Sunday, August 24, 2014

Day Six: Fish and Monkeys

On the sixth day of our trip we were off to a slow start and it was sushi and fancy drinks for brunch before heading off to the Batu Caves.
The Batu Caves are to the north of Kuala Lumpur and it took us about half an hour to get there by train. Given how hot we had been the previous couple of days, I was quite happy to sit in an air conditioned train for a while.

This is my second trip to the Batu Caves, I first visited here a couple of years ago with our friends Lisa and Aaris (if you have been following my blog long enough you may have even seen the pictures!).

The Batu Caves is actually an amazing Hindu Shrine and it has monkeys - just hanging out, I know they freak some people out. I can kind of see why as on my previously trip a monkey wanted my peanuts and on this trip we bought ice creams and that monkeys wanted those too.

But I love this shrine, its just amazing! Also there were much less people here than there were last time I visited which is always a bonus.












In case you are wondering - yes we did walk up ALL those stairs! Also on the way back down someone asked if they could have a photo with Rich - he's just a handsome guy.

After some time in the sun, we decided we needed to head back into the city to get some shade. We also needed to post some postcards - so first stop when we got back was the post office and we saw this great mural on the way.
Next stop was the central market, which is an older market in a beautiful art deco building. I think this market as it had a lot of local people selling stuff, but the vendors weren't pushy at all. I bought a few things to take home as gifts here. They also had some stalls with stuff you could never get through New Zealand customs, but were still interesting to look at - like the bug stall.


This is the fish part of the post and if you have a fish phobia you might want to skim past it - we went to Dr Fish! Or a fish spa - depending on what you prefer to call it.
If you've never heard of Dr Fish or a fish spa - you basically put your feet (or this place had hand therapy too) in a tank of fish that like to eat the dead skin off your feet. Yes it is as weird as it sounds and I love it. This was my third Dr Fish and the second time I've been in Malaysia.

After shopping and the fish spa, we decided we needed a drink - although I decided to get this shaved ice monstrosity instead. Sometimes you just have to buy the thing you know you can't buy at home.

As you can see - its a completely ridiculous thing to eat.

After this we were at a bit of loss as we had done everything we had set out to do in Kuala Lumpur - we walked around for a bit and ultimately ended up at the Petronas Towers again.


There is actually a pretty nice fountain and garden at the towers and it was nice to walk around the area and wind down a bit.


That's pretty much it for my second trip to Malaysia and my first with Rich. Would I go back again? In a heart beat. I think Malaysia has been one of my favourite places to visit and I really want to go back and visit Ipoh and Langkawi and Penang (and I'm sure there are other places I WANT to visit, but I haven't even heard of them yet). I'm sure this won't be the last time I will be in Malaysia. Next stop on our trip was - Indonesia!

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Sunshine and Seung Yul Oh

Well today it is freezing - we have had sleet and hail! It's the kind of day that makes you well and truly sick of winter. I seriously want to be able to leave my house without a coat, hat, scarf and gloves

But last Sunday was quite different, we left home around midday for a book sale and then headed out along the waterfront for a walk and it was stunning.


We even stopped for ice cream and I would normally NEVER eat ice cream in winter! It turned out this was a bit of a lame ice cream (should have bought gelato instead) but it was kind of about the idea it was actually warm enough to eat ice cream!
After our walk and ice cream we headed to the city gallery to see the Seung Yul Oh exhibition. The exhibition sounded super fun and it seemed like the perfect day to go and check it out.
I love, love loved this exhibition - every one visiting had a huge smile on their face. I think that's what art should be about - accessible and fun!

This is one of my favourites - it was kind of a maze of inflatable yellow things. As an extra bonus all that static made my hair go crazy.

These chickens are so cool - they kind of remind me of kinder surprise eggs. You are welcome to touch them and rock them too.


This part of the exhibition wasn't allowed to be played with or touched at all - but it was pretty awesome anyways.


These aren't all the exhibits - there were also these cool bowls of noodles sculptures and a giant bean bag/bouncy castle type thing that you get to climb on! Seriously! Oh and that's not the bean bag/bouncy castle below - I didn't get a photo of that because I was having too much fun!
The weather may be bleak - but tomorrow is Friday and I have lots of fun stuff planned this weekend including a craft crawl. It's all very exciting.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Happy Saturday!

I have to admit that I have been down quite a bit lately - there has been a lot going on and the weather has been extremely cold and miserable. This is the first winter since we moved into our apartment where it has actually felt cold inside (our central heating just can't keep up).

However, this last weekend the weather was cold, but the sun was shining and I got to catch up with Ria for the first time in a long time (she has been busy working on a big show) and I had a genuinely awesome weekend.

So what did I get up to? Well I met Ria on Saturday and we went to the international food court that recently opened pretty much right next door to our apartment.

It's a really pretty food market and given its "sort of" open air it has been doing amazingly well in a Wellington winter. They have so much delicious food - Chinese dumplings, Korean street food, Malaysian, Filipino barbeque, Indian, roti wraps and that's just a handful of the businesses. If you are in Wellington you should really go and visit. On Sunday Ria and I choose to get some chili chicken noodles from the Vietnamese place and they were amazing.
There is also  a general market as part of the food market - at the moment its mostly vintage and a few other small businesses. I don't think the general market is doing as well as the food part, but I do hope that it becomes more popular. Maybe it will become Wellingtons first vintage market! Although I'm not sure having a vintage market and a market selling delicious food next to my house would be great for my wallet. I only managed to snap a couple of pictures at the market, nothing really grabbed our attention (although those buttons were super fun) so we headed up to Cuba Street.

After checking out a few shops we decided to stop off for what I consider to be the best chai in Wellington! It's worth buying chai tea here to make sure that you can see this fun caravan around the city. Once I was chatting to the owner of the caravan and he told me he was taught how to make chai when he was in India - so this masala chai is the real deal!

We continued along Cuba Street and eventually ended up at Recycle Boutique - where many clothes were tried on and some were eventually bought. Also I  had to share this knitwear with you guys - I mean seriously!
I did end up buying a couple of frocks - I had seen the green one at recycle boutique before but I didn't try it on. Turns out it fits perfect and looks awesome - it was meant to be!

We also paid a visit to Minerva which is a wonderful bookstore that sells loads of craft and sewing books. The books they sell are new, but they also have a small selection of vintage patterns and I was able to pick up this cute wee pattern.
To finish our day we decided to see if the Fabric Store was open, but we were too late. I thought I would share this mural with you all though. It's kind of fun right?
Finally we finished up our day out with a chai latte at Expressoholic - one of our usual hang outs.

I have to admit after this fun day out I was feeling  so much better. I also went to an amazing exhibition with Rich on Sunday (will share photos soon) and now I am also feeling so much better about everything. Plus I have Lux Festival of lights to look forward to, as well as a craft crawl and a trip to Auckland to see Conor and Sue and I will also get to catch up with Emi. It's going to be rad. I'm so happy I'm feeling more positive about basically everything again xoxo