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| Iconic sight - Petronas Towers in KL |
And we're back. Landed in Florida a few weeks ago and taking care of business. So here's a wrap-up of the Asia sojourn.
We spent our last week in the Asian tropics touring Malaysia, opting for towns (vs. beaches) where we could experience the culture (and cuisine) of the land. Malaysia's population is a mix of ethnic Malays (majority), Chinese and Indian - and each bring some pretty fantastic food to the table. Our first stop was Ipoh, a small city located a few hours south of the Thai border and a few hours north of Kuala Lumpur. The city consisted of an old town with plenty of colonial architecture and a new town with plenty of good eats. It's where Matthias found a new love: Indian food. We had dosa and dips for breakfast, and a few banana leaf meals (rice and various veggies and sauces served on a banana leaf). I'm not sure what he liked best about it: the taste (excellent), the fact that he could eat with his hands (fun) or the super-low cost (probably). On the other hand, beer was expensive (for Asia) because of the high taxes on alcohol, but that had its advantages, too. It sent us on a hunt for "affordable" beverages, which led us to somewhat of a "dive bar" - a storefront beverage shop/Chinese tea shop with a bunch of Chinese and Indian men (and even a woman or two) drinking cans of Tiger, Skoal and Tsingtao beer. Most everyone spoke pretty good English, too, so that made for some interesting conversation over $2 cans of beer.
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| Ipoh street scene |
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| Dosa for breakfast! |
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| Banana Leaf for lunch! |
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| Happy hour at beverage shop |
Next we spent three nights in Melaka, a UNESCO heritage city south of KL. Deserving of its UNESCO status, it was a vibrant (and touristy) town with plenty of historic sites on a lovely river. Famous for its Chinatown (also touristy) there were plenty of good eats on hand, and we enjoyed more Indian food, dim sum as well as some Malaysian treats (laksa, popiah and rojak). The tourist sights highlighted the various historic and colonial periods - forts and churches built by the Portuguese, Dutch and English, as well as some preserved old neighborhoods with traditional Malay housing. My highlight was renting a bike one afternoon (if I couldn't visit a new country on this trip, I might as well add to the the countries where I've been on a bike) and riding around to see the sights. It wasn't even terribly hot there - fortunately there was a short break in the humidity.
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| My Melaka ride |
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| River walk in Melaka |
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| Old dutch church overlooking the town |
Our last stop in SE Asia was Kuala Lumpur. I wasn't too excited to go there again, but we did have a nice time walking around town and visiting the interesting and informative (and air conditioned) history museum, where we learned a lot about where we had been (Melaka's history was pretty central to the country's). Then we killed time until our flight to JAPAN.
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| Kuala Lumpur |
Served us right that Tokyo had a cold snap when we arrived, so we went right from the fire to the icebox (the day before was balmy, but it barely got above freezing on our first day). No matter, though, Tokyo charmed us from the moment we arrived. Even though we couldn't check into our hotel upon arrival (after an overnight flight), we passed some time at the Tokyo tower and delighted in our first meal of soba noodles at a busy restaurant. With our budget (nearly) out the window, we checked into our modest ($70) hotel - not bad for Tokyo - and were delighted with the elevated standard (me: the robes and deep bathtub!). Took a nap (and I took a bath) and then set out to experience Izakaya eating - beer and snacks! At the top of the list was mackerel sashimi, quail eggs, beef stew and cabbage with miso. And the perfect ending was a bowl of ramen at a local shop across from the hotel. You had to select and pay for your meal from a vending machine, and hand the ticket to the cook. Yummm.
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| Tokyo Tower and river near our hotel |
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| my bathtub! |
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| Izakaya! |
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| No, not a cigarette machine - used to order food |
On our second day in Tokyo, we rode the metro all over town, stopping at the required parks (not yet in bloom) and temples, and of course eating more noodles. We caught a great view of the city from the government building (free access to the 40-something floor), browsing department store food courts and learning to walk in line so as not to disrupt the flow of people. Matthias loved the arrows in the subways (and even on the sidewalks) telling us where to walk (his German sense of order). On our last day, we went to the fish market and got to experience the subway at rush hour - made the NYC subway crush look like a joke. Actually, I have no idea what it looked like, as I was crushed between people, but Matthias said people were literally being pushed into the cars (and I could feel it). I ate some sushi at the fish market and we had our last bowl of ramen at the airport before the long trip to Chicago and then Florida.
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| Tokyo scene |
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| Meji Jingu Shinto Shrine |
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| Even this couldn't get me ready for what was to come in the USA |
We've spent almost a month here in Florida, bonding with Maju (our little doggie sister) and helping my mom through surgery recovery. Now we're about to set off on another US adventure in the travel trailer. Hopefully I'll get the full photo album for the Asia trip up before we leave.
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| Maju and me |
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| By the way, Maju means "advanced" in Malaysian - so we saw her name everywhere |
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