Malaysia Trip!

Forward: Because this trip was so amazingly awesome, and neither of us could bare to let the other have all the fun writing about it, we decided to agree on joint custody of Malaysia. Sam agreed to Wednesday to Saturday and Courtney wrote about Sunday to Tuesday. We hope you enjoy our vacation as much as we did!

Oh boy Malaysia!! I can’t even express how excited we three were to be heading to beautiful Malaysia. It was such a random time for us to be going on holiday because we technically only got 2 days off of school, but we decided we were doing it and we did it the most awesome way possible, I assure you.

Ok so here is how it worked. We got Thursday off for Children’s Day, and then the following Tuesday off for Buddha’s Birthday. Some people also got either the Friday or Monday off as well, but either way, we decided to go to Malaysia during that super long weekend. On Wednesday, right after school, Courtney, Marty and I met up at the bus terminal to head to Seoul. Our flight was the next night at 11 pm so the plan was to just spend Thursday in Seoul and then fly to Malaysia that night. There was definitely a lot of traveling that was done during this trip, not including the sightseeing kind of traveling. First we took a bus and then train and then subway just to get to where we were staying in Seoul. The train ride was actually really fun ever since we discovered how much fun it is to play cards in the family seating on the KTX. Family seating is where 2 seats face 2 other seats and there is a table between them, so it basically just feels like we’re all sitting at a dinner table. The night in Seoul was nice; we met a few of Marty’s friends, had dinner and then enjoyed the night life that Seoul has to offer. We met up with our friend Dan from Pohang and he spent the night and next day with us in Seoul before the three of us sped off to the airport. Checkpoint 1: the first night of our vacation (the night we spent in Seoul) two of us staying in a love motel, and two of us stayed in a jimjilbang.

Day 2 in Seoul we enjoyed the nice weather with  everyone around us celebrating Children’s Day (Thursday). We went to a large canal in the middle of the city where there were hundreds of families, and walked around the city quite a bit. For dinner we had Mr.Pizza where Marty so graciously got our meal for half price because he found, first a fly in his salad and then a hair on his slice of pizza. Thanks Marty, for being the lucky one to get both of those discounts for us! 

Children everywhere!

All of the families!

After dinner was when our trip to Malaysia officially kicked off. We headed to the airport where we waited for only a little while before we had to board, which was nice.

We were clearly very exciteed.

The plane ride was not as bad I’m guessing, for me and Marty because he and I had the window and isle seats. But poor Courtney was squished between the two of us. Considering our flight was at 11 pm, we mainly all just slept for the 6 hour trip. Or tried to sleep. At one point, perhaps before we all tried to fall asleep, we had to fill out the customs forms for entering a different country. Everything was pretty standard, except for the warning sign at the bottom of the sign. I got a kick out it pretty much the entire trip.  

Malaysia means business

Once we landed in Kuala Lumpur – the capitol – we had a few hours to kill before our friend Ian was able to meet with us, and we were pretty hungry so we grabbed some food. Alright we all are not super proud of this but yes, our first meal in Malaysia was indeed McDonalds. There weren’t too many options and we were tired and hungry. As I said before, we had a few hours to kill so after we finished eating, we busted out the playing cards and played them like we never got off the KTX.

 Marty and I got more coffee and by the time Ian’s plane landed (he flew from his island of Penang to KL) I was ridiculously hyped up on caffeine. 

Our first mission was to get to the city center from the airport, so we paid 9 ringgits ($3) for an hour bus ride into central KL. We were starting to realize how inexpensive everything was. 

They drive on the wrong... I mean left side of the road!!

Once we got to the city, we took a monorail to where our hotel was. Ok so here is some back story. Ian lives in Malaysia, but he doesn't live in Kuala Lumpur. He lives and works on an island called Penang. Ian works for a hotel called Park Royal in Penang, but since we were staying one night in KL, he managed to get us a good deal on a room in a Park Royal in KL. All that we knew before we come to Malaysia was that he was going to get us a place to stay in a 5 star hotel. We had absolutely NO idea he was going to get us the room that we ended up having. 

View from the monorail as we rode past building. 

So we walked into the hotel, which has a very stunning lobby. We all looked pretty rough around the edges because of our flight and lack of comfortable sleep. Ian talked to the front desk lady for a bit while Marty, Courtney and I tried to behave.  When he got all of our key cards, he headed to the elevators and we followed. We got in the elevator and before pressing our floor button, Ian had to swipe his card over the control panel. He then proceeded to press the button 27. We were on the 27^th floor in a 30 floor building, and we needed a key card to even press the buttons that high! As we were walking to our room Ian nonchalantly told us that we were in a pent house suite. What?! We were in a pent house suite in a 5 star hotel?? He opened the door to our place and…

Notice the nonchalant face.

