My favorite (and most liked on Instagram) photo from my SEA trip came this day. I could end today’s post with just this picture and I’d be happy.
I love her.
But, I won’t cause I know my reader, Davey, would like to know what else I did this day, especially where I ate. During my entire trip, overall, I ate the best in Singapore. All due to Ahnah and Chris having already researched, eaten at, and narrowed down the best places to eat. On this day alone, we ate at Dong Fang Hong, Dal Komm cafe, Ng Ah Sio Bak Kut Teh, and Derwish. I had marked that we ate dinner twice. Did we really? I’d believe it.
Also, Senah learned how to put on a hat.
모자야~
Look at Senah staring down that man while her father is totally oblivious of her savageness.
I was pretty excited for this day. Today, I was flying to Singapore. What’s awesome about Singapore? Singapore itself…. nothing really, except that it’s a floating island mall with air conditioning and lots of food. Air conditioning did sound wonderful, but more importantly, I was going to see the Hans! They had just moved there in late 2016.
One of the best things about Singapore, I discovered very early. I landed at the airport and was pretty much out in a cab in less than 30 minutes. And majority of that time I spent at the duty free shop. 30 minutes! So nuts. A few days later, I discovered flying out of Singapore is just as easy! I made a decision that if I ever lived in Southeast Asia, it’d be Singapore cause of the ease of travel. Or Kuala Lumpur. Maybe Hong Kong, but that’s not Southeast Asia. Or is it..? Whatever, I digress. Back to Singapore.
So anyways, I get to Chris’ apartment building and I am just awed by the lobby. It’s so beautiful and shiny and air conditioned. I step into the elevator and when I arrive on their floor, the doors opened to lead me into … their front door? What? The elevator opens directly to their home. Wow. Maybe not everyone is amazed by this, but I thought that meant you really must have done something right in life. Then when I got into their apartment, the view was incredible.
Marina Bay Sands
Marina Bay was the view. Isn’t that cool? No? Okay, well whatever. I thought it was cool. Also, I found out later that I may not even have been allowed into their apartment because Ahnah mentioned how dirty I must have been from traveling so much. And it was true. They probably shouldn’t have let me come into their home, especially with Senah running around. Ha. Suckers. Well, needless to say, I took an awesome shower and caught up. Then we headed out to dinner at Makansutra Glutton’s Bay where we got tons of great food and then followed it with bingsoo dessert. So good. Like really, I’d go eat bingsoo there again. Rest of the night was just catching up and then getting some awesome shut eye. It was such a refreshing feeling to sleep somewhere “familiar”. I haven’t been there before, but it just felt nice.
Somehow I got day 35 and 36 mixed up. I actually had my shipping problems on day 36. On day 35, I had no problems. I actually got Birkenstocks and a Montblanc wallet, both fake but for a combined less than $20 USD, it was a pretty solid buy. My brother is actually still using the wallet to this day (he knows it’s a fake). The birks lasted me for the rest of my trip, so very satisfied with both of my purchases.
So after my gift shopping and shipping fiasco, the rest of this day was mostly eating related. I went to a few cafe’s this day, one of them being a hookah cafe, and met up with Tarun and his wife Nat for dinner at G3 Kitchen & Bar, where I was convinced to order a hot dog. It was the most gourmet hot dog I’ve ever had and delicious. Can’t go wrong with what these two suggested throughout my KL trip!
Finished the day off with a usual stroll around my neighborhood, which was still Chinatown, and ended the night watching some Sherlock on Netflix while packing for my next flight.
Before I begin, I just want to say hi to my first reader, Davey, who is only here by accident. I let slip that I was writing a blog. Hi, Davey! Also, note: this is the longest post I’ve written to date. It’s pretty much a stream of consciousness write up. If you stop reading half way through, I won’t judge you. Although, there is a great surprise at the end.
While traveling, I inevitably became a consumer, whether for gifts or myself. Myself mostly. Problem is, I really didn’t want to carry anything else during the trip. If anything, I was actually tossing stuff, mainly undershirts and old socks. I specifically brought old undershirts and socks just in case the scenario came up where I would have to discard items. I thought if I liked anything enough to buy it or send as a gift, I’d just ship it to the states and not have to carry it around. Would shipping something really be an issue? Turns out, yes, if you don’t know anything about what you can and cannot ship.
