Last Week Abroad

So, although this message is late, I figured I need to post on what I did the last week while I was abroad, if for nothing else than so that I don't forget it myself haha.

Thursday, August 13th was my last day of work. The group I had lunch with at Singapore Polytechnic took me out to a great lunch, where I got to have (for the last time sadly) one of my favorite dishes called coffee pork ribs. Afterwards, I took the rest of the afternoon to get a little bit of last minute souvenir shopping and packing for our upcoming trip done. That night, the host families and internship companies were invited to an appreciation dinner at Affandi's office (our internship coordinator). The food was great and we watched a slideshow of our pictures so far and took lots of pictures.

Friday we left by coach to drive into Malaysia. After passing through customs and immigration, we headed to Malacca for some shopping, dinner, and a small boat ride down a river. Afterwards, we drove the rest of the way to Kuala Lumpur.

Saturday, we did lots of sightseeing things - saw the president's house, the national monument, took pictures in front of the Petronas Twin Towers, and visited some government buildings and mosques. On Sunday, we went back to the Petronas Twin Towers, where we were able to walk across the sky bridge (tickets are really hard to get but our tour guide Zoul thankfully had connections). We then drove to Genting Highland and took a cable car up to the top of a mountain where we stayed at the First World Hotel with the world's biggest hotel lobby. We had dinner and did a little gambling in one of the casinos there, and I ended up ahead so it was a good night. Monday wasn't too exciting - we drove back to KL, where we flew to Bali, Indonesia. We pretty much had dinner, went to the hotel, walked around the streets a little, and called it a night.

On Tuesday, we had our entire day mapped out - tour of the city, went to the beach, visited some temples, and of course, took more pictures. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but it was neat to get to drive around and get a feel for Indonesia and how the people there live. We also got to do more souvenir shopping and had authentic Indonesian food for dinner (not my favorite).

Wednesday we had completely free until dinner that evening. We got up early, had breakfast, and headed to the beach. Karly, Megan, Allyssa and I took 2 hour surf lessons from some Indonesians who lived on the beach, and we had a blast! It took awhile, but I was finally able to stand up on the surfboard and get to enjoy it a little, after over an hour of falling and getting beat up by the waves. We then enjoyed the beach some more while we could before walking back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We were first taken to a coffee factory, where we were able to taste Indonesian coffee and buy some if we liked (which, of course, I did), and then we went to a sunset dinner on Jimbaran Bay, where we proceeded to take tons of pictures, watched the sunset, and then had a great seafood dinner on the beach, complete with fish, crab, prawn (shrimp), and some kind of mussel, along with some green vegetables (cabbage?) and, of course, rice.

Early Thursday morning, we flew back to Singapore, where I took a nap and then did some last minute shopping with Meredith in Chinatown. Then it was back to packing before saying bye to my host family. I didn't go to sleep because we had to be at the airport at 3 am for our 5 am flight out. Finally, after 30+ hours of travelling, I made it back to Dallas safe and sound.

All in all, I had an amazing experience travelling overseas. It definitely makes me want to travel to other parts of the world - if only it didn't take such a toll on my bank account. Soon enough :).