Category Archives: Malaysia

Day 249 in Beijing: Matching Shirts.

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We love our little motorcycle and sidecar shirt!

We love our little motorcycle and sidecar shirt!

Jill and I went out to dinner with our friend, Brian, a few months ago.

He introduced us to one of his friends, Laurie Burkitt, who writes for the Wall Street Journal.

She did a piece on couples that wear the same shirt to show love and affection since there isn’t a lot of public displays between people in China.

Well, Jill and I took it one step further.

Love on a bug!

Love on a bug!

As we were walking around Maleka, with our friend Dipesh, we actually found shirts that are a “combined” cartoon when we wear them side-by-side.

Yes, we really are that dorky.

We have worn them a few times in Beijing and our friends laugh and think they are pretty cool.

I’m glad we bought them so we can show affection to each other while not offending anyone.

Actually we do hold hands and kiss in public.

We are so scandalous!

 

Day 244 in Beijing: Not To Be Cryptic.

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Head stones.

Head stones.

Not being cryptic, but I like graves.

I always have.

I find them intriguing, interesting and artistic.

I’m not afraid of walking through them or superstitions so I just simply enjoy the beauty of them and respect how people choose to show love to the ones that have left this world.

As Jill and I were walking around Johor Bahru, Malaysia, we wanted to see the Sultan’s Mausoleum.

We walked through a rather massive graveyard to get to it and took our time looking at the other grave sites.

Some are very ornate, while others are very simple with only a marker for a headstone.

When we reached the Sultan’s Mausoleum, it was closed and we wouldn’t be able to visit it again on this trip so we walked around it and enjoyed the silence and peacefulness of the graveyard.

 

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Day 243 in Beijing: This is exactly why I travel.

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Well hello there!

Well hello there!

Jill and I were walking around Melaka and checking out the Portuguese Settlement.

It was pretty empty and so we just wandered by the seaside and had a few coconut juices as we cruised around.

We heard a motorcycle coming up behind us so we swung around to make sure we weren’t in the way of it.

I immediately grabbed the camera and started shooting pictures of the driver and his passengers.

One never knows what they will see in their lifetime.

And the more one leaves their comfort zone, the more one will experience and the more one will grow.

This is exactly why I travel.

 

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Day 241 in Beijing: Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Part 1

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Pure joy.

Pure joy.

And a day after Chinese New Year, my blog heads back to Kuala Lumpur.

Jill and went on a Hop On Hop Off bus tour in Kuala Lumpur and had a great time.

Kuala Lumpur, even though it has around 13 million people living in it, is a rather “small” city.  It is easy to get to most tourist attractions by walking, or a very short taxi ride.  However, whenever we travel to a new location, we like to take the hop on buses so we can get a good idea of where everything is located and sort of “ease” in to the new place without pressure of figuring everything out on our own.

We hopped off the bus at the KL Bird Park and we instantly fell in love with it.

The people there are quite friendly and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

The birds, of course, were the main attraction and they were incredible.

Our favorites were the peacocks that were strutting around the park and showing off to anyone that would look their way.

Another favorite was having the birds drink from our cups and sit on our hands, arms and heads.

We stayed for the performance and enjoyed that greatly.  I was able to get a picture of a massive parrot flying right by us and sent it to the KL Bird Park who then published it on their Facebook page later that week.

The world gets smaller and smaller the more we try to connect to each other.

As I wrote on the Chinese New Year blog post, this is how expatriates make a family that spans the world and find ways to get the support they need when they are far from home.

 

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Day 238 in Beijing: Blowing Bubbles.

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As Jill and I were leaving the Masjid Selat Melaka, we noticed a group of women and their kids hanging out.

The kids seemed to be distracted and were playing among themselves while the mothers were chatting and laughing.

As we walked by them, we noticed why they were laughing.

One of them was blowing bubbles and the others were enjoying the moment.

Moments like these are why I love traveling: They dis-spell the myths of what we are told about other cultures by the media.  We see, for ourselves, the commonality of all humanity. I’m sure there are cultures that would think this strange and silly but I’ve yet to come across one.

I’m thinking buying a bunch of bubble liquid and bringing it wherever I go to help make connections and remind people that we are all, in our hearts, little children full of joy.