We were so excited! As you can see, we took a few pictures of our hotel room. Who does that? We do, ladies and gents.

After the initial shock wore off, we all took showers.

Hahaha ok well I guess the excitement never really wore off.

Anyway, after we showered and changed, we all headed out to explore Kuala Lumpur a little bit. It had been quite a while since we had landed and had the amazing Malaysian McDonalds experience, so by this time we were all pretty hungry again.

 Ian decided to take us to a big fancy mall near the hotel to get food at the food court. His reasoning was that the food court was massive and there so many different options of food that we could all choose from. He definitely was not lying when he said the food court was massive. We all got something different, and then indulged in some of the most amazing desserts ever. Did I mention how cheap everything is in Malaysia? We feasted on the most decadent of desserts for no more that $3 each. It was unbelievable I say.

Marty was apparently very thirsty. 



We were debating about what was the most attractive way to eat food.



There was some good competition.



But I think there was a clear winner. 

Our amazing desserts.

After eating we decided to go to the street markets and see what they had to offer. Our plan for the whole day was really just to take it easy and just have a nice day because we were all pretty tired from the traveling (no naps). One thing I noticed a lot while we traveled through Kuala Lumpur, is that it really reminds me of Florida! I felt like we were on a vacation in some unknown city in Florida. The weather was hot and beautiful (yes, everyone, I am happy for the hot weather). The monorail that runs through the city really reminded me of Busch Gardens or any other theme park in Florida. As we were walking through the markets all I could think of was Ybor city.

After spending a big chunk of time in the street market scene, we decided that we couldn’t leave Kuala Lumpur without seeing the Twin Towers! 

We took one of the craziest taxi rides ever (and this is coming from people who live in Korea…) and when we got there we discovered that the tower tours were full. No worries though, we still got to be inside them (when we were inquiring about tower tours) so we were happy.

We then decided to go outside to the nice park and just enjoy the nice view of the twin towers.

There's they are!

Stopped for a drink.



Or two.



Busy city streets.

KL at night!

Posing in the lobby of our hotel. No big deal.

After the towers we grabbed some really yummy Indian food across the street from our hotel at a pretty grungy looking place. We were only a little excited about the food.

Yummy!

Double yum!!

Our one day in Kuala Lumpur ended with us painting the town red with our 5 star pent house hotel status. And what I mean by that is that everyone and their mother knew where we were staying that night, thanks to Courtney and her humble attitude towards the whole situation.

“Oh wow look at that hotel over there, I wonder what kind of people stay there! Oh that’s right WE DO!”

To a stranger: “See that window, all the way up there? Oh its too high to actually see? Well that’s our window, but no big deal!”

I don't know how we managed to still make new friends that night. 

Checkpoint 2: We spent our second night in Malaysia, in a 5 star pent house suite with three rooms to sleep in, a kitchen, laundry room, two bathrooms and the most amazing view ever.

Saturday morning we all woke up refreshed and ready to take yet another plane! We were leaving Kuala Lumpur and heading to Ian’s island town of Penang. It was hard to say goodbye to our suite, but after some kicking and screaming we left it, never to meet again. We had a pretty fancy breakfast that was once again, dirt cheap and then had about an hour to kill so we wandered around the mall across the street from the hotel. Our last stop before heading to the airport was the cake shop where we had those delicious desserts the day before in the food court. We then rushed to the airport and managed to make the check-in time perfectly. Everything went very smoothly. The plane ride was so ridiculously short, it seemed like only 15 minutes after we took off, we were already preparing to land again. That caught me by surprise both going to Penang and then leaving it a few days later. 

Once we landed, Ian spent a bit of time filling out papers so he could rent a car, and I rummaged through my luggage as I realized that a can of cream soda had exploded in it. All my clothes tasted amazing. Once we got the car, the three foreigners went crazy! Well I went crazy and everyone else watched. We were in a right sided car! I was in the passenger seat but it felt like I was in the drivers seat, it was insane!!

Look I'm in the driver's seat!



There should be a steering wheel here!



Before we could go to Ian’s place, we had to stop off to get some food and other things at the mall. This mall was definitely not as nice as the mall we went to in KL.



The not so nice mall.



 After we bought a ton of goodies, we decided that we were hungry and that it was dinner time. Three guesses on where we went for food. Another mall! And it gets worse, we had western food! It was something none of us were proud of. But it was still pretty yummy.



Much nicer mall. Felt like Florida still.



Our guilty food choices. Such yummy guilt.

