Mahjong, Bitches!

I'm beginning to feel like this trip is oscillating between days of unrelenting action and those spent at home. I say this because today we stayed in and used the pretence of packing for Perhentian to absolve ourselves from having to leave the house.

Sadly a full day inside was not meant to be as one of Lena's friends popped round, a girl called Julie (who is a Chindian apparently?). Feeling that our lethargy wasn't going to make for the best company we went out the night market, whilst there was still daylight. Once there we wandered around looking for any small scrap of food we could force down or anything I could try that would be funny to witness (I assume this was the case, I was starting to get paranoid).

The food scavenger hunt got off to a bad start with me coming across the first dish I could say I disliked, fish paste noodles (Asam Laksa). I warn you now that I don't have the correct Malaysian spellings for these dishes but rather vague descriptions. The fish stuff was thankfully accompanied by some prawn mee which I had tried before so finished it off to wash the taste of foul fish from (alliteration!) my mouth. After dabbling in the roadside noodle dishes we set off for snacks from the various market stalls, first stop peanut and sugar pancake thing (freaking awesome) (Tai Kao Meen). With all this food drinks were an inevitable and I got my first taste of pearls which equate to be jelly balls which in NO WAY improve the drinking experience; every sip I had to contend with one of the buggers which greatly reduced my enjoyment of...a...peach...drink? Can't even remember the flavour I'm that disheartened! (SCREW YOU JACK BUBBLE TEA IS THE SHIZZZZZ!!!)

As we wandered round some more we settled on some satay sticks which I have enjoyed previously so had high expectations...which were not disappointed; Freaking love satay, especially the peanut sauce stuff :). Riding on my satay high I strolled into some place who used liberal amounts of deep fat frying, I sampled: a spring roll, a prawn cracker thing, and what turned out to be tapioca balls. I thought I was buying fried wantons, imagine my surprise! I can sadly say it wasn't a nice surprise like waking up realising its a Saturday but like waking up and realising its a Monday. Well today was shaking my adventurous streak, several repeated dishes and a couple of awful foods, things were looking dire, but no sooner than that thought came through my mind BANG curry puff, kicking ass resumed again!

Leaving the market on a high note we rolled our way back to our little place and got Hang round. A new entertainment was to be brought out this fine eve, Mahjong! Having never played the game before I was curious on the mechanics and I quickly found, like backgammon, gambling improves it. To make things sweeter I seemed to be on a winning streak/beginners luck, I managed to win 3 out of 4 of the first games. Although as the night progressed experience took over and I was swiftly pwned by Hang, and to some extent Lena (I let her win!).

The exciting and daring world of Mahjong kept us going into the wee hours of the morning (5am for me), but sadly age and being sleepy won out and I retired to bed with the fevered sounds of Hang and Lena chatting in the background...

Lena's edits: Jack woke up at about 7am to find Hang and myself cuddled on the single bed (just like the good old days back in high school!) whilst he was asleep by himself on the queen bed.. Suspicious? Threatened? No. His only thoughts: Sweet.. Lesbians! zzZZZzzz...