Final Week

I can't believe that it's the final week. Although some days seemed to drag on forever, for the most part these past three months went by so fast! This week is going to go by really fast too because we're going to be so busy, we have rehearsal to learn a couple new songs for the big New Year's Eve party, we have to get our bags all packed and ship one of them by Thursday, get our new Visa's ready for Vietnam and still perform every night. There's lots to do but it's exciting!
Now back to last Sunday. We went to that dinner that the GM of the club cooked for us. It was so fun and so delicious! We were all in this tiny little apartment, the whole band plus some of their girlfriends, the guy and his girlfriend, his mom, two sisters, one of their husbands, and their daughter. It was packed, I wish I would have remembered my camera, but I didn't so I'll just have to get some of the pictures from everyone else. Anyway they had so much food for us. There were dishes full of rice, chicken curry, something called dhall, stir fried veggies, this bean curd stuff, naan bread, spicy chicken, lamb curry, jars and jars of different kinds of home made cookies, cakes, cheesecakes, and I think that was everything. By the time we all finished eating we were so stuffed and there was so much food still left! After we ate we exchanged gifts, I got 4 new watches from Jay, our drummer. They're really cool, I got a white, green, yellow, and blue one.
Once we were finished there we went to this club called the Skybar. It was across from the Petronas Towers on top of this hotel. It was so pretty, again I wish I had brought my camera, but everyone else took tons of pictures. This place wasn't like a crazy dance bar or anything, just a nice place to chill, they had lots of couches and chairs all surrounding the pool and it was open air. It was really cool. All in all the night was a blast, even though I couldn't be home with my family, this kind of made up for it and kept my mind off of it.
Then last night the shows were pretty empty but we still had a good time. I think this week might be kind of slow in the club until New Years Eve, then it's going to be packed and I can't wait!

Christmas!

Wow, it's been almost a whole week since my last post. I better get at least a couple more posts in before I leave to the next adventure! This past week has been....eventful. I was sick all week with a cold, then to top it off on Tuesday night I got the stomach flu. I thought it was food poisoning but it lasted almost the whole week so I'm pretty sure it wasn't just that. I was miserable, during the day all week I felt so weak and dizzy so all I wanted to do was sleep, and stay next to the toilet. Then at night when we had shows it was horrible. I would do the set, run up to my room, and then hurry back for the next set and repeat all night long. Not a whole lot of fun. Luckily though by Friday night, Christmas Eve, I was feeling a little better and then by Christmas day I felt almost all the way better! So at least I got to have a nice Christmas.
At the club on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day they had a cover charge to get in the club, this was the first year they were going to try it out. So we were all kind of worried that it would be empty because they were charging 170 RM just to get in with one free drink. That's like 50 bucks, expensive right? But people either really like us or were really bored those nights because we had a great turn out on both nights! We all wore Santa hats and got to wear something red to be festive, so that made it more fun too!
Also I received a couple packages this week and it made my whole week. I was so excited to have something to open for Christmas! Thanks everyone! Even though I couldn't be home with friends and family for Christmas it was so nice to have little reminders of home.
Since we had to work Christmas the GM of the club is cooking us Christmas dinner at his house tonight. So he invited our whole band and anyone else that we wanted to bring and we're going to eat and exchange secret Santa gifts at his place. It will be so nice to have a home cooked meal, I'm sure it won't be a traditional Christmas dinner but I know it will be great no matter what it is! I still can't believe we are in our last week already! I'm so excited to get out of here, it's been a great experience and I've had a lot of good times but I'm ready for something new, and a place where I won't get sick so much! Well that's about all I've got. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, I love you all!

