March 20th - 26th This weekend we finally did something I have wanted to do since we got here; go to Fort Cornwallis. The fort was established by Francis Light, a British trader who is linked with the Western colonization of Penang island. Since I am writing this a month after we visited it, and all our souvenier brochures are on their way back home, I can't tell you much more. The Penang tourism website has some good info. Also, this new site, Penang.ws, is a little more concise, not so touristy. The two Walks through Penang are a nice way [View Full Entry]

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March 6th - 19th We didn't do much our first week and weekend back in Penang from our home visit. Those six days were some of the busiest we have had so far, plus the long plane flights made us sick. The week after, however, we were up and running as usual. We had dinner with our friends Carla and Steven at one of the cutest little restaurants along Gurney Drive: The Crepe Cottage. The proprietress cooks delicious crepe-based food from a tiny outdoor kitchen one order at a time. Because of this, it's a very good idea to get there [View Full Entry]

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February26 - March 3rd 2006 Our second day in Oregon started out perfectly; a big delicious breakfast from the Original Pancake House, our #1 spot (#2 was yesterday!). We went with my parents, Judith and our friends Steve and Jessica. This place is so popular on the weekends we always go early, as in 7am, but it's sooooooo worth it. Dutch babies and apple pancakes! We included the photos of the menu for the sake of Phil's coworkers. A western breakfast is all but nonexistent in Malaysia, let alone a two page menu! My parents left after breakfast and we did [View Full Entry]

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February 20th - 25th 2006 Well, were not going home for good, just a visit for a week. Still, we are incredibly excited!!!!! All week we have been preparing to go home, making sure we are bringing everything we need to endure the cold, and do taxes. Boo! We left Penang on Friday the 24th. Earlier that day we were driving to lunch and got into a minor accident. Very minor, as in a very stupid motorcyclist ran into the back of our car and broke one of the tail lights. I had slowed down to pull in to a parking [View Full Entry]

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February 13th - 19th 2006 This week we started preparing for our trip home at the end of the month. Over the weekend we did two really cool outings. Saturday we went on a hike to Monkey Beach on the north end of Penang Island. We had no idea that there was a national park on the island! The park encompasses the northwest corner of the island. Some people say Penang Island looks like a swimming turtle, I personally think it looks like a cowhide. In any case the park is the front left flipper/leg of the island. Friends of ours [View Full Entry]

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February 6th - 12th 2006 We have decided to try a new approach to our blog. We will update the things we have been doing recently as well as updating things from the past couple of months that we haven’t gotten to. A word of caution, some of these pictures are pretty graphic! Phil and I just got back from an amazing morning at the Thaipusam festival; I don’t think you can get any more current than that!! Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrating “the birthday of Lord Murugan and his defeat of the evil demon Soorapadam with a lance.” There [View Full Entry]

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Week 10: November 8th - 13th 2005 The best part of this week was that we got our digital camera back from the repair shop! They didn't actually fix it, or so they thought. I'm still convinced that a) they didn't really know what they were doing and were just keeping us apeased with "we are still waiting for the parts to arrive" and b) that all the camera really needed was a cleaning. The camera works fine now and we didn't get charged, though we were without a real camera for two months. That weekend we explored a little more [View Full Entry]

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November 2nd - 7th I have to start this entry with an apology. I feel terrible that we haven't kept up with this blog like we wanted to, who knew that writing about your experiences could be so difficult and time consuming. We have had a great time here in Malaysia so far and are already half way through our time here. I will attempt to give you short updates of what we have been doing from November through mid-January (now). This week is a major holiday week in Malaysia. Tuesday was a holiday for Hari Raya and Thursday and Friday [View Full Entry]

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October 24th - November 1st Yay, Phil's parents came to visit this weekend! Our first official visitors. The week went by as usual, though we were thrilled to finally receive Phil’s replacement debit card on Friday (thank you again Mark!!!!). His parents arrived Friday evening and we took them straight to one of our favorite local restaurants, Roo’s Cellar. It is a wine bar that that serves good food and has an upstairs bar and an incredibly wine selection considering where we are. We had some late dinner snacks and a nice bottle of wine. Back at home we were lulled [View Full Entry]

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October 10th - 23rd I'm getting fancy with the titles :-) I thought adding the date would be helpful since I'm finally bloging this a month and a half later! We are combining the blog entries for the sixth and seventh weeks because not a whole lot happened to warrant separate entries. The highlights of week six were my IWA meeting and a rafting trip we took with Phil’s coworkers. The meeting was interesting because our guest speaker was Penang’s chief of police. He presented some information on crimes that are of interest to women (purse snatching, rape, etc.) and compared [View Full Entry]

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