Being in Malaysia has been a great blessing and has brought back many memories from our previous trips here. We have been able to get together with a few of our friends, see some places and enjoy the nice warm weather with the 1-2 hours of drenching rain almost daily around 4 pm. Here are a few of our highlights thusfar.

When we arrived, we had to walk from the plane to the terminal, but saw a number of people put on their artic coats, and got a laugh from seeing their reactions as they stepped off into the heat (32'C or more each day). We arrived in Malaysia early but were expected to meet our friends at the KL (Kuala Lumpur) Sentral station. We had collected many numbers of friends from different parts of the country and were feeling confident. We thought that we would send them a call to tell them we made it and to be prepared, but had problems with all of the phones. So we got our ticket from the airport by bus to the Sentral station. It took about 30-45 minutes to get there and we got to see some of the changes in Malaysia and experience some things over again.

We arrived at Sentral station and thus began our phone ordeal. We found out that we had only the home phone number for our friends who planned to pick us up but both were at work at the number was incorrect...we tried all combinations of the numbers to no avail and tried all of our other friends, except those very far from KL. Nothing was working, but we had a home number for a friend and finally got her sister. After a number of other calls back and forth, we ended up taking a train and getting to sit down to hot water and biscuits...no food from 8 am, until about 6pm. How difficult it is to live without a cell phone and to be dependent on foreign pay phones again...ahh!!

Since then we have stayed with our friends Kok Kiang and his wife Soo Hui and their 4 year old son Clarence. It has been a little different having a young and often naughty chld around, but a great learning time for us. We have taken a few trips out to enjoy the National Museum, lots of different kinds of food, the night market and today the Jungle, KL tower (4th largest in the world) and the World Famous Petronais Towers (we even had Burger King there). One thing we love about Malaysia is the variety of foods, we had our favorite breakfast food, Roti Chanai, a bread with lots of spicy Indian dipping sauces, and lots of Malay and Chinese favorites also including Thai too.

Our big plans for next week are for the Chinese new Year...it is my new year, since my Chinese name is Da Niu (big cow)...the year of the ox. We are planning on traveling with our friends Sherry and Anthony to their hometowns in Penang and Malacca. We will get to visit both of their families and get to enjoy lots of food and lots of new places. We will keep you updated. Many blessings and stay warm...we will try to send some of our heat your way.