also had a hill we could climb to get some nice views of the city. I’d forgotten my camera, unfortunately, but Jeremy got some great photos.

Oxford is, in my opinion, definitely worth the visit. In fact we probably should have spent more than one night here too – but I wasn’t exactly expecting it to get dark so early when I booked the trip, nor to get lost as soon as we arrived since our accommodation is so close to the train station. Still, at least I got us into a nice apartment so we could self cater instead of eating out.

We didn’t have to be up quite as early to leave Oxford as we did Cardiff, but we still didn’t have any time to do anything beyond breakfast before leaving. We got into London around 11am, and switched to the Underground to get to our hotel. At this time of year, and with what little time we had, it’s pretty important to make use of the Underground – so we got day passes to use.

After checking in to our fancy hotel known as The Langham (Jeremy booked it using some of his frequent flier points) and having our luggage delivered to our room, we headed down to the theatre district, where I hoped to collect my ticket to Wicked. Only I couldn’t find the theatre, so we hopped back on the Underground in order to get to Shakespeare’s Globe on time to see Footsbarn’s Christmas show, which we had tickets for at 2pm. I would describe the show as a cross between a Shakespeare mash up and a circus show. It was a cool experience to see the traditional looking costumes (the most interesting, in my opinion, was the guy who was dressed half as Romeo and half as Juliet). Probably the most stand out part of the show was when a women fiddled (ie played the fiddle) her way across a tight rope walk.

Since we’d missed out on lunch, we headed back to the theatre district for some food – Pizza Hut. I’d hoped to have had their buffet, but it was over by then. So we had their happy hour special instead. Then I wandered off to try and find my theatre again, only to ask a local and discover it was a couple of Underground stops away! So I went back to Pizza Hut to find Jeremy and Doyle to let them know, and then head off onto the Tube. I didn’t really need to rush as much as I did, but at least I got to my theatre with plenty of time to collect my ticket for the show. I wandered around the general area since I had about an hour to spare, and ended up picking up some cheap books to keep myself occupied whilst I was seated before the show started, and during the Interval.

I’d first wanted to see Wicked in London in 2007, just from seeing the poster. I hadn’t heard anything about it before then, but since I’d heard about lots of fans of the show. So what can I say about it? I didn’t have the best of seats in the house (in fact I was in row R, very high up and where you can hire binoculars from to see better), but it did not disappoint. I immensely enjoyed the story of an alternative version of The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, and it was a great take on how propaganda and those in power can skew the truth in order to get what they want. It was also fun seeing all the different parts intertwine with the story I was already aware of. Seeing this show was definitely one of the highlights of this trip for me, so I am thankful that Jeremy let me get a ticket as part of my Christmas present, and that he looked after Doyle for me.

The next morning (Dec 29th) was a little relaxing. I stayed in the hotel room with Doyle while Jeremy went to use the pool and sauna area. Then we checked out and left our bags there while we headed back to the Globe Theatre to use our tour tickets, which we’d bought with the theatre tickets. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to take full advantage of the exhibition, and even had to leave the tour early in order to have enough time to collect our bags and get to the bus on time to get to the airport. In fact we barely made it on time! Luckily, we did, though, or we’d have had to a) pay for another bus or b) get the express train from a different location and pay twice as much.

Our next flight was to Munich, Germany. I wasn’t feeling very well, and on the flight I was reminded why I hate flying whilst I’ve got a cold – the pain in my ears was terrible. Thankfully it didn’t last too long, and I had been able to get some sleep on the plane before then. At this point in the trip, and with five cities in five days, I’d become incredibly exhausted. It was pretty late when we got to our hotel, but I was glad that it was easy to find, and that the airport is well hooked up to the city with public transport (we took the S Bahn train).

