Pulau Pangkor

Today could be my most active day this week...

I've spent the last however many days here on Pangkor. Has it been a week? a month? I don't remember anymore. Tropical time, especially on the beach, is much slower. The days have been mostly eating, going to the beach, eating, reading, sleeping. An excellent vacation.

We spent Christmas Day on the beach even. We built a giant Christmas tree out of sand and decorated it with sea shells. We even opened presents to the sound of the waves.

The mosquitos here think I taste better than anyone else. I suppose that means I'm keeping our island free of mosquitos for everyone else. Even the owner of our hostel noticed it. He gave me some sea cucumber oil to put on my bites. I was dubious, but it actually worked. I no longer look like a giant bug bite.

I'm going to go kayaking around the bay with some friends this afternoon -- I think I'm meeting them now, but I haven't bothered with keeping track of time. I guess I'll wander over and find out...

Pulau Pinang

Caught a bus from Kuala Lumpur yesterday afternoon, and spent five hours driving up the west coast of Malaysia to the city of Georgetown, on the island of Pinang (Penang). It's an old colonial city, with a really strong Chinese influence, but so far, all I've seen of it is our hostel and the inside of this internet cafe. This evening, we're planning to go up to the big hill on the outskirts of the city, but so far, this vacation has been very much about taking it easy. After the bustle and heat and crowds of KL, a smaller city will be a nice change. What I'm really looking forward to is going to our next stop and meeting up with everyone else to laze about on a beach for a good solid week.

The food here has been incredible. I've eaten load of excellent Indian and Malay food, had some Thai TomYum soup the other night, and here on Pinang I think I'll be able to get my fix of Chinese. After five months of Japanese food, the variety of spices is a real treat. Not that I don't like Japanese food, but it isn't up there on the list of spicy foods. Much more austere and about the natural, raw flavours of the ingredients. Here, street stalls sell all varieties of delicious curries, fish, fruits and everything else for so cheap! Yesterday I had lunch at a busy street stall, and my plate of fried rice, fish, chicken and salad cost me a whopping 9 Ringit (about $3CDN). And it was incredibly good. Just typing about it is making my mouth water... not helped by sitting just up the road from a big conglomerate of food stalls.

Alright, off to find some food!

Almost there...

Found a free internet terminal on a twenty minute layover in Singapore -- happy to say we made it from the outskirts of Sapporo this morning at 5:15 to Chitose airport for our 8am flight. It was a close call, but we didn't get lost in the maze that is the Sapporo eki (train station).

A few more hours until we touch down in Kuala Lumpur...

Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year!

I'm heading off for a holiday in Malaysia this evening, so this will likely be my last post this year. That's right -- three weeks on a beach in the tropics!

I'm meeting up with friends, so even though I won't be spending Christmas with my family I'll still be spending Christmas with people I love.

But, yeah, I will definitely miss having a family Christmas. So for all of my family (and my friends too!) that read this blog, I'm sending out big hugs and lots of love for Christmas. I sent out Christmas cards yesterday evening, so I hope they get to you. I hope everyone has a safe journey, drives carefully, and enjoys a warm and happy Christmas.

Until next year, lots of love,
anyram

He sees you when you're sleeping...

A good rule of thumb for teaching English lessons with songs: don't choose something with vaguely creepy lyrics. You will have to sing it a lot, and every time you do, the lyrics will get creepier. Especially if you have designed actions to go with the song.

I taught at the kindergarten yesterday. We played "Pass the Present". For those of you not familiar with this game, you wrap a box of treats in multiple layers of paper, and pass it around the room and everyone gets a chance to take off a layer. And for added English learning fun, we counted in English to decide who would get to unwrap the present. And as always, teaching at the kindergarten is a blast. What kid doesn't like opening presents?

After opening presents, we sang "Santa Claus is coming to town". Complete with actions. These kids are too little to learn a lengthy song in another language in under 10 minutes, so I made up actions to go with it. Have you ever realized how creepy that song is? Especially the "Big Brother is watching" aspect. The teacher at the kindergarten liked it because of it's "good message". Believe it or not, the lyrics sounds even scarier when translated into Japanese. But the kids had fun dancing and watching me make a fool of myself. And I always have fun making a fool of myself. But by the third class we did this lesson in, I was ready to never sing about Santa Claus knowing what you are doing at all times.