A decent night’s sleep

For whatever age, stress, or health-related reasons, I cannot sleep. I go to bed around 10, then wake up at midnight, then multiple more times before my alarm goes off before 6:10. Sometimes I am awake for hours, and sometimes when I wake up at 3 or 4 I’m up for the day. I’ve no idea.

I did finally put together that when I wake up, I’m parched, so I finally decided turning off the dehumidifier. I’ve resorted to melatonin, but it seems when I take that, it doesn’t help me fall asleep, but once there I sleep deeply. However, when I wake up, it’s with a jolt, no matter the time.

When I packed out the couple earlier, I donated most of the booze to the Marines but kept a Maker’s Mark bottle with about 1/16 remaining. I’ve tried it straight and it tastes like cough syrup, but once it helped, or so I thought. Since, I’ve tried mixing it with hot chocolate and Kool Aid. It tasted better, but not enough to continue to experiment. I still kept waking up.

But on Saturday, I went to some hot springs that are nearby and oh, man, that was fabulous. About 10 of us went. The others lost out. For whatever reason, people just didn’t sign up. I’d been before and it was a lot of fun and tried to convince others to go, but they just didn’t. Losers.

The hot springs area is pretty fabulous. Last time around it was rainy and chilly (which made the hot tubs all the better!) but this year it was sunny and not cold. Not really warm, either, but not chilly. The weather was just great.

We soaked in wine, tea, coffee and flower-infused hot tubs, then I stood under the equivalent of a fire hose and let it beat down on my neck, back, shoulder and arms. It was fabulous. One of the tubs was a two-in-one called “fire and ice.” The “fire” side was incredibly hot and the “ice,” was damn cold. A colleague and I sat on opposite sides and every 60 seconds leaped over the barrier to swap. We amused the locals and even inspired others to try it, too.

I finished with the sauna, something I’ve been missing ever since the one at my apartment burned. Neither it nor the steam room has opened up again, so I enjoyed spending time in the one at hot springs.

And wonder of wonder I managed to nod off and get some sleep. I only woke up one time and when I slept, I really slept. It was really nice. I honestly can’t remember the last time I got a decent night’s sleep, even if I still woke up once. It was progress.

Today, I’ve done barely anything. I went to a friend’s house to help a bunch of kids decorate cookies. There were several icing accidents, and some of them definitely set records for how many gummy bears a child could fit on a single cookie.

It’s been a very nice weekend, my fifth-to-the-last here. I’m really almost down to my last month. It doesn’t feel that way and I’m super busy.

The rest of my weekends are pretty much booked, though.There is a baby shower next weekend, then I’m going to Hong Kong, then Perth. The following weekend is the last weekend. I’m toying with the idea of going to Hong Kong again, but there is an office party the day before Easter and I’ll probably hang around for that.

I need to eat a lot of grits

My departure date is set at April 2, and since we’re in late February now, I’m sort of officially down to the wire.

Since I didn’t go anywhere last weekend, I tried to take a look at what I’ll be up against packing. It’s not going to be fun, but anyone who’s moved knows that. And that’s the stuff. I can take all that with me.

These were on the dock in Brunei. Loved the shot.

What doesn’t pack so well is the food. I’m trying to finish off what I can. I think I can take what’s left, but some of the stuff doesn’t transport that well.

And somehow, I’ve wound up with a lot of grits. I didn’t bring that much, I swear, but I’ve sponsored quite a few people and, since I can’t order them from Walmart, that’s the “American” food I’ve requested. Well, grits, alfredo sauce and Junior Mints, but somehow it’s grits I’m overrun with. I think I have four canisters left, and no way can I finish that off.

Plus, I’m almost out of butter, and you can’t do grits without butter. It’s is really expensive here (it’s imported from New Zealand) and you can’t exactly buy a small thing of it. Considering I barely use it – grits and twice-a-week-if-I’m-here-on-the-weekend pancakes – I don’t want to buy any more in my waning weeks. It’s highly likely I will resort to take a pack or two the once a week I eat at the Ascott breakfast buffet.

I used about three-quarters of the small bit I had left today, when I made cookies for the last time. I finished off the peppermint M&Ms that Dana gave me for Christmas and the butter Crisco sticks. The cookies are destined to go into the office Monday but they’re really tasty and I might finish them off this weekend.