After dinner we decided that we wanted to go out on the town so we headed straight to the Georgetown area of Penang, which is where all the bars are. We had our hearts set on going to see a drag show but it turned out were a day too late for that. So we ended up just walking around a part of Georgetown. 



Chinese Temple at night.

After an hour or so of wandering around, we decided it was time to head to Ian’s house to get some rest. We made one last stop before we finally made it to his house. We had to stop off at his hotel so he could get some things for us. While we were waiting for him to come back down, Courtney and I wandered along the back grounds of the hotel. We were about to get to the beach when we saw a sign.



Who knew horses could parasail?!

The lack of punctuation between “parasailing” and “horses” was probably one of the funniest things I saw while on my trip in Malaysia. It was a perfect ending to another amazing day on vacation. Shortly after seeing this, we headed to Ian’s house where we all quickly fell asleep, and started recharging for the next day. 

This is the end of Sam's half, and the beginning of Courtney's.

Malaysia part 2: So this is where I pick up the story I guess…..from here on out it’s my recollection of events……get ready!

 

Sunday: This was the day we became tourists! We decided to have a mini-roadtrip around the island, hitting up all the touristy locations! The first stop on the list – RAIN FOREST HIKE!!

We piled into the car, drove a few blocks down the street, saw a place to eat, and ate breakfast. It was a hawkers stall, with all sorts of different food. We sat down and Ian went around, ordering the best food possible for us. I can’t remember it all exactly, but it was delicious! The way it worked: there are many different food stalls in a fleamarket-like setting. You go up, order the food, and tell them your table. They bring the food to you, and you pay them right then and there. That way, ordering a bunch of different food is extremely easy, plus it’s so fun when a hundred different people bring a hundred different things to your table at once! It’s like you’re a princess at a royal feast! (except for the fleamarket-like setting)

After eating we piled into the car, drove a few blocks down the street, and saw a sign for a waterfall – just one more stop on the way to the rainforest!

We stopped, took a little walk, saw the waterfall, took a few pictures, then walked back to the car. I was slow…so I got to see a tribe of monkeys. They all ran away except one. Then it’s baby came back out. So I took some pictures.

The monkeys I saw!

THEN we again piled in the car, drove a few blocks, got a little lost, found our way again, parked the car, and headed into the rainforest! It was a long hike, around the beach, up the mountain, down the mountain, through the trees, across the streams, along the path. We even bought ticket to go on the sky-walk through the trees!! A little tipsy, but very exciting.

The tide came in and they were trapped!

Leaves in the rain forest are SOOO big!

Once again Malaysia is threatening to kill everyone. 

After the rainforest, we piled into the car, drove a few blocks and stopped again….because we saw a fruit stand. Apparently in Malaysia there is a pretty famous fruit called a Durian. The smell is supposed to be so strong, you either love it or despise it. And then eating it, you either love it or hate it. Well, we wanted to try it out, so we did. Ian ended up picking the perfect one, because it was delicious! Not at all repugnant or disgusting!

The car rental company told us one of their biggest rules was that we couldn't bring one of these into the car.

Next, again, getting in the car, blah blah blah, stopped at a fruit orchard for a fruit tour. We were supposed to get a tour of a fruit orchard, but after finding out it was an hour long we decided against it. Instead, we just bought a bunch of sample fruits and ate them in the car!

Then next stop was a side-of-the-road market. There was a hat stand Sam was interested in checking out, so she and I got out to look. What we saw there was a cute little monkey in a cage! We stopped to take some pictures. When the monkey saw us it came over and started reaching out the cage bars.

“Oh how cute!” I said. “It’s trying to get out”

It starting reaching and reaching and then it’s head popped though the bars…then its foot…..

“OMG IT’S GETTING OUT!”

The monkey escaped! Knowing how brave Sam and I are, you’ll be surprised to learn that we screamed and ran away. But really, we did. It’s the truth. A baby monkey just esaped from it’s cage and was coming after us! I’m sure you can understand.

Anyway, we slowly walked back to the baby monkey after the initial terror that gripped our hearts subsided and the shopkeepers nearby stopped laughing, intent on taking some stellar photos! Of course, the monkey would run at our feet again and send us running across the street to get away, heedless of the passing cars speeding in every direction.

Well, as you can see we got our photos despite the fear.

We found a cool abandoned park on the way to our next destination. 

 

NEXT it was snake temple time! This was a temple with ….snakes! Apparently the snakes get paralyzed by the incense  (or that’s what the people say). They also say that no one has ever been bit by one of the snakes at the temple! And these aren’t just ordinary snakes – they are poisonous! They are just sitting around on snake-racks inside, or hanging out on picture frames! In the interior of the temple, there is a little garden with trees. Looks normal, until you look closely and see all the little snakes hanging out on the trees! And THEN there is even a snake-zoo thing! When we went in there was a man who kissed a king cobra snake! They really love snakes there.