We slept in until 8:30am (though I was still tired) and were able to have our free breakfast, before I called my friend Iris to see if she was up for meeting. Unfortunately she was pretty sick, so we headed back out on the S Bahn to central Munich. We wandered down the shopping mall area and picked up a couple of things we needed before heading onwards. I snapped a number of pictures of the great architecture in the area, and then we happened upon a free city tour in English, which we were able to join. Our guide took us to a massive cathedral, which we had already visited, but gave us a story of local folklore, and how the cathedral was built in only 20 years in the fifteenth century. It’s a tale that the architect made up to save his reputation, and was about how he tricked the devil to help him. Also on the tour we were taken through some of the older history of the royal family, right up to Hitler’s reign and things that are reminders to that period, plus some probably lesser known details, like Hugo Boss getting his start designing Nazi uniforms, and that being the reason a lot of men joined up. I learned about Nazi Germany in year 11 in high school, but it was interesting to get some more perspective on it in Munich, and hearing about how Germany is really the only country in the world with a history of genocide that embraces that part of their history and teaches about it to try and prevent history from repeating itself.

We ended the tour at the most famous beer drinking place in the world, the Hofbrauhaus, where we decided to have lunch of various German sausages, potato salad, and sauerkraut. After that, we headed back off around the city and I hoped to go into the Residenz museum but by the time we got there, it was closing in half an hour so we decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead we found some more interesting architecture on our way to the art gallery, the Haus der Kunst, (used in Nazi Germany time to display propaganda art), which had a special exhibition of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

On our way back to our hotel, we found a special cake place known as a konditorei for dinner/dessert, where I tried a German egg noodle dish (garnished with cheese and fried onions like the fried onions I get in Malaysia), and some apple strudel. Then we went back to our hotel for an early bedtime.

Our second (and last) full day in Germany was New Year’s Eve. Jeremy wanted to take me and Doyle to see some castles, so we hopped on the S Bahn to the central station, and just missed the train to Fussen. Since it was 2 hours until the next train, we went back into the town area and popped into a museum, a church (Munich has a lot of churches), and Jeremy climbed up a tower to get some nice views of Munich before we headed back to the train.

So we took the train to Fussen, which took about two hours, arriving about 3pm. Unfortunately the Nauschwanstein castle was closed for New Year’s Eve (much like everything else that would’ve been interesting to see in Munich), and Hohenschwangau closed at 3:30pm, so we just wandered up around the outsides of the castles to take photos. Of course, as I’ve already pointed out, Germany isn’t particularly open for New Year’s Eve, and thus the restaurants we wanted to go to for dinner all shut by 5pm. Fortunately this meant we caught the only bus back to Fussen we had left available to us at 5:40pm so we didn’t miss our train (we had misread and thought we had until 6:20pm or so, not realising NYE was different). And the only restaurant open in Fussen was an Italian one, which was nice, except we wanted to have more German food before leaving Germany.

We did catch the last train back to Munich that night (7:05pm), and it was full of Germans already with alcohol in their hands, drinking, getting ready for NYE in Munich. The crazy more-than-necessary-alcohol-that-early-in-the-night I encountered on the train (not to mention the empty beer bottles strewn about) put me off doing anything to bring in the new year, so we just went back to our hotel and were in bed by around 10pm. No countdown for us, but we did see some early fireworks.

New Year’s Day didn’t allow for much in the way of sight-seeing since it was another travel day, but we did manage to meet up with my friend Iris at the airport, who was finally feeling a little better. So it was good to get to meet her, even if it was just at the airport. We were flying to Copenhagen, with a stopover in Dusseldorf. Copenhagen will be written about in the next post.

We left Kuala Lumpur in the middle of the afternoon on Dec 12th, then arrived at London Stansted airport around 10:30pm GMT. It seemed maybe a hundred other travellers had the same intention as us to spend the night at the airport, and a lot of floor space was used up by people who’d brought their own sleeping bags and other bedding. I happened to have a small blanket, but nothing more. I didn’t get much sleep at the airport, but certainly more than Jeremy or Doyle did, and at least Doyle had been able to sleep on the plane.

Early the next morning, we flew to Geneva, Switzerland. Flying above a bed of cloud was incredible to look at, and so thick to fly through before landing. There it was obvious we would not be able to see the sky at all during our stay in Geneva, and indeed we arrived to a sprinkling of snowfall.