Sunway Lagoon

First of all I want to say thank you to everyone for watching my Youtube video and getting me those thousand views!! I definitely could not have done that without all of your help, and I will keep you up on what's happening with that!
This past week was great, the shows were fun, lots of great crowds filled with fun people and I had lots of fun going on more adventures with Jackie. Except now I'm getting sick once again, and by the last set Saturday night I had absolutely no voice at all. This place is filled with viruses! We've all gotten sick at least 2 or 3 times and we've only been here almost 3 months! It's so annoying, so for that reason especially I can't wait to get out of here!
Anyway back to the fun stuff. Saturday Jackie took me to this place called Sunway Lagoon. It's a huge resort that has a water park, amusement park, little zoo, a huge mall, and a hotel. So she came and picked me up that morning at 10 am, so early for me! When she came to get me she brought breakfast, it was some weird noodle thing, but it was pretty good. After we ate really quick we headed out. It was about a 20 minute drive and once we got close you could tell the place was coming up because there was so many cars and buses all trying to get in to park. We hurried and parked the car then headed down 5 escalators to get to the bottom where the water park is located. We had to wait in line for about a half hour to get our tickets and get in. When we finally got in we went and took a few pictures then put everything in a locker so we wouldn't have to watch it. They have two huge wave pools, one does waves every 20 minutes and the other does even bigger waves but only every hour. Then they have a place for little kids to swim, a little hot tub, and like 7 water slides. We did everything, and then hung out in one of the wave pools for like an hour.
Then we changed our clothes, and headed to the other parts of the park. We walked through the little zoo part and saw some animals, then headed toward the rides. Jackie doesn't like rides but they had a big ship ride like the Tidal Wave back home and I love that ride so I had to do it. I got on all excited but then when they strapped us in I was wondering why we had to be so secure if it just swings back and forth. Little did I know the ship does a full circle upside down. It was so scary, especially because I wasn't prepared for it, but still fun. After that we checked out the rest of the park and then headed into the mall.
Once in the mall we went and ate lunch. It was some kind of Chinese food, but not normal Chinese food. I had some pork curry thing that was super spicy but really good. Especially since we can't find pork here very often. After that we shopped around the mall for awhile and got lost. Jackie doesn't go to that mall very often so she didn't know her way around either, but we finally found our way out. On our way back to the car we went into the hotel and took pictures out the windows of the whole park. It was such a cool view from up there. Then when we were almost back to the car Jackie stopped and said, "oh, a steam boat, you have to try this." It was a food truck that had skewers of all sorts of things laying on ice in the whole back of it, and then there were pots with boiling water next to them. She told me that you just pick what you want and put it in the boiling water for a few seconds and then eat it. So she put squid, some weird oysters, and pigs blood. Yes that's right I said pigs blood. It looks like opaque red jello. None of it was good, bleh, I wanted to gag, but I held it in. The pigs blood not only looks like jello, it's the same texture, so imagine eating hot blood flavored jello. WOOF! And I thought maybe she was having me try things that she doesn't even really like but nope, she loved all of it and ate every bite. I mean how can she think Diet Dr. Pepper is gross but can eat Bloody Jello? I will never understand.
After that we left the park and she dropped me back at the hotel so I had just enough time to relax for a minute, get all ready and head to do the shows. All in all another great day.

Day Out With Jackie

It seems like the closer it gets to Christmas the more homesick I get, but I guess that makes sense. This is really the first Christmas I have been completely alone, no family, and no friends from back home. So I try not to think about it too much, but at the same time I love Christmas stuff so it's hard not to! But as long as I stay busy then it keeps my mind off of that. Monday I did absolutely nothing and got really sad thinking about Christmas time and all that, and then the shows were pretty boring so it didn't help to make me any happier. So then Tuesday came around and I decided I needed to get out and do something so I'm not just sitting in my room being a loner. So I did my usual thing, the gym, lunch, and a shower, then I called my friend Jackie to see what she was up to. It just so happened that she was on her way home from work and was passing by the hotel so she came and picked me up for a little adventure!
First we went back to her place so she could change from her work clothes and she showed me around her little apartment. She lives in these apartments about 20 minutes from the hotel in a place called Petaling Jaya. There are 5 buildings and I don't know how many apartments in each building but it has to be a ton! Each building has I think 25 floors, and there are only two elevators for every building, so we had to wait quite awhile for the elevator to reach the bottom floor. She lives on the 18Th floor and has an awesome view from her balcony. There are two bedrooms, a little tiny bathroom that's about the size of a closet, a big room in the main living room that she uses just for her clothes, and then a tiny little kitchen with a washing machine in it. It's pretty small but still pretty nice.
After we went there she took me to two different malls that I haven't been to yet. They were both even bigger than ones I've already been to! I can't believe how big the malls are here, and how many they have! It's crazy. First we went to one called The Curve, we shopped around for a bit and stopped at a grocery store. I found Diet Dr. Pepper, I couldn't believe it! I was so excited, pretty much my 2nd favorite drink! So I bought six of them and I made Jackie try it. I wish I had a camera when she tried it. She said it tastes like really bad medicine and that she was going to puke from it. Ha ha I was laughing so hard. She told me next time I ask her to try something she's going to think more carefully about it. I can't believe she didn't like it! It's so good! But I guess it's just another one of those cultural differences. After we shopped for awhile she said she had a place she wanted to take me to dinner. It's called The Gardens. It was an outdoor restaurant in the mall and the food was so good. I got both of my favorite things, the Nasi Lemak, and the Satay. They were both pretty different from the hotel, but so good!
Next we went to another mall called One Utama, it was even bigger than The Curve, I didn't think they could get any bigger. The decorations were so pretty, and they had a couple little shows going in two different places in the mall, one was a school band playing Christmas songs, and the other was this singing and dancing group. It was fun seeing stuff like that here because it kind of reminds me of home. I found a new bracelet thing while we were shopping so I got that, and that was about it. I took lots of pictures of the adventure today and tried to get some with Jackie but she wont let me take her picture! After that she dropped me back at the hotel at about 8:30 so I had just enough time to get ready for the show and head down. It was such a great day!

