Tonight we went on a mini work outing to one of the night markets in Seremban. Many locals do their shopping at the night markets rather than the supermarkets or corner grocery stores and it’s easy to see why; one can buy almost anything and the prices are incredibly cheap. Enjoy the photos!
You know those times when you’ve got an idea in your head and won’t settle for anything else? (I bet you do.)
Today was a bit of a frustrating day at school and I got home pretty late so I didn’t have time to work out before dinner. I was quite hungry by the time I got home, too. Since we’re living in a hotel (another frustration) we don’t have the luxury of one person making dinner while the other does something else, like run errands or work out or just chill. We also don’t have the luxury of a quick, easy pot of pasta and some jarred sauce.
Another source of frustration today is that Malaysia has beautiful fruits and vegetables but, for whatever reason, salad is not a major food group here. I’ve seen lots of cold salads at lunches, but all of them have included meat. I haven’t seen any plain, boring vegetable salads on menus. And because I don’t have a kitchen (I hate not having a kitchen), I couldn’t make the one thing I wanted to eat tonight, which was a plain, boring vegetable salad.
It took some coaxing, but Mitch finally convinced me that we could go to the grocery store, buy ingredients for salad, buy all of the utensils we would need (bowls, forks, cutting board, knife, dish soap, sponge), and make salad for dinner. I protested because we only have a bathroom sink and a desk to work on, but Mitch wouldn’t let me skip eating to go to the gym so I had to eat something. Darn him. But I’m glad I listened.
Our salad included:
Et voilà! It was delicious, especially in comparison to the rice I’ve had every day for too many days.
We also bought sugar snap peas but they had a weird soapy aftertaste so we threw them out. The beer section is conveniently located on the way to the cash registers in the grocery store near us, so I’d grabbed a couple cans of Guinness on the way out.
When we finished our salads, I suggested getting ice cream at the Baskin Robbins in the mall where the hotel is. And then I had a better idea: Guinness floats!
And so . . .
Good. Really good.
Sometimes you just want what you want, and sometimes you can figure out how to get it. Today was a frustrating day but it ended with a smile. Onto better things tomorrow!
Yesterday afternoon along with two friends, Mitch and I took the train from Seremban to KL Sentral, the main train station in Kuala Lumpur. From there we transferred to the subway and headed to KL City Centre (KLCC), the main shopping and entertainment district of KL. We wandered around the massive mall, visited a few stores, tried and failed to get tickets to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) because none of us knew there was a pretty strict dress code, wandered through a lovely park, and had an excellent meal with our Scottish friends in an Irish bar. Some highlights are below. Enjoy!
The store in which we spent the longest was a two-story Japanese bookstore with zillions of titles in English. It was very exciting. Both interestingly and frustratingly, the books were wrapped in plastic so patrons couldn’t flip through them. To me, that almost defeats the purpose of a bookstore; I don’t like buying books electronically because I can’t look through them. Same story here. I was very glad, however, to find a section of Jewish history books and a section on Judaism in general.
This bookstore was inside a huge mall that was inside and underneath the Petronas Towers. We didn’t go up to the skybridge, but we did gaze up at them from the park outside.
The towers were cool but I thought the park was cooler.
There were also some awesome trees in this park in the center of KL. The mere fact that there is a park in the center of KL is pretty cool, too. It also has a 1300m track!
It was a really fun afternoon and the Irish bar for dinner was great. It was nice to recognize every item on the menu for a change. The Gaelic football game that was on in the bar was enjoyable to watch, as well. We’ll definitely be back in KL. I want to explore Chinatown and see the MPO for sure!
By Rebecca Michelle 