Dec 13th, when we arrived, was the last day of the Escalade festival weekend, so after we checked into our hotel, we headed out to the old Geneva area to see some of the festivities taking place. On the way, we stopped off at the Christmas markets and tried some hot chocolate and mulled wine in a heated tent. The festivities included parading drummers and flautists, people wearing traditional Swiss costumes, and demonstrations. We didn’t stay out too long, however, as we were not dressed especially well for the weather – and in fact I’d had to buy a hat and gloves at the markets because I’d forgotten to bring my own, and no other shops were open.

The reason we went to Geneva, however, was because Jeremy had a WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) meeting to attend for the week. So most of my week was spent looking after Doyle, and only heading out of the hotel for a couple of hours a day, in which Doyle slept for most of that time. The sleeping was desirable for me because it meant I didn’t have to deal with Doyle complaining about the cold. Though he did like getting to see the snow when it snowed over the last couple of days in Geneva.

Highlights include:

• Getting to meet one of my new Internet buddies, Tamara, and her son. She took me to the Coop shop restaurant for lunch, and then we wandered through some shops for a while before stopping for hot chocolate and then saying goodbye. Doyle fell asleep when we got to Coop and then stayed that way until after we got back to the hotel.
• Visiting the Art and History museum, which was on the bus route the left from the front of our hotel.
• The free breakfast at our hotel every morning.
• Witnessing a protest of some description out the front of the UN building before catching a tram.
• Trying out the cheese fondue.

We left early Saturday morning, Dec 19th, to head to Manchester, but our flight was delayed about two hours due to bad weather in the UK delaying our plane’s arrival in Geneva. This didn’t matter too much, though, since we were meant to be meeting Jeremy’s parents in our hotel, but they weren’t even there when we arrived anyway. It was actually very convenient to get from Manchester airport to central Manchester by way of the train. And our hotel was, luckily enough, only around the corner from Piccadilly train station. While we waited for Jeremy’s parents to arrive, we headed out to a couple of pound stores, where we picked up a couple of things for a pound. Just after we got back to our hotel from that outing, Jeremy’s parents walked in the door. It was around 5pm by then, but it had already started to get dark around 4pm – certainly not what I’m used to, where sunrise and sunset doesn’t really change time of day at all in KL.

Our only full day in Manchester was spent mostly visiting a museum at the University of Manchester, and I spent a great deal of time reading about Charles Darwin at a temporary exhibit. We stopped at a pub for a cheap pub meal on our way back to our hotel, but were kicked out because Doyle was under 18 and apparently not allowed there, so we were directed to a different pub he was allowed in.

In the evening, Jeremy’s parents looked after Doyle so that we could go out and see a Pet Shop Boys concert – our prime reason for going to Manchester, and my Christmas present to Jeremy. From those I’ve told about the concert beforehand, I got quite a bit of negativity, which wasn’t very nice because I don’t like to judge anyone based on musical tastes or otherwise. Nevertheless, I am going to proudly announce that I thoroughly enjoyed the show – it was quite a spectacular night, which I would describe as a live music video. The special effects and dance routines were indescribable, and I am so glad to have joined Jeremy on this outing. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen musicians as famous as the PSB live but definitely worth it. I’ll admit I got a little excited and looked at Jeremy when my favourite Pet Shop Boys songs were performed.

We had a little time to check out some more of Manchester before we left the following day, so Jeremy and hopped on a bus and got off near the town hall, where we found Christmas markets that were of a much higher quality than those of Geneva. Overall I thought Manchester was a charming city, and I wished I’d had another couple of days there to see more of it.

We hopped on a train in the afternoon to Nottingham, where we will be for Christmas. But I’ll write about that in my next post.

If you checked out my previous post, you’ll have noticed I went to Vietnam this past weekend for my birthday. However, the Cu Chi Tunnel experience was only an hour out of one day, and I have much more to share about the time I spent there.

