Day 1: Getting to Malaysia and Looking Around

That's right, I am in Malaysia.  My main reason for coming was to attend the Malaysian Dietitian's Association conference.  After I registered I ended up submitting an abstract for a poster and mine was selected.  Malaysia was not a place I had on my "bucket list" and it wasn't even anything I ever considered visiting.  But once the idea was planted, I knew I really wanted to go.  So after months of planning and planning, here I am!

Well, to get started with, there is still some time in transit before getting in to Malaysia.  I ended up with a 4 hour layover in Tokyo so I decided to enjoy a nice dinner.  As I was walking round I looked at many places, but the food displays from this place looked really good.  I'm glad I gave something different a try.

To start they served me tea and fried, sweetened soba noodles.  The noodles were awesome, but I wasn't really into the tea.

Dinner was tempura shrimp and squid over cold soba noodles.

A little closer up and you might be able to spot those noodles down below.

This was a pretty display in Haneda airport.  Tokyo has 2 airports and Haneda does more of the domestic and Asian locations, quite of bit of Europe, but not a lot to the US.  Narita is bigger, but when I can use Haneda I like too.  From our base we can only fly into Haneda, so if the flight after that is from Narita, we have to take an hour bus ride to switch airports.

More fun displays in the airport.

Before I knew it, it was time to head to Bangkok.  I have always wanted to visit Thailand, so stay tuned for more on that topic.

As always, I ordered a vegetarian meal.  The first meal was a snack.

I had a couple little sandwiches and fruit.

Interesting is all I can say for this.

And I had some wine!  I think this helped me fall asleep for a few hours.

Next thing I knew I was being woken up by the lights turning on and it was time for a meal.  This one was horrible.  I rarely say that, but it was.  I only managed to take a few bites.  I think the issue was that I was woken up, so I was not entirely hungry, and the towel they gave me to wipe my hands and face may have had something in it that I am allergic too.  Plus, I think the dish everyone else was eating was fish and at that hour the stench was too much for me.  I was really nauseous.

But that's ok with me because I had a few hour layover in Thailand and my plan was to get some pad Thai for breakfast.  First I found a Starbucks since coffee was very important to me at that time.  Then I found some food.  I started off with a pineapple juice.  It said fresh juice but I never trust it, so I asked and the server confirmed they make it fresh right there.  He was right!  This was the best pineapple juice I have ever had.

Can't say the same for the pad Thai, but it was good, I have just had better.  I've also had worse.  I also may not have been 100% hungry (which is why I didn't eat it all) but I was not going to pass on the one goal I had for the airport and layover.

Here are some displays from the Bangkok airport.

Then again,  before I knew it, it was time to board for Kuala Lumpur.

Now this meal was fantastic.  I was on Thai Airways for this flight and the breakfast was perfect.  It's an omelet with veggies an potatoes, some fruit and a pastry.  I definitely did not eat it all, but I did eat my veggies and fruit plus about 2/3 of the omelet.  

Welcome to Malaysia!  Couldn't believe I was finally there.  I think I have been planning this trip for 6 months.  I am here now and looking forward to all the fun stuff I have planned for the next few days before the conference.

I decided to spend the first few days at the Shangri-La hotel closer to the downtown area and then I will move to the conference venue for that.  This hotel had a lot of good reviews and this is a chain, so I like that because I am huge point and rewards collector.  Well, there's that and the fact that they are consistently top ranked.

My room is perfect.  It is hard to see from this picture, but I have an end room and my window is curved.  It gives the room a fun feel and the window space is awesome.

Not a bad view.

The bathroom is a good size too.

They provided me with some fruit.

Plus these waters were complimentary.  

This fountain is behind the hotel.  Seems very peaceful out there.

This is the lobby.

Once I was showered and a little rested, I headed out to find the Hop on Hop off bus.  It was recommended to me and I thought that was a great way to get a feel for the city.  I wish the top was open so I could have gotten better pictures, but they didn't seem to turn out too bad through the window.  

Lots of fancy shops.

