Feed me!

Busy preparing for this weekends Art For Grabs..

The Sunday Tradition

Every Sunday for over a month now I've been going mountain biking with Jag.  It has become the Sunday "thing".  We went once for a ride in Bukit Kiara (I believe I've blogged about getting totally lost there before), but since we have been going out to the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia.  

The first time we just showed up, and started looking for trails.  We found some OK jeep trails, but it gets boring after a while.  We went back several more times, always finding a bit more. But we were almost to the point of playing FRIM out.

But...Last weekend we finally stumbled upon some great single track.  The trail was hidden at a dead end on an old jeep track, and by luck I happened to see it.  The trail was fast moving and ran along a ledge.  Every few metres we'd come up to a boulder spill and we'd have to try our best to navigate these technical bits.  The trail then took a turn down, and the next km or 2 was a tricky set of switchbacks.  Good fun!

The trail dumped us out on another jeep track that ended up being a blast.  It was fast and had a few people.  It always makes me chuckle when I fly by somebody...they never hear me coming!  

Anyway, I've been really enjoying the Sundays out with Jag.  Afterwards we catch a beer at the Daily Grind in Bangsar.  I usually make it back around 4, to blow off the remainder of the weekend with Kimbo.  

Who knows, maybe I'll sign up for a race in the near future...

Stuff White People Like

Last weekend Travis told us about a website, called Stuff White People Like. The title pretty much speaks for itself.  For all those campers out there,  #128 camping  is laugh worthy. 

A familiar Friend in Town

Travis, our Houston friend, who we've got to know over the last few years through Liz was in town last weekend.  For the last month or so he's been traveling throughout Southeast Asia and decided to stop in Kuala Lumpur on his way to Indonesia.  Some highlights of our weekend with Travis..

Friday we met up in Chinatown where we all shared chicken curry, beef sate, ginger chicken, and veggies at a good Chinese restaurant. 

 Dropped by Bangsar Baru at our local Irish Pub (they all look the same where ever you go)  and listened to a band play some oldies but goodies on the synthesiser! lol

 At home we played Trivial Pursuit and found out Travis knows a lot of facts. We can't compete.

We meant to wake up at 6a.m. on Saturday so that we could get tickets to go up the Petronas Towers (I haven't gone yet) and they have a limited amount of tickets they can hand out every day.  Since we stayed up so late playing Trivial Pursuit we all woke up around noon, so we kind of missed it.  Instead we started our day by eating Banana Leaf at Nirwana's and then took the taxi to the Batu Caves.  Even though it was our third time to visit it's still such an interesting place,  and I never get bored watching the monkeys climb all over the place.  We got this monkey and her baby to come extremely close by acting like we had food in our hands.  She looked really dissapointed when she found out we tricked her.  Can you tell from the picture?

When we got inside the cave I found these three sitting together and it was just such a  hilarious site!  A rooster, cat and pigeon just enjoying another sunny Saturday..

 After the Batu Caves we asked Travis if he wanted to visit anything else while in KL and he said his travel guide recommended we go to the KL Tower, which is the third largest telecommunications tower in the world.  It reaches 421 m. (1,381 ft. ) I think the largest one is in Toronto, Canada. (553 m.)  When we got there it started to rain (got to love monsoon season) and we lost pretty much all sight.  We did manage to take a few pictures of the Petronas Towers.  A couple of weeks ago Frenchman Alain Robers, 47 also known as "spiderman" climbed the top of the 452 m. building.  Crazy man!  I found a picture of Alain Roberts climbing the towers below on the internet. 

After the towers we had dinner and ended our day around KL.  It was a good one.  Early in the morning Travis left for Melaka, which is on the west coast where he took the 3 p.m ferry to Indonesia, and who knows where to next!  Good travels to you Travis! 

Thursday's Painting Class at Vanesa's

Oma Olden's Art Work

One of my most memorable moments in Holland last May was visiting my aunt and uncle in Hoorn and viewing all of my grandma's paintings.  I don't recall seeing them before because I was quite young when she passed. To my surprise my aunt and uncle told me I could pick my favorite on and take it home with me!  I almost wanted to cry, that's how happy I was. I picked this one because there's so much movement and life to it.  I also love her choice of colors.   What a great memory of Oma.  I got it framed as soon as I got back to KL and now it's hanging in our living room.

Aliens from Mars

I am an alien, but not the green alien that you find in movies like Mars Attacks or Men in Black, but a Permanent Resident Alien.  I get all the perks that an American Citizen gets; I get to work, I'm protected by the law and my favorite, I get to pay taxes!  There are just a few issues, that American citizens don't have to deal with.  And one is, international travel. 

Before my move to Malaysia my mom told me that I needed to file a form because I might lose my resident status.  Thinking about other important issues at the time I told myself, it can't be that bad.  I'll deal with it when I come back. I was completely wrong. 

I contacted the American Consulate here in KL and they told me it's too late to file the form and if I don't go back to the U.S. within a year of leaving the country I will lose my resident status.  When that happens I would need David to re-file for an Immigrant visa, which would be huge hassle (interviews, health checks, money, etc.) 