We arrived at our hotel in Saigon around 12pm Saturday afternoon and checked in. It took us a while to decide whether we wanted to book any of the tours the hotel had on offer, and what else we might be interested in doing. In the end we decided to book a tour that took us to other regions in Vietnam the next day, and check out the other locations in Saigon ourselves. The first thing we wanted to do was book tickets to the water puppet show we’d seen mentioned, and had discovered needed to be purchased in advance on the day. Google helped us find the exact location and address, but we still got turned around a lot because I got confused by numbers on buildings, and we ended up stopping at a side stall for some cheap soft drinks before finding the theatre. Tickets were already sold out for the first show, so we booked tickets for 8pm.

It was already nearly 3pm by the time we made it to the back of the Reunification Palace, and we were informed it closed at 4pm, so we decided to save that visit for another day, instead venturing on to the Ben Tanh Markets, which included a lot of different stalls selling a wide range of items, from fruit and vegetables, pig intestines and meat, to traditional and modern clothes, and other tourist collectibles, with a lot of focus on lacquer goods. Whilst there, I picked up a nice purple wig for less than US$10 – something that would generally fetch at least $US75 anywhere else I’ve seen similar wigs. In fact I was tempted to buy a few different colours since it would be much cheaper than dying my hair another colour every time it fades. Of course I wouldn’t be able to style it in the same way, though. I also picked up a traditional Vietnamese dress/pant combination – as I mentioned in my previous post, I think this outfit looks incredible. I hope that I’ll be able to wear it sometime. I’m thinking maybe in a stand up routine…

After that stop, we headed back toward the hotel, stopping only really to pick up and try some toasted banana from a street hawker, and marking on our map the restaurant we wanted to come back to for dinner, Pho24. It was only around 5pm or so by then, so not quite time for dinner yet. It was nice to have a short break at the hotel before heading out again, back to Pho24. There we tried some traditional Vietnamese food, which was very yummy, before heading back to the theatre.

The Vietnamese water puppet show, I have to say, is a must see if you ever visit Saigon. It’s not in English, but few words are actually spoken anyway. It’s incredible to listen to the traditional music tell a lot of the story acted out by puppets in water. I don’t even know how the puppeteers managed to control the puppets without scuba gear, to be honest. They didn’t have especially long arms when they revealed themselves at the end of the show. It was definitely cleverly done, and an experience I don’t think I’ll ever forget. And at only 70,000dong (less than US$5) for 50 minute show, it is worth every dong. Doyle was so enthralled with it, he applauded throughout the show three times, and again at the end, without really being prompted to do so.

Having spent the majority of our dong, which we had changed from US dollars at the airport, by now, we attempted to withdraw more cash from ATMs, with no luck from Australian or Malaysian cards. Luckily most of what we needed to pay for for the rest of the trip could be charged to our hotel and paid for on credit.

The following day, Sunday, was our only full day in Vietnam, and my birthday. We woke up at 7:30am and managed to enjoy our included buffet breakfast (which, for me, was a mix of Western and Vietnamese breakfast) before meeting our tour guide, Tam, in the reception area just after 9am.

The tour was only meant to have two stops in country Vietnam, but since we had booked to leave so early, Tam took us to a lacquer factory to see some Vietnamese people working on art pieces made out of duck egg shells and mother of pearl, then covered with lacquer. It compared well with a similar stop our private tour in Phuket, Thailand at a jewellery factory, complete with shop section where they encourage you to buy something. Despite these items costing about 3 times as much as similar if not identical items in a mall or market in Saigon, I don’t have any problem with us paying that extra amount. Vietnam can do with the money – it appeared to be the poorest of all Asian countries I’ve been to, given that motorcycles were the primary transportation vehicles on the road, above cars, because cars are far too expensive for the Vietnamese people to buy. It really puts things into perspective, when you hear about some Westerners complaining they can only afford a small car. Big whoop. At least you can buy a car! Anyway…

We took so long choosing what to buy from the lacquer factory that we ended up being half an hour late to Tay Ninh to see a ceremony of the unique to Vietnam Cao Dai religion at the largest temple of its kind. We did, however, still manage to see inside before the end. Tam told us that since the Vietnamese government don’t allow the Caodaists to really publicise for new members, they allow tourists in during these ceremonies to help get the word out about their religion. She also told us that the religion takes bits and pieces from several other religions, and they consider it a third generation religion (an example she gave of first generation was Catholic, and second generation, Protestant). I believe she said they only started in 1920.