Some older, more traditional looking buildings.  Little shops and restaurants.

Street food vendors.  I saw a lot of them when were very not directly in the downtown area.

The only place I hopped off and back on at was Little India.  I love Indian food so I thought this would be the perfect stop for a snack.  

Lots of produce for sale on the streets.

Then I spotted this place and I knew I needed to try something from here.

The guy at the counter insisted I also buy this donut thing, but what I really wanted is that samosa buried under there.  It was probably the best samosa I have ever had.  Too bad I forgot the water!  I was spicy!

Funny sign I spotted when we were stopped.

Worst angle ever!  Sorry!  But it is a cool sculpture.

Then we went through the green area and there was definitely a lot of green left in Kuala Lumpur.

Cute flower cut outs on lamp posts.

More green!  This is actually a bird park.  It's the largest covered bird park in the world.

More with the netting.

I assume this is a TV studio.

I was on the bus and heard some yelling.  I looked down, and this is what I spotted.  How many kids can fit through one sun roof?!?!?!

I believe this is one building that now serves as a museum.

I was loving the architecture.  Old mixed with new.  The old stuff was especially fun to look at.

Then the Petronas Twin Towers came into view.  For a while these were the tallest towers in the world.  

This was the last stop I got off at.  I wanted to check out the towers.  See that bridge in the middle?  I am seriously thinking about going to check it out.  You can buy a ticket and walk out there.  I really want to do it.

This is the fountain area outside.

Inside this section is a 6 story mall.  Fun!

It looks very futuristic.  It's actually the elevators.

On the way back to my hotel I passed through this park with fun chairs.  Unfortunately that was also around the same time I lost my fitbit one.  Oops!

Yes, I did go to the Hard Rock.  I thought it would cheer me up after I lost my fit bit.  The Hard Rock was across from my hotel so I didn't have to go out of my way.

I contemplated going out for dinner but I was so tired and my feet hurt (from back tracking 3 times to look for my fit bit) so I ended up eating at the buffet in the hotel.  I had a few paneer dishes (Indian), some smoked salmon and some veggies.

Here are some pictures of other foods they had.  This buffet was huge, but at least this gives you an idea.

This is not just a trend in the US!

I picked up a few desserts, but only took 1-2 bites of each.

After all that I am just ready for bed.  Good night!

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever presented a poster at a conference?  Have you ever been to Malaysia?

My Birthday and Awesome Stuffed Peppers

My birthday was last Wednesday and I had a pretty good day despite Ryan working nights.  I got to see him in the morning before I went to work and he went to bed and then again before he went to work and I went to dinner.  At least we were able to go out to dinner on the Friday before.  

But before I get into all the tasty looking pictures of my birthday celebration meals, I wanted share this vegetarian stuffed peppers recipe.  For American Day (American foods served to the local Japanese community as a fundraiser for on base groups and organizations) Ryan's shop made kebabs.  At the end of the day there were a punch of left over peppers.  They were asking who wanted them.  Obviously I could not let them go to waste even if I had no idea what to make.  Naturally stuffed peppers came to mind.  I did them once before with mushroom orzo and they were good, but I was looking to try something different.  

After a quick, and I do mean quick, search, I found this recipe for Mexican-style vegetarian stuffed peppers.  The recipe makes 6, but we only had 5 peppers.  The good news is that there is more filling left in my freezer.  I honestly think it could have filled 7.

Onions and garlic is always a good start.

One thing I liked about this is that it called for brown rice.  Not only was that so simple and easy to find in my pantry, but it already had the healthier option so I didn't even need to sub anything.  I love fun and funky grains, but I really liked that this just stayed simple.  Maybe it was the Mexican aspect that led to just plain rice, rather than the latest and greatest grain of the week (and yes, I do have most of those in my pantry too...I love all of those grains!).

In with the onion and garlic went corn, black beans (so excited that the commissary started carrying the low sodium canned black beans- I always rinse them anyway, but the lower the sodium to start, the better).  The recipe called for tomato puree, which I could not really find, so in went some tomato sauce.  That's like a pureed tomato, right?

