This is the first week in a long time where Mary has no photos or stories that she wants to share for the blog. She has been super busy at work and asked me to take a stab at a post. It's been a while so bear with me...
Things in general have been going well. After a full week off the kids are back at school and seem to be getting back into the groove. Tyler is excited because his class is going on a trip to Kidzania tomorrow. Violet is super jealous but has decided to have her birthday party there in a few weeks so I suspect she will get over it shortly. Her class is planning a trip to a Chinese dumpling factory (?) - I'm guessing it's a restaurant. Mary probably knows and will correct this later :) (Mary: Yes, it's a restaurant.) As Mary always says to the kids when they complain about things the other one gets, "Things are not always equal but they are fair!" Although in this particular case, I think that Tyler is getting the better of the deal. I love dumplings, but Kidzania is pretty cool.
Friday night Mary and I shared a moment that sums up our hope for the kids' experience here in Malaysia. We went out for Korean bbq with some other folks from PUGSOM. In the middle of dinner, Violet leaned over to Ying Wei (a Hopkins vascular surgeon from Malaysia and an all-around excellent guy) and said something to him in Mandarin! He was pretty surprised but said back in English, "You're right Violet - a frog does jump." Violet speaking Mandarin to a Chinese-Malaysian in a Korean BBQ joint in Kuala Lumpur - that right there is worth the price of admission. Mary and I high-fived a few times over that one!!!
This past weekend was really interesting. On Saturday morning, the first-year PUGSOM students decided to hike Broga Hill to celebrate the end of their first cell physiology exam. Broga hill is a privately owned estate about 40km east of KL, across the street from a palm plantation and a rabbit farm (?). It is known to the locals as an excellent place to watch the sunrise. It also offers some pretty amazing views of KL after first light. The only problem is you have to get there around 4:30 in the morning to make it to the second peak in time for the sunrise. Since we live pretty far north I had to leave the house around 3:15 am to get there. Violet got wind of my plans when she saw my packing a flashlight and some other hiking supplies. I decided to invite her along and she enthusiastically accepted - until I woke her up at 3 am to throw her lifeless body in the back of the car!
True to form, I got completely lost trying to meet the students. Mary is the most patient and wonderful person on the planet. I woke her up at 4 am, gave her some landmarks on the side of the road and she directed me to the University of Nottingham where I was able to track down a carload of students who were kind enough to pull over and wait for me. We got to the hill and were ready to start the hike.
Violet was amazing. She hoofed it to the top of the first peak (which was fairly steep and a little difficult to navigate with just a headlamp) and even passed one 20-something guy who had to pull off to puke in the bushes. Only trouble is that shortly after passing the puking guy, Violet herself walked off into the bushes to yak a little bit. I'm still not sure what was wrong with her but I think the shock of being awake at 3 am coupled with the extreme exertion of the hike on top of seeing a guy puking got to her a little bit. She curled up on a rock at the top of the peak and took a short nap while we waited for the rest of the group. I had to carry her most of the way to peak 2.
The sunrise was pretty cool. The views of the sunrise itself were not spectacular because there was a fair amount of cloud cover; but, as daylight broke, it was an incredible sight. Violet woke up to take some of it in, and then booted and rallied and followed me up to the 3rd and final peak. She is a truly remarkable little girl.
Broga Hill was cool, but Sunday was perhaps even cooler. There was a 10k trail run on the PUGSOM campus sponsored by Salomon. Our new pathologist Sri knows about every race in KL - including the best goody bags, shirts, water bottle giveaways, etc. I signed up for the race as a warmup for the Penang Bridge Half Marathon next weekend and Sri joined me. It was super fun. They didn't have a timing chip so you had to keep your own time. I thought I rocked it - my best 5K time ever was 22:35 and I ran the 10K in 39:20. But I suspect that it wasn't truly 10km. I had my GPS watch set to miles and I've been too lazy to do the math to confirm. For a short while I actually thought I might have finished pretty close to the top of the men's group but they just posted the times tonite. The top male finisher was 28:46! Oh well...at least I'm getting better at badminton. By far the best part of the race was introducing Sri to the American tradition of drinking at least 1 (maybe 2-3) beers after a race.
