Langkawi - synopsis

We are about to leave Langkawi in a couple of hours and I wanted to write up our experience here. Eight days and seven nights on the island, quite a vacation.

The things we enjoyed:
-renting a scooter for the week - made it very easy to explore the island, get water and groceries and visit various beaches
-Langkawi cable car - took us to the one of the peaks on the island and we had a wonderful view of the island below
-7 Wells Waterfalls - fresh water pools of water right before a waterfall - a long hike on a hot day was rewarded with a dip in a cold freshwater pool!
-Indian food - we had Indian food for supper on 5 evenings. Yes, we DO like Indian food!!!
-our small hotel - we spent a lot of time in our hotel as it had a really nice setup outside for sitting and reading. Each of us read three books or more so we really made good use of this area.
-beach - the beach was ok, and the water was really warm. Almost like bathwater.
-doggies at the hotel - the owner of our hotel had 4 dogs and a cat, plus three of the neighbour's dogs added up to a one cozy dog-friendly place. We sure felt safe!

In the next couple of hours we will be flying to Kuala Lumpur, spending the night at the airport and then flying early in the morning for Siem Reap, Cambodia. The famous Angkor Wat temples are located there. My next post will be from Cambodia!

Noisy nights

The tropics must have the LOUDEST nights ever. At night, it sounds as if the jungle comes alive. Frogs, birds, monkeys and who knows what else start making noise as soon as the sun goes down. There is a frog somewhere close to me, croaking like crazy, but I cannot seem to shut it up. And he is getting support from about 1000 other frogs in the neighbourhood. CRAZY!!! The good thing is that we've brought earplugs, so that helps a bit, but you can still hear the noisy buggers outside.

It is really hot and humid here. Right after you take a shower and dry off, you are fully drenched in sweat again. Kind of makes you wonder "Why bother?" It has been raining quite a bit, those fast and furious tropical showers. You are drenched in about 10 seconds if you don't find some kind of shelter.

We went to the beach for the first time today, as the rain has kept us cloistered in our hotel for the last few days. We've been spending our time reading books and eating chocolate chip cookies. YUMMY!

Looks like we will have a few more days of rain and then a few clear days at the end. It's not really a problem as we have another beach vacation booked in about a week. I know, life IS hard! :-)

In Langkawi

We are finally at a quiet restful place. Last few days in Kuala Lumpur were hectic. The traffic there is crazy. Crossing a street is no simple task as the traffic lights were designed to not stop traffic for pedestrians (or so it seems). Both Carla and I were almost run over several times, but survived due to the survival instincts kicking in (RUN!!!!) :-)

We visited KL Tower, Petronas Towers, Chinatown, Merdeka Square, Bintung Walk and a few other areas of importance in KL. Nice sights but we are looking forward to seeing other parts of the country.

We are on Lngkawi island on the west coast of Malaysia, near the famous Penang Island. This is the tropics, so bugs are really big! It makes you be very careful about where you leave food as bugs seem to always find where you've stashed the food.

We saw a monkey on our roof this morning. Really different looking face. I did not get to take picture of him, but there is still time. This is my first day here.

Before leaving KL we managed to book a trip to Siem Reap in Cambodia. The Angkor Wat temple is located there so it is going to be a delightful visit. We will be staying there for 6 days, right after our Langkawi trip. We will have to sleep at the airport as we fly into KL at 2340 and then fly out at 0700. Luckily, they have a 24-hour McDonalds with free WiFi at the airport, so we won't be bored or hungry. :-)

If you take a look at the map on the right side of the blog, you will get to see our latest GPS position. Click on the map and then you can pull up a satellite view of our surroundings. Very interesting!

That's it for now, I have to go relax for a while! This blogging thing is tiring. :-)

Time to pack

I have been packing for the last few days, and the reason is twofold.

First, I leave tomorrow for Malaysia (and anywhere else we get to visit while there) and will be traveling for four weeks. I know, it's a lengthy trip, but we need it. I have not seen Carla in over two months so it will be nice to spend time with her!

Second, my hosts in Australia are moving, so I need to organize all my belongings in a nice little pile to make sure that they make it over to the new place. I am letting them use my laptop while I am away, as a bribe to ensure that they remember to take my things along when they move. :-) They are moving to a nice big house close to the beach. It is pretty nice!

I am doing some last minute preparations for the trip (figuring out how to get from the airport to the hotel, etc.) and in the course of my research came across a great travel site. www.wikitravel.org It has a lot of useful information on a variety of destinations, so I plan to create pdfs from the web site and put them on my phone. That way, I will have the relevant information on me, even without an internet connection. I will also try to get a prepaid sim card for Malaysia, as that would simplify access to the internet.

Malaysia seems like a nice beach vacation place, but we will try to hit a few more countries. There is some unrest happening in Thailand, which may impact on our decision to travel there. We will have to evaluatethis decision as we go.

I will post updates to the blog when opportunities arise. Vacation, here I come!

Wii is here!

My brother-in-law both his wife a Wii for her birthday (and I graciously bought an extra controller with a game) few days ago. He also got her a WiiFit package which comes with a Wii Balance Board. Ooooooh! Fun TIMES!!!!