We were then taken to a nearby restaurant, where we were served mostly Vietnamese food, but also French bread and Chinese style fried rice. There was too much for us to finish it all, but I’d have to say the spring rolls were my favourite part.

Our final stop on the tour was to see the Cu Chi Tunnels, which I wrote about in my previous post. Although the driving was longer than the actual stops we made, I enjoyed looking out at the scenery during the drive. It was nice to see that the Vietnamese cultural differences were still apparent, and I was a typical tourist wanting to take photos of the ladies riding bicycles in their special Vietnamese cone shaped hats and Vietnamese style clothing. It was also interesting to see just how much they could fit on the top of a cyclo (cycle-rickshaw) or even bicycles. On our bus trip to our hotel, I even saw someone carrying two thick, double bed size mattresses on top of his cyclo! Apart from the people, I was intrigued by the architecture – a lot of 3-4 story, narrow-front houses but reached backward a long way, and often bunched together. I enjoyed seeing the temples, and noting the rubber tree farms.

Upon arriving back to our hotel in Saigon, Jeremy had organised a birthday cake to be sent to our room, and my birthday was acknowledged by the hotel with a basket of flowers. It was a great way to end the day. Though it wasn’t technically over, since I also went to a nearby mall after that, while Jeremy looked after a sleeping Doyle.

We didn’t really have much time on our final day to do everything we wanted, so we just picked out what we wanted to do the most. After a similar buffet breakfast in the morning, we set off out to the Reunification Palace, where it was only 15,000dong (less than US$1) to enter. The building, as we learned in the basement inside, was once built by the French, who began occupying South Vietnam in the late 1800s. This building was later given to a Vietnamese leader in the 1950s, when the UN stepped in to resolve some conflicts. Then it was bombed in the early 1960s, and rebuilt as the Presidential Palace for South Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Obviously it was renamed the Reunification Palace after North Vietnam won the war. There were several floors to explore in the palace, reaching up as high as the roof, where you can see an old army helicopter, then the 4 or 5 levels in between that and the basement. Most of the large rooms seemed to be dining rooms of some description, but there was even a theatre room inside!

There was only one room inside that included documents and information about the building and the Vietnam war, but that was interesting in itself. I noted that in that room, and in the documentary we watched in Cu Chi, there was a lot of anti-American sentiments, despite the fact the US was not the only country sending troops to support the South Vietnamese people. I think the photograph in that room that saddened me the most was one of dead Vietnamese villagers, including a nude toddler, labelled as having been killed by Americans. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget that photograph.

After the Reunification Palace, we headed back to the hotel to eat as much more of my birthday cake as we could stomach for morning tea, and then checked out of the hotel, leaving our bags for a couple of hours while we went off to explore a couple of other sights listed in tours we could have gone on – the Opera House, Notre Dame Cathedral, and Central Post Office. We didn’t think we had enough time to go to one of the nearby museums after that, so we stopped for a drink at a nearby Vietnamese café. Having had an incredible hot chocolate at a Vietnamese restaurant in Malaysia, I decided to have a similar hot chocolate at this café. It was hot chocolate mixed with peppermint grenadine, honey and whipped cream, named “Titanic,” and absolutely divine.

Since we didn’t have time to visit any of the museums or temples in Saigon, I have decided that I will definitely have to return one day. And most likely buy more things from the Ben Tanh markets.

The best end to the holiday was seeing and helping Doyle learn to read a few words, and draw a lot of faces with legs. He can now definitely identify “Doyle,” “Mummy” and “Daddy,” without having to sound out the letters, and is getting good at sounding out letters to the words he doesn’t know. It was also a joy to hear him spell “dog” without reading the letters on his magna-doodle.