After the race, I rushed home and the family went to (you guessed it) a mall to see the new Thor movie. I wish I still had my brother's Thor halloween costume, but I was wearing it in spirit! SPOILER ALERT - Tyler and Violet's theory is that Odin went to the bathroom during the last scene which is how Loki was able to impersonate him. I have to hand it to them - that's a pretty reasonable idea. Sometimes their dad disappears for a while...
Well - you've now seen why I don't get asked to write more posts.
I will leave you with the Grandma freak-out picture of the week...
Things in general have been going well. After a full week off the kids are back at school and seem to be getting back into the groove. Tyler is excited because his class is going on a trip to Kidzania tomorrow. Violet is super jealous but has decided to have her birthday party there in a few weeks so I suspect she will get over it shortly. Her class is planning a trip to a Chinese dumpling factory (?) - I'm guessing it's a restaurant. Mary probably knows and will correct this later :) (Mary: Yes, it's a restaurant.) As Mary always says to the kids when they complain about things the other one gets, "Things are not always equal but they are fair!" Although in this particular case, I think that Tyler is getting the better of the deal. I love dumplings, but Kidzania is pretty cool.
Friday night Mary and I shared a moment that sums up our hope for the kids' experience here in Malaysia. We went out for Korean bbq with some other folks from PUGSOM. In the middle of dinner, Violet leaned over to Ying Wei (a Hopkins vascular surgeon from Malaysia and an all-around excellent guy) and said something to him in Mandarin! He was pretty surprised but said back in English, "You're right Violet - a frog does jump." Violet speaking Mandarin to a Chinese-Malaysian in a Korean BBQ joint in Kuala Lumpur - that right there is worth the price of admission. Mary and I high-fived a few times over that one!!!
True to form, I got completely lost trying to meet the students. Mary is the most patient and wonderful person on the planet. I woke her up at 4 am, gave her some landmarks on the side of the road and she directed me to the University of Nottingham where I was able to track down a carload of students who were kind enough to pull over and wait for me. We got to the hill and were ready to start the hike.
Violet was amazing. She hoofed it to the top of the first peak (which was fairly steep and a little difficult to navigate with just a headlamp) and even passed one 20-something guy who had to pull off to puke in the bushes. Only trouble is that shortly after passing the puking guy, Violet herself walked off into the bushes to yak a little bit. I'm still not sure what was wrong with her but I think the shock of being awake at 3 am coupled with the extreme exertion of the hike on top of seeing a guy puking got to her a little bit. She curled up on a rock at the top of the peak and took a short nap while we waited for the rest of the group. I had to carry her most of the way to peak 2. The sunrise was pretty cool. The views of the sunrise itself were not spectacular because there was a fair amount of cloud cover; but, as daylight broke, it was an incredible sight. Violet woke up to take some of it in, and then booted and rallied and followed me up to the 3rd and final peak. She is a truly remarkable little girl.
After the race, I rushed home and the family went to (you guessed it) a mall to see the new Thor movie. I wish I still had my brother's Thor halloween costume, but I was wearing it in spirit! SPOILER ALERT - Tyler and Violet's theory is that Odin went to the bathroom during the last scene which is how Loki was able to impersonate him. I have to hand it to them - that's a pretty reasonable idea. Sometimes their dad disappears for a while...
Well - you've now seen why I don't get asked to write more posts.
I will leave you with the Grandma freak-out picture of the week...
 |
| Random Malaysian guy picking up Violet on a narrow portion of the steep trail to get a pic! It would have been more dangerous to try to stop him, I swear... |
Wishing you all the best!
Rabbit farm, eh? And you think you're eating chicken!
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