Masjid Negara, the National Mosque

Joe and I visited Masjid Negara, the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur. It is the main place of worship in KL for the Malay Muslim population. Muslims make up >60% of Malaysians, around 17 million people. This mosque can accommodate 15,000 people for prayer and welcomes non-Muslims at other times. There are many mosques around Malaysia and although you may not see a mosque nearby, you are likely to hear the call to prayer which happens 5 times a day from loud speakers at the top of towers at all mosques.

To visit a mosque, you must time your visit not to coincide with prayer time. We lucked out and entered the mosque just before the midday call to prayer. We left our shoes at the bottom of the stairs as requested and then I put the purple visitor's gown on. This gown is required clothing for all women (and men in shorts).  A tundung or hijab (headscarf) is also required apparel for all women. Fortunately, I had brought a head scarf with me so did not need to borrow one.

Below are some of the pictures of our visit:

prayer room

prayer room

steph in full muslim garb

donation container

National Mosque

visitors in purple

 muslim women & men eating separately 

mausoleum at mosque

Joe with muslim woman

Plants of Malaysia

I love tropical plants. I love the fragrances. I love the huge leaves. I love the palm trees.

On Thursday, Joe and I visited the Orchid and Hibiscus gardens in the Lake Gardens area of Kuala Lumpur. Hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia and although both orchids and hibiscus are in bloom year round in this tropical climate, only the orchids were present in profusion. I was thrilled when I found a stall at the orchid garden selling potted orchids for RM 3 & 5 each ($1-1.60). Of course I had to buy 3 to put on our condo porch. They are easy to take care of as long as you know what to do. Orchids require filtered sun, high humidity, and weekly watering. Their planting material should be something very porous like coconut husks, bark, moss, or pebbles. I also learned that they like to be crowded in their pots. I am excited to be able to grow a plant that I wouldn’t normally grow at home. 

Here are some of the plants I am enjoying this year...

Hymenocalis caribaea (Carribean spiderlily)

ginger

Heliconia pendula

tropical fern

alocasia

my orchids

tropical foliage

frangipani (plumeria)

at the orchid garden

orchids at the orchid garden

orchids for sale

more orchids for sale

Joe captured a photo of this dragonfly at the hibiscus garden

Monkeys

What is it that is so fun and appealing about monkeys? They have such cute faces and jump around in such a clever way. And I guess we love them because they remind us of ourselves!

When the kids were little, we always referred to them as monkeys, probably because they enjoyed climbing so much. Madeline used to climb up our laundry pole. Gabriel always enjoyed climbing the walls inside the house until Joe saw him and told him to keep his grubby paws off the walls! The kids were also good at clinging like monkeys. For years, I found it difficult to walk anywhere without 1 or 2 kids grabbing onto my legs. Anyway, with all the monkeys hanging around here, I thought it would be good fun to do a blog on monkeys.

Here are some cute monkey pictures and a couple of cute monkey songs...

the monkey dance

upside down

macaque w/bananas

baby macaque w/juice box!

macaque w/flowers

Roti canai/Roti chana

Despite the fact that Malaysians love food, talk about food, and have food stalls all over the place, I haven’t found the food here any better than the food I love to eat at home. Don’t get me wrong, Malaysian food is tasty with all the varied spices that come from the Malay, Indian, and Chinese cultures. But I think I am less impressed with Malaysian foods because: I am a foodie, I have developed sophisticated tastes by eating at a wide variety of restaurants from around the world, and much of my food is fresh, organic, and locally produced. I have it better than most people around the world.      

One unexpected outcome related to food is that Joe and I have both lost some weight since coming here. I think it must be a combination of eating less because of the humidity and eating less ice cream and alcohol because they are so expensive ($10 for a pint of Haagen Daz and $14 for a 6 pack of Carlsburg beer). But interestingly, we are both eating much more meat (chicken, for the most part) which seems counterintuitive to losing weight!