I never learned about the Vietnam war in school. I decided I wanted to travel to Vietnam this past weekend, for my birthday, because I tried out a couple of Vietnamese restaurants while living in Malaysia and decided I loved their food. I also saw an example of their national dress here, and thought it looked brilliant.

However, spending even a weekend in Ho Chi Minh City, more commonly known to Westerners as Saigon, it is hard to ignore the relics of the war where the top 3 nationalities helping the South Vietnamese were Americans, Koreans, and Australians. And given the North Vietnamese won the war, it was interesting to see how this history was painted, and I would expect rather differently than the stories that were told in the US or Australia. But I could be wrong, as I’ve currently only seen some of the Vietnamese perspective.

We hired a tour guide to take us to the Cu Chi Tunnel Complex, which were used by guerrillas supporting the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. It’s hard to describe what it was like to see and experience the tunnels first-hand, trying to comprehend exactly what the Cu Chi villagers lived through. What was it like to be there, living through it, wondering if you’d ever see another sunrise?

Our guide took us along an hour walk through the jungle. Our first stop was at a secret entrance to the tunnel system, just big enough for a person to fit through if they held their arms upwards, because it was too narrow for your shoulders otherwise. The opening was camouflaged by dead leaves on the ground, but the lid to the entrance itself made of wood. Tourists were encouraged to try it out. And it was far too deep for me to get out of by myself! I couldn’t even grab onto the sides of the tunnel with my shoes to help push myself up.

Here’s a photo of me getting out of this narrow entrance, with the lid on the ground in front (action shot, since my arms are blurry):

I really don’t know how it was even possible for the Cu Chi guerrillas to have got further than the tunnel entrance after that. It was pitch black, and the sounds outside were barely audible unless I tried to focus in specifically on words that were being spoken, like my husband asking my son, “Where’s Mummy gone?”

The tunnels themselves were three levels deep. People lived in the first levels – and not just men, like you might expect, but women and children, too. In fact, from the documentary we watched at the end of the tour, there was a lot of evidence of women being very involved in the guerrilla tactics. It was hard to breathe when you got down to the third level, about eight metres below ground. Ventilation to the lower levels was carefully hidden inside fake termite nests.

Though the tunnel system spans 250km, tourists are invited to experience a slightly larger (for people to fit) 100m long version of the tunnels, built specifically for tourists, with exits about every 20m in case they don’t want to go the whole way. It’s definitely something claustrophobics would want to avoid. I’m a small person, but even I seemed to have an arm touching a wall at all times, not to mention the crouching for the full length, minus the part we had to slide down, or when we went to lower or higher levels in the tunnel – they were the only chances we had to make our bodies straight. My son, on the other hand, was short enough to walk the whole way through. And at least in the tourist system, they had lights set up through some of it – though without the guide with the flashlight (and when I got a little far behind), it would be (and was) impossible to see anything. I worried about if there would be a sudden drop, because I had been warned moments before that there was a part to slide down coming up soon.

While watching the documentary at the end of the tour, and realising that these were guerrillas who built the tunnel system, rather than the North Vietnamese army, I started wondering. Do you suppose in wars, if there’s a side with guerrillas, that side has a better chance of winning? It worked in Vietnam. The Viet Cong really believed in what they were fighting for. They were from South Vietnam and believed communism was better for their country. What of the Americans and Australians? How many troops in those armies would have understood why they were fighting a war on foreign soil? How many would have signed up just because it was a “job”? I can’t speak for America, but I know when I was in high school, the Australian Defense Force certainly marketed joining the army, navy or airforce as a great way to further your educational studies all on the Government’s dollar instead of your own, and with little to no focus on any awareness that you might be sent out into a war. Is that what it was like in the 60s and 70s, when we sent troops to Vietnam, too? Well, maybe not, since tertiary education in Australia was probably free back then. I know my mum got free tertiary education in Australia in the 70s.

I don’t have any stories of family members’ experiences in any war. No World War I. No World War II. No Korea, or Vietnam. I don’t even know anyone now who was sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Until visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam, my only knowledge of war came from text books, classes, movies, and things that were vaguely discussed in passing.

