Our Family Adventure to Malaysia & Thailand- Part 1

We were very blessed this summer to be able to take a long family vacation to an exotic location and have a great time! If you back up about a year, when a military father has a child, he is entitled to 10 days of paternity leave. Brett qualified for this back in August 2009, when Mal came along. But he had just changed offices, and wasn't able to take the time off (thank God my parents were here- I don't think I could have been at home alone with a 3 day old baby). Anyway, he was finally able to take the time at the beginning of August, just before the baby leave expired. We decided to take a family trip to Malaysia and Thailand, and had a fantastic time.

We left for our trip July 30th. We actually spent that first night at a tiny little hotel in Tokyo, near the airport. We were flying out of Haneda early, and it would have been hard to get to the airport early enough. So, we took a very long train ride (seriously- it was long, especially with 1 kid/stroller, 3 suitcases, 1 diaper bag, and 1 camera bag- hoping on and off various trains to make it down to the Haneda Airport area) and spent that night at a Tokyo hotel, got up (very) early the next day, and caught our flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

We had an easy flight and made it to KL that afternoon. The KL airport is about an hour away from downtown, but we were staying at the Traders Hotel, so they picked us up and when we got there, checked in. We had upgraded to a room with a view, and it was well worth it. The hotel was right by the Petronas Towers (the tallest twin towers in the world) and our view was fantastic! Here's a bit about the towers: The Petronas Twin Towers (Malay: Menara Berkembar Petronas) (also known as the Petronas Towers or just Twin Towers), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysiawere the world's tallest buildings from 1998 to 2004, when their height was surpassed by Taipei 101. From 2001, the towers remain the tallest twin buildings in the world.

You can see the towers, and the mall and KLCC park that are right below them.

Our room was quite posh.

The bathroom was pretty fancy as well!

Mallory and I enjoying the comfy, squishy hotel bed.

The next day, August 1st, we walked over to the towers. They are AMAZINGLY tall!

Malaysia is a very Muslim country, so we saw a lot of women in head dresses and burkas. Even with the language and religious differences, they thought Mallory was cute and wanted pictures with her :)

Looking up from the bottom of the towers

Brett and Mallory sitting at the entrance to the towers, where the Philharmonik is also housed.

Mal and Mommy

Standing at the towers, looking at our hotel.

The mall at the base of the towers (we shopped in there, and there are some SWANKY stores!)

Back at our hotel, in the lobby (pretty cool looking, huh?)

After shopping in the mall, Brett and I decided it was date time :) Brett and I haven't had a date since before Mallory was born, and we figured what a great place to spend some time together, in the really neat bar at our hotel. We had a babysitter (aka Traders Hotel employee) watch Mallory (she was almost asleep when we left, so really the lady just sat on our bed and watched tv) while we went about 10 floors up, to the top of the hotel to the bar. I'd reserved one of the cozy little areas with a great view just for us.

Looking out the window towards the towers at night. Pretty awesome!

Inside the Sky Bar,

which is also the pool area. The swimming pool was literally in the middle of the bar and you walked around it. By day, it is just the swimming area. At night, it turns into the Sky Bar!

This sign was sitting on our reserved table when we arrived, so we had a little fun with it.

We had a couple yummy drinks each and enjoyed chatting child free. Then we went back to our room, relieved to know that Mallory was ok (yes, we are those overly protective parents that thought about/talked about/worried about her the entire 3 hours we were at the bar).

The next day, August 2nd, we actually checked out of Traders, but our flight to our next destination wasn't until 9:15pm that night, so we had all day in KL still. We had planned on going up the Petronas Towers, but they are closed on Mondays. Whoops! So, we visited the other tower KL is known for, Menara KL Tower. It is not as tall, but has a cool ball thing on top and we got to see the Petronas Towers from up high and have them in our pictures, so that was cool. And since you can't go all the way up the twin towers (you only go to the skywalk part) you are actually higher up in this tower. Here is the KL Tower from down below.

We could see this tower from our hotel too, and thought it was much closer, so we started to walk. That was a bit tricky, and it is actually much further than we realized. After getting a bit turned around, and hot and sweaty trying to walk to it, we finally got in a cab and drove the rest of the way, thank goodness. It did end up being a longer cab ride than I expected, and I was glad to not be walking at that point!

We finally made it, bought tickets to go up, and hopped in the elevator. The ceiling of the elevator was so pretty.

Mallory was looking up at it the entire time.

We made it to the top and they give you some headphones (in your language of choice) to explain what you are looking at out each viewing window. Here's Brett sporting his headphones.

Mallory was a huge hit in the Tower as well, and all the workers wanted to hold her. The Japanese and Koreans love babies, but I think the Malaysians might love them even more, if that is possible!

Mallory wanted a turn listening to the information too.

The views were beautiful. Out this window, in the distance you can see a darkish hill. That is actually a sacred Buddhist cave, called Batu Cave, where they worship and hold festivals each year.

Here are the Petronas Towers.

Mommy, Mally and the Towers behind us.

After walking all the way around the Tower twice, we came back down and had tickets to the Malaysia Cultural Village. Outside was this vendor, which I just thought was funny.

We visited the Cultural Village, just outside the Tower, but honestly we weren't all that impressed. I don't know if if was because we were hot and sweaty or because we couldn't read the signs in Malaysian, or because we just don't really care that much about their old architecture, but we quickly walked thru it and called it good. I took a few pictures, just to prove we were there.

