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A busy month, but I mostly only took food pics? Oops.

We went out for gnocchi for my friend Jen’s birthday. Our group took up almost the whole restaurant. I had vegan gnocchi and it was a fun and delicious evening.

One of Scott’s #SMAJs was to take us to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. We walked around a lot and saw lots of stuff, like the elephants, hippos, zebras and gorillas… but we didn’t go on the safari bus! Which is apparently like the best part of the zoo!! Because we didn’t know that it was free!!!

(The key part of SMAJ activities is that Scott is supposed to do all of the planning and research and I just get to show up, so I had not talked about the zoo with anyone ahead of time because I didn’t know we were going.)

So a little bit of a SMAJ fail. We still did have a nice enough time, but maybe didn’t see everything there, and definitely not as close. It did make for some funny conversations at work the next day when they told me that the bus was free. I guess we have to go back some other time.

We went to see the Crash Test Dummies! I thought it was funny when they asked “Who listened to us in the 90s??? Who are the adult children of people that listened to us in the 90s???” (Me.) The dude still has a super low voice. They are one of the few bands that I know most of the words to their songs.

I voted in the Canadian Election. At least I think I did. The envelope has one of those Postage Paid printed stamps… I don’t know how high priority that gets sent through the postal system.

I woke up on a Saturday morning desperate for a cold cut sandwich. So we headed to Saul’s Sandwiches for lunch and had a lil picnic in the sun. It hit the spot.

Damien cooked up an epic Easter lunch for the whole family, with lamb and potatoes, and we all brought salads. Jemma made a delicious carrot cake. I feel spoiled.

Another #SMAJ! This time he took us out to try Burmese food, under recommendation from his new Burmese coworker. We just ordered things that we hadn’t heard of before. Everything we tried was tasty!

We had a very spontaneous afternoon games sess with Michael and Gina. Maybe it’s better to do it this way? Short and sweet and no pressure to clean and prepare everything perfectly. We played Finspan.

KNITTING UPDATES:

I started a pair of fingerless gloves because I wanted to try knitting with mohair, and finished the pair of slightly tweedy ribbed socks. I really like how the mohair looks, and how the socks turned out.

I nearly finished the drab sweatshirt, and then ordered a bunch more wool for a blanket and a cardigan and realised that maybe I am always drab.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Between Scott and I, approximately one million medical appointments. There was some concern that my heart was going too slowly but turns out everything is fine, I am just healthy.
  • I went to Hawthorn to watch the Oceania weightlifting comp. Enjoyed how supportive (aka LOUD) the Samoan team is of each other. Nice to catch up with a few of my old weightlifting buddies, but they did not manage to convince me to start weightlifting again.
  • Scott started working!!!!!!!!! He is enjoying the job and they seem really good and organised!
  • We planted 50 bulbs of garlic. If they grow properly, you may receive garlic as part of your Christmas gift.
  • I started going to pickleball drill sessions where we just do drills for two hours. Some might find it boring but it’s been really helpful for me and it’s very physically and mentally challenging. Ana is very strict about technique. I now do 2-3 social sessions a week and one drills session.
  • We went to watch the movie Sinners which I enjoyed quite a bit! I think it was good that I went in blind as well.

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So after Malaysia, Rosemarie came back with me to Melbourne to hang out with us for a couple weeks while Scott was still not allowed to BLT (bend, lift, twist). She is a good sister/sister-in-law.

As usual we tried to cram a million things in so we had to have a group meeting about our goals, and a whiteboard, and a schedule. This is normal family behaviour, right? Rosemarie wanted to see an emu in the wild… unfortunately we didn’t find any of the four-legged variety for her.

We checked out Moomba. Saw some waterskiers and some jetpack people and some skateboarders. Got tacos and horchata from Dingo Ate My Taco.

Piccolina vegan pistachio ice cream. Yum.

We made Nagi’s beef rendang and tried three player Unfair a couple times. Still hate it. Scott sold it after that.

Rose and I drove across town so I could play free pickleball and she could have a swim. Then we went to Girls & Boys ice cream shop, the completely vegan ice cream shop I love. The lady scooping our ice cream told us about her explosive diarrhea. But the ice cream was amazing, as usual.

The next day I dragged Rosemarie to my usual pickleball session where we accidentally dressed the same and confused every single person there. They still have not recovered from this.

We went to the new St Kilda Pier to see penguins for free. They haven’t opened the penguin viewing platforms though so instead you have to cram together at the fence and hope a penguin decides to come out into the open. A few did, but I forgot to put the memory card in my camera so this fantastic phone picture is the only photographic evidence you’ll get.

Rosemarie really wanted to use our new mixer to make a pavlova. It turned out great! We brought it to family dinner at Jemma’s house.

