I'm alive!

Hi everyone, and sorry for not posting anything in the last week and a bit...but I have a perfectly good excuse! I have a lot of new things to add and I might not have enough time to talk about it all at this moment, but I'll finish at another time if I can't now.

So...last time I left off we were just leaving Australia. Caught the red eye flight leaving Perth International Airport around 1:00 in the morning and arrived in Kuala Lumpur again around 6:30 am on July 3, 2009. Since Perth and Kuala Lumpur are in the same time zone, I was fortunate that I didn't have to deal with another time variation since I FINALLY got adjusted to the jetlag (after almost 2 weeks). We met up with my aunty Mary and uncle Chiang at the airport and boarded a transit bus to the LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) just a few minutes from KL International. At the LCCT we took an Air Asia (cheap, discount airline that honestly isn't that bad in relation to what you pay) flight to Kota Bharu Airport which took about an hour. At the airport there, my uncle Meng's cousin picked us up in I would say, a 1985 Datsun minivan, complete with only two functional seats. We crammed 8 people in the back of this van. Yes...eight. I sat on a milk crate while my uncle Seng sat on the floor and everyone else sat on a makeshift bench at the back of the van. Really sketchy shit, considering that the roads of Kota Bharu are congested at almost all times of the day with traffic and motorcycles. This is probably the most asian thing that I've ever done in my life...and for the record, I AM Asian. It's like trying to cram a whole bunch of Chinese or Vietnamnese people into a boat and shipping them overseas in the most uncomfortable situation possible. The only difference is that there were no parasites and foul odours in the van.

So this continued on for an hour and a half until we reached the sea port located on the furthest north eastern point of West Malaysia (close to the Thai border) around 5:00pm. We boarded a pretty shady looking speed boat that claimed to make the 10 nautical mile trip to Perhentian in less than 30 minutes. I didn't doubt this claim as the back of the boat had twin 150 HP Mercury outboard motors. We crammed eleven people into this boat (see the picture) which didn't seem right in Canadian safety standards, but whatever...this is Malaysia! Everything is safe (that was huge sarcasm which I'll explain later if I remember). Anywho...the boat raced to the island, but only to discover that Long Beach, the most popular part of the island, had all it's chalets and suites booked solid. Apparently, someone in my family didn't think it was necessary to call and book in advance (even thought he said he did) so back on the boat we went and made our way to the opposite, more quieter, side of the island where we finally found a chalet. I wasted no time and dropped my stuff off, took a shower and hit the hay for the night - 35 degree weather with retardedly high humidity doesn't make people happy at all.

The next day, we woke up around 8:30am and headed down to Long Beach - a short 10 minute walk through the middle of the island from our chalet. The first sight of Long Beach made me so excited I almost made me soiled myself. If you imagine the most beautiful beach in the World; this is it (maybe a slight overexaggeration, but this is my blog so I can do what I want) - complete with crystal clear, blue waters and pearl white sand laden with colourful umbrellas across the entire span of the beach (umbrella rentals are 10 Malaysian Ringgit - about 0.325 RM to every Canadian Dollar). We rented an umbrella (sounds stupid), threw our stuff down and jumped into the water. The water was so warm, almost like a bath tub and since the island is located in the South China Sea, which is a branch off the Pacific Ocean, the water is thus salty. About halfway into the day, around 2:00pm, I noticed that the liberal coating of SPF25 sunblock I put on was rendered absolutely useless. I was red like a lobster and didn't care. My cousin Gaby and I swam close to the shore near some rocks and realized that there was tons of beautiful, colourful tropical fish swimming within some of the rocks and coral littering the sea floor. We spent the rest of the day snorkeling around the area until the sun went down. Packing up our stuff, we headed back to the chalet...my back on fire and everything.

I have to stop typing right now since dinner is almost ready (p.s. I'm in Kuala Lumpur at my aunty Mary's house). I'll hopefully finish this up later tonight, or if not, tomorrow at some point since the best part is yet to come.

Talk to you shortly.

Last day in Australia :(

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy Canada day. Hope the beers are flowin back at home! Tonight is my last night in Australia before I head out to Malaysia, more specifically the island called Pulau Perhentian, located about 10 nautical miles off the coast of Malaysia. The island itself is covered in beautiful white sand beaches, coral, sea turtles, and other marine wildlife. Here I'll hopefully get a chance to get a quick scuba diving lesson so the resorts will let me borrow their gear. I'd love to be able to scuba dive around the coral reefs, or if not at least snorkel in the crystal clear waters. I won't have an internet connection, and probably would never use it anyways so the next time you hear from me will probably be on the 7th or 8th of July when I return to Kuala Lumpur.

