Happy Mother’s Day. Today we went to the Batu Caves. We had to find a different place for breakfast since the usual place I get my Roti (think Scone) doesn’t open on Sunday. We cabbed it out to the caves and I had a great time photographing the monkeys and other scenery.
The weather was beautiful and everyone had a great time. I met some people from Iran and asked them about the possibility of going to visit there. They got me pretty excited saying that the plane tickets are not that expensive and it’s easy for a Canadian to get a visa to go there. I’m seriously going to look into going there for the last week or two of my trip.
Afterwards we caught a cab back to KLCC (near the Petronas Towers) and from there I took the Monorail with Andrew to check out a bookstore at BB Centre – another shopping centre. Most of the books were on architecture but there were a bunch of new media books that I found interesting.
After that we headed for our residence walking past a Chinese Temple. It was nice to go inside and enjoy the quiet sanctuary for a few minutes. I burned some incense and tried to clear my mind.
That evening I read a little from my Canadian History for Dummies book (which I absolutely love by the way) and learned about the War of 1812. I almost forgot that we had a dinner appointment with the Dean – luckily Jason reminded me. We headed out to his hotel and after some trouble finding a half honest taxi cab driver (one that wouldn’t try and charge us double) we arrived and had a pretty good buffet. By the end of the evening the topic of religion came up and I talked at length about my feeling about the Mormon Church and about its history. I told them that despite my negative feelings, I am still very defensive when I hear about others speaking poorly of it. One of the others there agreed that even though she is no longer a practicing Catholic she also hates it when people speak badly about the church. Sort of like, it’s okay to put down your own friends or family (occasionally) but don’t anybody else do it!
It was a good evening that ended at a hostel down the street from where we are staying and I shared my story from getting engaged to ending up here in Malaysia alone and distressed. It’s a pretty long story and in the end the advice they gave me was to not really do anything but heal for about 6 months and then decide what I want to do. It’s good advice.
P.S. I almost forgot. Today is my brother’s birthday. Happy birthday Gary.