My friend Steph told us about a free archery session we could do for International Ladies Day. It was fun to try a new thing and catch up with Steph (unpictured).

White-plumed Honeyeater
Magpie Goose
A lot of Magpie Geese
Emu

We went on an excursion to Serendip Sanctuary, near Geelong, to try and find Rosemarie an emu in the wild. It’s a lovely state park, with lots of different short walks and bird hides. The emu was technically in an unenclosed area, however I think it does get its food from the park, so not sure if that counts as wild or not. Most of the emus I’ve seen have been in campgrounds though, so I guess that’s just kind of how they get their food.

On the way back we stopped at Tofu Shoten, where we ordered one of everything. This was something like a strawberry mochi red bean deluxe dessert. It had a lot of elements. I liked some parts but not the others. Rose and Scott got things with matcha and coffee and I can’t remember what else. We also bought some biscuits that I really liked, and some savoury tofu for cooking later.

Cookin’ sisters.

Our final project was to make roti at home. The dough was easy enough to make in the mixer, and once we accepted the sheer quantity of Nuttelex we needed to stretch and form and shape and fry the roti, they turned out pretty good. We made plain roti and egg roti, served with a random curry pack we had in the freezer, and then a dessert course of Mars bar roti. Epic meal.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Between each of these activities, we played A LOT of board games. We played Everdell, Orleans, Kingdomino, Wingspan, Unfair, Qwixx, Empire’s End, Drop It, Welcome To, Deep Sea Adventure, Concordia and Crokinole.
  • We did NOT play Finspan because it arrived two hours after Rosemarie left. Womp womp.
  • We took Rose to the footy and we got drenched by ice rain and had to move undercover but still had a good time.
  • Rosemarie helped me fix up the backyard that desperately needed some attention. We did some major lemon tree prunage. Thanks sister.
  • We went to trivia in the boonies with Ash and Charlie and we won!
  • Rose did a bit of work, Scott did a couple job interviews.

All in all, it was an excellent visit and we were sad for her to leave. I wish we could spend time together all the time.

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Prepare yourselves to see a lot of mango smoothies. :D

It was a bit of a journey to get to the Perhentian Islands, but it was seamless. We flew to Kota Bharu, then caught a one hour Grab to Kuala Besut Jetty, and then a half an hour ferry that delivered us right to our accommodation. We got the last two spots on the boat, right at the front with all the bags. This ended up being extremely painful because the boat only seemed to have one speed (very fast), and every slam of the boat onto the waves reverberated up our spinal columns and turned them into dust.

We had three nights booked on the small island, and two nights on the big island.

We ended up arriving at our hotel in Coral Bay way before our room was ready so we went for a swim, checked out the restaurant next door (10 out of 10 mango ice blended), walked to Long Beach on the other side of the island, and swam again.

Ramadan had just started, and it was only the very very beginning of the tourist season there, so probably about 75% of the resorts and restaurants were closed. Options were quite limited at some points but there was still enough open for us to be looked after, with some flexibility. And on the plus side, there was barely anyone around so nothing was busy or crowded.

The customer service at Ombak was really great, like fancy resort style, but our actual room was pretty dingy, so we didn’t spend a lot of time in there. And there was A LOT of mosquitos so you need to have bug spray and cover up as much as possible at night.

Playing games in the resort restaurant area with my emotional support bug spray and my anti mosquito pineapple pants.

The view from our resort.

We booked a full day snorkeling trip for the next day, as this was what we had come to Perhentian Islands for. We went to a bunch of different places and they were all pretty amazing. At one of the places we saw more reef sharks than I have ever seen before, combined. Dozens and dozens of them! Very cool. Another place had huge turtles. One place had sooooooo many anemone with clown fish in every single one. We also saw sting rays, and lots and lots of types of fish.

I don’t have any underwater pictures because my GoPro died on Christmas Island.

We stopped at a beach as well. Rose and I did a game where we had 5 minutes to find the best piece of coral we could. I picked mine because I think it looks like a lizard, and Rose picked a piece of ROCK ON coral.

Back at Amelia Cafe for a pre-dinner snack (and game) because how could we possibly fast from 5:30pm to 7pm while the restaurant people had a break during their DAY LONG fast. Hehe. We had banana Sneakers roti, and mango ice blendeds, of course.

Exploring the much fancier resort next to ours at sunset. (Waiting until we can eat again.)

Then fish BBQ for actual dinner! We tried barracuda and kingfish. It was like $10 for a big piece of fish, rice, potato, salad, and fruit. Loved it, although it did take a very long time to come out.

The next day Rosemarie booked a few dives so I had a solo morning. I went for a walk and found another big monitor lizard. And got eaten alive by mosquitos.

Alone-y lunch back at the local. Delicious nasi goreng and a low mango mango blended.

I saw a lot of support for Palestine all throughout Malaysia. So refreshing.

