guess who's biiiizack!

I'm back in AMERICA!!!! Yay!!!!!! We got back on Thursday night after a few mishaps. Our genius travel agent had booked our flights so that in Minneapolis we only had an hour and a half to go through customs and make our connection to Raleigh. Of course we missed it and and had to take a different flight. Then after we got home, my car wouldn't start........LOVELY. It was a great trip, but I'm glad to be home. Here are some pictures from our last few days in Sibu and some from the journey back.

We went running here!

Another fantastic sign.....it says "Birthmarks Removing Service"


My brother and I were obsessed with this naked pregnant lady statue when we were little.


One of the cat figures in Kuching.


Awesome pool at the Crowne Plaza in Singapore!

to miri, to brunei and back

Tilting on the beach in Miri

Hello!!! The past few days we have been in Miri visiting another one of my dad's brothers. On Thursday we arrived and went around the town, seeing the sites and ate lunch at a nice restaurant. We went to a little beach area to see the ocean and got to see part of the sunset! On Friday, we went to Brunei to visit a lady that used to work for my grandmother. She and her husband took us to eat lunch and then to the Brunei historical museum. Afterwards, we visited the Sultan's museum and then we went to The Empire Hotel. 7-stars.......PIMP. I could spend a week there by their pool and not think twice. Everything there is plated in GOLLLLLLLDDD. On Saturday, we went to a local artist's house to look at some of his watercolor paintings and did some more shopping, of course. We are now back in Sibu for a couple days. We leave for Singapore on Wednesday and then for the US of A on Thursday! Thanks for the emails and comments from everyone!!!

One of the pools at The Empire

a sunny day in sibu

Sorry for the delay in posting. It has been harder to post while in Sibu. Most days we have been getting up by 8AM, having breakfast and then heading into to town to do some shopping. Everything is super cheap here so we have been buying lots of things. It has been uncharacteristically mild in temperature due to the rain, but I’m not complaining. On Wednesday, it was really sunny and pretty hot. Here are some highlights from the past few days.

Monday: We went to the open market where they sell fruits and vegetables amongst other things. I won’t post a picture, but we did stop by the pork shop where various cuts of meat where hanging……….and I remind you that they do not waste much of the pig. We also saw the river, which is very dirty from logging.

Tuesday: Spent the morning at home and went to the bank after lunch. Afterwards, we went to the newer mall and I bought some new towels and some gifts. For dinner, we went to Sushi Tie with my aunt, cousin and his fiancée.

Wednesday: We had dim sum for breakfast………YUMMY!!! And then we had to have some papers notarized, and of course some shopping in between. There was this really cute store near the restaurant and we came back just to look there. I wanted to try on this shirt that was in the window. The lady took the shirt off the mannequin and everything and then told me I couldn’t try it on because she thought I would stretch it out!!!! So of course I wasn’t going to buy anything from her now. She imported Hollister…….should have known better. I was like “LEMME TRY-ON THAT TOP………YOU’RE NOT EVEN WEARING IT!” We stayed home in the evening to help with some yard work and to pack for Miri, where we will be staying with another uncle (number 6 of 8 children, my Dad is the youngest) until Sunday.

Hope all is well in the States!!!! Much love to everyone!!!

quick update!

Hello to all from Sibu, Malaysia!!!

We left our hotel in Singapore at 10:30AM on Saturday since our flight was scheduled to leave around 1:30PM for Kuching, with us arriving in Sibu around 5PM. Once we arrived at the airport we found out that the flight had been changed to 3:30PM and we weren't going to get in until 9. They weren't at all worried that they had just screwed us over and we spent all day in the airport. After all the mishaps with Malaysian Airlines, we made it here Saturday evening only to have more issues with customs. Apparently, we were supposed to have our passports stamped in Kuching (where our connection was). Oops. And airport security gave us trouble about my brother's guitar and amp that they purchased in Singapore. Blah blah blah. All is fixed so we can actually exit the country without any problems :) Our first day here we woke up to spend some time with my Grandma, who I haven't seen in 15 years. She is seriously the cutest thing ever. Actually, kute with a k. She doesn't leave the house much because she fell several months ago and is afraid to go out. So my aunt and uncle took us to a small shopping center to eat noodles for breakfast and afterwards headed to the new mall. I got a new camera after breaking the screen on mine a few weeks ago. It came with a pretty case too :P We came back to the house for lunch with G-ma and to rest. Tonight, we went out to eat at this restaurant called Swansea and my Dad's cousin met us for dinner. I tried sea cucumber........not a fan. Everything else was pretty tasty though. Here's a picture of Adam and I with G-ma. Precious!!!Unfortunately, I wore a dress all day so no TILT opportunities. No worries, I'll have plenty of time to get one tomorrow. Hope all is well in the USA. More blogging and pics to come!

you can hate me now, but i won't stop now.....