...so I left the post last night around 10:00pm local time to go out to the casino with my uncle Seng. I guess a more fitting title would be "Last day in Australia"...so I'm going to change it now. About two months ago, he bought a brand new Alfa Romeo Spider which if you don't know is a pretty sick two door Italian convertable sports car (we don't have Alfa in North America). The casino is located in the Intercontinental Hotel just outside of the Perth City limits. We went and got a beer and I sat down at a $10 buy in black jack table. I don't feel like describing every moment so I'll just tell you the results haha. On $10 in, I finished off with $125 up so I stopped and moved on to this spinning wheel thing with fruits and shit on it (like the Nevada lottery tickets). I ended up losing all but $5 dollars on the stupid wheel so I got pissed and put my last $5 chip on the purple grapes giving me 11-1 odds. Surprisingly the wheel landed on the grapes and I was up $55 again. I was like "hey, my luck's turning around" so I put 20 bucks on oranges (5-1) and won again. At this point I was up to $135 Australian Dollars so I stopped, cashed in and got another beer. I didn't want to lose anymore money cause I'm not a chronic gambler. So moral of the story is always put your money on grapes and oranges :|

So backtracking a bit...on Tuesday, June 30th, my auntie Judy, Monica and uncle Meng and my mom made our way 3 hours north to Nambung National Park to visit the Pinnacles - natural limestone formations in the Northern Australian desert. I thought it was pretty sick since the vast desert were littered with these weird looking rocks, almost resembling stalagmites found in caves (stalagmites are the calcium carbonate formations on the floor of caves, where stalactites are the ones found on the ceiling of caves...food for thought)...hey if you're interested, here's the chemical equilbrium for the reaction:

CaCO₃(s) + H₂O(l) + CO₂(aq) → Ca(HCO₃)₂(aq)

But anyways, a similar reaction occurs in the desert where these Pinnacles are formed. And as I said...quite an amazing site. But I think I was the only one that thought it was cool. My auntie Monica (from London) was complaining that, "we drove all the way to see rocks", and that she can "walk outside to see rocks any day she wants". I guess it's kinda boring, but I still found it pretty interesting to see. Also, my aunts were making jokes about the phallic nature of these shapes since they look like giant dicks in all shapes and sizes. They were having a good time like little school girls taking pictures in poses that I don't want to see my mom or 50 year old ladies do ever again...I'm still having nightmares thinking about it...so lets never talk about this again.

The next day, we went to the Perth City centre to look around, and pick up some last minute souvinirs. I finally bought a didgeridoo which is an aboriginal wind instrument made from the wood of the Eucalyptus tree. The wood, about 4 - 5 feet long and 4 inches in diameter at the largest point is then hollowed out by termites. Most of them however are found hollowed out already which could take hours to find the perfect piece of wood. Here is a link to a pretty sick video of what the didgeridoo sounds like. I can't play as well...but I can get a pretty sick sound out of it and make some cool effects. I'm going to practice up over the rest of the summer and I'll be a pro.

That's about to the extent of everything I've done in the days leading up to now. My aunts are fighting now. All my mom's sisters have the exact same annoying temper as my mom and after this, I know that my mom isn't that bad. The Liew family temper is known by all my uncles and my cousins. It's fucking annoying, and I had to listen to it sitting in the back of a cramped car for 3 hours; my iPod was dead and my noise cancelling headphones couldn't cancel that much noise...even though they are supposed to attenuate sound in a busy city subway... They argue and fight just for the sake of arguing, and they never EVER drop the topic until they are done (which obviously lasts longer than 3 hours). Plus if you don't argue back, they'll keep bringing it up and repeating their point until you want to blow your brains out. I'm glad I don't have that part of the genes.

Anyways, I have to finish packing all my stuff to make sure I don't forget anything. I somehow lost the receipt for my didgeridoo. And by lost, I mean misplaced. And by misplaced, I mean thrown out because I thought the random piece of paper in my pocket was rubbish. Now I can't get the 30 bucks back from the airport as a tax refund (the tax rate in Australia is 10%, so do the math on how much I paid for the didge).

I'll post when I return to civilization if I haven't been eaten by a shark, or paralyzed from the jelly fish and other painful bitey things of the South China Sea.

Bye for now!

p.s. my aunts stopped arguing about 2 minutes ago...there was peace in the world. And it started again...

Simon