Scarlett slept ok last night, but was up at 5:00 wanting mommy and milk. Oh how I miss the days of nursing when I get this call! It now requires a trip to the fridge, which always wakes me up completely. But she fell back to sleep laying on me and slept until 6:30 or so. And yes, I realize I am reporting a lot about how the kids are sleeping, but what type of day we have is directly related to how the kids sleep, generally speaking.
Today Tim had to go to work in the morning, but we sprung him free at lunch time. The morning was spent going to Penang's Little India for some shopping, followed by swimming in the pool. Pretty much 4 types of shops can be found in this area of town:
1. the metal, sparkly, colorful bracelet store (literally all 4 walls are floor to ceiling full of said bracelets- it was like heaven on earth to a certain 5 year old little girl),
2. the sari store (lots of beautiful fabrics!)
3. the trinket/ souvenir store (every level of junk you can imagine)
4. the spice store (a culinary delight!)
You can imagine that our first stop was in the bracelet store, where the girls each secured their own set of ~15 bracelets "just like all the Indian girls wear" as Audrey said. They were 12 Ringit for each set, but the guy sold them to us for 12RG ($4) total. The spice store we went into had bins of wonderfully smelling spices and sacks and sacks of rice all stacked along one wall. We only had an hour in this area, so we just browsed for a bit in a handful of stores. I did get this lovely little string of elephants for 10 RG in a trinket store.
We then drove to Tim's office (he works for National Instruments) to have lunch with him. His office is pretty close to the airport on the other side of the island. The hawker center we ate at is directly across from his office building and is a huge open air building (probably 100' x 200'??) with just a roof. There were probably 50(??) or so food vendors serving a huge variety of yummy goodness. I got a plate of Chinese vegetarian, Joe got Chicken rice, mango lassis and lime juices for all, some soup, and a couple of other dishes that I can't remember for about $4.oo. (See photo)
We then went back to the apartment and dropped the men off with the babies for nap/ beer time, while Audrey, Laurel and I went to the nearby mall for gelato and pedicures! This was Audrey's first time and she was in heaven. After we were done, she walked toward the manicure station exclaiming, "And next, we get our fingers done!" Sorry to disappoint kid, but we only have so much time!
After the babies woke up, we went to the Penang Botanic Gardens where there were a bunch of monkeys running around. At first the girls were skeptical of them, but the monkeys acted like squirrels do- running around chasing each other, climbing trees, walking along telephone wires and walking past us on the sidewalk.
They didn't bother you and only approached people if you held out food to them, which of course you shouldn't do but we saw this boy feeding one monkey an ice cream cone! The park is also a popular place to go running, play games and check out the orchid house.
For dinner we went into Georgetown to a Northern Indian restaurant called Gem. It was SO good! The naan was to die for, as was the food. This place was a little bit more expensive, but worth it. I think we spent $60 for all of us, including beers.
Georgetown is an interesting mix of old and new. There is a law that you can't tear down historical structures, which is good, but there's a handful of buildings that are very run down, pretty much beyond repair. Those fall under the Heritage Building category, so they sit, waiting for something to happen.
Then it was babies to bed and hanging out chatting for a bit.
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