We woke up on the train going back into Kuala Lumpur. We were both sporting some pretty sweet bed-head, so we got a quick breakfast at the station and headed back to Chinatown to find a place to stay. We ended up at the first place we stayed at and found it was a lot nicer than we had previously thought, with free internet and an open-air restaurant that looked out over the street. We showered and changed and headed back to Sentral Station to get tickets to the Batu Caves. We had been told just to get a cab, but this was ridiculous advice considering that a one-person one-way ticket cost 1 ringgit (about 40 cents). We headed out to the caves at about 10 in the morning. There are many Hindu temples around and ... read more

We woke up at 6:30 for our ferry at 7 in the morning. Luckily the town is small, so we arrived in plenty of time and then were walked a block over to the jetty. We were asked which of the two Perhentian islands we wanted to go to (Kecil- the more “backpacker” of the two) and which beach on the island (Long Beach – supposedly more fun/ more places to stay). Then we were sorted into speed boats for a 30-minute ride out to the island. About halfway through I was pretty sure I was going to learn to drive a speedboat and just ferry people back and forth everyday for the rest of my life. There were 3 women on our boat from an unidentified European country and they didn’t seem thrilled with ... read more

We woke up on the overnight train. It was almost an hour late getting into Butterworth, which made me nervous that we missed it. But a good general rule is that if it’s not obviously not your stop, DO NOT get off the moving vehicle. We got into Butterworth at about 7:30 am. The train station, bus station, and ferry station are all connected by walkways, so we immediately walked to the bus terminal to buy our tickets for Monday (despite the cab driver who very helpfully offered to drive us to the bus station because the walk was “steep”). This was an amazingly easy process. We walked to the ferry station and paid RM 1.2 (about 50 cents) to cross over to Georgetown. After taking a bus to our hostel (the amazingly beautiful Old ... read more

So I finally got to experience the wonder that was Mud Fest. It was hyped to an extreme degree, so I was a bit nervous that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations, but luckily that didn’t happen. It was one of the most fun weekends I’ve ever had. I roomed with a couple of my coworkers, so we got up pretty early Saturday morning (tough for me, but I made it happen) and took a cab to Suwon, the nearest large town from where we live. We took a train south from Suwon to a small, rural town called Daecheon 대천(not to be confused with Daejeon 대전, the 5th largest city in the country, which I’ve already visited. They’re on the same train line btw. That’s not confusing at all…) We took a bus into ... read more

It’s been two months since my last post and when I was asked to write a new one, my initial reaction was “But nothing has happened in those two months!” But when I sat down to think of what I’ve been up to I realized that this was incorrect, it’s just difficult to see because I’m actually so busy. At school we had a big competition called “Guess the Words”. The kids all memorized lists of words and their definitions and then competed to see who could identify the most words in a minute and a half. A couple of my classes won their divisions and a couple of my students won their individual rounds. Some of them really enjoyed it, some just found it incredibly stressful. It was kind of stressful for the teachers to ... read more