playing catch up on blogger starting with our last days in k.l.

our last days in k.l. were pretty mellow, but we did make it back to the twin towers for a bit of water play...


and i finally got to go and take pictures of the seahorses at the aquarium. i know it is cheating to take pics of them in captivity, but i just love me some seahorses.

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

today it was the national zoo on the agenda. after seeing all the birds yesterday, zoe still managed to have the energy to get excited about all the animals. here she is with the giraffes. there were all kinds of animals. even bengali tigers! zoe and pappa decided to crawl into a banyan tree. thought this was a really cute pic of them.
so i am sure you have noticed that my posts are often posted long after the actually entry. that is due the lack of internet while traveling. and now finally i am all caught up again. only, we are about to leave for the airport and fly to northern sumatra where internet might be hit or miss again. so much for finally catching up, only to fall behind again. but i do try and be faithful and write the entries on the computer to be uploaded when the internet decides to pop up. so this could be it for awhile again. hope you are all well and we will be in touch.

a day with the birds

today we went to the k.l. bird park. it was a really fun day. not only zoe, but mamma and pappa also had a great time checking out all the different birds. there were tons and tons and tons. all different kinds, many of which we had not seen before. so the hostel where we are staying said it was a short walk there. he neglated to say you had to walk all the way around the bird park to get to the entrance so in 35C heat, we walked and we walked and we walked. but we finally made it, and promised ourselves the luxury of a taxi back to chinatown. the walk was so hot and zoe had been so good that she got her own ice cream. she has become a huge ice cream fan lately. but that might be because mamma and pappa bribe her with it a lot now that she has no more binkies. the receptionist at the hotel ate one and farfar took the other one back to sweden (wink, wink), so she has been without for 3 days now. last night was the first decent sleep for all of us. there is a light at the end of the tunnel. so back to the bird park, there were a lot of birds just wandering around the park, zoe found the peacocks fascinating, though they did not really appreciate her chasing them!
there was also a silly bird show where the birds rode bicycles and did simple math, and other things, it was rather amusing, but i personally prefer to watch them in more natural behavior. there was also a foto booth so we had to get a family pic with all the birds.

it was a really fun day, and we kept thinking how much farmor and farfar would have enjoyed seeing all the birds.

swimming pools and chinese acrobats

it is very amusing that zoe is a bit of tourist attraction here in k.l., as she was in indonesia. i do not know how many people are going home with pics of her on there cellphones and cameras. i have even seen a lot of people taking "sneak" fotos of her with their cellphones. this group of girls was a bit more forthcoming, and asked to take a group pic with her.so it was a hot day and we found ourselves all alone without the rest of the thorens, so we thought we would head out to a mall and look for a bcd for thomas, but zoe started quite early with "me badda i poole" (translated from zoe language, this means i want to go swimming in the pool). so we decided to skip the mall and head to the free kiddie pools down by the petronas tours. it was nice and cooling, though there were two guards on duty that whistled constantly at people. if you did not have kids you could not be there, no shoes, no standing over there, no swimming without a shirt (thomas got the whistle on that one), no laying down on the benches (thomas got that one too). but all in all zoe got her swimming in, and we got to cool down.
so, after the swim, we changed our minds and went to the mid valley mall anyway. which ended up being a good choice even though there were no good bcds for thomas, as there was lots of free entertainment. there was a group of acrobats from china that put on a really cool show in the middle of the mall in celebration of the chinese new year. it was pretty crazy seeing these two fly around in a mall from some hanging fabric...
then there was hopping and jumping and pyramid building...
it was lots of fun to watch and zoe was laughing and clapping along with everyone else. it was very cute. after the show, zoe decided to get up on stage and do her own little show. that is until the guard made her give up the act!

last day with farmor and farfar...

so we decided to treat ourselves to the k.l. aquarium today, they had so many fish! i got in trouble a few times, cause i kept stopping to take pictures and the rest of the family started getting a little tired of waiting for me.but then we came to the tunnel. i could have stayed in there all day, it was so amazing. we had huge sharks and rays and napolean wrasses and well you name it, swimming around us. of course on the one good family shot i got in the tunnel (the lighting was very challenging) there were no big fish swimming by at the moment. but trust me, there were lots.
still cannot believe all the things we saw, it was about what i could see if i went diving 1000+ times and was really lucky! then there were the seahorses! okay, so i felt sorry for them as there were quite a few living in such small tanks, but at the same time, it must have been nice for them to not have any predators. so i have to put up a picture of one of the little guys.
we had lunch at the central market and then treated ourselves to a foot massage while zoe took a little nap. then it was back to the hotel for final packing and then sadly it was time to give a warm send off to farmor and farfar. safe travels!

checking out the big city

so now we are in the big city doing big city things. of course high on the priority list was shopping, so anita could get some last minute presents, and there just happened to be a big pool of doctor fish. lars and thomas were brave enough to actually try it. thomas could not stop laughing for the first couple of minutes, apparently it really tickled.then we headed over to the petronas twin towers, the tallest twin buildings in the world. after listening to basically a big comercial about petronas, they let us ride up on the elevator and spend 10 minutes checking out the views from the bridge the connects the two towers. it was a
pretty cool view.


we ended the day with a tasty dinner in a steak house (no, i did not eat steak). tomorrow is farmor and farfar's last day. we are going to miss them.

good bye bunaken, it was a blast...

today we left bunaken village. it was not an easy thing to do, we had had such a great time there, though we are looking forward to being able to properly dry all our possessions out again here in kuala lumpur. our last few days there seemed so quite without acem, they are really missed. but we did manage to get lars to go on 5 more dives, here is thomas and him checking out one of the reefs at bunaken.
then our last night the "house band" came out and played again. they had put on a great session for emma's birthday earlier in our stay. we sang and had a great time till we could not hold our eyes open anymore.
zoe said her goodbyes to the staff, but i know that she is really going to miss her ica. ica is the one holding zoe in the pic. she usually watched zoe while we were out diving, and i am sure zoe did not like her just for the chocolate she got from ica while momma and pappa were away, but i am sure it helped.
the boat ride was a bit bumpy but not too bad for those of us who got to sit inside. poor angelina got soaking wet standing on the bow while navigating the way to manado. hope she doesn't get sick again!

so now it is just the five of us hanging out in k.l., trying to stay out of trouble. going to be really quiet when farmor and farfar leave in just a couple of days.