Birthday and Other Stuff

I posted some of the newest pictures I've taken over the last week. Pictures from my birthday dinner, and then some of a day last week when I just went around to some of the malls and took pictures of all the Christmas decorations. Then the last pictures are from when I went to dinner with my friend Jackie, we had some interesting food and I took some pictures of that!
This past weekend was pretty great, Friday night was amazing, the shows were so fun and then afterward I went to eat with my friend Jackie to this place in Bangsar. It was like a little neighborhood restaurant, they don't even have a menu, you just have to know what to order. So Jackie ordered and I just ate whatever she got. It was all pretty good, really spicy but I love spicy food. And then she told me since she missed my birthday she had to get me a special Malaysian Birthday Cake, it was called Roti Tissue. Basically it's a big crispy tortilla that they stand up like a tower and cover it with sugar and cream, it was so good! After that she drove me around to show me some other areas I haven't seen. It's kind of fun going on little tours at 4 in the morning ha ha.
Then Saturday I ended up sleeping til 4:30 p.m. then went to the gym, came back, ordered room service and then just watched TV til show time, such a nice lazy day. Also my Internet went out again so my connection to the outside world was lost once again, and it's still not fixed yet, right now I'm paying to use it, when it's supposed to be free for us, so hopefully they get it figured out soon. The shows were fun on Saturday night except Trina is getting sick again so she was pretty miserable the whole night and made sure we all knew it too. Yay.
Today I just relaxed and then went and saw the movie, My Soul To Take. It was pretty great, I think it came out back home like the day I left so more than two months ago, but I'm glad I finally got to see it! After that I came back, went to the gym, watched TV and ate room service. Just being lazy again. Only three weeks left here, I'm really excited to move on to somewhere new so I hope these weeks go by fast!

Food Cravings

Since I last wrote not much has happened. Just been doing the shows as usual, but the crowds have been pretty small. Especially Tuesday night, it was the smallest crowd we have has since we've been here. Probably about 20 people the whole night, and they definitely weren't into us, but we still tried to have fun. Then last night it was a pretty normal size crowd for a Thursday night, and they didn't really dance but at least they clapped for us.
So last night while I was eating dinner I was sitting there thinking. First I was thinking about what was really in the food I was eating and second I was thinking about how similar all the food here is starting to taste. It seems like everything I eat here, no matter what it is, from local dishes to the burger or satay it all has a similar flavor. I mean yes it is delicious, but I definitely couldn't live on this food forever. You have no idea how much I miss food from home, even just plain things like an omelet and bacon. But last night I was really having a craving for Mexican food! A big taco salad, some refried beans, or better yet the Fiesta Grande Salad from La Cocina... mmmmm it's making my mouth water just thinking about it, but I guess I can do without it for now, but only because I have to.
OK I gotta get my mind off of that! So I'm sure you've all heard that we are going to Vietnam next, we're allowed to release that "classified information" now, not really sure why we couldn't before. Earlier last week they told us we were going to be flying out of here on January 4Th at 4:00 p.m. and then arriving there at 5:30 p.m. (it's around a two and a half hour flight with an hour time change) and then doing our first shows that night at 8:00. That seemed like not very smart planning to me, it would leave no extra time for anything. But then we just found out yesterday that we will now have 5 days off once we get there before starting our shows. That's the best news ever. I feel like my voice will finally get a full rest and come all the way back before starting again so I'm quite excited about that. I think that's about all the news for now!