Mix in the rice and seasoning and we are good to go!

I love how these look!

But of course I had to top them with cheese.  They were amazing!  I loved them.  Ryan loved them.  It was a major win and he even asked if we could do them again.  No complaints eating the leftovers the next night either.

Moving on the my birthday.  Ryan was not working the Friday night before my birthday so we headed to Marche, which is a French restaurant by the base.

I started off with the marinated raw salmon (think lox with Italian dressing), which was really good.  Mostly because salmon around here is always just really good.

Some rolls for the table.  The set up was too cute!  The rolls were warm and buttery even without the butter on them.

I had a salad also.

The garlic bread here is phenomenal (if you like extreme garlic) so I ordered some, even thought I couldn't eat it all.

Ryan decided to go for something a little different for him and he had the chicken cordon bleu.

For my entree I went with the mushroom soup pot pie.  Yes, mushroom soup does work as a pot pie.  Basically it is a cream of mushroom soup with puff pastry baked on top.  It is awesome!  What can I, the Japanese love their mushrooms.

Ryan had ordered a set meal and it came with dessert.  We both took a bite just to try, but we knew we really wanted to get some desserts from the bakery down the street.

We headed over to La France (do you see a theme here?).  They were getting ready to close so most things were out, but I was able to score the last piece of this chocolate cake.  Just to give you an idea of size, this is sitting in the middle of my salad, not dinner plate at home.  The Japanese desserts are no where near the size of American desserts.  It was really good, but I was not expecting the bottom to be alcohol flavored.  It was a shock, but not entirely bad.

That weekend I tried some of the Japanese goodies that Ryan brought home.  A coworker gave them to him as a thank you gift.  They made a baby shower gift for his wife and she is Japanese, so the custom is to give a thank you gift, which is most often a little baked good.

I have no idea what this was, but it seems to have sweetened butter in the middle.  Don't ask!

On my actual birthday Ryan came home from work as I was heading to work and cooked me breakfast.  For lunch, the girls I work with took me to the Mexican restaurant near the base.  Actually it is Tex Mex, part of a chain and started by an American that now lives in Thailand, and yes, this place does really well in Japan, not just with the Americans, but Japanese too.  I ordered an enchilada lunch special.

That night Ryan had to work, but my friend and I went to dinner.  Her husband was out of town and she lives in the building next to me, so it made for the perfect birthday evening.  We planned to go to an Italian restaurant, but they opened at 6, so at 5:30 we still had some time and she has a baby, and we decided the better option was go to our favorite Chinese place.  Perfect!  Since we like the same things we were able to get two dishes and share.  We were so involved in catching up that I forgot to even take pictures of the food!  But it was good.  We had eggplant and scallops in XO sauce and sweet and sour shrimp.  I even splurged on a beer because she was driving.

After dinner she drove over to a bakery and said she had always wanted to try it.  To which I just laughed.  Why?  Because she took me to La France.  The same bakery Ryan and I went to Friday night and bought me some birthday cake at.  I know the guy working there was thinking that the crazy American must really like cake.

My friend treated me to this lovely dessert.  Again, it's pretty small, which is perfect.  This had a little alcohol in the mousse filling too, but the overall flavor was chocolate hazelnut.  The center was like eating a kinder happy hippo.  It was like nutella with crunchy pieces.  It was amazing!  It was even topped with a mini macaron.

My friend can't have chocolate so she was extremely excited to find that their strawberry tart was chocolate free.  It's so cute!

Then we ate our desserts and spent some time getting caught up on things.  It was nice to have a girls night and just chat.  Even though Ryan didn't get to spend much time with me, it was still a good day.  Plus, I will continue to celebrate my birthday because I am getting ready to go on another trip soon...and Ryan will be joining me.  I have a lot to do to get ready before then, but I think my next post will probably be the start of my travels.  Southeast Asia...here I come!

QUESTIONS:  What did you do for your last birthday?  What are you doing for your next birthday?  If you could go anywhere in Southeast Asia, where would it be?