Bursting Bubbles in Penang Malaysia

One of the more interesting conversations I have loved having with the girls this year is this clash between what our expectations of the year was and what we have been experiencing.  Would it be hard, easy to get along all together, how different would the world feel. They are flexible and hard working, but we really have never taken then away from their comfortable environment for this long.  How would they deal with the heat? Time away from friends? Different foods and languages?

We all have different answers to these questions and it depends on the day and the mood for sure.  For me, I have been floored. They have been more flexible, loving and funny than I had expected. They have looked for ways to challenge themselves and at the end of Croatia they were both saying they were ready for something different, something new, something to “burst their bubble”

A few short weeks later in a street stall sweeting in Penang Malaysia eating chicken feet for breakfast, they looked at us and said “ok this is bursting my bubble”.

Penang is an island off the coast of Malaysia.  It has become a travelers destination, hosts a large community of pension retirees and a booming medical tourism industry.    It is cheaper than Singapore, better healthcare than Indonesia and benefits from the small history of shipping and cultural mingling with a vibrant blend of Indian, Chinese and Malay all mixed together.   Street food is ridiculously cheap, a huge lunch for all four of us was $4.30. Dinner at a nice restaurant ran us $20, the same price as a 90 min massage. It is hot, noisy, colorful and delicious. The people of Malaysia smile all the time and have been incredibly kind.   Huge Mosques sit next to Hindu temples and the blending sounds and incense leave us feeling like the US has nothing on Multiculturalism compared to here.

Everywhere you turn there is street art, some of it famous, but always gorgeous, surprising and wonderful.  Old buildings fill George Town and tell of its colonial history. Walking became an obstacle course of colors, sounds, motor bikes, bikes, grates, water ways, trash bins, sleeping people, food stalls and all other forms of humanity.  It is like the messy intense little sister of Singapore. Running was attempted twice but after aggressive iguanas, getting lost among trash dumps and temples, surprise cattle, two skinned knees and numerous near collisions with motor bikes, I opted for yoga and walking.

Short and intense, our time in Malaysia has been a warm, wonderful introduction to a form of traveling and living the girls have never seen.  They have embraced the change, eating anything and everything and making the most beautiful and wonderful observations I might not have noticed.  As we were sitting in a small Indian restaurant in little india, clearly the odd people out with everyone staring at us eating off of banana leaf plates, little one said “India reminds me of ravens, black as night and in love with shiny things.”  Traveling with them is like traveling with a new set of eyes, and it is wonderful.

Temples of Penang.

mmm chicken feet

Hindu Shrine

learning to expect the unexpected

Local spa where we enjoyed inexpensive massages.

Getting our first rabies shots in preparation for Bhutan

Our local corner. These metal signs are all around Penang and a fun way to share the cultural history.

Oh the Food

Croissants are wonderful.  Salmon is great, but there comes a point where a little spice would be nice, and then, we landed in Singapore and Malaysia.  The long history of ship traffic though this areas has brought together spices and culinary influences from around the world.   This combined with an almost exclusive eat out culture has resulted in staggering food choices. If you walk if any direction you can buy food within a few feet.   Spiced curries, rice bowls, fruit stands, grilled fish, soups, chicken feet, you name it. The newest find was a stand up hot pot stand. The stand had a pot of boiling seasoning and sticks of meat and vegetables all on the stick to cook yourself and eat as you stand.   The indulgence over the last few days has been a fun change and about as different as I could imagine to the food culture of Norway and Croatia.

Loving both the food and presentation of this Thai dish.

The theme of our last few days for sure.

This fun collection of veggies, tofu, eggs, rice and peanut sauce was a great cool dish to balance the heat of the day.

Coffee, Water and Orange Juice have been our drinks for months now, so landing in Singapore and getting to choose from this sort of collection was overwhelming and wonderful.

Little one loving dinner at a Singapore Hawker stand. This famous one near downtown was a blast. It is like a food court on steroids and all independent little local shops.

One of the hundreds of cooks in a Singapore Hawker stand. Each specializing in their own food, selling 3-4 items each.

Any one need a banana. You always can tell when you are getting close to one of these stands because of the strong durian fruit smell.

Little India’s version of “to go” food. Motorbikes would pull up, stay on the bike and ride away, Samosas in hand, freshly fried.

An instant favorite - fresh fruit on top of a bowel of fresh smoothie.

