Recent trips to San Diego and Malaysia

Oct 20, 2010

After a couple very stressful months which included hassles with the insurance company, I've too many days of school and had to drop from the program. I'll either finish on my own at home or finish in the spring semester. I needed to get away from it all. Completely away from everything I am familiar with, so no going back to Washington to visit my sons or brothers or other relatives. No going to any familiar US city. Instead, I essentially threw a dart at the map and went where it landed - Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.

Yep, just south of China and north of Australia. Completely different from everything I am familiar with.

I spent one week there, mostly hanging at the hotel or in that vicinity, just decompressing. The hotel was incredible - a Holiday Inn golf resort for $140/night which would've been at least $300/night here in the US. I was in an executive suite overlooking the golf course. There were 5 restaurants, 2 swimming pools, gym, tennis and other sports courts, pool tables and other indoors stuff like that. Plus a spa for the ladies and another for the men. Malaysia is tropical - so the trees and plants are completely different from anything around here, it is very beautiful. One week is certainly not enough time to explore much, so I only went into KL and explored the major park which included the worlds biggest free-flight atrium and a very large butterfly atrium, a deer park, and a lake and other areas I didn't get too.

Flying to Malaysia is a 3 day trip, but one whole day is lost due to the 15 hour time difference. The flight back is only 2 days, but same number of hours flying, weird. That was a couple weeks ago.

This past weekend I went to San Diego. That was to take my Carvin Bass guitar back to the Carvin factory to have them check my bass to see if it could be fixed - there is a slight twist in the neck. They checked it out and said that it would be cheaper to buy a new bass, not only was the neck slightly twisted but the truss rod needed to be replaced and in doing that the entire fret board would have to be removed, which involves removing the mother of pearl inlays. I bought a new bass. This one is a 4 string bass rather than another 5 string. Since I was there I decided to spend 2 nights and check out the city a bit. I've been to San Diego before but never saw anything other than the zoo and wild animal park. The hotel was right on the beach just north of the downtown area, Pacific Beach. I wasn't impressed by the hotel at all, not even a table in the rooms. Sure it had a beach view and a deck, but no in room table, so I had to use my laptop on the bed if I wanted it plugged into the wall while using it. Oh well, next time I'll stay at a hotel across the street that faces the bay. Next on my agenda - not sure. A trip to Kansas City? or a trip to Mexico City? Why Kansas City? I want to buy a new transmission for the MG, an overdrive unit, completely rebuilt. I can drive there and pick it up and see parts of the country I haven't seen before. Or I can have the tranny shipped to my house and travel to Mexico City. And while there visit Puebla and the pyramids, and then Vera Cruz and the gulf coast. And Puebla is the home of the excellant Mexican sauce Molé.

I'll post updates after I decide on which to do. Pics of Malaysia will be posted, sooner or later.