I spent a good amount of time looking around the KL markets and liked some of the things I found. Plus, I had bought some things from Luang Prabang and wanted to ship all of it to my brother. I ended up getting a bunch of little things, that of course, no one used, but whatever. I was most excited about a package of honey. I love honey. I picked out something else that was also organic, but can’t remember right now. So I bought everything, went back to my hotel, picked up other items, and came back to Central Market to ship everything. Turns out, I’m quite dumb for thinking I could send organic material overseas. Also, attempting to poke at whether or not it could “accidentally” be packaged without being mentioned does not fly well. Nor does trying to provide extra funds to put extra items into a package…
This lead me to have to return the honey and organic item 2, which we’ll just name “peanuts”. Returning items should be pretty easy, right? No. I had to haggle to get my money back even though it was only an hour after I purchased the honey and peanuts. It took me a lot of hand gestures since they all of a sudden forgot how to speak english. I think I got a 90% return. Good enough for me since they were already a sunk cost. This is the only term I remember from Economics. Probably explains why I failed.
Damn, I’m writing a lot today. I’m not even half way through my day yet. Okay, let’s just fly through the rest.
Tourists help tourists take silly pictures.
Of course, I visited Petronas Twin Towers, after having watched Entrapment the night before. (Love that movie. And Catherine Zeta Jones.) I really enjoyed this tour. I realize that it’s the same as taking a tour to go to the top of the Empire State building, which I always thought was so stupid cause why on earth do you care about a top of a building? But really, it was cool. I loved all the facts and views and elevator rides. I shall never judge anyone waiting in line to visit a building ever again.
I’m afraid of heights but enjoy the feeling of this fear.
A lot of my free time during this trip is spent planning only a couple weeks in advance so I can purchase transportation and accommodations. I usually wait until the day before or day of to plan what my day to day is going to be. So a lot of times, I just sit at cafes, bars, wherever to people watch and plan. It was stressful at first, cause I worry all the time about future things, but as I got more comfortable with planning on the fly, it became much more enjoyable, especially when having company of a hookah. (Funny story about hookahs here.)
Hookah and smoothie.
Sometime during this day, I watched John Wick 2. This movie series is one of my favorites and I cannot wait for John Wick 3 to come out this summer. Then I hit up another bar, spent some time to plan more, and headed home to get some shut eye.
Random street that I looked cool. Do I have a “photography eye”? In the end, I realized that I don’t care what other people think. I have my own photography eye.
If you made it all the way down here, you were looking for a surprise. Where’s the surprise you ask? TL;DR: There is no surprise. Ha, sucker. I’m talking to you, Davey.
The other day, as I was scrolling through my pictures, I thought one of the days had low volume of photos. Now, if you guys know me at all, you know I’m a picture whore. Whatever. I thought it was a big strange but thought “hm, maybe i got sick of taking photos that day” and moved on.
But now that i’m on this day, I know for sure I’m missing photos. On this day, I visited the KL Bird Park and Aquarium with MinKyung. Both places were a lot of fun, and I especially love aquariums. Somehow, I only have 17 photos! I don’t get it. Some days must not have uploaded properly. I am bummed. But oh well, moving on.
So like I said, I met up with MinKyung to visit these couple places. It was recommended by one of Charlie’s many friends, Tarun. We also had lunch at Lot 10, another place that was recommended by Tarun.
I only have ONE picture from the aquarium. Isn’t that weird? I think that’s so weird. Or maybe at the time I thought I didn’t need to take pictures of animals since there were tons that were better on google? Dunno. Anyways, MinKyung and I split ways after the aquarium. I think she had a flight to catch the next day.
I had some time to kill before meeting Tarun for dinner at Merchant’s Lane, so I went to Uniqlo to do some shopping. I don’t remember what I had to buy, but I remember thinking I was so happy to be able to go to a Uniqlo. I’m probably such a consumer, that I just thought I needed stuff, when really, I probably didn’t need it. I have to stop being so much of a consumer and instead be a producer. Make shit. Anyways, dinner was delicious! I had some fried chicken dish and it was so good. I loved every place I ate at in KL, even the McDonald’s.