Checking out the daily options.

The Hot pot stand where you get to choose your food, cook it there and be on your way.

The propane stove, the fry pan, the one dish: Granny’s oyster omelette: this is Penang food - at every conner (these were super good by the way).

Huge vats of spices ready to go. If you have not watched Trevor Noah’s Son of Patricia show (https://www.netflix.com/title/80239932) you should. I keep thinking about it with all the spices. There is a line where he talks about how much we gain form the diversity. He says “don’t ever forget, a life without spice was so hard, so hard that it made white people sail around the world to find it. This wasn’t regular sailing. It wasn’t a Disney cruise. These people lived at a time when they believed that if you went that way you would fall off the edge of the earth and die. And still, some man was eating some white lady’s cooking and was like, “I can’t do this %!# anymore!”. Here in the land of where these spices came from and passed through, I keep thinking about that human need for spice, both literally and figuratively.

Finding Balance - Museums in Penang

One thing we had heard about in Penang is the museums.  They are small, locally done and crazy fun. We toured 2, the Upside Down Museum and the Dark Museum.  Other ones exist including the Ghost museum, Tunnel Museum and so forth. They all have the same idea, crazy fun art done in a creative way to make the selfie of the museum look amazing.  It is actually genius. The Upside Down Museum was packed, we had to wait 45 min to get in, but sat in a cool room with travelers from around the world watching a “caught on candid camera” type show with no words.  The whole waiting room laughing together even if we could not speak the same language.

Once the museum started (as our number was called) they efficiently move you from room to room.  In each room there are one or two aids who would help get you in position, which turned out to be key because it was hard to make sense of the room with so many things on the ceiling and how you might interact with props once the picture was turned 180 degrees.   After a quick photo shoot, they would hand the camera and the laughter would begin.

For a world full of selfies and distorted reality these creative museums hit the nail on the head and were a fun way to spent the afternoon.

Creating a garden

With all of the vegetation in Malaysia we saw a cool “experience” we thought the girls might like: making your own indoor garden. Two hours later they had created their own lovely plant world, learned all about how to care for it and learned we can take them to Bhutan.  We will see if these little guys make it that far, but we are going to try to get them to our new home.

Loving the green

Taking a new fun way to the gardens

High Ropes and different Robes - Escape Malaysia

The girls had been longing for a water park since Croatia and it was there that they found out what a high ropes course was. Somehow that escaped their education to this point in their lives and they were intrigued.  When we saw Penang had a huge water park and high ropes course they had one thing they wanted to do.

An hour Grab (like Uber) ride later we were at entrance with half the island as December is their break time and a popular time for the park.  We paid, entered and got our bearings. The whole forest was a maze of multiple levels of a high ropes course. We jumped in line and stood we found ourselves hooked into the most extensive ropes course I have ever seen.  It was well done, 9 different “lanes” can be chosen with difficulty levels of 1-3. They estimated that to complete 1 lane on one level it would take between 30 min to an hour. We chose level 3 and climbed up to the top. The plan had been do to all the course if possible.   You are harnessed and you can not take yourself off the cable until the end of the lane. The obstacles involved zip lining, hanging ladders nets, jumping between swinging poles, rolling barrels and so on. Think Ninja Warrior in the jungle and once you start you can not stop. Two hours later, drenched in sweat, bruised, sore, and smiling we had completed 2 out of 3 lanes of level 3.  

I wish I had a picture of the fun, but the camera had to be left at the front and I was fully involved in just getting from point A to point B.  After a high dive show and a quick bite of Indian curry and roti - you know the cheap food in Malaysian water parks unlike the expensive hot dogs, we spent the rest of the day in the water park.

One of the most interesting things for me was the dress.  In Croatia everyone was basically naked at all time. You just took off your wet top and put a new one one.  Traverse was the only person we saw without a speedo on. People would look at me odd if I swam in a sports bra top.  In Islamic Malaysia however, I learned they make full swimming berkas complete with hijabs. The website said two piece swimsuits were OK, we only saw one other Chinese women in one besides the high dive act.   We were clearly the only caucasians people there and were referred to as “Alaska” by the friendly staff. The cultural differences were highlighted when Isabelle was asked if she had a husband. More than anything I was struck by beauty of seeing people of all ages, gender and religions play in the water, help each other through the ropes course and revel in the things that make us similar while still holding onto the ways we are different.  

