Cowabunga Kidzania!

Sunday we had a family lesson from Charlie and Anne in badminton, Malaysia's national sport. (I don't know if it's actually the national sport, but it's wildly popular here.) Malaysia and China played for the men's singles gold medal in the most recent Olympic games. Played indoors, it's surprisingly aerobic and incredibly fun. Our apartment building has courts. We're planning to buy rackets this week and start booking weekly time to play as a family. (Shout out to Alycia S. - who lettered in high school varsity badminton back in Santa Cruz, CA. She's in labor with baby #2 right now; she just FaceTimed us from GBMC - We're thinking of you!)

Another great development from Sunday, we were eating lunch and heard a little knock on the apartment door. Two girls who live in our apartment complex came by to see if Violet wanted to go on a treasure hunt with them! Yeah! After the treasure hunt, the three girls went for a swim. June, on the left, is Malay - ethnic Chinese and Shailia, on the right, is from Iran.

Sunday evening (after a total bust trying to shop for masks, fins, and snorkels for the kids - really, we're on a peninsula... shouldn't every store sell this kind of thing?), we went to the Bangsar night market. Each Sunday, stalls line a street in Bangsar, a neighborhood ~15 minutes from us, with fruits, veggies, fish, meat, and juices. Add that it's Ramadan, the market also hosted a large number of delicious prepared food stalls.

Violet digging into fresh roasted corn.

Cutting a jackfruit. A giant fruit that tastes like
a cross banana, mellon, and pineapple, with huge
pits in the center of each bite.

A and J drinking pure sugarcane juice. Look
behind them to see the man feeding sticks of
sugarcane into a grinder.

Post market, and after a brief pre-party (note Kris is ready to open the wine, but still drinking his fresh "sour fruit" from Bangsar), we stopped in for drinks and snacks at the Brussel's Beer cafe. Real beer!! Yum!!

Today, Brian headed to work, so Camp WienerPohl took off to Kidzania at a mall called "The Curve." Have I mentioned the malls in KL? Everywhere, everywhere there are malls. Huge, huge, huge malls. I've spent more time in malls over the last 2 weeks in KL than I'd spent in malls in 10 years in Baltimore. Seriously, I was researching online for where to buy a mask, fins, and snorkel for the kids and I found a mall dedicated entirely to sporting goods. The directions to the sporting goods mall are "Between Sogo shopping mall and Maju Junction shopping mall along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman you have a special mall which focuses on sports..." Anyway, Kidzania is really remarkable (http://www.kidzania.com.my/the-experience/whats-kidzania/). It's an indoor kid-sized town with little areas dedicated to various grown-up, real world experiences. In small groups (4 to 8 kids, depending on the activity), staff lead the children in interactive, hands-on learning/play. The kids did a mock trial, starred on stage in a ninja turtles show, went to a magic lesson, built a Dell laptop, performed an endoscopy (the surgery suite had a long line), made Vitaman drink, flew a plane, solved a crime as CSI, and designed cars. Next time we visit (you can't do it all in one visit), they want to go to the ED, ride in the firetruck, wash windows, drive the mini cars, work for the telecom company, produce a TV show - to name a few... Super cool. Each activity is timed (15 to 30 minutes), so Robin and I enjoyed cappuccinos in the lounge and spent some quality time in the massage chairs.

Keep the emails and posts coming. Lots of love!!

Blindfolding Tyler to prove that just because food doesn't look good,
doesn't mean it doesn't taste good.