Like Thanksgiving. Which of course, is not a thing here. It looks like this
Unless the Americans here make it a thing. Which fortunately the did. Mad kudos to Matthew Girard-Carrier who spearheaded a gathering at his place of about ~30 people and even provided the chickens for participants to roast in their tiny Malaysian ovens. Which approximated a turkey since there probably aren't any within a thousand miles. I joked with some local co-workers about hunting down a hornbill like we saw in Langkawi(turkey sized) and roasting that - I thought it was clever and funny, they just stared and told me I'd go to jail.
I did experiment with some purple sweet potatoes to share at the gathering. A lot less moisture in these than the orange or white ones I'm used to cooking in the US. This is before they went in the oven.
As a result I had to go from roasting to blending to then adding a huge wad of butter to make them sufficiently viscous. The end result looked identical to the clay in the game Cranium. And slightly less tasty. Not to be repeated without a better recipe. Fortunately the rest of the food at the friendsgiving was top notch.
Reflecting upon my favorite holiday - I had anticipated being much more sad than I was about the absence of traditional food, football, and of course the family time. One thing that definitely helped was the fact that it's perpetual summer here - never felt the cozy fall leadup and anticipation. Which I think was a real blessing honestly.
Speaking of blessings - this girl. And her blue buddy.
We had a good time exploring more of Georgetown this last week. Found another excellent place to eat and some great little art galleries. Here's a little snip of what it looks like on a typical streetcorner. Always popping.
For sure the highlight of the last week was a quick trip we made to Kuala Lumpur. It was a ~4.5 hr bus ride from Penang through mile after mile of palm oil plantations - like corn along the interstate in Nebraska.
We arrived to attend a bi-annual regional church meeting and had enough time for a little sightseeing while we were there - took a taxi to the city center for a little Christmas shopping at the historic central market
While there getting a scoop of coconut ice cream we were reminded that the Eagles music is ubiquitous
Finally, that brings us to the fish. I've never had a pedicure. Never really considered it, mostly because no one wants to see the feet of a 50-something man, so why invest?But it seemed like a little harmless fun to have a fish treatment, which was pitched as a path to smoother, more supple feet, as the tiny manicurists strip away unsightly dead skin to reveal a radiant new you.
What actually happened was I plunked my feet into the fish pool and experienced the tickliest sensation I've ever known. As in, it was all I could do to keep them in the water. There might have been some not-very-manly uncontrolled giggling. But after about a minute it was manageable. Also embarrassing was the realization that within 30 seconds nearly all the fish in the pool had left other people's feet and come to mine. To feast on whatever I had going on. I found myself apologizing to the others who had paid the same $2 bucks I had paid but were now just getting a soak in some iffy water while I hogged all the fish.
After our 10 minutes were up I was definitely done. Were my feet more handsome? Debatable. The fish started with a very low bar to clear. The were, however, a little bloody where they grew tired of the dead skin and went after something a little fresher.
I give the fish pedicure two stars...
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