Monday - splitting up and heading home

Today it was time to head home. Lei and Anna went from KL to Narita then home, and I had to take a train down to Singapore before flying up to Narita then home. 

Max!!! He was such a great host and we were stoked that we finally got to try his jam!! Hahaha, breakfast provided. You just have to bring your own bread for toast and milk if you want milk. But he provides the jam! It was pretty good. 

Me at the Singapore Changi Airport. I took a long train down to Singapore and then an hour and a half bus to finally arrive at the airport around midnight (having left KL at 2pm). My flight was around 6am. 

Gotta love McDonald's! And if you notice one of my ketchups is off-color because I decided to put some chili. It was so good! I wish McDonald's had that chili everywhere. 

The benches I slept on. That spacing makes them terribly uncomfortable. 

The benches I wish I slept on (they were on the other side of security). 

I can't say why, but it felt really good to be flying back into Japan. What a perfect country. 

Back together!! You can't tell it in this photo because everyone is so out of it, but we were happy to see each other again. hahaha. 

On my next flight. 

My customs form. Almost too many countries to fit on it! : D

Church and Batu Caves

Sunday! The Day of REST. We were really happy to go to church and really happy that it didn't start until 11AM! Church was so great. I had one of the best lessons I've ever had in priesthood. The teacher was really well prepared and we had a great discussion about the Holy Spirit and how we can always be conscious of Him and the spiritual promptings we receive. I'm so grateful for everything I know about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that I can keep learning more!

Sacrament meeting was pretty amazing too. There was a kid that sang a solo but he forgot the words halfway through so he asked if he could start over. It was pretty adorable. I love small branches. 

There was also a speaker that told us about how his sister had died in a car wreck when someone had crashed into her, but it was actually chill because she was a jerk to everyone in the family anyway! Haha. It was such a crazy story! 

Sacrament was awesome! That little boy was so adorable! His mom was the relief society president, they were such a cute family. And the guy that talked about his dead sister was unreal, he said something like "it's okay to dislike people." And "all of my sisters friends said such nice things about her after she died, and we were all surprised because she was so horrible."

Relief society was great! I'm so happy and grateful for the Holy Ghost and the protection, guidance, and comfort that it brings into our lives. I love this gospel! I'm also so grateful that we got to take the sacrament and renew our baptismal covenants. 

Some random guy checking out the church. I hope he joins!

Batu caves. Amazing statue, magnificent cliffs, and MONKEYS EVERYWHERE. At one point there was a dog that was threatening them and all the monkeys got totally crazy. Actually, there were a lot of points were the monkeys got totally crazy. Monkeys crack me up. 

Too many monkeys, not into it. Ugh. 

View from inside the caves looking up. 

This photo doesn't really capture it, but it's the best I could do. Basically the monkeys were jumping all over the cliffs and it was super cool. 

With our new friend, Sandra! We met her at the hostel. She's from Canada, but she's actually portuguese. She quit her job, came traveling around SE Asia, and nest she's going to go do a working holiday in Australia! After that she wants to head to South America. She's so cool! Hopefully we run into her in some part of the world someday in the future. 

Sandra is awesome, she was a therapist for troubled children at a school, and she lived in San Francisco for 4 years. She's 4 feet and 11 inches, and is super feisty! I love it!!!  

Kuala Gandah

Today was unbelievable. Pictures can't really capture it and I don't think the few videos we took come close either. It was just SO COOL. We played with elephants, snakes, hedgehogs, geckos, deer, ostrich, and just had a total blast! When I say played with I mean we were really playing with them! It was so cool. Lei arm wrestled and got smacked by an baby elephant with it's trunk, I kissed a snake, and Anna got jolted when she touched a little hedgehog. It was just so cooL!!

This elephant was such a punk, it kept reaching over and smacking the other elephants. Haha. So funny!

So adorable!

We got to hold this hedgehog! So amazing!

We also made a new friend, Peiyin (she's on the far right). She's super cool! She's King (a good friend from BYUH)'s childhood friend and best friend and she was our tour guide for the day! We ate some great local food together! We also all got into the river and washed the elephants! It was the coolest. 

