Here's a random story...

OK I was able to get the school to buy some bulletin boards so I can hang up artwork a lot easier. Well I was told that when WASC comes they need to be covered so you can not see the cork board...which I think is ridiculous...I like the plain look...whatever doesn't matter.....so I said if I need to cover them, then I want to cover them with fabric so it will look better.

Well my wonderful Vice President of business says what you want you get!!! And we are off...here is the interesting part.
I was thinking that we were going to a fabric market where you can buy any type of fabric you can imagine...but wait instead...I get in the van with Wendy the VP, the librarian, Robbie, the handyman, William and our Driver. We are off...yes of course we have a driver and if you came to visit you would find out why.

We were off, beautiful day driving in Beliun...none of them really know where we are going because Beliun is so confusing to navigate. We do a U-turn or two and then drive down the wrong side of the street for awhile to a huge apartment building where there is a gate but it doesn't really matter because they let everyone in. So we pull in...and I am thinking that there has got to be a store or something in the back but instead we go into the building...pretty dark in there. Little sketchy, not very well lit and smells like stale cigarette smoke. We head straight back and get in the elevator which smells horrible and you really don't want to touch anything. We go up to the 6th floor and when you walk out the elevator on your left there is a door that is open and very bare and to your right is a very nice decorated entrance way. Well that explains the dichotomy of China.

So we go into the apartment that is just cement and a little hard wood floor. In the room are wooden shelves of fabric and one sewing machine. Now you don't actually want to touch anything because it is pretty dirty and the fabric is just shoved everywhere and you don't know what is growing in it. Well it's China, so you roll up your sleeves and dive in. Yup that's life. We spend maybe a half an hour looking at stuff and I buy some fabric that will please everyone...now if I use it that is another question. But while we are there you look around the apartment because pretty much if you see something you liked then you offer them a price and take it home. Well looking around the apartment I wonder if the woman sitting at the sewing machine lives there...so you see that there is a small kitchen like thing that looks very incomplete...I didn't see a bathroom but I do not think that I really wanted to either.

Ok so we are leaving and Wendy turns to us and says...if I lived on this floor I would be angry if they were my neighbors....and with that note we leave.

Now we didn't pay for the fabric at that moment in time but had to take it somewhere else to pay but the two white people get dropped off first because if we had shown our white faces the prices would have gone up...yup good old money seems to run through white people blood.
(THAT IS SARCASM)
Adventures...yes good old adventures!

You can dress China up but you can't take it out!

Reasons Why:

Hotel room huge, but the rugs were rotting, the wall paper was scary so Doug and I left the curtains drawn. Can I mention it was the Suite at this hotel?

Doug and I were told to use the Hotel van to take to the airport but the driver was no where to be found.

Yup Pizza Hut is like a five star restaurant. People just get the salad bar and stack up watermelon and fruit creating larger walls, so they have a bigger bowl to put more food into...Doug has a picture of this.

We have gotten really good at spitting because you don't have use a tissue.

So one day Doug and I were getting in an elevator. We had our luggage...and kind of the middle of the elevator well this gentleman gets on and stands extremely close to me. He is wearing a wrinkled suit coat and it looks like he had a hard night of drinking. He starts looking in the mirror behind Doug and I so staring directly at us. He licks his fingers a couples of times to smooth out his face and hair and then yup he farts. AHHHH!!! Special moment in time!

What else...even though the sun is shining China can still burn enough to make it smokey.

Next up our adventures for Chinese New Year!!!!

Last but not least....Petronas towers.

Ok so this was our last day in Kuala Lumpur. Doug and I got up really early to go to the Petronas Towers. It is free tickets but they don't start giving out tickets until 8 or 830. So you have to line up until they open and stand in this line. We ate yogurt and counted down until we could get Starbucks which we can say in Chinese now.

We weren't completely bored while we waited we met a nice couple from Australia. The young man was there for the military and the young woman was visiting. They were very nice and it passed the time.

We also got hassled by a woman who was giving us a sob story about how her friends couldn't make it quite yet and she wanted us to get as many tickets as possible. Pretty sure she would sell them later on to other people. UMMMM so that was big no!

Before we could go up the towers we had to listen to movie about how the pertonas were so wonderful....not how they were built...but how petrol rules so much.

One of the views!
Me sunny and happy we got to see one of the things that is an artists dream!!!! They are a great example of pattern and they are very beautiful!

This is my favorite picture. We took it Christmas night. I could have stared at them all night!

That is the end of our trip in Malaysia. It was amazing and wonderful we can hardly wait for our next trip. What and adventure!

Christmas..YEAH!!!!

