Not quite in the vacation mood (but having a good time nonetheless)

Greetings from Melaka! My dad and I are having a blast in Malaysia, and are both hiding in this not-so-quiet internet cafe to get some relief from the heat. This is my second time to Malaysia, but it's a real pleasure to show my dad the sights I enjoyed when I came here nearly 3 years ago. Melaka is particularly enjoyable with its history of Chinese and Arab traders, as well as its Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonizers, not to mention the Sumatran-Malay sultans who introduced Islam into what is now Malaysia. Our hotel is on the edge of Chinatown and just across the river from the European settlement. And we're very lucky to have come during the weekend, just in time to make it to the weekend night market.

The Chinese communities here are very interesting and retain and even make up a lot of new traditions. I've always been interested in how peoples' identities change when they move to new places. Malaysian Chinese seem to feel more 'Chinese' than Chinese I've seen anywhere else. To see how they've survived and prospered here is even more inspiring than the Chinese communities in North America - they've been here for centuries longer.

Oh, if I can help it, I'll never go to Kuala Lumpur again. Really, there's not much to do there. I do have a couple of friends there. I really have to thank my buddy from CSP for letting me stay at his place in Petaling Jaya. Puay Seong, you're welcome to visit me in Hong Kong (or wherever I go later) anytime. Oh, the one good thing I have to say about Kuala Lumpur is that it has many of my favourite fast food joints that neither Hong Kong nor Mainland China have, including A&W, Burger King, and Kenny Rogers' Roasters. Hey, I did have local fare like nasi lemak, char kuay teow, laksa, and of course, Hainan chicken rice, but I knew I'd eat even more of this stuff while travelling with my dad, so I loaded up on the Western fast food I missed before he met up with me yesterday.

One nice thing I can say about this trip is that history has not repeated itself.. yet. When I came here 3 years ago, I had what has been my most terrible travel experience so far. In a single night, an ATM machine ate up my bank card and I got a terrible case of food poisoning (which included vomiting 7-8 times and going to the toilet about 20 times within a 7 hr period). The HSBC bank machine I used dutifully spat out my HSBC bank card this time, and my stomach has been able to handle whatever I've put in my mouth so far. Let's keep my fingers crossed - I still have more than one day to go!


While I'm having a great time spending time with my dad, I'm really not in the travelling mood. There's someone else with whom I'd rather be travelling. My trip to Thailand with her was one of my best vacations ever, and whether she would come here with my dad or without, I'm sure we would have had a great time. She said she'd be more than happy to travel with me again as friends, and I suppose that would make me happy too, but perhaps less happy than as boyfriend and girlfriend.