Seeing things first hand is one of the best ways I learn. Before going to Vietnam, I never once wondered what it would really be like to be out there, fighting, wondering if you would even live to see another day. Now I at least hope those involved in fighting in these wars know what it is they’re fighting for, and that they’re fighting for something they believe in.

If you don’t know me well, or you haven’t known me long, you would probably be unfamiliar with the fact I used to perform a bit of stand up comedy. I got into writing comedy at 15, when I was year 11 in high school, and started performing when I turned 16. My first public performance was for the MICF Raw Comedy competition back in 2000. I then went on to perform on and off for the next 2 years, until I finish decided to quit after entering Raw Comedy again when I was 18. After that, I sort of dropped out of the comedy scene. Sure I attended the Melbourne Comedy Festival for the third time that year, but it wasn’t the same as I was no longer performing, nor making an effort on my Australian comedy web site, ComedyDownUnder.com.

Since then, I’ve performed stand up twice – once in Ireland in 2004, when my tour group convinced me to do an impromptu 5 minutes in one of the pubs we visited, and then again when I entered Raw Comedy for the 4th time, in Perth in 2006.

However, earlier this year I realised just how much I had been missing comedy from my life. This is why I desperately attended the Melbourne Comedy Festival again, for the first time in six years. I started writing again, but writing for an Australian audience because I didn’t think I’d be able to find stand up comedy in Malaysia.

How wrong I was! When I got back from Melbourne, I ended up finding out about Timeout KL Comedy Thursday, which has been running for a couple years. I attended my first show in June, partly to see what comedy had to offer here, and partly to see if I felt like I could perform for a Malaysian audience.

Since then, I’ve met a good portion of the Young Comedians of Malaysia (YCOM), attended numerous shows, and been welcomed (and encouraged) to take an open mic spot at one of the Timeout KL comedy nights. Other comedy night have also since cropped up, with the biggest one being The Comedy Club KL. This club is pretty significant, as every month they bring in a couple acts from overseas for three nights (the first night at PJ Live Arts, Jaya One, PJ and the latter two at Zouk nightclub in KL). Next month we’ll be getting Jeff Green, which I am pretty excited about.

If you’re interested in regular stand up comedy nights in KL, here’s the general schedule:
First Thursday of every month: Timeout KL Comedy @ Little Havana, Changkat Bukit Bintang
Third week of every month (Wed/Thurs/Fri): The Comedy Club KL

There has also been a couple comedy nights at Urbanattic in KL, but the nights haven’t been consistent so I don’t know when I say the next one might be.

And the big news? Next Thursday, 1st of October, I’ll be hitting the stand up comedy stage again, for the first time in 3 and a half years, and the first time in Malaysia.

This past weekend saw the end of Ramadan on the Islamic calendar, and thus Monday and Tuesday were public holidays here in Malaysia. This gave Jeremy a couple days off from work, so we decided to venture into a neighbouring state, Negeri Sembilan. We didn’t have a specific plan or destination, though we knew there were a couple places we were interested in seeing.

The traffic was busier than I expected at some points, but I suppose that was due to the holiday. I ended up driving until I found an organic farm with a restaurant attached on the side of the road, in between Seremban and Kuala Pilah. It was around lunch time by then, and we were getting hungry. I ended up ordering deep fried sweet and sour fish, expecting the kind of deep fried fish I am used to back home in Australia. But when our order arrived, i had an entire deep fried fish staring at me. I felt sick. Jeremy had to turn the fish around so I didn’t have to see it looking at me. And he had to take the meat off for me, as I absolutely detest fiddly food where you have to pick the meat off/out (I can’t even stand peeling oranges). But it taught me a valuable lesson about seeing deep fried fish on the menu – don’t automatically assume the fish is de-boned or de-scaled. Ask first. If in doubt, don’t order fish.