Day 237 in Beijing: Masjid Selat Melaka, Part 2

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The sign and the mosque.

The Melaka straits and the mosque.

As much as we enjoyed walking around the masjid, we were also a little concerned.

Not for our safety or anything like that since we never felt, even once, concerned for our safety in Malaysia.  The people are friendly, outgoing and are incredibly helpful to any tourist that needed assistance.

There is a point of realizing that the fear we create is only that and nothing more.  The fear of the other, the fear of being taken advantage of and the fear of seeing people for who they  really are, instead of a stereotype or a simplified version of a group is deadening to humanity and the world.  The more we see people as individuals, and treat them as such, the better the world will get along and the more we will all be able to deal with each other.

I have noticed that Jill and I tend to have very disparate groups of friends.  We often hang out with people in their young 20s, and get along great with them, and then hang out with people in their 50s or 60s and get along great with them.  We are both interested in meeting the person inside and getting to know what makes them tick and how they view the world.  This allows us to connect with people and find commonalities that others might miss.

I used to be a psychotherapist/social worker back in the San Francisco bay area.  I worked for 5 years with elderly clients dealing with any diagnosis ranging from simple depression to psychosis.  I then moved to work with 18-24 year clients dealing with first or second episode psychosis.  I was able to effectively work with all these clients, and their families, because I took them for who they are, doing the best they can with what they have, and then tried to support them with empathy and skills that I have learned that have helped not only others, but myself, in times of need.  I didn’t look down on them because they were having difficulties.

I was also honest in the issues that I saw and asked if I could give input.  They almost always allowed me for it, and when they didn’t, I wouldn’t give it until they asked for it later.

In this case, I am giving an unasked opinion of a concern I have that became very evident when we walked to the Masjid Selat Malaka and back to our apartment.

Most of the buildings around it are desolate and decaying.

This may not be a sign of much but it seems as if they were all built within the last 5-10 years and yet none of them are occupied.  It is like walking into a ghost town and one gets the feeling this would be what a town feels like after it is dead.

There is a massive bazaar type building right beside the masjid and it is utterly empty and fenced off.  The windows have not been finished and the wiring is exposed in many places.  It doesn’t look like there is any intention of finishing it and it seems as if it will get worse.

I see this happening here also and it worries me.  Building for expansion is okay but building to keep an economy going, when the majority of people can’t even afford to live there, is a house of cards.

I see this house of cards starting to get wobbly and I’m worried.

Not only for Malaysia, but for the rest of the world as when one card falls, it starts knocking down the others until they are all flat on the ground.

 

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Day 236 in Beijing: Masjid Selat Melaka, Part 1

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Simplicity and beauty combined.

Simplicity and beauty combined.

Jill and I had read about an amazing mosque in Melaka that was built over the Melaka straits and we knew we wanted to visit it before we left.

We’d been running around, a lot, on this trip and hadn’t had much down time and we were thinking of skipping it.

The pool at our airbnb apartment was nice and relaxing and the weather was hot and humid.

We looked at the pros and cons of skipping the Masjid Selat Melaka and decided that we’d probably regret not going and we could sit in the pool on another day.

We are both so glad that we decided to visit that Masjid Selat Melaka.

If I only had one word to describe it, it would be, “beautiful.”

I’ve seen some of beautiful architectural sites of the world including Big Ben, The London Bridge (and it wasn’t falling down, by the way), The Golden Gate Bridge, and The Sydney Opera House, The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

I’d have to say it was equal to some of those because it was so simple and yet so perfect.  There wasn’t a wasted piece of space and there was a large amount of open space that allowed the mosque to feel fresh and peaceful.

We both loved the sounds of the water crashing below it and the waves moving slowly by us as we stood out on the deck that surrounds the masjid.

The people were incredibly friendly and, as we stopped at the entrance and looked around, a gentleman walked up and asked, “Would you like to go inside?”  We responded we would and he told us that Jill would need to wear the hijab and I would have to pull my shorts down to cover my knees.

Jill went to put it on and a few women helped her with it since it is quite tricky.  She told them, “I respect anyone that is wearing this because it is so hot!”  The women nodded and smiled.

