Keeping Up Tradition

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My Christmas this year was certainly not a traditional one in most senses. No tree, no family, no turkey dinner. However, my body made sure I kept one Christmas tradition alive--my Christmas cold! Yahhh! For at least 5 years running I've had a cold on Christmas, usually due to the end of an intense season of cramming and caffine, and this year is no exception. It's not a really bad cold and I don't feel particularly poor, but I just thought it was kind of funny that even on the other side of the world I can't escape the Christmas cold bug. Oh well! A taste of home, I guess =)

We're loving the Cameron Highlands, but unfortunately I haven't been able to update you on our great surroundings, until now, because the internet has been down in all of Malaysia! As I'm sure you've heard, there was an earthquake in Taiwan and, apparantly, all of Malaysia steals their internet from Taiwan so we were cut off when they were. OK, I'm sure that's not exactly how it went down, but I've been without net access for a little while here. Normally that wouldn't have been a big deal, but I've been desperate for World Junior Hockey updates!!!! Now THAT is a Christmas tradition that has been hard to part with. I see that they're showing the games live via broadband, and I really want to watch one, but the connections here are terrible after the earthquake and the slowness might last for months, they say, so I might have to go a year without Junior hockey action. Sniff. Maybe I'll be able to find a Canadian bar in Singapore.

Ahhh!! I just tried to save my entry and the entire computer froze, and it's just taken me close to 15 minutes to reconnect. Luckily my entry saved, but I'm scared so I'm going to wrap up. Looks like I won't be able to post any pictures for a while. Stupid earthquake. I can't bare to be separated from my beloved internet!

The Cameron Highlands are famous for their tea plantations, and let me tell you they are beautiful!!! Rolling hills of lush green rows with the occasional bright red path running through the tea bushes. It's really lovely. Plus, the tea is excellent! I purchased about a billion boxes from one plantation yesteday, so many of you will be receiving presents when I get back! Now I just have to lug around a massive cardboard box of tea bags for the next two weeks... Hopefully they return home in good condition.

Today we did a long hike through the jungle up to the top of penisular Malaysia's highest peak. It was really fun, but extremely muddy! I'm close enough to the end of the this trip that I can bare to just pack away these muddy clothes until I get home, though, so it's no big deal. I escaped without too much dirt damage, actually. Troy and Erich had a literal mud slinging fight, which was halarious to watch. As much as I enjoyed the hike, I wasn't sad to see the end of it because my ankle has really been bothering me the past couple of days (I still have no idea why) and I was in quite a bit of pain by the end. We didn't hike yesterday so I could give it a day to recuperate, but it looks like that wasn't good enough. I bought a tensor bandgage tonight which is helping quite a bit, but I guess I'll have to take it easy tomorrow. It's really to bad because there are a ton of easily accessible, pretty well marked but still rugged, jungle trails around here I would love to explore. I think we might go to a butterfly farm tomorrow, instead (considerably more tame!). Then, it will be a full day of bussing down to Singapore. I just working on getting us hostel accomidation right now. It seems to be a popular place to spend New Year's, despite being the most expensive location in SE Asia.

Thanks for all the wonderful Christmas e-mails of late! And I really enjoyed talking to all my extended family on Christmas. Hope everyone had a lovey day.

Ohhhh and in case you were wondering, we DID manage to sneak in to Renaissance Hotel and so I spent my Christmas lying on the pool deck under some palm trees. Hehehe. Supper? Well, I treated myself to an extra large mocha, which I've been craving for months. I thought that would tide me over, but in the end I broke down and purchased some McDonalds. I didn't want to, honest, but by the time I decided I was too hungry to go on it was the only place that was still open. You'll be happy to know that I haven't eaten McD's since then, however. In fact, we eat every single meal at an AMAZING Indian place here called Kumar's. It's cheap and the food is amazing. Plus the menu is so varied that after eating every meal there for the past 2 days we still aren't bored. The staff love us. (perhaps our group size of 7 has something to do with it).

If the internet continues to be down and I don't get to post soon, then Happy 2007, everyone! (And happy 50th birthday, Malaysia!)

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