Happy 50th Hari Merdeka!

[Friday August 31st]
Happy Merdeka! Today was a National holiday here in Malaysia, celebrating 50 years of Independence! No more British rule, though they still drive on the left, call it a bonnet, boot, lorry, car park, fly over, petrol, overtake... ;)
[P.S. The Orangutan Photo is one I didn't take or see, d'oh! But I though it iconic since Orangutans are from Malaysian Borneo..]

Today was an interesting day. I slept in a bit, much needed. After getting up I talked with Anna for a while, also much needed ;) After Anna went to bed back home, I headed down to the pool to do a little reading and try out my new Goggles.

I managed to get about half way through Fahrenheit 451, its a good read, pretty quick too. Well the goggles works good, unfortunately the pool was quite cloudy today for some reason and so it wasn't the best of tests for the goggles. I guess I screwed around to much diving and holding my breath as a blood vessel in my eye burst. I didn't notice until much later in the day. Its all fine and dandy, no worries. Just a little blood shot now.

Well after the swim I decided to head out to go get some stamps. Silly me! National holiday, the post office isn't open! Well I wasn't thinking and headed to TESCOs, its another mall like place up in Georgetown. Parking was non-existent. I drove through the parking ramp twice and finally gave up, drove across the street to E-Gate and got a spot there. Nothing too notable at TESCOs except the closed Post Office, d'oh!

I decided to drive up to Gurney Drive, maybe get some dinner, sit by the coast, read, catch a movie. Well I got parking, not too bad but took a while. They put their car parks up quite aways, I drove up six stories of constant spiral to get to the first parking level! I grabbed my book and headed to the seawall.

I sat down to read and heard some funny noises. I looked out to the sea, noticed it was low tide. Still, I kept hearing the strange noises. What did I find? Mud skippers, and a whole lot of them! It was really neat to see them scamper and scurry about. They even were challenging and fighting with each other! I was enamored by them. I spent probably 1/2 and hour just watching them. There were little crabs too. Every once in a while a crab would challenge a mud skipper and each time, the crab lost and ran away. [I figured out how to post videos now, take a peak at the video I put together. Let me know how well this works so I can think of putting some video up for the other posts!]

I saw another move, this time it was The Invasion. It stars Nicole Kidman as the protagonist. The Space Shuttle mysteriously crashes and the debris is spread from D.C. to Texas. Unfortunately for us, the shuttle wasn't alone... It was a good SciFi Thriller. Not over the top, not over-reaching. It was a believable and followable story. Good stuff. They had a lot of scenes from the DC area, and I kept thinking to my self, he Anna and I were just there. We stood right there. And there. And there... Another recommendation from me. (Are you guys keeping up!?)

Well I thought there was going to be fireworks at Gurney tonight but alas, I guess there isn't... So I left. On the way back to the apartment I did get to see some fireworks though. Kinda ad hoc. I was stuck in a jam, three cars in front of me a bus was waiting to turn. Just in front of that someone ran out into the intersection and lit 2 fireworks boxes. The kind we'd buy in the US for a Grand Finale at our private 4th of July Party. Up they went, middle of town, right there, in the middle of a jammed intersection! Pretty crazy indeed!

Well Thats it for today. Have a great weekend back home!
-Terry