Oh Malaysia, I'll Always Remember You
After a whole month of acclimating to living in Charlotte, North Carolina for the summer, I’ve finally gotten around to writing about my trip to Malaysia! In the very beginning of June, my sisters, our boyfriends, and my dad made the long journey to my dad’s og home for my cousin Esther’s wedding. Esther is the first cousin out of my generation to get married, so you KNOW it was a big deal, and everyone was coming to be a part of the celebration!
Because it’s been a long time since I was actually there, and my memory is not that fresh, I’m going to condense this week long trip into one big listicle. If you haven’t been able to tell, listicles are my favorite kind of blogs to write because they’re orderly, and it reminds me of Bojack Horseman.
Shanghai, China
Coley, my dad, and I were flying into Malaysia a little later than my sisters and their boyfriends because of our travel schedules, and we ended up having a one night layover in Shanghai before we made it to the capital of Malaysia.
Y’all . . . my experience there was . . . wild.
We were flying China Eastern Airlines, and because we had booked our tickets all the way through, they had made the reservations at their hotel in China as well. I wasn’t too worried at all about the hotel because my dad had reassured me that it was going to be a typical hotel, and why would it matter since we were only there a night?
I was wrong. It definitely did matter LOL.
We got off the plane in Shanghai and let me just tell you, Shanghai Pudong International Airport has some CHAOTIC energy. I tried my best to flex my two years of Chinese from high school but as we all know, that did not help at all. Literally the only words I remembered that were even vaguely airport related were the words plane ticket, and even that I don’t think I pronounced right.
Once we had gotten through customs and immigration and all that jazz, we found out that my dad, our main translator and also the only person that knew what was going on, was actually booked at a different hotel than Coley and me. You should’ve seen the straight panic in Coley’s and mine’s eyes because the next thing you know, my dad is in a van going somewhere and we’re just standing outside the airport with literally no idea what was going on.
Eventually Coley and I were herded into this teeny tiny little van, and our driver started ZOOMING. And when I say zooming, I mean straight whipping that car around Shanghai’s backroads. I’ve never seen someone utilize both sides of the road like this guy did LMAOO.
We got to our hotel in an incomprehensibly short amount of time, thanks to our driver. We hopped out, grabbed our luggage, and went in to explore what was going on.
The hotel looked honestly like any old school Chinatown’s dim sum restaurant you would go to with your parents so I was like oh, this will be fine. We checked in, figured out what shuttle we needed to take out of there in the morning, and went to go find our room.
You know that one haunted house in America that has like stairs that go to the ceiling? And hallways that just went random ways? That is literally how I felt about this hotel once we got to our designated floor. But after a lot of twists, turns, and random floors that dramatically sloped upward, we made it to our room.
Our night just kind of progressed with that same chaotic energy that the Shanghai Pudong International Airport had. We had a random man come into our room and pop open random ceiling vents to try and get our air conditioning running. There was zero food in that whole hotel so Coley and I ate sleep for dinner LOL. When we went to leave in the morning, we saw an old guy spit his phlegm multiple times into the surrounding potted plants.
When it was time to finally skrt out of there, I was ready. After an expected chaotic journey back to the airport (Coley and I had no idea what terminal to go to so we just kind of guessed), we met back up with my dad who had a grand time at his hotel, and we finally got on a plane to go to Malaysia!
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
We were in KL for about the first half of our week in Malaysia and let me tell you, we made the MOST of our time. Our wonderful cousins were ready to give us the tour of KL because I hadn’t been back since I was 7, and it was all the boyfriends’ first time there!
My dad had picked out this beautiful Airbnb we were going to stay at for our time there that was smackdab in the middle of the city. My favorite part of the place was that there was a rooftop garden that overlooked the whole city and there was an infinity pool that was always deserted.
