Day 2

Another day, another blog post.

First things first. I'm having trouble publishing pictures here from my tablet, so if you're interested in seeing the photo version of this blog you can find all of my pictures on Instagram (username is joethesupercow).

I'm still loving it here in Malaysia. I think I pushed myself a little too hard walking pretty far in the hot sun yesterday, so I ended up sleeping 12 hours last night haha (I think the jet lag is also a contributing factor here. Apparently I wasn't as over it as I thought I was). But I'm feeling much better this morning and I'm ready to hit the streets again.

Can I mention a weird thing that I'm loving about Malaysia? I better mention it now before I stop loving it. But I'm am LOVING the heat. Not at all because heat is pleasant, but because heat is Malaysia. Before I came I heard a lot of people mention the conventional wisdom that your mission is never the same when you go back to visit but I can say conclusively that when I'm walking down the street in that suffocating heat, sweating like a pig, that absolutely nothing has changed about Malaysia. Somehow the heat more than anything else connects me to this country and all those wonderful, awesome people I met and experiences I had when I was here.

I wanted to include a little more about the hostel since that was one of the things that I was most curious about before I went. Surprising things first. Almost everyone here is about my age! I don't know why I was expecting something else but for some reason I thought that the hostel was going to be filled with gross, perpetually travelling, older type people. Nope! Just about everyone is a young 20 something on holiday like me. So that was a surprise. Also the staff is all foreign too (other than the owner, who is a local). In keeping with the theme of the rest of the hostel, they're all European (there's only one other American here as far as I can tell and he was shocked to run into me). Since I've mentioned the owner let me just mention here that he's awesome! Just a super friendly, nice guy. He's taken to calling me Mormon (which I love) and has just been really helpful and nice. The rest of the hostel is clean and the air con in my room works well.

I went to the Islamic arts museum yesterday which was cool. It's fun to get to see all of the things I had wanted to see when I was here before. It was mostly just a museum though with cool Islamic art from Malaysia and from various other places in the world. It was cool, but there's not a whole lot more to say about it than that.

So things are going well. I'm planning to take it easy today (It's day 3 now as I write this), but I'm sure there will be more to write about tomorrow!

Day 1

Well! Here I am! I finally made it to this brand new adventure.

Where to start? Everything is going well. Except for one little mix up with my bag getting lost at the airport (which I'm waiting for now! Fingers crossed it gets here soon) everything has worked out really well. Today has been full of running errands and trying to get over a little bit of this jet lag. It's been a little rougher this time around than when I came on my mission four years ago but I guess that's to be expected from getting here around midnight and not having a strict schedule to follow.

I'm shocked by how much I've forgotten about Malaysia. It was a funny surprise to think that I knew exactly how to get to KL City Center and to quickly find out that I really didn't, but after a little bit of trial and error everything came back to me. That's a little reflective of the whole experience so far. It was funny though to realize that I didn't even fully realize which direction of the road cars drove on. I knew it was on the left side of the road somewhere in my head but somehow actually seeing it was kind of a surprise.

Also surprising, I'm undergoing some culture shock again! I thought that I had dealt with that all when I lived every single day for two years here but apparently being part of a culture even for two years doesn't vaccinate you from culture shock forever haha. So I'm still adjusting and feeling so many of those things that I felt when I came here for the first time. It's such a weird mix of excitement and confusion and surprise and fear and delight. Loving it so much one moment and then asking "What in the world am I doing here?" the next. It's taxing! I get to go through it this time with the benefit of knowing the course of things though, so I'm hoping that by the end of this week I've given myself to acclimate in KL I'll be ready to go for the rest of my time here.

So, in conclusion, Malaysia is still Malaysia. Adjusting again is exciting and challenging and so far things are going great. I love this country and I wouldn't choose to be anywhere else!