In hindsight, it was not the best decision to book an international flight leaving at 6:15am when we live quite far away from the airport. Waking up at 3:30am is not fun. At least there was no traffic.

KUL airport is super far away from the Kuala Lumpur as well but the train was very straight forward. I got some cash and lunch in town and then headed towards DQ’s apartment where Zeph met me at the monorail station. DQ works at an international school and they have been living there for a few months. Their apartment is pretty amazing.

This was the view from DQ’s shower!!

That first evening we went out for nasi lemak and a little walk around the neighbourhood. Nasi lemak is like a super popular customizable meal where you get to pick all sorts of different bits to go with your rice, and then it comes with sambal, fried anchovies and peanuts. Delicious.

Because this was a carry on bag only trip, I only brought my 50mm lens, my 16mm lens, and my cheapy telephoto lens to try and reduce weight. Most of the time I only brought one lens on my camera out with me, which was a fun challenge. I greatly underestimated the size of the Petronas Towers the first time though, haha.

It was really nice spending time with Dan-Que again after so long. We have been friends since Grade 4!

The next morning Dan-Que and I went out for an epic roti breakfast. We ordered way too much haha. But each one was like $1-2! If I remember right we got plain, egg, egg + onion, and banana. It came with three different dipping daals/sambals.

After breakfast we went to the market to try and buy a variety of mangoes to do a taste test. There were lots of different types and they were so affordable (1 kg for $1.40 AUD!!) but they were a little pushy about buying many kilos at once, and there is only so much mango we could eat in time, especially when it’s already ripe. So we ended up with like 3 kg of mango but only two different types, heh. We did get to try slices of a few other varieties, and another dude let us try salak/snake fruit (not great imo).

Later we went for another walk to KLCC Park, alternating outdoor time with mall time for temperature regulation. That is a Oriental Magpie-robin. We also saw a Black-naped Oriole.

We stopped in a food court for a snack. Dan-Que ordered cendol and a sirap bandung on my behalf for us to try because I was completely paralyzed with indecision. The cendol is an icy coconut dessert with pandan jelly and beans. It is nice and refreshing and not too sweet. The sirap was ultra ultra sweet. We couldn’t pick the flavour at first but then eventually figured out it was rose flavoured.

We had Indian food for dinner and then had to try and meet up with Rosemarie at the subway station, 2000s style, because she had no internet. We had come up with a plan ahead of time, and then just had to be there and wait for her. Remember when we had to do that all the time?!! Our dinner ran a bit long, and we weren’t 100% sure which metro exit she would come out of, and what she would do if she beat us there, which was a little bit stressful, but we just used our sisterly intuition and it worked!!! Reunited.

The next morning we all went to Batu Caves. It is so colourful and cool! Unfortunately it was raining quite a bit. The rain cooled us down a lot, but it made it hard to take pictures on the fun rainbow stairs, and also we didn’t see any monkeys, which is unusual apparently.

It is a pretty neat place though.

After showers and wringing out our shoes we headed out again. We had regular bak kut teh, which is a very porky soup dish, and dry bak kut teh which is the same thing but caramelized, and doughnuts and kangkung belacan (water spinach with shrimp paste). I liked it, but I wouldn’t want to have it too often.

We walked around some more touristy areas.. Chinatown, some neat alleyways, some hipster shops, and this bookstore that I’m pretty sure I saw on an episode of Amazing Race.

Assume that every activity is separated by showers and/or swimming. I was having like 3 or 4 showers a day those first few days. Dan-Que’s apartment has a really great covered pool, which is epic. I am cry-laughing in this picture because someone turned on the jets on the lounge beds and my bathing suit kept filling up with air that I could not get out.

Night time photoshoot at the Petronas Towers. It was going so well until it started POURING. Even though they only live 10 minutes walk away, and we were prepared with umbrellas, we got fully drenched again. A moistly day!

After another roti breakfast the next day, Rosemarie and I met her friend Daph at the KL Bird Park.

I didn’t realise that hornbills were so huge! It was a pretty good bird park, and we saw monkeys too, but I was also having some kind of allergic reaction to something for the last day or so and my eye was getting hella hella swollen at that point so I was a little miserable.

Daph made some calls and organised to take me to a clinic, where I saw a doctor, got an antihistamine and steroid shot in my bum, and a prescription for the next few days, all for $30 AUD and done in like 45 minutes. Amazing. I am very grateful that she was able to help me out with that. My eye felt better almost immediately and by the evening it was back to normal size.

Daph took us to her favourite banana leaf restaurant for lunch. All the curries and pickles on the leaf are unlimited! And then she added on calamari and goat. You eat with your hands! It was really delicious and lots of fun. When you are finished you fold your leaf over a certain way and then they know you are done.