Local Food

It's been a few days since I posted last and I would say that I've been too busy but honestly I've just been really lazy! This past weekend was great, we had awesome audiences on Friday and Saturday and although I'm still not 100%, I can definitely tell that my voice is getting better every day. I think part of the problem is sometimes we can't hear ourselves on stage so I overcompensate and push with my voice thinking that it will make it louder. So I've been really concentrating on holding myself back anytime I realize that's happening.
Our keyboard player is almost all the way better, one of his friends here gave him some special cream that he put on skin everyday and his chicken pox went away so fast, he only has a few left that are visible. Sunday it was his birthday and we all went to dinner together just in the hotel and celebrated with him. Other than that I just relaxed the rest of the day.
Last night I got to go eat some local food. This girl named Jackie comes to the club a lot and she's one of the only nice normal girls I've met here, all the others just want me to take them to my room. But this one is just a cool lady and she told me she just wants to show me around Malaysia since there's some places I can't get to on the train. So after the shows last night she offered to take me out for supper, which is a late meal after dinner here. We took a scenic route and she showed me all these different clubbing streets, they were all full of lights and really crowded. Then she showed me the Petronas Towers, which I've seen but not at night and they were so cool! We finally stopped at this long street that was just filled with street vendors and it was packed. She took me to this little noodle place and she ordered our food in Malay so I had no idea what we were getting. Then we went and sat at this big round plastic table with a bunch of other people and waited for about two minutes. Our food came out in four bowls, two bowls each. One bowl was this soup that had lots of weird floaties in it and the other was noodles with this minced beef on top. She told me to try everything before I asked her what it was, so I did. The noodles were great, just tasted like Top Ramen with beef on it. But the soup was another story, there were these little white strip things that I found out were cow stomach, not so tasty. Then there were these round things that she just said were beef balls, but not literally, ha ha she just said they are like meat balls. Then there were just these chunks of beef that were so delicious! She ended up giving me all the chunks of beef and meat balls out of her soup and then she ate all the stomach out of mine. It was a good trade! The food was really good, but the setting was gross, there were huge rats running between all the food stands and cats everywhere chasing the rats, but you just have to ignore that stuff and enjoy the food. All in all it was a blast and I'm really glad I went out. Hopefully we'll do it again soon! That's about all the adventures for now!

New Month, New List

Alright, it's the time you've all been waiting for, another list of things I've learned while being here in Malaysia. These aren't just things about Malaysia, they're also things I've just realized while being here.....so enjoy!
1. No one obeys traffic lights here, they seem more of a suggestion than a law here
2. People will push and shove anyone to get on the train, even pregnant women
3. If someone doesn't understand you they just shake their head yes, no matter what
4. They edit movies in the theaters here
5. Everyone thinks I look like Jason Mraz and Eminem
6. Even 30 year olds act like teenagers sometimes
7. You can never escape high school drama even when you're all grown up
8. When the Internet is down I feel like my world has collapsed
9. Technology is AMAZING
10. Not everywhere here is pretty, plenty of ghetto areas all over
11. The Batu Caves are something I will never forget
12. Hard boiled or fried eggs come with almost every dish here
13. Women are oddly forward here, kinda scary
14. I still play with the matches in my room, but I forgot to mention they are called "fire sticks" here
15. I will never miss snow....Never
16. Everyone is a critic
17. The local desserts called Kuih are not good at all
18. Monkeys are just as cute in real life as they are on TV
19. Even the simplest reminders from home can make my day
20. I really miss energy drinks
21. The Asian Haircut Experience is awesome
22. Ostrich is rather delicious
23. I miss making omelettes on Saturday and Sunday mornings
24. It's really hard to get a ticket up to the bridge in the Petronas Towers
25. It's nice having someone do your laundry but not when they lose your things
26. My new Kindle is my new best friend
Well I think that's about it for now, I feel like there's so much more but then when I go to write them down I forget things!

Birthday!

So today is my birthday, of course! It's been a great day, I slept in, went to the gym and then went out to dinner with my band. I was deciding between Chilis and California Pizza Kitchen, but ended up choosing Chilis because I miss eating my favorit food ever which is chili! So I got myself a big ole bowl of chili and it was SOOOO GOOD!! I also had some chargrilled chicken thing that was quite delicious as well. Then we just looked around the mall a little bit. It's all decorated for Christmas so it was really pretty!
Also right before I left I got a package from back home and just wanted to thank everyone so much for all the cards and everything in there! There could have been anything in that package, I was just so thrilled to get something to open on my actual birthday! What a great surprise! So thank you again, I love you all! It made my day perfect!
I also just found out our keyboard player has the chicken pox, he's almost 40 years old and he hasn't had them yet so he's pretty miserable. But guess what? The show must go on. He's going to come out and play because he has to, but then he just has to go hide in the back so he doesn't spread it to anyone that hasn't had the pox yet. I feel bad for him, I was pretty young when I had it but I can remember how itchy it was!
Well I'm just about to head down to do the shows, should be a pretty good night! Also keep watching that youtube video, I have 100 something views now so only 900 more to go! Thanks everyone!