It's not a fishing accident

One great part of living in a multicultural society is sharing many holidays and festivals. Last week, as we prepared for Chinese New Year, we were released from school and work for celebration of the prophet Mohammad's Birthday on Tuesday and the Hindu holiday Thaipusam on Friday.

For Mohammad's Birthday, we decided to celebrate in the great outdoors. Brian and Ethan organized a Camp WienerPohl outing to a nearby waterfall. Along the hike in a rain forest thick with bamboo, we found ourselves sharing the path with a mega millipede. Arriving at the falls, we splashed in the cool water and slid down the rocks - until encountering a weird looking creature stuck to the rocks. After a hardy debate: "is it a leech or sucker fish?", the kids and guys confirmed that they were indeed sucker fish. They confirmed this by hiking through some leafy plants and then finding actual leeches snacking on their sweet blood. Confirmed - first creatures were just sucker fish. Glad we settled that dispute before leaving the falls.

Exploring the bottom of the falls

Later that week came Thaipusam, a very important Hindu holiday for the mainly Tamil-speaking Hindu community in Malaysia. Thaipusam celebrates Lord Subramaniam, aka Lord Murugan. It is a time of penance for the over one million devotees attending the multi-day festivities at the Batu Caves. Many devotees walk a long distance barefoot and then ascend the 280 steps to the cave temple carrying offerings of milk. Others build and carry kavadi, shrines built on frames elaborately decorated with bright-colored designs, flowers, sculptures, and a good helping of peacock feathers. Some devotees, after engaging in a 48 day cleansing and fasting, shave their heads and pierce body parts with hooks and spears. From the hooks, many hang offerings of fruit (yeah - like whole coconuts!) and jugs of milk. For the visitor, this is a wild experience. We stopped to watch a group of men and women get their heads shaved with an old school Godfather razor. After a few minutes we realized that Tyler chowing down on McDonald's pancakes while staring at people who have been fasting for 48 days was probably a little culturally insensitive. We arrived before sunrise and lined up to ascend the temple steps. The kids spent a lot of time on our shoulders getting the best view possible. I wish my pictures were better. (For those who read our earlier Batu Cave post, please note that there were no monkeys seen on this visit.)

Otherwise, we've been keeping ourselves busy starting the new term at school and waiting for Brian's parents to arrive for a month long visit. The school is organized into three terms. With each team, the children can select new after school activities (called 'CCAs', co-curricular activities). Violet's doing a service/outreach group, parkour (yeah - that awesome street improv martial arts thing), and choir. Tyler's in boardgames and parkour as well. CCAs are fantastic. The kids not only tremendously enjoy them, but they also add an extra 1 hour and 30 minutes to the school day. Also through the school, the kids are in a soccer clinic. Violet made the soccer (football) team and, having never played soccer at all before, it seemed like a good idea to work on her skills in a clinic. Tyler just thinks kicking a ball really hard and sliding into people is super fun, so he asked to join up. You can always find him on the field by looking for the kid on the ground. It's either him, or someone he just tackled. Since we don't know any soccer rules, it is unclear if he is doing anything that is technically wrong. Add on swimming and the kids have a full week.

In other school news, Violet made it to the semi-finals of the school's singing talent show, the X Factor, singing "I Will Survive". She had never heard the song before a couple weeks ago, but as we reviewed songs from an internet posting of "Great Songs for Talent Shows", she fell for Gloria Gaynor. Unfortunately, Tyler's unrehearsed version of "Livin' La Vida Loca" (complete with "Just Dance 4" moves) didn't make the X Factor semi-finals cut. I'm really proud of him for stepping up to try out. He had said many times that he wouldn't sing in front of the class. And it was a nice opportunity to discuss how practice (e.g., learning the words) improves one's performance. Violet sang very well in the semi-finals; but alas, the judges selected another group for the finals.

To relax before my in-law's arrival, my friend Monique invited me to go to the Hammam, a Moroccan bath located not far from our place in Mont Kiara (in a mall, of course). A hammam seems to be the Moroccan equivalent of a Turkish bath, complete with lots of marble and steam rooms (not to be confused with haram - a word in Bahasa that means immoral or wrong - you can use that if a traffic officer tries to elicit a bribe for a traffic "violation"). Monique signed us up for the hammam and gommage. Plus a 60-minute massage. OMG - I'm in love with this place. Let's just start off by saying, if you are at all modest, this is a rough thing to do. Also, if you go with a friend, know that you'll be seeing a lot of your friend. Yeah - it's a lot like my Ipoh massage experience. But at least this time I was ready for it. So here's how Monique and my couples experience went.

The place is beautiful, cozy warm, and smells great. You go into a little locker/changing area and take it all off. Then you put on this paper underwear and bra and cover up with a robe. After meeting my scrubber, Nadia, we were led into a steaming warm room. Nadia poured bucket after bucket of warm water over me. Then I laid on a heated marble slab and she soaped me down with "black soap". She left me to baste for 10 blissful minutes. Then we were led to the next room with more marble beds. Nadia put on a rough silk mitt and began the scrub. The amount of nastiness coming off my skin was impressive. The rub down felt good, in a slightly abrasive way. Nadia scrubbed every piece of my skin. Between my toes, all over my back, yes even my buns. Then she washed me down with bucket after bucket of water. Monique and I were laughing in the end  because last month the girls were doing a homework assignment on water usage in Year 3 (Violet tallied every time we flushed the toilet). After the scrub we got in a big cozy bed and drank warm tea and ate baklava until our massage. On our way out, they talked us into purchasing a package of 5 visits - so I will be back!

I neglected to post this pic following Brian's return from the Philippines. Right before the holidays, Brian played doctor for Tyler's class as part of their integrated primary curriculum on "What People Do". It was super cute and Tyler loved being the mock patient. Yes, I refrained from volunteering my time to explain what a former bureaucrat/part-time consultant does all day.