Jeremy took over the driving from there, and we saw a lot of amazing looking kampungs and Malay architecture on our way to Sri Menenti. However, it was also raining quite heavily, so we didn’t get out to look around. This was probably also the reason the museum at Istana Lama was closed, though that may have been the holiday. We ventured on to Kuala Pilah to see if we could find somewhere to stay for the night. It had stopped raining by the time we arrived there, but bad news as the town’s only hotel was completely booked out for the night. Instead we had to find the rest house. They had a room available, but the quality of accommodation was poor. The water in our room was completely broken, and they had to give us a bin-sized bucket of water just so we could flush the toilet. That wasn’t even the worst of it. We were certain we must’ve heard rats scurrying around in the ceiling, a giant cockroach was spotted outside our room, and we had a lizard living in the ceiling light. Lonely Planet wasn’t lying about the quality of this place, but we had no other option for staying in the town.

One amusing part, though, was taking Doyle to a nearby playground, and seeing some locals play a game of soccer. Well, that wasn’t the amusing part. The amusing part was being photographed several times by one of the Malay girls watching the game, as if Doyle and I were some rare and endangered species not usually seen in the likes of Kuala Pilah.

The sad part was wandering into a town store and seeing the reception lady from Desa Inn, who told us they’d had a cancellation, and we could have stayed there after all. I had a feeling I should have left her a number to contact us on!

We woke early the next day, and wandered through the town to find some breakfast (some yummy Chinese doughnuts or you char kway) and look at the local temples. The Hindu temple was especially beautiful, and the Indians were very welcoming (and encouraging) for us to see inside. Funnily enough, it was closed when we were on our way out of town about half an hour later.

I also luckily found a material store in Kuala Pilah, and picked up a few metres of material since I hadn’t seen any other such stores around Kuala Lumpur yet, and I want to use my new sewing machine for something!

We passed back through Sri Menenti on our way back to Kuala Lumpur, and luckily this time the museum was open for us to wander through this time. Istana Lama (old palace) itself is a very beautiful structure, and holds the Malaysian national record for tallest wooden building in the country, as it is four stories tall. We felt it was worth the visit.

I came up with this recipe when I wanted to make use of my new electric oven, and I couldn’t decide between a pizza or cookies. So I asked on Facebook, and someone suggested a cookie pizza. I attempted just that, and ended up with a cookie with the texture of a pizza-base. It might sound odd, but it’s a bite to be tried! I’ve had a few people ask me for the recipe already, so now it’s time to share the complexities of just how I made this interestingly-named cookie.

Ingredients
15g dried yeast
2 tsp honey
300mL lukewarm water + 200mL room temperature water
500g bread flour + 1 cup bread flour
1 cup brown sugar
160g glace cherries
1 cup cocoa powder
2 cups caster sugar
170g chocolate chips

Method
1. Blend yeast and honey in a bowl. Stir in lukewarm water. Leave for 5 minutes (until foaming).

2. Sift cocoa and 500g flour into large bowl. Add brown sugar. Mix well.

3. Make a well in the flour mixture, and add yeast mixture to well. Stir in together. Add the rest of the water and mix until combined to create a sticky dough.

4. Knead in caster sugar, 1 cup at a time. Mixture should become like cake batter. Set aside for 30 minutes.

5. Pre-heat oven to 170°C

6. Sift and mix in 1 cup flour to make batter thicker. Add chocolate chips and cherried, and mix well.

7. Spoon approx 1-2 tablespoon sized portions of the mixture onto greased cookie tray, leaving a few centimetres between each cookie. Bake in the oven for 20 mins.

Ingredients
8x 10cm square puff pastry sheets
3 medium bananas, peeled
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp cinnamon
50g flaked almonds
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup corn flour

Method
1. Mash bananas in a bowl. Add vanilla, sugar and cinnamon and mix well. Mix in almonds, then mix in corn flour.

2. Add mixture to small saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sauce thickens or begins to stick to the pan (don’t let it stay too long or it will burn!)

3. Turn off heat and allow mixture to stand until thick/no longer watery.

4. Spoon mixture into a line in the middle of the pastry squares. Roll them up and place them on an oven safe tray (I prefer to line it with aluminium foil).

5. Bake in 180°C oven for 20 mins, or until pastry is puffed and slightly brown.