Penang -- Catching up, Week 5 (Part 2)

More old news. We've been to IKEA/KL twice now. This is the first trip of the two.

SUNDAY, April 13th
More laundry. We thought maybe we could get out and go to KL first thing in the morning. But we can't. Still have to do laundry or only one or two out of the three of us will be dressed today. And we have to wait for our clothes to be mostly dry.

Lunch time at the mall. We're there using wifi and checking out IKEA's store hours. We decide, what the heck! Let's do it! Let's go! We'll just buy some dishes and things first, and we'll pick up a catalog and scope out other things like furniture for another trip.

We leave our neck of the woods at about 1:20pm and head towards the bridge to the mainland.
We're thinking, it's a 3+ hour drive, add a couple of hours for breast-feeding stops, etc., we'll get to IKEA at around 5 or 6 and stay a few hours (they close at 10pm) and head home again. It'll be late, but Regin will be sleeping so we should be home by 1. Well, we're wrong. It's more like a 4+ hour drive, so it takes us like 6 hours. But the drive is worth it for the views alone. It's gorgeous. It's like someone took the lush, tropical greenery of Florida and draped it over the Rockies.

The roads are bigger and the drivers are better. George seems to be the only one still driving Penang-style. Ugh.

There is lots of beautiful landscaping around developed areas. Even little rest stops are divine.
We stop at a gas station and I have to go so bad, I decide that if squatting is the only way, well then, that's what I'll do. I end up not having to squat. But there is no TP. There never is. Just the ever-present hose.
There is a prayer building at the gas station.
There is a door for men and a door for women.

Man/woman icons from prayer-building doors.

KL is even better. The landscaping by the roads is gorgeous. And, even though we're not really "in" KL, we're getting the feel that this is where we ought to be. There is everything here we long for: orderly driving, better roads, modernity, and cleanliness. The IKEA parking garage (probably the biggest parking garage I've seen in my life) actually has polished-shiny floors.
IKEA is great. We go in and eat at the cafe. George has Swedish meatballs. I have shrimp on bread and some Gravlax. Regin flirts with people around him. By now he's very used to IKEA-style high chairs, since nearly all the restaurants in Penang have them.

After food we walk the showroom. They're clean out of catalogs until the new ones come out in July or August. I decide to take photo notes of everything. Love! Love! Love!
After about 200 photos, someone stops me and tells me I can't take pictures -- IKEA is afraid of people copying them. Um! Too late! Have you seen any of the furniture in Target, Walmart, Kmart, low-end and high-end furniture stores lately?? No wonder the IKEA lovers' photo pool members on FLICKR are so proud of their in-store IKEA photos -- they're stealth photos!

By the time we get to the stuff we're actually looking to buy I'm going through a big sugar crash. I thought that mayo all over my shrimp tasted sweet! We pick some things, pots and pans, dishes, silverware, and go. It's well past closing time by the time we get the car. And I'm crashing so bad that I'm in the middle of the IKEA parking garage, crying. Pity George. Really.

We go buy me a snack at Burger King and George some iced coffees at Dunkin Donuts (yeppers!) -- I think it's after 11 by the time we leave. Plus 4 hours home and a potty break in the middle, makes it pushing 4 by the time we get home.

Much of the way George is seeing signs that say "40 Pandu Cermat" They can't be speed limits because 40kph is just so slow for a highway. But after a while we both start to wonder. So I grab the iPhone and google it. "Pandu Cermat" is "drive carefully" but I find no place that tells me if it's a speed limit sign or not. I start to feel strongly that it is, and although there are no work men around, I see a few cones here and there. The 40 signs have the sort of temporary look that road work signs often have. Sure enough, I start translating other signs that say we are in a road work zone. George slows down from 110. Man! We were WAY over the speed limit!

By the time we're home, we're both thoroughly exhausted. Poor George has to work tomorrow.

More shortly...