We just finished our 25th month as full-time travelers!
We are still here in Malaysia we are very thankful that we're being allowed to stay in the country even though our visa has expired.
This is of course due to Covid and we're going to try and stay in Malaysia as long as we can because we really love it here.
We are not trying to rush to all the tour sites right now.
We're just really enjoying living in everyday life here in Malaysia.
But let me tell you about our top experiences during this past month, our 25th month as full-time travelers.
So if you watched last month's video you saw that we celebrated my birthday, but this month we celebrated my wife Emily's birthday.
We went to a nice French restaurant called Two Frenchies.
We had some great food here and they gave Emily a free dessert since it was her birthday.
And then later we went to buy a ukulele, a nice gift for Emily.
And like I said we don't try to spend all of our time sightseeing.
We like enjoying personal hobbies as well, and I think learning to play the ukulele will be fun.
After that we went to a place called Moody Cow Cafe and had the biggest piece of cheesecake I have ever seen in my life.
It was dark inside so I didn't get a good picture of it but here's a picture from their website.
And I'm telling you this cheesecake was huge.
Malaysia has two big national holidays, national independence day or Merdeka and Malaysia Day or Hari Malaysia.
Unfortunately most of the festivities were cancelled due to Covid but we did get to see the patriotism through the people displaying flags on their houses on their cars in their businesses on the streets,
and also enjoyed seeing the family spending time together and having fun together as a way to celebrate these holidays.
Yeah I know, why would going to a furniture store be one of our top experiences as foreign tourists?
Well like I said we do like visiting tourist sites but we also like experiencing just everyday living.
We needed to buy a few small household items, and by the way the IKEA here is almost exactly the same as the IKEA back home.
We even saw some of the exact same furniture that we had at home.
And even a lot of the food was the same and we actually like the food in IKEA, so yeah this was a fun experience and a fun day.
If you've been watching our videos then you know that we are so impressed with the healthcare here in Malaysia, and this month we went to the dentist.
First, we made the appointment just a few days ahead of time, back home I would have had to make the appointment six months ahead of time.
Second the cost of a checkup and cleaning at home is about three to four times more expensive than here in Malaysia.
Third the quality of the work was excellent.
And fourth, the dentist and the staff were so friendly and so professional and did an excellent job.
Right next to our dentist office there is a restaurant that always has a really long line, so we figured it must be good.
We went here after our dentist appointment and it was terrific.
This is another nasi kandar restaurant which is my favorite Malaysian food so far.
Nasi kandar is a dish that originates right here in Penang but it has kind of an Indian spice flavoring
It was so so good, if our apartment was in this neighborhood we would probably come to this restaurant every day.
The botanical garden in Penang is a great place to get away for some peace and quiet.
There are plenty of interesting plants and trees and foliage, although we personally are not much into botany.
So what we liked about this place was just the beautiful setting.
It kind of reminded me of my university campus where I went to college.
It's a very big park so there's plenty of spaces where you can go for a picnic or just walk around and admire the nature and the tranquility.
And the top experience for this month was a cooking class right here in George Town.
The class started with a trip to a fresh market so that we could see and learn about the local ingredients used to make the Malaysian food.
Then we went to a roti factory so that we could see how the dough was made.
Once the dough gets separated into small balls it gets placed in the big bins that you see in the back there and then those get sold to the local restaurants.
Then it was time for class and time to make some roti ourselves and yeah ladies and gentlemen, it's much harder than it looks.
You have to flip the dough in a certain way and every time I tried the dough would come apart.
But at least it still tasted good.
We also made char kway teow and wow that was really good.
This is a very popular dish here with flat rice noodles chives bean sprout egg and it usually has prawns or shrimp and it was really good.
For dessert we made made kuih ketayap.
It's kind of a crepe that gets filled with toasted coconut and this was really good too.
The cooking class was such a great experience and it's so much more immersive to learn to make this food rather than just buying the same food at a restaurant or a food stall.
All right so those were our top experiences this month, but we still have more time here in Penang so we'll still have some new things to show you.
But next month we are going to go to another area of Malaysia to have some new adventures.
Let me give you a hint, it involves another island in Malaysia, so if you think you might want to guess where we're going next please leave a comment below.
In the meantime please subscribe to our channel and also take a look at our website at snailtravelers.com to find out more about our world travel adventure.