Dear Blogger’s Block,
You are harder to lose than the last few pounds from the Malaysia trip—you know, the one I’m trying to write about. The one you’re prohibiting me from writing about by completely overstaying your welcome.

I expect you to come when Huzhou life has reached its predictable static lull, when life is nothing but the constant roll of class-gym-dinner-bed repeat. But when I actually have something to write about, it is very inconsiderate of you to stick around. Trying to get you to leave is like trying to sweep every grain of spilled flour out from underneath a refrigerator.

It’s especially inconsiderate given the murtabak I ate for breakfast that Saturday morning in Melaka, the delicate yet crisp pan-fried dough cradling lamb and onions.

Eddie’s rice and curry

And tandoori (I think?) chicken with crispy skin:

There were the vegetables, which would not have been on the table unless I had insisted that we eat some smidgen of fiber sometime during our trip.

Blogger’s Block definitely doesn’t want me to tell about the side of egg roti…

And the sugar I subsequently sprinkled on top.

You hold my words hostage for our visit to Tan Kim Hock, a store with stack after wobbly stack of snacks and delicacies and goodies. Dried prawn strings, coconut candies, coffee candies, palm sugar, cookies, cakes, nuts, gummies and things I’d never seen before.

Tan Kim Hock also has great cendol, but you didn’t want me to tell anyone that, did you blogger’s block? The lads all ordered the durian cendol but since I wanted to enjoy my cendol I opted for straight-up palm sugar.

Palm sugar. Nooooooooooooooooooooom. Nature’s sweetened condensed milk.

Clinton continued to test the laws of physics driving us back to Kuala Lumpur, but I’ve been informed by one of the lads that’s all censored subject matter. Let’s just say, that weekend the Formula 1 was in town, and I suspect that their skills paled in comparison to Clinton’s.

None of us were hungry for lunch, so instead we went to an air conditioned shopping mall to burn enough energy to make room for dinner. We parked the car, took the escalator out of the car park, and immediately found ourselves in the food court. We exercised self-restraint and walked right through with out activating our digestive systems.

HA!

Yeah, right.

I indulged in some mediocre carrot cake.

And a veggie samosa.

And some fried Chinese snacks Clinton brought over. It’s not a meal if you don’t say it is!

We waddled slowly through Bukit Bintang, in and out of an A&W, where Clinton unsuccessfully tried to buy a mug.

We shuffled over to another mall, the one with the indoor amusement park. After the lads were finished drooling in the Sony store, we heard loud bangs. “What is that?” I asked.

“Canons,” said Jason.

This answer isn’t quite so ridiculous when you consider that at our hotel in Melaka, the Indonesian Army was conducting exercises and the first morning, we awoke to the harmonies of canon and machine gun fire.

Strangely enough, there were not canons being fired in the middle of Malaysian metropolis, but instead, fireworks.

Whodathunkit?

Dinner at Overseas Restaurant, though an especially tough spatial challenge, was a requirement in both principle and gastronomy. The place was buzzing with diners of every nationality. This was The Cantonese place to eat.

Eddie was very excited. [Photo by Jason]

In an unprecedented show of practicality, we ordered only four dishes. Stir-fried vegetable that looked and tasted like lettuce but which, Clinton assured me, was not lettuce:

This is good Chinese food. Though it’s oily, the predominant flavor is the vegetable and an enhancing slick of ingredients (I think soy sauce?). The oil should just be there to help the medicine go down.

And some short ribs.

When I’m stuffed, I find I have a harder time eating protein than I do carbohydrates. I only ate one of these, but it was aromatic and sweet but meaty and succulent.

And light, perfect steamed fish:

Though it was far too small, even for four full stomachs.

And some egg sauce rice, just like the dish we’d had the night before, just with noodles instead of rice.

Consistency of a setting Jell-o mould, deliciousness factor of a carbohydrate oasis.

Somehow, three desserts ended up on the table. Taro cake:

Coconut pudding:

Some ice thing with jellies that looked like leeches:

After dinner, we retired to the hotel for a few hours. Around one AM, Jason and Clinton went out for a drive and Eddie took me out for an early morning of dancing at the club Zouk. Dancing, like chocolate and coffee, is a relatively new like of mine. It took me years to figure out how to not feel stupid and just dance. Not that I don’t look stupid. I just stopped caring.

The only places to dance in Huzhou have terrible music; the places with acceptable music (though nothing recognizable, save for Happy Birthday and no I’m not joking) don’t have much dancing. So to be in a club with Lady Gaga, Akon, Rihanna and more with someone who liked to dance was a huge treat for me.

Sadly the club closed at 3, so Eddie and I spent almost two hours at a Nasi Goreng stand talking and cooling off beneath the fan. A few hours later, the four of us ate an un-photographed delicious brunch of noodles, noodles, and more noodles. Clinton kindly schlepped me to the airport, and before I knew it, I was back in Huzhou.

I’d like to publicly extend my thanks to the lads. Jason did pretty much all of the planning, which is a huge undertaking. All three of them treated me so well and showed infinite generosity, and Clinton and Eddie hardly knew me.

So thank you, lads. Fabulous way to turn 24, and I’ll never forget it.

And to you, Blogger’s Block, seriously. Can’t you go bother someone else?

Yours Forever Bloated,

Plate of Wander