Penang -- Week 8, Part 1 -- Another IKEA trip

Week 8
FRIDAY, May 3rd
Day 50
George spends a good chunk of the day dealing with stuff at the police station, but I'll let him tell that story. I spend the morning and afternoon getting our laundry and everything ready for our trip. We end up leaving at around 3:30pm.

It's another beautiful drive.We make better time at first because Regin is napping, but once he wakes we have to stop a lot and he's screaming for a good portion of the last hour or so. I sing "A Little White Duck" (with corresponding sign language) to distract him. I must have sung that song 8 or 10 times in a row. All this time I have a mild stomach ache.

We're really wiped out by the time we arrive. We assume (incorrectly) that IKEA is closed so we look for a wifi spot to begin our hotel search. It's midnight by the time we're checking in. The room is FABULOUS! It's about $100 a night, but would be worth two or three times that much in the States.
The screen above says, "Welcome Mr. David, George Anthony!"
And the brand of the thermostat has a familiar name!
It's not an easy night. I don't know if I have food poisoning or what. But my stomach pain is pretty severe. At 4 or 5 in the morning I realize that I can relieve the pain a little by stretching out and arching my back. I pass out asleep.


SATURDAY
The view from our hotel room is gorgeous.
We have a buffet breakfast.
That's me in the background looking all sad.
It's stylish, with cool arty glass bubbles hanging from the ceiling.
It's also nice to not have to cook for myself. But I can't really enjoy it, because I'm still hunched over from stomach pain. We're a two minute drive from IKEA, but we spend all morning in the hotel room. I'm just not recovering.

After checking out, we go to the little mall next door and find some protein powder, bread, and apple juice that I can use with my sensitive tummy. (A hypoglycemic has to be even more careful when sick). We also visit the pharmacy. The pharmacist chats with me a little and grabs things from behind the counter to offer me. She tells me that no medicines (pain killers included) are without sugar, unless you get injections. They suggest I take some charcoal and I go ahead and buy Ibuprophin since I haven't found it anywhere here.

Then we find a new hotel room across the street from IKEA. It's funky and fun, though not as ritzy as the last place. It has probably the best shower I've ever taken. Heaven. But I'm still not doing well. We stay here and I nap.

It's mid-afternoon when we finally walk across the street to IKEA. That's fun. I'm not enjoying the experience though. The whole time I'm still walking slowly from stomach pain. I think I should try and get a doctor, but we're on a tight schedule if we want to get our furniture and get back tomorrow.

We spend the day writing our final shopping list and decide to come back in the morning for final purchases.
Eating at a place by the hotel.


SUNDAY
Breakfast.
Another yucky day for me, but we have work to do. Shopping work that is. Back to IKEA, yeah that's right, we spent the entire holiday weekend at IKEA (and at the hotel room with me sick). I guess we'll have to make yet another trip if we really want to see anything in KL.

Lunch at IKEA.

More of the same today. Our final list is not so final, and when we total everything up, we have to sit down and cut back. Believe it or not, the night we're supposed to be back in Penang, we're closing out IKEA, again. We're literally running from aisle to aisle in the self serve area, pulling furniture off the shelves when they make the closing announcement. Guess what? They only have one left of our 6 dining chairs! Looking up, we see more, but that's their pallet for next week (a.k.a. tomorrow morning). After some back and forth we convince the guys to give it to us anyway.

There is a whole thing at the register. The girl is told to ring us up for extra furniture that fork lifts are currently retrieving. We have such a huge transaction that it is a good hour after closing when she finishes ringing us up. But the credit card doesn't work. We don't have another one. (I know. I've told George that's insane. But will he listen?) George calls the company. It's resolved, they try again. Nope, still not working. We all sit around and wait while George is on another call. There must be 20+ employees waiting on us to do various tasks. Home delivery is waiting for our stuff (they're delivering the furniture to Penang), the accounting department is waiting for the register to be closed out, the security guards are waiting to escort us out, managers are waiting for subordinates to finish. It's ridiculous! And I start crashing, bad. My vision is all crazy, and I have to sit on the floor for a while. Apple juice perks me up after a while.

I have a conversation with one employee who has apparently spent a good deal of time in Missouri and Seattle. He's also driven through Boulder and asks if that's where in Colorado we're from. He asks me how we like Penang. I tell him that we think we like this area better. I don't think he likes that. He asks if it's the shopping. I say it's because it's more urban. He says everyone in Malaysia goes to Penang to get away from the hustle and bustle, I tell him that that's what we like and we laugh. Hmmm... I wonder if I offended him by not loving Penang.

Meanwhile, Regin is an absolute delight. He's sitting in his stroller with a 10+-strong crowd standing around him laughing at his loud babbling and expressive hand gestures. Then he decides he wants to walk. He walks past all of the registers and back, picking up every tiny bit of paper off of the floor and handing them to me. I joke with the IKEA employees that he's doing the clean up for them.

It's now almost midnight. Close to two hours since IKEA officially closed. The place is empty, half the lights are off, the air conditioning has been off since 10, and we're sweating. George is fanning Regin and me as he finishes up the call to the credit card people. Everything is finally sorted out and we can proceed to Home Delivery. They rush us through that and then a manager escorts us to the elevator and a security guys escorts us to the parking level. George has a mild panic that our car is gone (you'd think it would be easily visible when there are about three cars in this HUGE garage). It's fine. It's still there. Though while I'm waiting, I'm listing all the things in my head that we've lost to car thieves: my protein powder, our clothes, George's laptop, Regin's diapers, my camera, and most importantly, all the photos on my camera. But no, it's fine. All's fine. We load up the car and... well it's after midnight now. We can't drive home now!

We drive back across the street to the hotel. I have to order room service, and Regin Will. Not. Sleep. For anything! It must be 2 or later by the time I go to sleep. And it's 5 when George wakes me up to leave.