With no other plans for Saturday, I went ahead and did my Sunday stuff, which is cooking for the next week. Usually it’s a rice mixture but I pulled out all the other already-open stuff and now have three loads of carrots/broccoli/onion/garlic: one with couscous, one with lentils and one with some kind of Ramen noodle thing my intern left me. I don’t have high hopes for that but couldn’t bear to throw away good food.

Brunei, where I saw the monkeys. Love it.

The other thing I’ve done is buy the remaining X, Y or Z that I will need through this tour. I figured this would save me on grocery bills down the road. But it created some weird looks a couple of weeks ago when I left my desk drawer open. Someone glanced over and saw about eight Lays cans and thought I was nuts.

I’m going to run out of Junior Mints and that’s a bad thing because it can take 6-8 weeks for an Amazon order to arrive. Last week, I placed an order at Walmart and as soon as I clicked “place order,” I realized it’s the last online order I’ll be able to place from here.

I just hope it comes in on time. My “packout” is scheduled for March 24, and if it’s not in by then, I have to take it on the plane.

Monkey see, monkey do

Last weekend started the Year of the Monkey. I had off Saturday through Wednesday, and it was my last big holiday from Guangzhou.

 

So I got out of town. As the only country not a small island in South, East or SE Asia I hadn’t visited, I aimed for Brunei. It was tough to finagle as flights are limited, but I swung it!

I wound up having to fly into Miri, Malaysia and stay there for a day before taking a bus to Bandar Seri Begawan. For me, that was just another excuse to go to Malaysia, a country that I must love because this was my fifth trip. I had a blast, even though I really was only there for half a day. Bought some cool stuff for presents and just enjoyed it.

This trip depended on a lot of travel falling in place, and wonder of wonders, it did. First, Malaysian Airlines, despite planes dropping or being shot from the sky, was awesome. The food was even HOT. Then the bus, which said it “could take up to 17 hours and 33 minutes” took less than five hours. Once in BSB, it turned out to be a totally walkable area, and then the flight back to Kuala Lumpur was on time (the flight actually boarded in 20 minutes) and the 12-hours layover in the KL airport was just fine. I’d figure at the worst, I’d be home by 4 p.m. I was home at 2:30. Just a blessed travel trip, for sure.

Anyway, the bus ride was fine. I’d found some internet sites that said what would happen, so I was prepared with the stopping for the border and such. I’ve crossed borders by land in buses, so I kind of knew the drill. We arrived around 8 p.m. and I walked straight to my hotel, which was a really nice one. They even had a city shuttle, which I took a couple of times.

 

Oddly, even though I saw taxi queues, I never saw a taxi. I did have a couple of people stop and ask if I needed a ride. At first, I thought it was a little weird but realized it was normal.

BSB, at least the inner part of the city, didn’t have a whole lot, but what they had was fascinating. There is an entire community of 30k on the water – all the houses are on stilts. There were also mosques that were light up nicely in the evenings.

But I didn’t really find a lot of souvenir-type stuff. There was a handicraft school but I wasn’t into their particular kind of batik, and I didn’t see anything, really, that caught my attention. It took awhile to even find a magnet that I liked.

I always try to find magnets of something that I’ve seen during my travel to wherever, and BSB really didn’t have a whole lot. I’m glad I went – it was country No. 47 – but outside of the houses on stilts, it was kind of ho-hum.

The second morning, I took a walk to what was billed as a nature walk. BSB is super hot, and about 20 minutes in, I was soaking in sweat. I’d gotten up early to walk and hadn’t had breakfast, so I figured I’d just circle back. The “nature trail” wasn’t too impressive, so I left it and went back down this incredibly steep road that I’d walked up before.

When I got almost to the bottom, something ran across the street. I thought, “Man, that looked like a monkey!” I figured it had to be a rat, but I knew its butt had been way higher than a rat’s would. But I was just off a main road and didn’t think there could possibly be a monkey right there.

And then a much bigger one ran across the road. And then another. I guess they sent the baby up ahead. I stopped and pulled out my camera and tried to find them. I realized there really were several more monkeys all around; I could see the trees moving as they jumped. It was some sort of 9:30 a.m. monkey crossing, I guess, because I went back twice more that day but never saw another.

So these are the best of the photos that I got. Clearly, I am not going to get any offers from NatGeo anytime soon.