Day 1

I slept in until noon-time since we had gotten in really early that morning. Once I got up and got ready, we met the 'rentals (my bro and I have our own room!!!) and went down to the 4th floor for lunch. On the way to the elevator, my Mom gives the quote of the day, "Your father is hungry and he can't wait to see if they have some of that octopus testicle." I about died. The hotel buffet was surprisingly good because it was geared toward more western tastes, so no octopus. YET. After lunch, we headed to Orchard Road to do some shopping. There was mall after mall on this street and accordingly a Starbucks to go with each one. There are a serious amount of coffee shops here! Most of the stores were designer stores in these malls, but nothing that you couldn't get in the States, so I was reluctant to buy anything just yet. We went to one mall that had Toys'R'Us that occupied an entire floor.......almost everything was the same. It did have Sylvanian Families which I LOVED as a kid. It's like a doll house, but instead of people you get families of different animals, like the Bear Family, or Badger Family..........so kute with a k. We found a huge Borders in one of the malls and I bought the 5th Harry Potter in paperback for the plane. It has the British cover so kinda neat, actually. After shopping for a while, my Mom and I decided to look for a few doll stores and then head back to the hotel. These "doll" stores were really action figures and Blythe, who is a really scary doll straight out the 60s and 70s. She is truly terrifying to me. We got back and napped for a hot minute and then ate dinner at the hotel. Later that night, we met up with Rita, my dad's former classmate when he was in grade school (my Mom speculates that they were a couple at some point). She took us to one of the Kopitiam eating areas. It's a large food court with different vendors. The one we went to was outside or rather the tables were outside in the middle of the street. Apparently, they close the street down at about 7PM and the vendors are allowed to set-up. Rita and my Dad promptly ordered about 6 different dishes and we had already eaten dinner. They ordered chicken and beef satay, a noodle dish, some kind of mini cabbage, shrimp, and calamari. OCTOPUS........YESSSSSS. I tried everything and I really enjoyed all of it. Adam refused to eat the calamari because he said it looked like worms. But Rita kept pushing him to try some. Love her.

Day 2

After being lazy for a few days, I decided that it would be best for me to get up and run some. I went to the hotel gym which overlooked the roof-top pool (the Life!!). I had to run on the hotel treadmill which I find to be dreadful; all I see is this timer counting ever so slowly. I ran for 45 minutes and listened to GirlTalk (thanks Hillz!) I was about to stop running when Diddy comes on and is like "you can hate me now....but I won't stop now." Hahahaha I didn't stop.......it was refreshing. Luckily, there was a little Asian man that started running beside me; I pretended that he was Kirstie and baby Sasha and it helped me run too. He was probably the size of baby Sasha.....hahahaha. Lunch today was at the Hard Rock Cafe, the first one to be built in Asia! We had the cutest little Filipino waitress, Vivian. She just stood there and talked to us for about 15 minutes. She was telling us about this place that had multiple bars each centered around a different type of music. She then says, "but I can't go there no more." We asked why and she responds, " because I get drunk and then I get loss." Priceless. Love her too. After lunch, we went to the Singapore Flyer, the world's largest observation wheel! We got our own capsule AKA now we can act like fools. It takes about 30 minutes to make a full revolution and I got some pretty shots and of course, a TILT picture at the very top! We then went to the Funan Center, a mall completely dedicated to electronics. Mecca for Asians. The best part: there is this saddle thing/mini mechanical bull that is a piece of exercise equipment. It's supposed to help with posture and strengthening your core. Of course, it ends in me saying, "can we get one, Dad?" My Dad and brother then took us to a mall they went to looking for a certain guitar because Adam said they had lots of shoes that I would like. I wanted to find the Nikes I have been wanting for over a year now. I missed getting them in the USA and I wear a smaller size so it's hard to find them on eBay. Unfortunately, I didn't find them......elusive Peacocks.

TILT!!!

Sorry this is a long post. I love you all!!!

Oh and here's the best store sign I've seen so far! ENJOY!!!