Kuala!!

Welcome to Penang: Home of the rude and the scary.

Ok, so Penang isn't my favorite place in the world... actually, let's back it up, probably one of my least favorites.

The men were scary here! Besides the fact that they're all staring at me because I'm foreign and a woman not clothed in a burka or dressed head to toe (Malaysians are Muslim all the way) most of them were hopped up on something. Not a fan.

The people at our hostel were rude and didn't clean the room after we asked them twice and forgot to give us blankets the first night and by the time we got in, they were sleeping.

The food was awesome. I'll give it that. There were hawkers everywhere selling all sorts of Malaysian, Chinese, and Indian fare all for under $2. We whittled our days away eating, drinking, and shopping. Not a bad way to spend time.

One of the days we went to the World's Largest Toy Museum. Sounds awesome, right? Malaysia is obsessed with the Guiness Book of World Records and tries to have the world's most/largest/smallest... everything! I was so excited about the toy museum...

but then we got there and it cost a fortune.

We thought 'this is okay, no this is alright. We haven't spent a lot of money on anything for a while, let's splurge and spend the day having fun in the worlds largest toy museum.'

worst.
idea.
ever.

On the map of Penang we recieved at our hostel, the toy museum was highlighted as a main tourist attraction.

The toy museum consisted of about 10101101010 action figures behind glass (the most boring thing of my LIFE!) I almost cried. It was so sad. We spent so much money on something that a person with a gun to my head couldn't have made me do.
It was a sad day.

We only spent about 2 days in Penang before we were right sick of it.

A LONG walk on a very hot day and we were on a ferry out of there headed for:

Kuala Lumpur!

Welcome to KL.
Now this is the city we dreamed of! Malaysia was supposed to be wealthy and beautiful, not run down and scary!
Well, in KL it's exactly what we thought (for once!)

The only way I can describe it is Muslim Vancouver.

Something cool about KL right now is that it's Ramadan. Tonight Stu and I were on the top floor of a fancy mall in the food court and there were probably over a thousand muslims sitting at tables with full plates of food and not touching them. They waited and waited and then a bell sounded over the intercom and it was off to the races!
We couldn't even get a table! We ended up eating on plastic chairs by the garbage can!

Tonight there was an indian night market in little India. It was huge. We weren't really that into it (how many markets can you go to over a three month period and not be dead bored of it, I ask you?) but we did find a killer deal on some soccer jerseys.

Yesterday we spent a loooooooooooooooooooooong time in search of the Chinese Embassy, which went quickly and smoothly.
We went to a fancy mall and to the movies and walked down the fancy city streets before heading back to skudge china town (where we live).

Here's our place: La Village. Ghetto beyond ghetto.
As Stuart said: "Your mom would kill us" ...
haha.
Malaysia is not cheap, my friends. We had to cut corners somewhere.

OK! Now I will go.