We went back to Daph’s house for a rest and to wait for the daily rain to pass. Weather apps do not work very well in Malaysia, but her dad said he thought it would stop raining at 7PM and he was pretty much spot on. Years of experience > computer modeling.

Daph took us to her local night market and explained what everything was and we all bought different things to bring back to her house for a feast. Her information was so interesting and helpful! We tried rokjak (fruit and veg salad with a sauce), stinky tofu, a Chinese pulled sugar dessert thingy, corn in a crispy shell, salt baked chicken, carrot cake, a vegetable stir fry wrap thing, longan juice, and probably a bunch more things that I have forgotten.

Finally we caught a Grab back to Dan-Que’s place and the next day Rosemarie and I continued on to the Cameron Highlands!

And yet again I am months behind in blogging. This will be a pretty short post though because we didn’t that much and apparently I took even fewer pictures.

I didn’t stay up for New Years Eve, like usual, but we did drive down to the beach for our traditional New Years Day polar bear swim. It was windy and cool so we just dunked and left.

I felt like we were wasting away our whole summer so I booked us an Airbnb for a long weekend in Warrandyte to trick us into thinking we were on holiday (when really we only had to drive 30 minutes). It actually worked, the Airbnb was up in the trees and really spacious. We went out for a few meals, swam in the river, played games, and watched movies. It was very relaxing.

I started a new project, a sweatshirt.

And I finished these jellyfish socks with that much navy yarn to spare! Just enough to kitchener stitch the toe and weave in the ends. I won yarn chicken that day.

January unpictured stuff:

  • We saw Rufus Wainwright at the Melbourne Recital Center and it was very lovely.
  • Big dumpling dinner in the city. Always good.
  • We went to a Middle Eastern restaurant for a #SMAJ activity and ordered a huge platter.
  • I played a lot of pickleball.
  • Scott’s procedure got postponed.

The power went out on a very very hot day so we decided to slow walk to Chadstone for fro yo instead of roasting ourselves at home. The fro yo was great and by the time we got home the power was back on. Mission success.

I got a new phone so now I can take good pictures from a lot further away haha.

If you’ve ever traveled with me you would have seen my suitcases that I painted 20ish years ago. It really does make it so much easier in the airport. My skills have improved since then… very happy with how my new carry on bag came out. There are sprinkles on all sides for 3D identification.

February unpictured stuff:

  • After months of waiting, Scott finally got his blood patch done!! He felt better about a week later but had to be very careful with his movements.
  • Helping prepping as much stuff as possible so that Scott would be OK when I left to go to Malaysia.
  • A work dinner to celebrate Leon finishing his placement.

Good things that happened in 2024:

  • We saw the Aurora Australis twice, kind of.
  • We saw the Cirque du Soleil show Luzia and was shocked and awed, mostly by the contortionist.
  • We went to a restaurant where you could eat unlimited pierogies, what a dream.
  • I went on an epic trip to Christmas Island where I saw amazing wildlife and learned a ton about photography.
  • We went on a pleasant weekend away in Torquay.
  • I saw a performance of Wallace and Gromit Wrong Trousers with a live brass band and it made me cry with happiness.
  • I competed in the Victorian Weightlifting Championships and nearly had a perfect competition.
  • I played a heck of a lot of pickleball.

Favourite Books:

I watched a lot less TV this year and instead started listening to audiobooks, which works a lot better with knitting as I never used to look at the TV enough to follow what was happening. That plus bed time reading.. I got through a lot more books than last year! These were my favourites:

  • Solito by Javier Zamora – intense true story of a little poop-obsessed kid trying to get from El Salvador to USA
  • In Memoriam by Alice Winn – man, WWI really sucked
  • Know My Name by Chanel Miller – the world is so exhausting and unfair
  • Five Little Indians by Michelle Good – another pretty sad book about kids that had to go to residential school in British Columbia
  • Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin – at times frustrating, but interesting story about friends that make video games
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – multi-multi-multi-generational story about a family from Ghana to USA, my favourite part: when they said segregation wouldn’t have been so bad if the white people just left them alone
  • Greenwood by Michael Christie – another Canadian book, makes you grateful for nature
  • Educated by Tara Westover – shocking, fascinating story of a girl with insane Mormon parents

In summary, the more depressing or disturbing the better, especially if also set in Canada.

Board games:

I played 21 games this year, with 26 different people, in 11 locations.

