Sunday, October 8 – A day away from the city

Believe it or not, it was next to impossible to get this guy in the photo! Here, he grills clams atop pandan leaves.
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It wasn't my typical Sunday.

Ordinarily, I would spend the first half of my day either getting ready for church, being in church, or eating lunch with people from church. Today, I went to the beach. :-)

My coteacher, a Chinese couple she knows, and some of their family invited me to spend the day in Port Dickson, a coastal town about an hour and a half southwest of KL.

Sounds exciting enough? It gets better!

The recent forest fires in Indonesia have made for hazy days recently, but it didn't keep us from having a fun time!
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The Chinese couple has two dogs of their own; the wife's brother has FIVE!! So, all fourteen of us headed down in two vehicles at (*yawn*) seven o'clock in the morning!!

Somehow we still managed to get going on time! Then, somewhere along the way, the car that I was riding in got lost. Well...sort of.

Our conversation was so very captivating that we forgot to take our exit! By the time we got to the next exit, we were probably fifteen or twenty minutes south of where we should have gotten off the highway!

Roasted chestnuts and "horns of the dragon" made a perfect morning snack! Both had a soft texture, though the chestnuts were sweeter.
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Instead, we followed the arrows at that exit pointing to Port Dickson. That turned out to be a bit of a blunder, since it was the old (i.e. long) way there. Rats!

The cool thing was, we got to see lots of reddish-brown cows walking beside the road. And on the road. And sitting and having a nice chat on the road. Talk about a road block!

It was entertaining, and they were certainly beautiful to look at, so all in all, it wasn't a terrible experience. :-)

Actually, it was quite an adventure for a while, because the wonderful people in charge of posting road signs decided NOT to post a sign at a critical junction. Turn left or right? What do we do??

How many is too many? This guy owns five of these dogs!
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We turned left and drove several kilometers, our anxiety growing by the minute. Did we choose the right route?

Yay! Another sign for Port Dickson!! It's a good thing I wasn't navigating, since I probably would have turned right instead...

We spent most of the day playing in the water with the dogs, walking the beach and collecting shells, and - in true Malaysian fashion - eating!

During the day, we snacked on sliced barbecued pork, roasted chestnuts, and "horns of the dragon," a nut that looks like the head of a longhorn bull! It was pretty wild to see!

He's juicing sugar cane! I couldn't believe how MUCH sugar cane he juiced though. That's a lot of sugar!
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At lunch we indulged in nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut milk), curried pork ribs, grilled chicken, kailan (leafy greens), roasted pork, boiled eggs, and blackened fish. They sure know how to eat here!!

After a long and pleasant post-gluttony nap, my coteacher and I crossed the street to visit a market, which was likely set up specifically for Buka Puasa. It was clear when we arrived that this was definitely its purpose, since it was all food!

We wandered through the booths, taking pictures, admiring the bright colors of the tents and the Malay clothing, and enjoying the tantalizing scents of Malaysian snacks.

Satay, or grilled kebabs, may be one of my favorite Malaysian food items. It's served with spicy peanut sauce, cucumbers, and rice cubes. Soooo yummy!!
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Finally, we gave in and bought a couple pandan (coconut) pancakes; they're green (from the pandan) and stuffed with brown sugar and shredded coconut. YUM!

We felt bad later, because all the people around us were still fasting, and here we were, just eating our snacks! Another cultural faux pas... Oh well.

On the way home, I talked with the wife of the Chinese couple, asking her lots of questions about her upbringing, her language, and about the way she lives. I commented on how large a kitchen she has (it's quite nice compared to mine) and, as a result, the conversation drifted into an explanation of how "wet kitchens" came about.

This is where we bought our pandan pancakes. (They're the light green ones in the center.) Malaysian sweets aren't very sugary, but they sure are good!
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A "wet kitchen" is a kitchen on the back porch of the house meant specifically for cooking the way Malaysians do: lots of frying!

Malaysians deep-fry and stir-fry many, if not most, of their dishes. Oil splatters everywhere and makes quite a mess, so cleaning up is a real chore!

So, some kitchen designer somewhere decided that kitchens should be pretty, not practical, and introduced the idea of having two kitchens. The kitchen inside the house stays clean, and the "real" cooking is done outside.

What are they doing here? They're shooing flies! The bags for take-away seem to make good flyswatters.
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The problem comes when someone doesn't want two kitchens. The designers don't make nice kitchen sets for real cooking! So the one-kitchen homeowner must settle for a second-rate kitchen.

After a moment of thought, I asked her, "So, what do people cook in their dry kitchens?"

Her reply? "Not much!"

P.S. Check the photo gallery for more pictures of the brightly colored Buka Puasa market!