After long days of walking around, eating SO MUCH FOOD, and getting bit by mosquitoes every two seconds, the very best thing you can do is go night swimming in the pool and look over the city. Even though Coley and I were hit with a huge case of jet lag, it never stopped us from swimming and exploring our Airbnb.
But speaking of jet lag, on our first morning in Malaysia we both woke up at like 5 am, and we were feeling HUNGRY. I texted my cousin Deric who had graciously volunteered to be our tour guide and personal driver for the trip, and he was more than ready to wake up and drive us to his favorite Malay breakfast place.
Once we got to the open air breakfast place, I was finally able to introduce Coley to all my favorite foods that you can’t get anywhere near our home in the USA. We had my favorite drink, tae tarik, and ate the yummiest roti with egg dipped in different types of curry.
But out of all of the things we did in Kuala Lumpur, my favorite thing was reconnecting with family I hadn’t seen since I was in first grade! From my cousins, to my aunts and uncles, to my grandparents who showed us all the baby pictures they had kept of us from when we were little.
After our short reunion in Kuala Lumpur that was filled with many four hour long meals and karaoke, it was time to fly over to the other island of Malaysia for the main event: Esther’s wedding!
Kuching, Malaysia
Because my family doesn’t have any extended family living in the states, I’ve never known what it was like to travel in big family groups. That all changed we flew out from KL to Kuching. My family rolled up with like 20 people in tow, and we took OVER that small airplane that was taking us from one side of Malaysia to the other side!
Once we touched down in Kuching, it was just a flood of more family. Our wonderful aunt and mother of the bride had arranged for us to have a full on tour of Kuching before the wedding on Saturday!
We got to see the different sites of the city, visit a very cool cultural village that taught us traditional dances, and then be a part of my cousin Esther’s bridal shower!!! Honestly, best part of the week.
The day of the wedding was one that I’ll never forget. Carmen, Simone, and I woke up SUPER EARLY (like I’m talking 5 am) to roll out to my aunt and uncle’s family house for the gate crashing. This was something I had never heard of before, but turns out it’s a tradition for weddings!
As Wikipedia says, “In Chinese communities, especially in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, wedding door games are challenges set up by the bridesmaids for the groom as a ceremonial demonstration of the groom's love for the bride. These games typically take place in the morning of the wedding at the bride's family home, before the groom is allowed to receive the bride in the bride's room. The groom typically receives the help of his groomsmen in completing the tasks.”
It was so fun taking part in something so traditional with our family. The tasks were all super funny and eventually, Ephraim the groom, made it all the way to Esther’s room to escort her to the wedding.
And then I died.
Figuratively and literally.
On the drive over to the church, I got super carsick and basically was dead during the entire ceremony. The only thing I remember was Esther walking down the aisle, and honestly that’s all I needed because she was stunting on these wedding guests!
I’ve always seen jokes and memes about Asian aunties but I had never truly experienced it until I was sick. One of my aunts saw me running towards the bathroom at the end of the ceremony, followed me, and took me to the back of the church to help make me feel better.
At one point I had like ten aunties swarming me, and educating Coley on how to massage my different pressure points so I would feel better. Not to mention they put tiger balm EVERYWHERE. But I was so thankful that so many people were there helping me! Honestly, it made me feel a lot better.
There was a couple-hours-long break between the ceremony and the reception that night, so I took that time to take a phat nap and get ready. Esther had asked my sisters and I to perform at the reception, so we also had to go rehearse during that downtime.
My favorite part of the night during the reception was when the band was wrapping up, the guests were leaving, but my family stayed and requested an encore of John Denver songs. At one point, my whole entire family was all linked together, dancing and screaming the words to “Take Me Home Country Roads” and honestly I’ll never forget that.
Sadly, the next day it was time to fly home. Going back to Malaysia made me realize how much I love the culture I come from, and how proud I am to fully embrace who I am. As my sister said in her Insta caption, “I’m Malaysian American and I’m proud!” and I couldn’t have said it better myself.