14 were new games! Everdell, Unfair, Empire’s End, Scribbly Gum, Inis, Pollen, Brass: Birmingham, Disney Villainous, Portrayal, Quadrapolis, Habitats, Vivid Memories, Zoo Vadis, and The Fuzzies. Definitely not all of those new games were good. Brass was so confusing, Villainous was torturous with 6 players, and Zoo Vadis was SO annoying as a quiet person. But I really enjoyed Empire’s End, Pollen (going to make my own travel version), Quadrapolis, and even The Fuzzies (Jenga with pompoms).

Our most played game, by far, was Wingspan. Mostly on Steam with Scott and Rosemarie on the weekends. I played 39 games with Rosemarie over the year! (Of which she won 48% of them!!!)

PBs:

No snatch PBs. Clean and jerk 58kg -> 59kg in comp. Total 108kg -> 109kg. No other PBs on squats, deadlifts or presses. No wonder I felt like retiring.

Pickleball game has improved heaps but not as easy to measure.

Great new recipes:

  • Everything that you can put in an air fryer
  • Brussels sprouts are actually tasty!
  • Dumplings like you can get in Chinatown (I used peanut butter instead of sesame paste)
  • Dense bean salads, like this one

Favourite bird pics:

Because it was HARD WORK to get this picture.

Because it looks like a moody painting.

Knitting:

Year of the beanie, apparently! Learned colourwork, continental knitting, intarsia and cable knitting.

2024 goals: Use camera more!!! (That dusty thing in the corner?) Design bird sweaters. (Started this, then abandoned after I realised designing clothing patterns is an extremely difficult task due to people coming in many many different sizes.) Be more comfortable being me. (Maybe a bit TOO comfortable, jk.)

Last years thoughts: “Hopefully Scott ends up getting a new job soon so that we go back to traveling and doing more fun stuff again.” HA HA HA. :(

This years thoughts: While it mostly didn’t seem that bad at the time, upon reflection, 2024 wasn’t our best year. Unemployment x2, injury, chronic illness, saving up for trips that might not actually happen, and leaving weightlifting. But alas, we truck along. Hopefully we can get things back on track again in 2025.

It was a busy month, this is going to be hella long!!

Carrying on the gingerbread house tradition with new friends. :) Carrying on the tradition of having WAY TOO MUCH candy! Building gingerbread structures in very high humidity is not ideal.. there were some struggles. It took a while to figure out which icing would work. But in the end we got there, mostly. Fun was had.

Poor Ash’s house already collapsed by the next morning due to moisture issues.

Scott and I decided that instead of getting each other Christmas presents we would finally get ourselves a stand mixer. I did some extreme couponing and we ended up getting a great price on a fancy Kenwood mixer on Black Friday. It is AWESOME. It has a scale built into it!! I made strawberry cupcakes to break it in.

We had our work Christmas lunch at the Espy this year. There was so much food this year it was ridiculous. I screamed when they brought out an entire dairy free pizza for me as a substitute for the little pieces of deep dish pizza, hahaha. We all brought so much stuff home.

I went to SO MANY Christmas parties. They were all great! Christmas BBQ at Sonika’s, Christmas pool party brunch at Naomi’s, Christmas dinner at Scott’s bowls club, and English Christmas lunch at Maz’s. So much eating. So much fun. I especially liked playing in the pool with Sonny’s kids, and duck fat roasted potatoes at Maz’s.

Some delicious party meals.

Pre-Christmas crochet time with Ava. #summeroflyingdown

Maybe a new Christmas tradition… cinnamon buns for Christmas morning. Next time I’ll use yeast that didn’t expire 4 years ago. They still turned out pretty delicious though!! I stood next to the dough being kneading in the mixer in awe for the entire 8 minutes.

Luca seemed to like the mimic that Scott made for him! He was going around chomping everyone’s limbs.

Christmas Day was the usual in Boronia, an insane amount of presents, an insane amount of food, backyard cricket, chats with family, pictures. No waterslide this year as Shaun’s family had gastro and no one wants that combination. :D

Our December #SMAJ was going to Day 2 of the cricket with Da Boys. I did enjoy the Boxing Day Test this year but I found it hard to see the ball and follow what was happening in real life. Plus it was very crowded. Scott did bring us thermos hot dogs though! We lasted four or five hours before both of us really needed to leave, and we got to see both teams batting and several wickets, so overall a successful outing.

Still playing heaps of pickleball all around the city. I checked out the Eastern Indoor Sports Centre which has actual pickleball lines, for a drills and structured play session. It was good!

Churning out Lake Reed cable knit hats. Fun to learn a new technique! I finished the pink/burgundy one in 2 days for a Kris Kringle gift.

Lake Reed cable knit hat, before and after blocking. Makes a big difference, doesn’t it?

