Malaysia Part 1 or How I Celebrated My First Chinese New Year's Eve

Let me just start out by saying, we kind of decided to go to Malaysia on a whim. Sometime last summer, Mr. Fish and I were discussing where we could go on vacation the next year that would be exciting, new, and adventurous. We had regions narrowed down to Asia (my top choice) and South America (his pick). Broad, I know. Though Japan was my top pick, we ruled it out quickly by saying we'd wait to go there until my friends who are living there are settled in and actually invite us, instead of inviting ourselves. We ruled out Thailand too because Mr. Fish hates going to places where everyone he knows has been (Germans LOVE Thailand, in case this is as unbeknownst to you as it once was to me), logic I can't disagree with. Then, I cleverly managed to take South America out of the running by reasoning that, if and when we move to the U.S., it's easier to get to from there. And oh yes, it worked! (Not that I don't want to go there, I've just been dying to go anywhere in Asia since...oh...forever.)

So we were at a loss. And then we were at a party. With his coworkers, one of whom (AK) is married to the sweetest Malaysian girl. And they happened to be planning a trip to her home to host plan a post-wedding (they got married 2 years ago in Germany) celebration for her family. Why don't we join them?, they asked. Then we could celebrate Chinese New Year with her family too! Never one to refuse an offer of travel, I immediately agreed,we decided on dates, and that was that. Malaysia it was.

Fast forward to 6 months later and we're sitting on the EgyptAir (yes, you heard me right, cheap connections from Berlin aren't always the most logical) plane with our newly purchased Malaysia travel books thinking, what the heck can you DO in Malaysia for 2 1/2 weeks? And then thinking, Damn, we should have realized ahead of time that an Islamic country's airline wouldn't serve free booze...

Luckily, the first 3 days were already planned for us. So my reliable companion, procrastination, was allowed to stick around for a little bit longer. After 20 hours in transit including a stop at the Cairo airport Burger King, where AK had a triple Whopper (ewww is right) as the third of five meals, an accidental trip to the prayer room that I mistook for the Ladies' room (the women were not pleased, I was just wondering why the sinks in the bathroom were so freakin low--apparently they're for washing your feet!--and the little old men sitting outside were most definitely entertained and laughed their asses off at me before pointing me in the right direction), and a not-so-pleasant stench on the plane after everyone woke up and started stretching, we arrived in Kuala Lumpur (or KL, as all the cool kids say). There we were greeted not only by a wall of stifling, boiling hot humidity upon leaving the train station, but also by AK's peppy Malaysian wife (she had arrived a month earlier for extra family time). I've never been so happy to give up control of planning for the start of a trip. She had booked us a hotel for the first night but since it was Chinese New Year's Eve, everything was booked out. So we had to stay in a fancy schmancy expensive hotel, for which she deeply apologized. It cost a whopping total of 305 Ringgit. Which is 60€ for two people, including breakfast. We told her not to worry in the least and were overjoyed that our trip was off to a luxurious start.

That night we went out to dinner with both of them and her mom. Her aunt had arranged for us to go out to dinner that night at a restaurant that a friend of her's owned because, again, everything was booked out. We had the typical meal that is served for the "Reunion" dinner on New Year's Eve. Since I can't describe the awesome deliciousness of this meal in words, I will just have to do so in pictures.

This is the traditional "reunion dinner" starter. Lots of colorful fried noodles, carrot, pickle, some other vegetable strips, and lachs. Then the waitress pours all sorts of stuff on top, among others ginger, cinnamon, sesame seeds, chips, and soy sauce (I think)! Everyone at the table then has to grab their chopsticks and raise them as high as possible, then let everything drop back down, and continue to do so until it's mixed. A là:

Whoever reaches the highest wins!

And this dish was even 10 times better than it looked!

There were at least 3 more courses to follow. We set the camera down and dug in from this point on!

There was also fresh squeezed and not-too-sweetened lime juice (delish!), as well as a dessert that I can no longer remember. There was just so much food! And man, were we suffering from a crazy mix of jetlag and culture shock. Not to mention a case of crap!-we-have-to-get-up-early-enough-to-buy-me-some-new-undies-in-the-morning gigles. So after a few hours of honing our chopstick skills and basking in the neon lights and plastic furniture of the restaurant (more on that in a future post!), we took our full bellies back to our fancy hotel and crashed. Ahhhh, to sleep in a bed again...

So that, my friends, was how I spent my first Chinese New Year's Eve.

And here is a preview of what's to come!