After playing from the moment the doors open until they closed, we were all tired and sore but grateful for a fun day in the Malaysian jungle all getting to be kids.

Never ending fun running in the water.

Making her way down the lazy river surrounding by the Malaysian jungle.

The place was full of these interesting contradictions and commentary.

I am always game for an adventure with these two!

Coffee

There are themes that continue to rise though this year, and coffee is one of them. 

Coffee in Norway it is dark, bitter and never ending at home on rainy mornings.  There are no coffee cafes, it is something you enjoy from a thermos picking berries or around the fire with friends at home. 

Coffee in Croatia, not really a beverage, it is an event, a way of being.  “Getting a coffee” more means a minimum two hour event.  It is never “to go.”  “Getting coffee” is a daily ritual of life and a medium by which all of life events take place.  You go to “have coffee” if you date, break up, have a work meeting, talk to your family. It is done in the public squares, never alone and never with a computer.  It is always an impossibly small cup, that Croatians have the amazing ability to make last hours.  When the tourists leave, the only places that stay open are the coffee shops, which then serve wine and beer at night. 

Singapore.  There is a beautiful efficiency of Singapore, and with the highly sugared iced coffee that is everywhere, Kopi-O, seemed to fit the city perfectly.  Kopi-o is coffee made through a fancy sock filter and with as much sugar as you can get to dissolve. If you want it cold and to go, it is poured over ice, tied together with a rubber run and straw was a perfect companion to, well anything: a hot walk, spicy Indian curry, chicken rice or beef satay and the perfect answer to jet lag.    It was also the land of selfies - while we never did,  you can get your selfie printed on the foam of your latte at the famous “Selfie Coffee” shop.

Malaysia: Penang white coffee.  Now in Malaysia, the coffee grows in the surrounding hills and every corner has another “white coffee” stand often with  street vendor or two.  A drink for any time of the day this more milk than coffee version of coffee has me yawning in the afternoon but longing to find out more about the history.  It is also a place where labor is cheap so people send time on things, like 3D foam creations in your coffee. 

More adventures are sure to come, but grateful for the warm cup of joe in mornings. 

I asked for a “coffee with cream” and learned the magic of Croatia: cream = whipped cream!

This fun sign in Penang summarized about how I feel after finding a good cup of joe!

Someone had a hard time getting used to coffee size in Croatia.

Checking out the #Selfie Coffee stand in Singapore

Making the wonderful sock coffee to go.   

Getting breakfast for the girls with our coffee to go.  

What Home Schooling Looks Like.......

We are not teachers and knowing how figure out the school aspect of this year was a major challenge.   We are blessed that Alaska does a great job supporting homeschooling and after talking to friends we enrolled the kids in Mat-Su Central (a school designed to support home schooling) and were linked with an amazing councilor.   We met a few times talking though our goals of the year, looking at where the kids were at and where we hoped they would be at the end of the year. We decided that we would do an online Math program - Think Well and an online writing program - Write at Home that would support the girls though the year.  The other parts: culture, language, science, reading, physical education we would help organize and coordinate.

I could go on forever about how much more rewarding and fun this has been than I expected, but instead, here are some picture from the past week of what homeschooling has looked like for us.  The video is Lily taking her final test for European geography before moving on to Asia.

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
”

— Marie Curie

This was a beautiful and highly interactive exhibit on Richard Feynman and his incredible work in Singapore.

The art in Penang is everywhere and adds to the already overwhelming beautiful visual stimulation.

We spent hours at this beautiful interactive exhibit at the Science and Art Museum. The girls created their own cities and played and danced with a highly engaging displays. If we were not so busy at the museums, I might have actually written more about them.

Art is meant to be played with, lived with and interacted with.

Much of what we hope to learn on this year is just seeing an other ways that people live and learn and help them find their own personal inner callings. Like the old and the new in this picture we have tried to blend traditional and non-traditional learning to give them wings to fly.

More fun at the Art and Science Museum. Particle physics, building atoms and computer boards.

We took so many pictures in this “meditation” room in the Art and Science museum. It was beautiful interaction between light and texture.

i love the way light and angles can change everything.

more fun

The street art in Penang has also been a fun addition to art part of our year.

And you get to interact with the art.

This teacher is grateful to have had this year to really dive into the girls education and to have so many helping hands that made this year possible!