Yesterday, after a good hour trekking up and down hills, a Malaysian friend took me to an Indian open air restaurant where she introduced me to one of the locals’ favorite, cheap snacks, roti canai. I fell in love. roti chana is an Indian flatbread that is fried in ghee (purified butter) and then covered in whatever variety of sauces you deem appetizing. At this restaurant, there was fish curry, dal, a yogurt mixture, and a couple of other spicy sauces. We also ordered Teh ginger, which is hot ginger tea with milk and sugar (the normal way of ordering). There is a trick to eating the roti to get the most bang for your buck! You pour the sauce on the bread and then use a spoon and fork (the normal eating implements used when not using fingers to eat) to eat the sauce and a little bit of the bread whereby you are able to keep pouring delicious sauces on the roti and eat to your heart’s content. Not only that, for 4 good sized pieces of bread and as much sauce as we desired plus 2 teas, the total was less than $3!!! Delicious and a bargain!!! What could be better for a bargain girl like me?!?

roti chana w/sauces & tea

Melacca

Last weekend, we visited the historic town of Melacca. It is a 2 hour drive south of Kuala Lumpur in Peninsular Malaysia. We purchased tickets on line to go from the southern bus station in KL to Melacca on Saturday morning for a 3 day weekend. The kids had Monday off as it was Malaysia Day (or Unification Day). This day celebrates when Malaysia acquired Sabah and Sarawak on the Island of Borneo and Singapore to the south to form Malaysia in 1963 (subsequently, Singapore was released from the union, in 1965, I believe). 

The bus was very comfortable except that the a/c was way too cold! It was nice finally seeing some of the countryside surrounding KL. Madeline slept, Gabriel read, and Joe and I enjoyed the many palm trees (for palm oil???) and little towns on the way down to Melacca. One thing that will forever stand out in my mind is the many food stalls, food courts, restaurants etc everywhere you look. There are even food stalls along main thoroughfares, all with rice and noodle dishes or Indian fried breads like chapattis or roti. 

We arrived in a large bus terminal (with food courts and shopping aplenty!). Then we took a taxi to our hotel, the Best Western. Sad to say, it doesn’t match up to our own hotels in America-not even a much needed swimming pool was present. However, it was within the inner circle of the World Heritage Site, so everything we wanted to see was a close walk. We enjoyed the riverwalk, fresh fruit juices, the Hungry Ghost Festival, Jonker’s street market stalls, a local museum, several beautiful buildings, temples, churches, and shrines as well as the Chinese and Muslim cemeteries, and an old Malay village called a Kampung. Below are some pictures from our weekend.

Madeline with her new hat!

along the riverwalk in Melacca

along the riverwalk

storefronts in Melacca

trishaws in the city center (my next job opportunity?)

popsicles to cool down on a hot day

the Hungry Ghost Festival (burnt offerings made to ancestors)

Jonker's street, during the daytime (nighttime is crowded!)

over the Melacca river

Kampung Morten

inside entryway of Kampung Morten

Madeline hitting the wishing gong to make her wish come true...

updated kitchen in KG Morten bungalow

KG Morten

Malaysian Madeline

KG village

Indian food on banana leaf

Muslim cemetery

I'm not brave (stupid) enough to ride a bike anywhere around Malaysia

open drains everywhere means you'd better keep your eyes on your  feet!

private residence of wealthy family

pork, spinach noodles, and veggies

Bukit Gasing Forest Park

This morning I took my first trek in Malaysia. For you uninitiated folks, that just means a hike in the forest. Yesterday, our real estate agent Eliza, invited our family to join her for a trek through Bukit Gasing Forest Park. This is a heavily forested place in town that she visits weekly for a little exercise. As it turned out, I was the only one to join Eliza this morning, but it was nice to get the lay of the land for future trekking expeditions. Eliza picked me up at 7:15am (a bit on the early side for me), but I didn’t complain as I knew it would soon be hot. So, with tennies, shorts, a water bottle, and mosquito repellant, we set out on our journey. It was a short drive to the preserve and many cars already lined the roads leading to the park entrance. The sky loomed dark. And soon after entering the park, it started raining. Fortunately, the upper canopy blocked much of the rain, so the rain that we did get was enjoyable. The trail consisted of dirt, some cement blocks, and lots of tree roots. It was a nice combination of climbing and descending with many forested vistas. Although the trail was busy with people, the hiking was still quite pleasant. The Malaysian’s interest in trekking is surprising to me as their main passion seems to be shopping (in megamalls) and yet many of them do enjoy a moderately strenuous hike in the woods on a regular basis. Eliza and I spent just over an hour in the forest and I felt I had gotten a nice outdoor experience in the heart of KL.

bukit gasing trail

more trail views

suspension bridge (not too high)

entrance to bukit gasing

trail map to bukit basing