DAY ELEVEN

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Today was my intended to be my “relax/catch up day.” I guess when you are in a country for almost two and a half week—you have the luxury of having one of those.

I stayed in my hotel room until about 10:15 and then set out to do some laundry. I had asked the hotel clerk the night before about the nearest place and she directed to me one less than a five minute walk away. Perfect. I had visions of me at a laundromat switching my laundry in and out as I read my travel guide book planning my free time in KL. Not to be. In fact, I don’t know that they even had Laundromats in Malaysia. You take your laundry to a store front (everything is open air here) and they do it for you. I paid the equivalent of $6.50 to have it done—so not too cheap. They seemed to have a booming business with shelves full of laundry. The only downside to this was that I was stuck in my clothes from the day before and my clothes from the day before were my church clothes—a mid-calf length black skirt and blue shirt. So basically I would be walking around the city like that all day. I have built up a reputation for myself as quite the fashion icon here in Malaysia—so this turn of events put a damper on the day. Really though, I did feel like one of the Duggar girls walking around in a long skirt all day. I was definitely not the hippest looking girl today, but it was a rather cool way to dress on another hot day.
I went to my new favorite hangout spot—the mall. First order of business was breakfast. Apparently it is meant for dessert, but I thought it made a delightful breakfast: Bubur Cha Cha. It was sweet potatoes (yellow, orange and purple) with some tapioca in a hot coconut milk base. Delish.

I then spent the next half hour looking for the Foot Master. Found. I got a 30 minutes fish massage for the equivalent of $13 USD (I found one in VA. I will personally fund anyone who wants to come with me! Deal starts now!). You just sit down and put your feet in the tank and then the fish come right up and start “kissing” your skin. Read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_fish. I loved it. It just felt like when you get that tingly feeling in your legs. It felt very natural—fish exfoliating your skin. I am not sure that I will reap any profound medical benefits from it but I really enjoyed it and might go again before I leave.

Note, I have about 400 plus pics, but whenever I have decided to put them up on facebook I realized that a lot need context (captions) in order to make sense. I decided to make this a project during my 7 hour layover in LA.

I saw a bit more of the behemoth of a mall. A few more cultural observations from spending so much time at the mall. Americans may get a bad rap for being obsessed with beauty, but Malaysians aren’t too far behind. There are no less than 70 spa, weight loss, salon type stores at the mall—this is a lot for even this size of a mall. Another observation (which I have noticed in other places I have been as well): Malaysians love American music. A good number of the stores had American pop songs (old and new) playing—T. Swift, the Biebs—you name it, they played it. Another observation, many of the clothing prices and definitely the Borders prices were the same as the US prices for similar items. (Though there are deals to be had. Case in point: a pair of shoes I bought today for $3). Last observation, I didn’t realize until today, they don’t use anything less that 5 cents here. So, after tax, if your purchase comes out to 3.63, there is another line on the receipt that charges you $.02 as a round up amount to get you to an even $3.65. I have just seen this in the mall though—the streets stalls, etc. just charge a flat amount, no tax per se.

At the mall I set off to find an ATM. Though I am doing fine on cash, I did need to pay my conference fees tomorrow and it will be 100 times easier to do in cash rather than try to do a wire transfer or anything else. This proved harder that I thought it would be. None of the ATMS would give me money. I finally went home to do some research. I found a bank online but after an hour or so of walking around (plus some time sitting under a covering to wait out a rainstorm) I couldn’t find the darn bank. I needed to pick up my laundry so I went back to the hotel area to pick it up and do some more research.

Funny story about the laundry: So I get there and they are finishing up my laundry, so I wait no more than five minutes—no big deal. Everything seems to be there. I make the five minute walk back to my hotel, drop off the laundry and get a more precise location for the bank. Was in my room for no more than 15 minutes. Well during that time the lady from the laundry realized they had forgotten to give me a piece of my laundry so she walks to my hotel and the hotel clerk calls my room, but my phone wasn’t working. So when I go down 15 minute later the clerk explains that the lady had come and that she had tried to call me. The funny part of the story: The laundry lady seemed to know where I was staying (I had never told her, though there are only a few hotels around) the clerk knew who I was (I had never talked to her so I don’t know how she knew which room to call). I guess I stand out!

Headed out to the bank and Hallelujah I found it!! The only ATM out of about 6 that tried that would give me money. Had a decent dinner of friend Koay Teow (noodles) and topped it off with a crepe (mangos and crème).

Back to my hotel room for a refreshing shower and finally being able to change into clean clothes!

Tomorrow is the conference which runs through Thursday. I am looking forward to it and that will probably be the bulk of my next three days. I may stop somewhere fun on the way home for dinner, but probably won’t do much in the evenings. I will have all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday to site see—which I think will be plenty of time.

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