Peiyin was so nice! She drove us around, knew all these random animal facts (she's a zoology major), and took us to eat delicious food! Thanks King and Peiyin!

At night we went and did laundry. I sneakily took a photo of this guy sitting down because he was helping Anna with her laundry for no reason and then I thought he kinda looked like the guy in the "BECAREFUL THIS GUY !!!" sign. 

I'm on the fence, I think Ray is just being racist. Or am I being racist? We will never know. But what an amazing day!!!!!! 

Ao Nang to KL

Today it was time to leave Thailand and head to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!

Lei didn't really want to take a morning photo. This was while we were waiting for the van to pick us up and take us to the airport. 

Construction at the airport. 

I'm not really sure why I took this photo...but it kind of reminds me of the super long walkway in KL (which was actually way bigger and longer), but it was super cool! It was a walkway connecting the terminals but it was so big that planes could go under it!! Amazing. We love KL already. 

Dinner! It was super good and cheap and the people here are all friendly. 

When we got to the hostel (which was super nice) we met Max, the hostel manager. He's a super nice guy and a bit of a character. He told us something like this:

"We provide breakfast from 7 o'clock to 11 o'clock every day. We have jam for you, and you just have to buy your own bread at the store if you want toast, and buy milk if you want milk. But we provide the jam."

This is the jam in the fridge. Hahaha. So funny. ^^

Ao Nang

Today was a chill day in Ao Nang (Krabi). Rainy season means that the weather can be pretty hit and miss. 

The view outside our hostel this morning:

Same view five minutes later: 

It got pretty wet. 

Raining so hard!!! 

So we mostly just chilled and we ate some good local food. Pictured above is where we got most of our meals. They were pretty cheap (50 baht, about $1.60) and pretty tasty too. 

For dinner we decided to splurge and go for some Italian. It was so good! Lei and I had a little date night. Between the two of us dinner was still only about $9. 

We forgot to take a picture, but it was fun!!!

Tomorrow we'll head off to Malaysia! The last country of our trip. 

:'( 

Phi Phi to Krabi

Well, today we left Phi Phi! It was kind of sad because Phi Phi is so beautiful and amazing, but it was nice too because it was hard to go to sleep at night with the live music being played next door to our hostel (they were really good though!)

The girls weren't really feeling a photo in the morning. 

"DELETE IT"

Breakfast. It was so good!

Not our boat. But I thought it looked nice. 

Trying to get a timer photo

Oh gosh haha. Fail.

Lei posing with a random cat. The cat wasn't feeling it. 

It hated me.

It says welcome to Phi Phi, but we were actually saying goodbye. :'(

Lei on the boat over to Krabi

Fun fact: almost hurled while this photo was being taken

Ao Nang! This is the beach about a block from our hostel. It was so cool! I love the cliffs here. 

Kap kum KAP!

I'm gonna miss Thailand! Thanks for being an awesome country!

Phi Phi - Day 2

Another great day on Phi Phi! People keep saying we should have come during "high season" when the sun is shining and everything looks perfect...but...that's from January through April and there's no way we got time for that!

Even though it rained in the morning, things cleared up in the afternoon and we were able to get outside and enjoy. 

Longtail boats (water taxis) waiting to take people around. 

I went exploring the island a little on my own (it's a very small island) and I got to this fence! It's totally Jurassic Park here!

This is kind of gross, but I thought it was really interesting to stumble upon where all the wastewater goes! 

A couple girls that did NOT know how to enjoy the beach! They were sitting in those chairs forever and both just on their phones!

Seriously, they were there for a couple hours. What the heck haha.

This photo isn't that good, but the water was so clear!! We were basically snorkeling without a snorkel and we found tons of little fish, crazy crabs that would attack us, 

Those little punks were scuttling around so fast!

Chillin out in the water. 

Lei and I decided to have a contest to see who could catch a fish first. I'll be honest, I started to doubt that we could even do it all, but then Lei had the idea that we could build a wall around some fish and catch them that way! We actually both caught fish and it was super cool! They were small and we let them go right away, but it was way fun. 

It was so fun! They were so quick!