a Baby Shower

My lovely friends threw me a baby shower. 

To welcome this new little girl. 

Thank you Rochelle, Jonette, Sarah and Malia for a wonderful morning.

You are each so generous, gracious, and gorgeous. 

 And to Malia again for snapping these pictures. What would I do without you? 

I had to fight to keep the tears back the entire time. 

Especially when my little sister came up on the big screen with sweet words. 

I felt strengthened and loved by each of these women

and so grateful. 

CAMERON HIGHLANDS: Malaysia

I took one last trip before the airlines wouldn't let me and this belly fly anymore. Cameron Highlands, Malaysia with two fun friends. We flew into KL and then drove 3 1/2 hours up a windy windy road to the Cameron Highlands. Where the air is oh so fresh and a little crisp, it smells like cut grass, and its cool enough to wear a sweater. yay! 

Waterfalls along the way

and the yummiest fried bananas you ever did try. 

There are 3 small towns there: Brinchang, Tanah Rata, and Ringlet. They either do agriculture or tourism, or a funny mixture of both.  

Road side stands everywhere - selling bananas, "fresh" honey, and all sorts of things. We kept asking, "what is that?" and then someone would tell us the Malaysian word for that fruit or vegetable we'd never seen before and now we still don't know what it is. 

Our hotel. 

But the highlight of the place was the Tea Plantations. Huge, never ending, acres and acres of chamomile plants.  

(thanks to Malia for the picture) 

(another from Malia)

Our fantastic guide gave us a tour of the plantations, established in the 1920s. There is so much I never knew about tea. Like how anciently the first plants were found in Burma, and then taken to China, then to India, and from there to Great Britain. And how chamomile tea, black tea, and green tea all come from the same plant - it is just processed and oxidized differently. We also got a good lesson on what makes quality tea and what doesn't. 

most of the harvesting is done by hand

most of the workers come from Burma or India or Nepal and stay on the plantation for 5 years sending money back home. 

There were also fresh farms to see. Bee farms, vegetable farms, butterfly farms, rose gardens. 

And strawberries! This place was crazy about its strawberries. 

Strawberry earmuffs anyone? 

We also stopped by the "native village" and learned about the Orang Asli people, the native people of Malaysia. Our guide explained to us that the Orang Asli people contributed invaluably to the scientific field with their knowledge of the rainforest (medicinal plnats, survivial, care of the rainforest) but as the people become more and more modern they are losing their knowledge and their culture.

This village was mostly for tourists. Ali, with his big smile, showed us how to shoot a blowdart and did a traditional dance for us.

CAMERON HIGHLANDS: the mossy forest

One morning we drove up to the peak of Gunung Brinchang. For a gorgeous view and a hike through the 'mossy forest'. The road up to the peak was definitely a 'don't look down' kind of road - sometimes there sometimes not. I was glad we were in a Land Rover. 

Our guide, Satya, was a field biologist, super knowledgeable and entertaining. Doing tours in his hometown in between his studies. He called this mossy forest a tropical mountain rain forest and the "Great Pharmacy of Malaysia" because over 75% of the plants were medicinal. He would stop along the way and pick us some plant to chew or roll on our skin.

Then he would entertain us with his stories of huge leeches in Borneo, snake bites in Sabah, 2 kg fruit bats flying in his face in a cave, and that one time he was called to do a cobra removal from the tea plantation, or when his pet boa ate his mom's cat and he had to get rid of it.

The walls were covered in moss. You could pick off a chunk, squeeze it like a sponge and put it right back. 

Everything was wet. Smelled clean. 

The cicadas were super loud. The spiders spun their webs like parachutes to catch things falling from the leaves. 

A carnivorous pitcher plant. 

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia

We had a couple of hours in KL before flying back to Singapore. So we visited the Petronas Twin Towers. They were the tallest buildings in the world until 2004 (now they are #7). Noah was very jealous that I went there without him. 

me and Malia

We stopped for dinner at Little Penang after some book shopping. These kueh pai ti were oh so tasty. And thanks to Constance I now have a new favorite drink. Nutmeg juice. Man, I want one right now. Hits the spot just right.

LOMBOK: Indonesia

Dave had a week off in February. He really wanted to go somewhere that was low key, not touristy, and beautiful. 

Lombok was just the ticket. Its a small island in Indonesia right next to Bali. 

Since Noah was missing a week of school, he kept a journal of what we did and things he learned. Like how people spoke Bahasa Indonesian and used Rupiah for money. And how its a Muslim country so you see prayer rooms in the airport and hotels next to the bathrooms. And did you know Indonesia has over 17,000 islands and is the 4th most populous country in the world? after China, India and the US. 

We flew into Lombok's tiny airport. While we waited for our taxi, people just surrounded us and stared at our kids. 

I turned the camera on them which made it much more fun. 

Lombok has lots of mosques. Everyone where you turn. And you can hear the call to prayer from anywhere you are. 

Lots of rice fields, palm oil trees, rubber trees, tobacco fields, pineapple, banana, mangos

We spotted Lombok's big fat valcano - Gunung Rinjani - every once in awhile. But never got close enough for a good look. We had to keep reminding Gage that is was a sleeping volcano and wasn't going to wake up anytime soon. 

When the guide books say 'not touristy' and 'very authentic' they are not joking around. The main tourist strip, Senggigi had a few restaurants and shops but nothing much. Which suited us just fine. 

more motor bikes than cars

more roosters and skinny cows than cats and dogs.