PETA is going to freak out....

Gila. That was my most recent trip in a nutshell. For all the bules reading this, "gila" means "crazy" in Bahasa Indonesia. So now, even if you hate the rest of this blog post, you can walk away saying "hey, at least I learned something."

Andrew, Ben and I took off for Kuala Lumpur the Friday school ended. Just get us outta here. Exploring the Bukit Bintang province of Kuala Lumpur was quite weird. A lot of white people. We see so few bules in north Jakarta (outside of school, of course) that we start to whisper along with the other locals when some crop up. "Oh my, there's four white people" "what are they doing here?" "This is so weird...white people! Really?!" But the Bukit Bintang area was like being in a dirtier version of California. Some people's night went better than others, but really quite fun overall.

We then made our way up to the Cameron Highlands for a couple days to frolic through the strawberry patches and tea plantations. Super fantabulous! Pffft. I went golfing. The other two were frolicking. Granted, I spent way more money and was pretty horrific on the golf course, but at least the Japanese group I was paired with learned plenty of English curse words. I should apologize to Andrew and Ben though. I wasn't the best company of the trip up until I satisfied my hunger with a Snickers. I can only imagine that it was just like their old commercials.  Bitching until you take that first bite, then everything is better.

After another brief trip to Kuala Lumpur and the Central Market, I sped off to Boracay. A relative pain to get to where you need to go, but the best beaches I've ever seen. Makes Lake Red Rock look like a sewage dump. Apologies to anyone who is going onto Red Rock soon. Try to avoid that massive log that's hiding right below the surface.

Cliff diving and perfect beaches behind me, I flew back to Manila to meet up with my friend/colleague, Joe and his buddy before turning around to Palawan in Puerta Princesa.  Poor weather didn't deter our trip. We ate crocodile, half born chicken fetus (balut) and washed it down with enough San Miguel to make my mother scoff ("Hmpf!  Joshua Carl!"). The cherry on top: the Underground River tour. Recently dubbed one of the seven Wonders of Nature, it didn't disappoint. The waiting time was terrible after such a long night, but the underground river itself was fascinating and well worth the trip.

Three more days in Manila yielded no great stories to speak of. Got to see some friends, saw some old Spanish architecture, etc. All the touristy things. Settling back for week 4 of the first term and this year has the makings to be a good one. Shout out to my friend, Kenny. Recently got engaged. Congrats man! More pictures are on Facebook. Only four months until our next reunion, but I'll give y'all another update about my Vietnam trip before then.