First, WiiFit is surprisingly fun, even for a hardcore gamer like me. The great thing about WiiFit is that it has something for everyonw, no matter how fit you are or how experienced you are with gaming. You are supposed to do a regimen of exercises at your own pace, but you get to choose what you'll do. They have various Yoga, muscle, and cardio exercises, plus about 9 addictive balance games. I think my sister-in-law is getting a complex because I have high-scores on pretty much all balance games. She is threatening to remove my Mii (my username) when I leave for my vacation in a few days. :-)

Second, we got a Shaun White Snowboarding game with the Wii. Well, this game, combined with the Wii Balance Board from the WiiFit package kicks b**t! I was not expecting a high level of realism from this game, but I would say that you get 85% of the snowboarding experience when you play this game. The only thing missing is you falling on your bum about a thousand times until you learn how to snowboard. :-) I am speaking from experience here! The game is addicting, making me play it over and over, racing down the hill and doing tricks/jumps over and over again. Colin is tired of me braking yet ANOTHER trick high-score. After couple of runs, I have to take a break as my leg muscles are about to give out. Yes, it is that tiring.

Third, several other games that came with the package are extremely entertaining. We've played baseball (fun), tennis (fun), bowling (fun), golf (fun) ... The cool hings is that no matter how young or old, experienced gamer or novice, people really like it. We had our first injury by WiiRemote today. We were playing tennis and she swung hard and hit my hand with her remote. Man, she can swing hard!

All in all, I would definitely consider buying a Wii for myself, probably looking to buy it used. Sydney's version of craigslist/kijiji seems to have a few of them listed for sale. Woohoo!

Answering the phone in the middle of a meeting

I had two separate meetings with migration agents here in Adelaide as I am trying to find a viable way for Carla and I to move to Australia. Anyways, BOTH of them kept answering their phones and cell phones during the meeting. Even though I was paying for their time!

I guess the business etiquette on answering phones is a bit different here. I did not let it bother me, but made a mental note not to bother turning off my cell phone in the future. :-)

Another lesson from today is, PAY to get good advice. You can only learn so much from free resources. You have to pay to get the real story. Also, talk to several people, as advice givers are not all the same. Don't go for the cheapest adviser! You would not go for the cheapest heart surgeon. At least I hope you would not. :-)

For those difficult days

During the past couple of months, there have been days where I felt that I was farther behind at the end of the day compared to the beginning of the day. You spend the day hitting a wall after a wall (a hypothetical wall, not a real brick one) leaving you exhausted and at a loss to rationalize where the day went.

On those days, I like to pull out a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson to help put things in perspective. I hope it helps you as much as it helps me.

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterday."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Kangaroo burgers

I realized last week that I have been eating too much chicken and too little beef, thus getting me to a point where I was very low on energy due to low iron. Having learnt from my mistake, I decide to integrate more red meat in my diet.

After some research, I found out that kangaroo meat is very high in iron (much higher than beef). In addition, kangaroo meat is only 2% fat, which makes it as lean as chicken. The taste of kangaroo is very close to beef, so most of the time you won't notice the difference whether you use it in burgers, stir fries or sausages. It cooks better than bison meat, which is also very lean but I did not like the taste of bison that much.

Further research on kangaroo meat listed many other benefits of eating kangaroo meat over beef. Other than that it is lower fat, and higher in iron, kangaroo meat also costs less per pound to produce, does not produce harmful methane gases (like cows and sheep) and raising of kangaroos does not cause erosion or damage pastures.

Now, that is ANOTHER reason to move to Australia. Just when I think that this place is the greatest, I find another reason to like it even more. :-)

Personality test results

I am a big believer in personality tests, and so far, I think I have done about four different ones. Each one has confirmed, and further explained, my preferences for the things I like to do and the way I like to do them. It helps to have an objective source to provide information about your personality, and I find that personality tests do the trick.

The first personality test I ever did was Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). You usually have to pay to get one of these personality tests done, but I stumbled on a free MBTI test today and felt an urge to do it again. Surprisingly (for a free test), it yielded a very accurate profile for me. I highly recommend you go and try the free MBTI test here.

My MBTI profile is INTJ, and has been for the last 10 years. It is possible to have your profile change over the years, as people change through their life experiences.

INTJ

Introverted	Intuitive	Thinking	Judging
Strength of the preferences %
67	50	25	56

The numbers and letters above describe that I prefer to use intuition and thinking, am introverted and logical (the judging label). At the end of the post is a description of INTJs, also known as Masterminds (just to help you understand me a little bit better). :-)

I am interested to hear about your MBTI type. Feel free to post it in the comments!

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"Masterminds (INTJ) are rare, comprising no more than, say, one percent of the population, and they are rarely encountered outside their office, factory, school, or laboratory. Although they are highly capable leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once they take charge, however, they are thoroughgoing pragmatists. Masterminds are certain that efficiency is indispensable in a well-run organization, and if they encounter inefficiency-any waste of human and material resources-they are quick to realign operations and reassign personnel. Masterminds do not feel bound by established rules and procedures, and traditional authority does not impress them, nor do slogans or catchwords. Only ideas that make sense to them are adopted; those that don't, aren't, no matter who thought of them. Remember, their aim is always maximum efficiency.

In their careers, Masterminds usually rise to positions of responsibility, for they work long and hard and are dedicated in their pursuit of goals, sparing neither their own time and effort nor that of their colleagues and employees. Problem-solving is highly stimulating to Masterminds, who love responding to tangled systems that require careful sorting out. Ordinarily, they verbalize the positive and avoid comments of a negative nature; they are more interested in moving an organization forward than dwelling on mistakes of the past.

Masterminds tend to be much more definite and self-confident than other Rationals, having usually developed a very strong will. Decisions come easily to them; in fact, they can hardly rest until they have things settled and decided. But before they decide anything, they must do the research. Masterminds are highly theoretical, but they insist on looking at all available data before they embrace an idea, and they are suspicious of any statement that is based on shoddy research, or that is not checked against reality.