After that, we went back to the hotel. Well, we tried to go back to the hotel. We somehow ended up in a cab that smelled like a cross between dirty feet and too much curry, and how this guy was a cab driver for a living I have NO idea. He would speed up, only to slam on the brakes and throw on the parking brake at certain times, for no particular reason. I hit my head on the back of his chair more than once. We had told him Traders Hotel, but he took us to a completely different place (I think it was something like the Renaissance Hotel) in a different section of town. Brett argued with him for a bit that we weren't in the right place (seriously, he wanted us to get out at that hotel saying 'you said this hotel'...ummm, no we didn't dude). Anyway, we finally had him take us to the Petronas Towers, knowing we could walk home from there and that it is also the biggest landmark in the entire city. I think he was mad at us as we got out, but the feeling was mutual. We walked back to the hotel and changed clothes (the cab smell had permeated our other outfits) and headed off to the airport.

We had a small mix up there too, as there is the main airport, and then the "cheap airlines" terminal. We belonged there, but went to the other one first. We figured it all out, and got to the right place in plenty of time. We were flying Air Asia up to Langkawi Island, Malaysia, just a bit north of KL, and a very touristy spot (that's pretty much all that is on the island is tourists and hotels). Our Air Asia tickets were like $45 each! We were both a bit nervous about kinda old piece of junk they were going to put us on for that price, but it was a nice, newer plane. We made the 45 minute flight to Langkawi, hopped off and checked into the hotel....

August in Japan

August was a fun, and busy, month around here. We went to lots of different activities, and played quite a bit, and we were only in Japan for 1/2 the month! The first half of the month we were on our family vacation to Malaysia and Thailand, which will be blogged about next...

But while we were here, this is a little of what we did:

We went to Alon's "post 1 birthday party". He turned 1 in June, but Alon's mommy waited until his daddy was home from his deployment to have his party.

Mal and Nolan had a great time playing with the water table. In fact, Mallory loved that table so much, I broke down and bought her one a week later.

Lynn and I hosted the monthly 36th spouse luncheon at Lynn's house. We did an assortment of salads and rolls since it was just so hot outside and we didn't want to cook. There were a LOT of people that came and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Melanie, Ian, Dana, Jill and Amanda:

Some of the food selection:

Mal and Kirsten, Wyatt and Jason P.

We had cooking class at our house, and made all sorts of salads for that too. It was such a hit with the spouses, I thought the Japanese ladies would enjoy it as well. Green salad with homemade dressing, bean salad, potato salad, and a dessert salad too! They were all delicious, and a great "cool" meal for the August heat. (Side note, boy was it ever hot here this summer. I was told it was the hottest summer on record for the last 115 years! I am SO glad I was pregnant LAST summer and not this one!)

Mallory practiced standing up quite a bit and started playing with her activity table more and more.

Mallory and I went into Tokyo to try out as a model for the Combi children's clothing catalog. Basically, she is registered with a few of the agencies around Tokyo. When a company needs models, they contact the modeling agencies and look thru the pictures of the children they would be interested in. If they choose you, you go downtown for an audition, where they have your child dress in an item of their clothing (like the cute striped dress below) and take a few pictures of the kid in that item. A few days after everyone auditions, the modeling agency calls you and lets you know if your child got the part of not. Exciting news - Mallory was picked!!!

A few days after everyone auditions, the modeling agency calls you and lets you know if your child got the part of not. Exciting news - Mallory was picked!!! (But look at that cute girl- how could you say no to that face!?!?!) So in September we went down for the real photo shoot- I'll post that pic later. While we were in Tokyo, we went over to a park in Shinjuku and ate lunch. Mallory enjoyed some of my soba noodles.

She also had a great time crawling around on the floor of the covered picnic area.

Next to the picnic area was a cute little pond and some very Japanese looking shrubs and lantern.

So, we took our group picture there. Luckily, a few friends were going to the audition too, so we all went together. Me, Mal, Stacia and Maggie, Shalece, Javier and Alon Mendez. It was SO hot (remember it was the hottest summer on record?) so we didn't walk around the park much. After the lunch and picture, we pretty much just headed on back to the train station.

Stacia and I pushing our sleeping babies to the train station.

Javier, Stacia and me looking cute on the train station escalator.

Mallory started a few new things this month. She already LOVED Maverick (her "gog") but she really started to take notice of Bandit as well. Poor Bandit is apparently also a "gog" in Mal's world, but that's ok. She also started playing with her belly button as a way to go to sleep. She's always been a thumb sucker, but now we suck our left thumb and twiddle our "button" with our right middle and index fingers. Crazy kid!

I found this little piano toy for her at the airman's attic and she LOVES it. It's quite annoying really as the tunes are loud, and very high pitched and off key. But hey, it keeps her entertained, and sometimes, that is all that matters. I think she looks like Schroeder from Peanuts in this picture with just her 2 fingers playing the keys. So cute!

Another exciting event was that our neighbor Hillary came home from her 6 month deployment. Both her and her husband are active duty and she left back in Feb for 6 mo in Afghanistan. We were all excited for her arrival, and painted banners to let her know that! We hung one on her fence:

and greeted her bus at the lodge with the other one. Bridget and Anne were our "Vanna White"s for the evening, and did a great job.

Mallory loves to watch Mav eat and I had to snap a pic of it. I think it looks like we have 2 "gogs" in this house!

Lastly, Mallory's big girl car seat arrived. She was a bit cramped in her infant one, and had reached the weight limit as well, so it was time to upgrade She loves that thing and falls asleep in it just about anytime we go anywhere. Literally, I drove to the shoppette which is just around the corner (so close it takes me like 5 mintues to walk there, but I was lazy the other day and drove) and she was asleep when I pulled in the parking lot! But I think that the box it came in was much more fun that the car seat will ever be:

I'll post pics of her first ride in her big girl seat in my September post (we took it out of the box, but it was a few days before it got installed into the car). And I'll post the other 1/2 of August- our family vacation- next!