When Rosemarie got back from diving we went for a little hike up to the windmills. It was hot. I got even more mosquito bites. And you probably shouldn’t go for a hike in a damp full body bathing suit. We got really stinky.

We had fish BBQ for dinner at Amelia Cafe again. I got barramundi and Rosemarie got a whole squid.

The next day Rosemarie did one more dive and I tagged along and snorkeled.

We had one last breakfast at Amelia Cafe before catching a boat taxi to the other island. We had three types of roti. We always had the same waiters looking after us every time we ate there because they get no days off! They were always asking us funny questions. When we told the waiter guys it was our last meal there they wanted to take a picture with us, haha.

Quick and easy boat taxi trip to the other island. The big island is bigger, but has less options on it. Again the service at our hotel was great (complimentary banana bread!), but the entire building felt like it was made out of sponges.

Hammock time. And the view from the big island to Fishermans Village on the small island. We heard a lot of prayers sounds from that mosque, at all times of day.

This was not our best meal. Really missed Amelia Cafe at that point. Probably our fault for going out to eat right before sunset when the staff was probably at their most exhausted and hangry.

The next day we booked a half day snorkel tour that would bring us to a few new locations. It ended up being a private tour with just Rosemarie and I, and our very sun smart boat driver who looked like a ninja.

It was good to go to new snorkel spots but there is probably a reason why they weren’t on the popular tour. Some were a bit choppy and it was a bit harder to see stuff. But it was still great! We didn’t get to see any Napoleon fish unfortunately, even though our ninja guide told us exactly where to look and how many to look for (one, and four, lol).

Post snorkeling mango ice blendeds. These might have been the best ones yet. Look at that height! Look at that shine!

We were hanging out in the hammocks and heard a weird sound that we hadn’t heard before. Went to check it out… MONKEYS! The best!!

Trying out another BBQ joint. This time we split a whole tuna. I asked what type of tuna it was and the man was like “It’s just tuna tuna”. Haha.

One last mango ice blended. The two ladies running this beach restaurant just sat in the shade as much as possible. You want food, you get the menu yourself and come to them, ha. I get it.

And then finally we caught the ferry back to the mainland. This time we were much smarter and sat right at the back of the boat. It was much more comfortable.

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Our next stop was Penang. Mostly for eating, hehe.

We decided to get off our bus early and take the ferry to Penang Island rather than sit in traffic over the bridge because our hotel was right next to the ferry terminal anyway. The ferry felt just like the Seabus in Vancouver!

We went to the Jetty Food Court for dinner the first night in Penang because someone had recommended it, and it looked cool and had tons of different options all in once place… but it was very mid. We had noodles and then walked around and tried to find another place for a second dinner/snack, but ended up in an Indian garment making area that was interesting but not food-filled.

Eventually we found a little roadside place where we could get cool drinks and finally try kaya toast (liked it).

Penang has lots of street art.

The next morning we caught the city bus (Penang has a lot of easy to use buses) around the north of the island to Escape Penang, because I wanted to go on the Worlds Longest Water Slide.

The amusement park actually has 4 Guinness Records:

  1. Longest Tube Water Slide – 1,111 metres – chairlift to the top, takes like 5 minutes to get down, very fun, you can see monkeys from the slide
  2. Longest Zip Coaster – 1,135 metres – absolutely terrifying, do NOT ask for an big push, wanted off the ride after the first 30 seconds, also lasted about 5 minutes, legit thought I was going to fall out the entire time
  3. Longest Tubby Racer – 453.3 metres – still pretty scary, worried about flipping and grating off all of my skin
  4. Largest Tipping Bucket – 28,757 litres – RIDICULOUS, requires several lifeguards to make sure that people don’t actually die when it tips, knocked me back about a meter into the stranger sitting behind me, a funny bonding experience

The park also had other extreme waterslides, like a carpet racer with automatic launching device, an aqualoop, some steep drop slides, a banana shaped slide that launches into the air (with a sign warning of high risk of dislocations). Also a lazy river that had no current and you had to legit paddle a boat with the shortest paddles ever to get around, and a Wipe Out type inflatable course that was fun and hard.

There was even more activities on the dry side of the park, like high ropes and rock climbing, but after our terrifying experience on the Zip Coaster, and sweating our way through the seven sketchy ziplines we decided we’d had enough and headed out.

Overall the park was extremely exhilarating. I’m glad that neither of us hurt ourselves.

We had to wait a long time for a bus on the way back because of a downed power line. By the time we got back to town it was dinner time so again we got off the bus early and headed to the Kimberley Street Food Night Market. We saw a big line for this little cart so we lined up. Turns out it’s a Michelin Guide joint famous for its braised chicken feet. (We didn’t get that… we got some type of koay teow soup.)