So for Christmas Doug and I went to the mall that was attached to the Hotel in Kuala Lumpur and separated and then got back together. we had so much fun buying each other gag gifts and then real gifts. Only things that we could fit into our suitcases that were already really full. We had a great time laughing and hanging out together. Doug even got us a small metal Christmas tree and stockings...it made us feel like we were at home. We missed family and friends but we had each other so everything was going to be alright. How can it not be when you look this happy.

So for Christmas dinner Doug and I had made reservations to the Smokehouse restaurant that I had found on line before we had left China. Honestly we were not sure what to expect since...well let's just say the Taxi drivers had no idea where it was and had to call one of his friends to get directions. Well when we got there I think we were the second people there but this place was like a home that had been turned in to a Restaurant. Like the one we took Mom and Dad to in Colorado Springs to celebrate my graduation. Anyway on the tables were these hats and packages of stuff almost like it was New Years.

You could chose from numerous things off the menu so Doug got the set Menu with the Roast Sirloin and I got the Turkey Christmas dinner. We had about 5 courses and the food was so good. We drank wine and eggnog and just enjoyed the moment.

Yes we were party animals!!!!

I think I was so happy with the food because I had been afraid that it was going to be a horrible restaurant. AND IT WAS CHEAP TOO!!

We had a blast eating dinner...we then went back to the hotel and spent sometime of Skype talking to family members...we didn't go to bed until really late but it was just a wonderful Christmas.

The Dark Cave!!!!!

Ok so here we are...now there are not many pictures of this cave because you can not take many pictures or the bats would probably attack you. Yup the bats...so Doug and I discovered this cave as we were walking out of the Main Hindu cave. And decided to pay for a tour..thinking that it wouldn't be so bad.....

So it said this in four different languages....and we still went. I honestly thought I would be ok because I had done some creepy stuff before but....

So we had to wear hard hat and head lamps and boot that we got to borrow. Doug and I also bought socks there so we didn't have to share as many foot cooties with everyone.

Pretty amazing that you can look this good when you are about to walk in a very dark cave and think that you are not going to get creeped out. So Doug and I and four other people have decided to brave the cave with our guide. We thought it was going to be an half an hour tour but little did we know.....these other people were wearing sandals...no way I was going to walk around in bat poop with sandals on. Ok we start walking and it smells so bad that one lady wrapped a tissue around her face..like that was going to help. Then the guide starts talking about the cockroaches that eat the bat poop...and you can see them run around. Well by then i had kind of blocked him out because I have my fists clenched so tight that there wasn't any blood going anywhere else. All that was going through my head was rabies, bat poop, and cockroaches. Then the next thing I know is I feel something drop on me...yup...I GOT SHAT ON BY A BAT. So me taking pictures slowly became out of the question and I only took a few. Well needless to say I we left the Batu Caves and I went a took a shower!!!

No idea what this is a picture of I just know it was in cave...sometime in the cave!!!!

Kuala Lumpur..Batu Caves

The Batu Caves are these huge caves that you have to walk 200 or 214 steps to the actual caves. At the top are these huge caves that are a Hindu temple where people go to worship also where they have the Thaipusum Festival every year. This is a big deal. They were huge. This is one of the gods that is worshiped there. The place had many sectioned off temples.

This is Doug and I at the top of the highest caves. In the cave the amazing thing was the stores that sold stuff at the top. Crazy..that they haul of that stuff to the top.

This is one of the openings, skylights to the cave. So cool. We got some great pictures.

This picture is the opening to the cave. The statue is probably as tall as the statue of liberty. So amazing.

This is the inside looking out. So neat. we got do so many things that we have never even dreamed about. So that was the Batu Caves.

Canopy Tours in the Jungle

Ok so this is the day that Doug and I signed up for a canopy tour with this German gentleman who has done the iron man. In this tour, zip lines, repelling and other stuff was included. Here I am at 9 in the morning signing our lives away...saying that if anything went wrong and if we die we are good to go. So we wore full body harnesses and had enough gear to climb a small mountain. The tour started off with us hiking up 750 stairs to get to our first...climbing thing.

This is Doug walking across a wire over a small stream like thing. That wire moved like a snake. It was awesome I thought I was going to poop myself. One woman that was with our group didn't do it which was fine. There was a total of 8 of us with two guides. This was the first thing. Next was to check to see if we could repel...that was fun. Next we climbed up a tree and then did our first zip line down to another tree. It was crazy you had to jump off a boulder to get started. HEAD FIRST...I think I threw up a little in my mouth when I did that...but it was amazing to fly through the air.

YUP!!! I know we are cute!

Before we did our last zip line we had to repel down a rock face. Our last zip line was 280 meters into a tree where we have to repel thirty meters down. This is Doug...we spent all day smiling.

This is Doug doing the last 280 meter repel. The jungle was so beautiful and we had so much fun. we got back to the hotel while other people were just getting out of bed. What more could you want from a vacation?