After dinner, I checked out the rest of Chinatown and the Central Market. I love walking around these areas. I suppose it felt like I was just killing time, but it’s nice to walk around without an agenda. I almost liked this time better than the rest of the evening, which I spent at Changkat Bunkit Bintang. I think that was the bar name or the location I went to. Either way, I realized that drinking isn’t as much fun as I remembered it, especially when you’re drinking alone. So kids, if you’re going to drink, drink with friends.
Suck My Deck at Rock Bottom. I guess I was here too.
Drinking is so fun. Morning after is not so much. Technically though, Charlie and I didn’t even get to sleep until 7am. Apparently we had a 2 hour long discussion from 5 to 7 in the morning. I don’t recall this conversation or why it happened at 5am, but it did. We got to sleep in till noon and then had to leave since our Airbnb time was up. Charlie headed back to Saigon, and I went to my next hostel spot, Hotel China Town 2. It was a bit tough to find because the street that the entrance is on becomes a market during the day. I walked passed it a couple times, but eventually found it cause I’m awesome at directions. And Google Maps. I love Google Maps.
I remember booking this place and thinking it was so freaking cheap. Once I checked in, I found out why. There were no windows! But I didn’t care at this point. Having no windows means it’s pitch black at any time. I don’t fall asleep well with light, so this was actually quite perfect for me. Got to nap for about an hour.
When I awoke, I was kind of hungry but kind of not. You know that hangover mode where you feel like you should eat, but you’re still a bit queasy? Yeah. I couldn’t decide on anything, nor craved anything at all, so I got McDonald’s. I think this is the second time I had McDonald’s on this trip. You can always count on Ronald. After MickeyD’s I passed out again.
You’re thinking I had a waste of a day, BUT I was able to get up and get some Din Tai Fung with MinKyung, who also happened to be in KL at the time. We had dinner and caught up from our last meeting in Bangkok. We got to try this dessert spot, Miru, and got a green tea latte with a side of crepe layer cake. It was fantastic in my opinion. Not as good as Lady M in NYC, but close enough!
I love Kuala Lumpur. It’s only behind Singapore in the list of cities I’d consider moving to in Southeast Asia. The city has culture, great food, surrounded by nature (which sadly, i did not get to see), majority of the population understands english, and there’s a lot of flights in and out of KL.
All the foods.
When eating there, I highly recommend going to Lot 10. It’s a shopping complex with a food court, and it’s not just any food court. The creator, Dr. Francis Yeow, bought this complex and invited the best of best hawker stands to open a location in his complex. There’s so many options here, you’d need quite a bit of time to try it all. I only went a few times and every place I ate at was delicious. I can’t remember what I ate, but here’s a picture. Go find it, eat, and enjoy.
Yummy in my tummy.
My trip to KL was planned for these specific dates because Charlie was going to be in town. It’s always good to be around Charlie cause he somehow has friends in every city. We met up with a bunch of his friends and had dinner, drinks, more drinks, and night time food. It was all awesome until Charlie and I got into a drunken stupor argument. We worked it out though, so don’t worry. I was wondering how we got so wasted until I came across a picture of his buddy walking around with 4 beers and a shot of who-knows. My blurry memory recalls us all doing the same. I love alcohol prices in Asia. The meal at night (bottom right picture) looks like puke, but i swear, it’s delicious.
Took me around 12 hours to get from Luang Prabang to Penang. The flights were fairly short, but had a 2 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur. I was in Penang for only 14 hours and really wished I had more time here. I really loved it. Maybe cause many Malaysians thought I was actually Malaysian. I felt proud that no one could recognize me being straight from the states, especially with Trump being elected as president. When people find out I’m from the states, the conversation inevitably steers towards “how the hell did Trump become president?” My only response is a slow shake of my head while saying “I don’t know, I don’t know” in a sad, pathetic voice.
Anyways, on the ride from the airport, I asked my driver what restaurant I should eat at since I only really had one meal to eat in Penang. He suggested Deen Maju Nasi Kandar, a place where locals go. I went there after checking in and was proud to say that I was the only tourist here. It doesn’t look like much, but I think this was one of the best meals I had in Southeast Asia.
The restaurant was high school lunch cafeteria style, where you stand in line and ask for food from certain trays. It doesn’t look appealing from the pictures and when I got to the front, I had no idea what to order. Luckily, the chef was really kind and immediately knew I was there for the first time. I just told him that I wanted no seafood, chicken, vegetables, and medium spicy. He smiled proceeding to pile stuff onto a plate and poured on several different sauces. It was so good. I wouldn’t even know how else to order it again if I went back. I also ate with my hands, so it’s possible that added to the taste. I think everyone should go here if they’re headed to Penang.