There are a bunch of restaurants nearby that will let you bring in outside food as long as you order a drink or a dessert. So we also got some satay skewers from another street vendor and some deliciously refreshing icy desserts. Such a good meal.

The next morning we checked out the jetties near our hotel. They are quite touristy but it’s neat that people live right on them. And I like their concrete bucket piles/footings system.

Then we went back to the night market we were at the night before, but in the morning, so we could try Penang-style laksa. Did you know that laksa is a breakfast food? We also got one of these Chinese meat pastry thingies that was super oily delicious.

We caught a Grab to Penang Hill and took the funicular up to the top. It was very high!

There were monkeys at the top and they were very funny, even though they were totally pests. We greatly enjoyed watching them dig through bins, try stuff, and throw things they didn’t care for.

Another couple of funny monkeys.

It was very hot up there but the view was nice we did a few little hikes. We were strategically picking routes that were mostly downhill, but ended up walking too far down and then we couldn’t get back on the funicular unless we walked way WAY further down, and it ended up being quite a long and tiring and sweaty experience.

On the plus side, we found a different type of monkey at the funicular midstation! So cute!!

Then we caught another Grab to a hipster market and had some kimbap and did a lil’ shopping. I got some cute stickers and Rose bought some socks that have roti on them.

For dinner we had nasi kandar, which is similar to nasi lemak but more curry-y and even more customisable. There were dozens of choices of proteins and vegetables. To be honest we were quite overwhelmed, but the restaurant dude was super helpful and patient with us! We chose a piece of fish and some marinated chicken and then he picked out a bunch of sides for us. It was tasty and the perfect amount of food. I liked seeing what plates the other people built for themselves.

The next morning we were up before sunrise to catch our flight to the East Coast!

Penang was great. So delicious.

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Some might say that wolfing down a spicy som tam salad and a spicy nasi goreng immediately before going on a 5 hour bus ride to the Cameron Highlands was a risky move.. but thankfully we survived. Iron stomach. Our bus broke down on the way but they organised a replacement bus quite quickly and the new bus was better so all good.

Eventually we made it to Tanah Ratah where it was at least 10 degrees colder than Kuala Lumpur. Our hotel booking got upgraded to a two bedroom place so we had lots of room to spread out.

The area is known for tea and strawberry farming in particular, so I had strawberry juice several times. It looked like they grow all sorts of stuff in the area, there were really crazy looking vertical farms on the hillsides everywhere.

The next day we took a half day tour of the area. It was very foggy/cloudy/misty so we didn’t get to see that much of the view, but what we did see was still beautiful!

The first place we stopped was the Boh Tea Plantation. I think Boh is kind of like the Lipton of Malaysia, but the scenery was awesome and we really enjoyed the tour of the tea factory. We saw how they do the plucking, drying, rolling, fermenting and more drying. It’s a pretty quick process. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in there though.

So many colours of flowers.

After that we stopped at a couple other places to admire the views. :D

We went for a short walk on the side of the road on the way to the Mossy Forest where the guide pointed out a bunch of edible plants. It was so lush. The guide said “OK?” after literally every sentence he said and it really made Rosemarie and I giggle. OK?

The Mossy Forrest was indeed very mossy. And moistly. And cold. We were wearing every layer of clothes we brought and still had to keep moving to stay warm.

There were tons of these endangered carnivorous striped Malayan montane pitcher plants (thanks Wikipedia) in the Mossy Forest. Pretty neat.

Then we went to a tourist trap strawberry farm but it wasn’t really strawberry season so instead of buying anything I looked at birds.

Found some!

That was the end of the tour. We asked to get dropped off on the side of the highway so we could walk to a restaurant that was serving bamboo biryani. I didn’t know what bamboo biryani was but after seeing it on a billboard I had to try it. Turns out it’s rice cooked inside tubes of bamboo which they dramatically knock out of the tube onto a plate in front of you. I couldn’t really taste the bamboo but whatevs it was a fun gimmick.

Afternoon snack. Mangosteen are so good. It was only the very tail end of the season so they weren’t even at their prime but they were still amazing. Next time I go to Malaysia I’m going to make sure it’s mangosteen and durian season.

We went on a short hike to a garbage-filled waterfall and then warmed ourselves back up with a giant steamboat hot pot. This meal was a splurge meal for us… I think it was $20 hehehe.

In hindsight we should have booked a morning bus to Penang because we didn’t really have anything left to do in the Cameron Highlands at that point. Instead we slept in, had roti for breakfast again, went for another short hike along garbage-strewn streams, and attempted to find birds.

We had Indian food for lunch and epic mango smoothies before catching the bus to Penang, about another 5 hour trip.

Cameron Highlands is beautiful, and the cool temperature feels great after being so sweaty in KL, I would recommend going there, but you only really need one full day there and then you can continue on.