Tuesday June 24, 2008

12 days have past since my last post, you can really tell that we're getting used to our routine at this point. The only exciting thing that has happened is our car has broken down a couple of times. I'm still watching Oprah and Ellen most days and catching up on Desperate Housewives as I get to watch all of the old seasons. The first time the car broke down Jim was coming home from work and was around the corner from the house when the brakes completely went out. He had to use the emergency brake in order to stop. Somehow he managed to park the car in our driveway. His boss Harald knew someone who worked on Jeeps so Jim called him and I must say that the service was excellent. Benson ( the mechanic ) sent out 2 guys to our house and when they figured out that they couldn't drive the car to the shop they called for a tow truck. The car was gone for the weekend but when they were finished they delivered it back to us. They had to replace all of the brakes, fix a window that wouldn't roll up or down and the radio antennae that wouldn't go up. The price wasn't bad either, about $600 U.S. for everything including the tow. Can't beat that in the States!!

The second time the car broke down was a different scenario. We decided to go up to a place called Genting Highlands which to me I thought was a Malaysian version of Vegas. It's located up at the top of the rainforest about 45 minutes outside of Kuala Lumpur. As usual me and Jim jumped at the chance to try and drive there even though we weren't sure how to get there. Luckily we only had to make one U-turn and enjoyed driving through different towns. The bad luck started when we got there. There are 2 options to get to the top: you can either drive all the way up or you can park at the bottom and take a 20 minute cable car ride to the top. We decided to ride the cable car. We pulled into the parking garage and started looking for a space, as Jim was going up another floor he couldn't quite make the turn so he backed up a bit but when he put the car in drive once again it wouldn't go into gear. The car is still running but we can't move and we're blocking the entrance to the upper floors so a line started to form behind us of other people trying to park. Jim tried to push but that didn't work. One guy parked his car and came over to try and help us and before we knew it we had a clan of security guards, police officers and other citizens gathered to try and help. Somehow they all managed to push the car out of the way of the entrance so other people could go by and a rep from Genting called a mechanic. The mechanic showed up and discovered that a cable had snapped that connected the gear box to the transmission, he thought he could fix it but didn't bring any tools with him. He told us to go ahead up to the resort, have a good time and he would call us when it was finished.

So we boarded a gondola for the 20 minute ride up through the rainforest. This part was fun and terrifying all at the same time. We kept playing out a disastrous scenario of the cable car falling and how we would be screwed. You couldn't even see the ground that's how high up we were. We got to the top and started exploring. The property is made up of 3 hotels and each one offering different attractions all connected by escalators and tunnels. We walked around and found a buffet to eat at for lunch which was disappointing. No Vegas-like buffet here. It was mostly Malay, Chinese, and Indian cuisine; no prime rib, ham, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, taco bar, mostly rice and noodles and a lot of spicy food. We decided to go into the casino after that but was denied access because Jim was wearing shorts and I was wearing a tank top so we had to go shopping. Fortunately we were able to find clothes that fit us in a store called S&M ( no, there were no whips or chains for sale ). We got into the Monte Carlo casino and after a few minutes we realized that it was the quietest casino we've ever been in. They had slot machines but the sound was turned off, the place was packed with people but no one was talking, no one was yelling because they had won or lost, just quiet like a library. Other than slots and roulette we didn't recognize or know how to play the other games offered. There was baccarat, pontoon, min, caribbean stud poker, casino war and pai gow. So another disappointment for us because I know Jim was looking forward to playing blackjack or texas hold 'em.

We left the casino and found the World Hotel which offers an indoor and outdoor theme park. Again, compared to Vegas it looked like Blackberry Farm. The outdoor park had roller coasters and a water park but the water park was drained so no swimming, the rides were ok but nothing spectacular, mostly kiddy rides. The indoor park was everything America. There was a Statue of Liberty, an Oscar statue, Hollywood memorabilia and rides, mostly kiddy. One thing I thought was cool was they had a place called SnowWorld and for $18 RM you could go into an arena that had snow and was cold inside. Considering many people here have never seen snow it was a big attraction. We didn't go inside ( for what? I've experienced being cold one too many times in my life ) but they had an observation window and you could see all the kids running around trying to build snowmen. I say trying because the texture of the snow was so artificial there was no way they could succeed. Me and Jim shot target practice with mock AK-47's that was about the most fun I had in the theme park. We tried to go into the casino of the World hotel but was denied access again because we had the bag we got from shopping for clothes to get into the last casino. We tried to rent a locker to put it in but they were all full and by this time we were so disappointed with our day trip we were just ready to leave. But we couldn't because the mechanic hadn't called us yet!

We found a sports bar and had some cocktails while we watched soccer and finally the mechanic called to tell us that he couldn't find the part he needed until Monday and wanted to know if we could get a hotel room. We thought about it but everything was booked because the Osmonds ( yes, Donnie and Marie ) were performing that night. I told Jim to ask if they could tow us back home and the mechanic said yes. So we took the cable car back down and he picked us up and took us back to his shop where our car was being loaded onto the tow truck. As we started out back down the mountain I'm thinking we're not going to get home for 2 hours because the driver never put the truck past 2nd gear. I decided to go to sleep. When I woke up we were close to home and I was glad!! He must have taken a different way than we did going up because it only took him 45 minutes to get back to Bangsar. Again, very good service from the time we broke down til the time we got home. How many parking garages do you know of that would arrange for a mechanic to come out and offer to fix your car in the States? So Benson and his guys came out yesterday and picked up the car and had it back to us last night before dinner time.

As far as Genting Highlands is concerned, I'll probably never go back up unless there is a group in town that we want to see in concert or we learn how to play pai gow ( quietly ), or if anyone comes to visit because everyone should ride in the cable car.