The city has a lot of character, in my humble opinion. As I walked around, I made a mental note to have to come back another time. I visited some tourist sites, such as China House, ate at Chulia Street Hawker as per recommended by my friend, Katie, and just overall strolled around town.
At the hawker stand, I ended up eating with a guy named Bill, an engineering from the Philippines. He was really chill and introduced me to his friends Anne and Bem. The night had random storms that would flood the streets. People would be on the streets in the rain just drinking and dancing. There was live music at several of the bars. Everyone was just having a good time even though it was raining off and on.
Bem was an owner of the bar we spent most of our time at, a bar called Selfie. There were signatures and drawings all over the walls and so I had to leave my mark. Maybe i’ll see it again one day!
I decided last night that I wanted to hit up Kuang Si waterfalls again the next day. Except, I rented a motorbike to get there and I left early so I could be the first at the secret falls. I just checked my calendar to see what time “early” was and I only left at 10am. Not very early. But nonetheless, I was the only one at the secret falls when I got there about an hour later. Success!
Amazing.
Take a deep breath and just jump in. Water’s gonna be cold no matter what.
I spent 4 hours hiking and swimming in the falls. I loved it. It was nice to get a sweat from hiking, and then cooling down by jumping into the refreshing, and super cold water. I often said I wasn’t a beach guy, but looking at how much I enjoy other bodies of water, maybe I just don’t like salt water. Or the smell of the ocean, cause it reminds me of seafood. And let’s be honest, seafood are just giant insects. Bleck.
Right on the edge. Well, as close as I thought I could go.
In the afternoon, I went back down and had lunch outside the falls. Afterwards, it was back to Luang Prabang to explore the city. I spent a couple hours zooming around just exploring different parts of the city and eventually got back to the hostel to rest.
In the evening, I had some dinner, went shopping for some gifts at the Night Market, and then went out to Lao Lao Gardens to get some drinks with fellow travelers. I cannot recall any of their names, how I met them, or where any of them were from. All I remember was that there was a pool table and some of the guys were just shooting around. Later on, some locals came by and challenged them to a game. The locals whopped their ass and then didn’t let them play again. It turns out that these guys played for money and no one in our group wanted to lose any. Night ended around midnight and off to bed I went.
Luang Prabang is awesome because Kuang Si waterfalls are awesome because waterfalls are awesome because nature is awesome.
I knew I liked waterfalls, but today I discovered that I love waterfalls. Kuang Si waterfalls are beautiful and you should definitely visit before climate change (or tourists, like me) somehow ruins the place. The water is so, so blue due to the limestone it flows over. Be careful though, cause it’s only blue when the water is calmer, meaning don’t go during monsoon season. (I leave out the exact monsoon season months because I believe more and more of climate change’s impact.) I took tons of pictures, but honestly, it does not do it justice.
Amazing. Terrified of heights.
When I think of things I’m scared of, the 3 that pop to mind all the time are heights, spiders, and the dark. On this hike up to the waterfall, I ran into all three. Heights is shown above. The spider I almost ran into. It was minding its own business in the middle of its web, and I almost walked right into it. I almost died. But the thing that was probably the MOST scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life is voluntarily going into a cave.
When I visited other caves as a young child, there was always a guide plus lights that illuminated the path you were walking on. Also, you were always with other people, so it’s hard to be scared. I was expecting more of the same when I read about a cave a short hike from the waterfall.
Entrance. Check the flashlight.
When I got there, I was met by one man who sold me a ticket and a tiny flashlight. I wasn’t quite sure what the flashlight was for until I got to the mouth of the cave. There were no lights, no guide, and no other people.
I had told myself earlier during the trip that I’d do anything that I immediately thought “no fucking way”. This was definitely one of those moments. I recorded this all on my gopro. Below are some cuts.
Going in…Nope, nope, nope. Running back out. Why am I doing this? And why are there little statues?! I am terrified but made it all the way to the back of the cave.And made it safely back to the entrance. I’ve never been so happy to see light.
That was the highlight of the day. I’m not sure if I’d do that again but I can tell you that I’m not as afraid of the dark in my home anymore.
OutsideTheWell 