With these two options we decided that it would be best I returned back to the U.S. before the year is over, which is November 18th.  We're both a bit disappointed because we would've liked to go back home together. But what's an alien to do?  Oh yeah, apply for American Citizenship! 

I'll be home for Christmas

 We're coming home for Christmas!!!! *doing a little dance*  David just bought the tickets and we're set to go.  The flight arrives in Houston on December 12th (ma's birtday) and we will be leaving January 2nd.  So that's about three weeks of non-stop Texas fun.  Now we just need someone to pick us up from the airport!  Anybody? Oh, I just can't wait. 

GeoCache or Becoming a Tourist in Your Own Town

Pa Olden gave me his old GPS a couple years ago now.  When we moved to New Mexico, I made good use of it, and it saved me in some really sticky situations.  

One door it really opened was the Geocaching door.  The best part about getting into the office at 7am is getting out at 4pm.   With 3-4 hours of daylight to spend, you have plenty of time to do...well, 

whatever you want.  So I'd plug in coordinates and walk off in some random direction following the little arrow on my screen.  

Years have passed now, and sadly the old GPS is in storage.  I picked up a new one the other weekend, and today we went after our first cache.  I've been using the GPS on my mountain bike over the last couple weeks, but the only real valuable information it's provided is that Jag and we spend over 50% of our time BS-ing instead of riding!  

We went after a multi-cache today, which promised to take use all across the city.  Well, it did indeed, and even showed us a few things we've 

never found before.  Each location we found gave a new clue for the final cache.  When we finally found all the clues, we pieced together the clues and got our final coordinates.  It put us in a giant forest right in the middle of the city, and we must not have done our math right 'cause we were plum lost!  I knew it was in a forest, and with 50 metres to go I was standing at the perimeter fence looking at a 4 lanes of gridlock traffic.  

But with Geocaching nobody looses.  We found a great place for lunch, and we got out of the house.  I'll find that damn cache, but in the meantime I'm planning to place my own cache around the city!  It'll highlight all the best graffiti stencils I've found around town.  Sweet!

A Man and His Toys

We bought a new GPS last week (after David tried to convince me we really needed one for a month or so) and today we used it for the first time.  We use is mostly for geocaching, which is really fun if you like exploring and a bit of adventure. Check out www.geocaching.com for more info. 

Art For Grabs: Take II

Mark your calendars! Art for Grabs is coming up and since it was such a success last May, I have decided to sell my art work at this event once again. FUN FUN FUN!  Come visit and support your local artists! 

DATE: 26-27 September 

TIME: 11:00-19:00 

WHERE: The Annexe Gallery, behind Central Market, 3rd floor. (Look for lots of people)

Batik at Home

I recently discontinued my Batik classes with Sam but decided I still wanted to keep practicing this art form. I found all of the supplies I needed in a small art supply store tucked away in nearby Chinatown and last week I started with my experiment. I just started doodling with the wax and this is what came out!  I'm just thinking of all the things I can make, since all the designs are on fabric!  Bags, t-shirts, pillows..   Once we move back to Texas I'll have a Batik party and teach everyone how to do it!

Party Party Party

Sometimes you just gotta party.  With our go-live date in just a couple days, we were all feeling stir crazy and wanted to let loose.  A party was the natural remedy to this, so the good wife and I opened the house up.  

My only condition was that I didn't want to cook at the grill, and that worked out just fine!  Leave it to Malaysians to bring enough food to feed and army.  The guys rotated shifts on the grill every 20 or so seconds, so your burger or chicken wing was turned by at least 4 different people!  

After getting kicked out of the BBQ area, we made our way up to the apartment, where I made the fatal mistake of not hiding the congas!  Which somehow then ended out of the balcony with a predominantly male crowd gathered 'round.  Mike was leading the show, smacking the drums as hard as he could while screaming at the top of his lungs...not to disturb the neighbors, not to create any sort of music...I'm pretty sure he just wanted to make as much noise as possible!  Leave it to Mike to electrify the air!

Well the party raged on and then died off as they do.  The last stragglers

 played pictionary.  Instead of the normal subjects, we limited it to movies.  I was quite proud of myself for screaming out, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind!" before only an image of a sun was drawn.  But the best was when Mike drew a symbol of "half", then a symbol of "burning" and that was supposed to mean "The Happening".  Further proof that said movie was completely, and entirely, doomed from the beginning.  

Well at the end of the night all went home happy.  It was a good one I have to say.  I remember when we were in New Mexico and we had a BBQ 3 months into living there.  Only 1 person showed up that day (out of about 20 people invited).  It takes time to get comfortable with people; for people to get comfortable with you.

I'm happy to say it was a good party, because we have good friends here.  

Back Home!

We're back from our weekend on Ko Phi Phi Island!  If you're wondering how we spent our time, you'll just have to look at the picture of David in a hammock and it sums it all up.  Check out the rest of the photos here.