After leaving the snake temple, we were all really hot, tired, and hungry. We decided to check out the historical district. We were there the night before and we had noticed a few things we wanted to try. The plan – get tea at a tea house, take a tour of the historical Blue House, then eat dinner at the big Hawkers stall where the night before they had a performer in a feathered dress running around and singing!

Well, the tea house was closed, the hawker’s stall wasn’t open yet, the blue house had finished it’s tours for the day…..we had nothing to do. We decided to go to a nearby 5 star hotel and had a little snack! First little snack – fish and chips. Of course, this wasn’t enough for some of us…so second little snack was pizza! Then, to pass the time before dinner, we went out to the pool area, where I promptly fell asleep.

I was awoken a little later and we all ran off to dinner. Ian ran around, grabbing us the best of the best things to eat, which we then devoured hungrily!

Our pent house stay gave us the confidence to just walk into a  super fancy hotel and act like we owned the place. 

Or at least like we were actually paying to stay there. 

After dinner we decided to make the ultimate stop – Dr. Fish. This is a place you go, stick your feet into a pond of water, and little fish eat your dead skin. It tickles hardcore. You should of heard the shrieking that was going on! After we all got settled into the fish – we played a game of Untimate-20-questions that lasted well on into the night.

 

Monday we woke up and headed to the “Blue House”. Since it was closed the day before, we figured today was the day to go! We all packed into the car and drove off! The tour was pretty cool…it lasted about an hour and it was fun to walk around a imagine living in a house as amazing as that. Where oh where would I put my owl collection….it took me a while to decide on the perfect location.

We stopped to eat at a really fancy place.

It had really amazing food!

The next stop on the itinerary – Sam and Ian were getting massages and Marty and I were going to the beach! After there massages they met us there and we all swam and relaxed. It was getting a  bit late and Ian had to go to a work party. The four of us went back to his apartment, cleaned up, and he left. We were going to meet him an hour later, but 30min after he left he called us with the news….

 

“Oh hey guys…..I forgot to put gas in the car. Can you fill it up before the company comes to pick it up?”

“ …..uhh……”

We had our mission! Marty was going to drive too the gas station, I was going to drive back, and Sam, being a little nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road, was going to be the backseat driver.

Marty was first. We drove about 2 minutes down the road to the gas station Ian had told us about. Because we were scared, and the gas station was on the other side of the road, instead of making a u-turn we just pulled into a neighborhood and planned on just turning around there and going back. Well, since we’re here, lets let Sam drive to the gas station and give her a turn driving too!

So Sam was up! She drove up to the gas station…..and it was out of business. There was nothing more to do but continue down the road. Unfortunately the road turned into a curvy mountain road,  scooters passed on either side, she hit a cone, more scooters passed on either side, the road turned into city driving, the scooters kept passing,  20 minutes had gone by, there was no gas station, more scooters, traffic was getting heavy, we were going forever….oh there is a gas station!

Sam's version: Ok so I did hit a cone, BUT i was not the one screaming SCOOTER every time there was one close by, scaring the crap out of the driver *cough Courtney cough* Her back seat driving made things much more stressful than the scooters zooming by in the first place. Thank you very much. Ok I'm done defending myself. You can continue now Courtney. 


We turn in, fill’er-up, then Marty takes control again. He drove us back through the city-portion of the trip. Then, my turn was the curvy mountain portion. Of course, I handeld it like a pro- NO PROBLEM! I am an expert! We return the car, meet up with Ian, and head to dinner.

We eat dinner in a giant boat restaurant, do some shopping, then head again to Dr. Fish. We had so much fun the night before it was time to do it again! But, this time the fish were full of our feet and didn’t eat them-----so not as fun. Kinda boring really.

Tuesday we woke up and took a 2 airplanes back to Korea. Our last plane, we met up with Jonny, who was also coming back to Korea from Malaysia. When we arrived it was about 9:30. It took us about 30min to get out of the airport, then we had to catch our train to Pohang at 11:00. Think that’s plenty of time? Well, not really. We arrived at the train station at 11:06 -  6 minutes LATE! We found a jimjillbong nearby, slept until 4:00 the next morning, caught the first train at 5:30, arrived at the station at 7:50. The station is about 30min away from Pohang and school starts at 8. Johnny was kind enough to drive us all back, so I made it to my house around 8:30. I ran home, got dressed, and made it to school by 8:50. 50 minutes late but no problem! I didn’t have class for another 2 hours!

Byebye! Thanks for reading!