The hijab that Jill wore was made of nylon and didn’t seem to allow the body to breathe much at all.  These seemed to be used to at the mosques because so many people, and especially tourists, borrow them and they would wear out very quickly if they were made of a softer material.

I wore one later on our trip and I felt the same way. as Jill.  This was especially evident when I pulled the hood over my head to see what it would feel like to cover up as many women in Malaysia do.

Most of the women we saw on our every day travels wore very light hijabs that seemed to allow for the body to breathe more and didn’t seem to be uncomfortable.  I have no idea about the burqa because I didn’t speak to anyone wearing those on my travels so far.

After being fitted, the man walked Jill back to me and took a picture of us together.  It is actually one of my favorite pictures of our travels because we are in front of a gorgeous mosque, over the water, in a beautiful country and we are learning about Malaysia, Islamic customs and doing our best to fit in and also express who we are as individuals.

I was a little worried about wearing a Bear Republic Brewery t-shirt into the mosque since drinking alcohol is forbidden in the Islamic religion but no one seemed to mind and it is  fun to wear a shirt from my hometown while traveling to far and distant lands.

As we walked around the mosque, people would smile and greet us kindly.  They often wait for us to take our pictures and we did our best not to interfere with anyone who was praying or trying to take pictures of their own.

 

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Day 235 in Beijing: Love and Marriage…and Pedicabs.

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First time I've done a wedding day photo.

First time I’ve done a wedding day photo.

Jill and I were walking around Melaka, Malaysia and noticed all the gorgeous pedicabs.

During the day, they are pretty to look at but, at night, they are a sight to behold!

As we started taking pictures, a camera crew and this couple walked up holding hands.

As you can see, he is wearing a very nice suit and she is wearing an immaculate hijab.

I doubt I’d want to wear one all the time, but I’ve found that the hijab seems to really compliments a person’s face and highlight the person’s eyes.

In the pictures, you can see how it truly focuses the viewers eyes towards the person’s face.

This may not be noticed by some but the hijab allows most women to have their own way of showing off and drawing attraction to themselves.

The colors, the designs and the jewels that are added to the hijab make them very personal and very descriptive of the person wearing them.

This was the only time we saw a woman in a hijab that was only orange.  Usually they are mixed and sometime they are even paisley.

They hopped into a pedicab and the crew started taking pictures.

I asked permission to take a couple and they agreed.

They told me they were just married and this is the photo shoot.

I think you can see in their eyes, and their smiles, how happy they are together.

Love is beautiful.

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Day 234 in Beijing: The Melaka Sultanate Waterwheel.

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The beautiful Sultanate waterwheel.

The beautiful Sultanate waterwheel.

As Jill and I continued to explore Melaka, we left the Flor de la Mar museum and headed over to the Melaka Sultanate Water Wheel and took some time relaxing by this beautiful recreation of a waterwheel.

It was built in 2007, using ancient Islamic technology, and is the first and largest waterwheel in Malaysia.

It stands 13 meters tall, or about 36 feel, and cost about 1.5 million ringgit to build.  That equates to about $500,000 USD.

It supposedly represents the wheel of life and humanity’s evolution.

I found that to quite fitting and relished the chance to just let the water flow and move at its own pace.

 

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Day 233 in Beijing: Flor de la Mar Museum.

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My favorite shot of the day.

My favorite shot of the day.

Jill and I decided to explore some of Melaka’s museums today.

One of the most famous museums, and there are 34 museums in Melake presently, is the Flor de la Mar Museum.

It is located inside the replica of the Flor de la Mar ship that helped the Portugese conquer Melake in 1511.

The ship seems to have been the largest ship in the fleet and, because of that reason, was able to carry lots of cargo and treasure.

It also wasn’t particularly seaworthy and it was very difficult to manage her in the waters.

On the day of November 20th, she sailed into a storm and was lost.  She had been sailing home with a large trove of treasure and a full crew.  Much of it was lost and many of the crew died because of this wreck.

The museum houses a large collection of arms, statues of famous people, and information on different ships and why they were important.

We spent about 1 hour or so in it and had fun seeing how the world was “discovered” and thinking about how difficult it would have been to live a life of a sailor during that time.

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