Rosemarie’s sweater, finished! Before and after blocking. Really pleased how this one turned out.

Vacuum packed Bingo and sweater for travel to Squamish. I don’t think Bingo has fully recovered yet.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Scott has had many MRIs and doctors appointments. The good news is that he’s not concussed and at least we know what the problem is now, and it’s fixable, the bad news is that it’s going to take a little while to get through all the steps, and he might need surgery. He’s still uncomfortable but I guess he’s learning more how to balance lying down time and doing some activities. We’re hoping that we’ll get some updates this week or next week, after all of these public holidays.
  • We went to trivia at a new place, which is always a novelty, but it was very loud and the seats have no backs and my (vegan) pizza was very wet.
  • Our belated November #SMAJ was going to see the new Wallace and Gromit movie at the theatre with the Lonard’s. Ava was giggling the whole time. I loved it too.

We had a really fun Saturday where we did a pickleball tournament in the afternoon, then went out for dinner in the city, and then went to a concert. And the only picture I took was our food. Typical.

The tournament was the Maroondah Classic and we did the Mixed Doubles 3.0 and under category. From memory we won three and lost three games, and ended up in 4th place. Classic. It was fun and we saw lots of pickleball friends at the competition.

We had Roule Galette for dinner. I had a breakfast-y one with ham and eggs and swiss cheese, and Scott had something with apple and camembert. A delicious quick dinner. Then we saw Lior at the Melbourne Recital Centre (my new favourite venue since going to see the Wallace and Gromit thing). It was a nice concert, very relaxing.

I mentioned in my last post that I stopped doing weightlifting. Instead I started playing pickleball three times a week, swimming, and signed up for a sewing class. If I finished work early on a sewing class day I figured out I had enough time to drive to Fitzroy, go for a swim there, get plant based ice cream, and then go to the class. A very productive and fun day.

The sewing class was good, it was nice to get some guidance and learn the proper way to do things. I made a jumpsuit and a pair of shorts in the three classes.

Spontaneous momo lunch (and fabric shop). We also had pani puri which was so fun! And a “salad” that was definitely not healthy haha.. it seemed to be made mostly of crispy noodles and rice krispies. I don’t know what spices Nepalese food uses but it’s so neat to eat a different flavour profile than we are used to.

It was really hot this day, ok.

Unfortunately this is when things started to go bad for us.

Scott got a really bad headache after playing hockey, which everyone decided was concussion. More about this later. And then in the same week, he got laid off from work. So no more sewing classes. Scott spent a lot of time lying down in the spare room in the dark.

A concussed guy harvesting garlic. And French braiding garlic is easier than hair, haha.

We’d been growing this garlic for months!! One morning Scott told me to come outside and look because he thought the garlic had been trampled. Every single plant was now lying down on the ground instead of growing straight up like the day before. Apparently this is how soft neck garlic tells you it’s pretty much ready for harvest. Exciting! We got a decent harvest, although some of them are pretty tiny. We still haven’t actually tried any of it because we keep getting given a new bulb of garlic in every food delivery box, although as I’m writing this now I realise I think we need to just use it anyway.

Games night as Bis’s featuring crazy snacks that Bis and Yay brought back from Europe and Japan. Including… PLANKTON chocolate. I’m not even joking. Now I know next time I go on a trip I need to find the absolute weirdest food ever to bring back as a gift for Bis, lol. Yay brought back the most delicious fluffy soft fruity pillow mochi that I love soooooooooo much.

We played Zoo Vadis, which I hated because it involved loud negotiating, and Habitats which was good except everyone got too distracted by trying to find the exact right animal token even though it didn’t actually matter which token you used.

What pepperoni oil stain?

Lunch time jellyfish socks are coming along. I made a mistake though and accidentally knitted the whole foot part without switching back to the larger needles so they are very narrow. Who do we know with size 8ish, but very thin feet?

Rosemarie’s sweater almost done. I had to do all sorts of knitting math to try and maximize every meter I had of the yarn because I only had JUST enough to finish. Thankfully Rosemarie doesn’t have quite as freakishly long torso as I do.

Unpictured stuff:

  • We had a family lunch at Brett’s on Melbourne Cup Day. Love a public holiday that no one cares about the reason for having the public holiday any more.
  • Played games at Maz’s. We played Lords of Waterdeep (classic) and Quadropolis (simple planning type of game).
  • We had brunch out with Scott’s friends’ family that live very close to us but we don’t see very often (well actually I haven’t seen them since our WEDDING PARTY, lol). Scott made their daughter a crochet Pokemon thing that was a hit. They started playing pickleball so maybe we will see them more often now.