Once you pop, you can't stop!

When the initial chock that comes from seeing snow on the ground had finally settled, we began to take in more of our surroundings. Sweden should be very familiar to us both but it actually feels like a strange place on earth right now. Hard to put in words but it's just so very disconnected, dislocated (is that a word?) from the rest of the world.

Our apartment also feels odd. First of all it feels very small. And then white, why is everything white? When we opened up the door to our place for the first time since January it felt more like we were on an apartment show (lägenhetsvisning).

Another strong feeling we get is ... what next? We're sure we'll have great time here (we love Stockholm) and it will be fantastic to meet our family and friends again, but there is so much more out there and we want to see it, we want to see it all! So stay tuned, as many more sunny adventures will be coming. We promise!

But speaking of family and friends and everybody else around the world who was curious about our trip. We wanna thank all of you who paid our blog a visit, actually many of them! Your visits inspired and motivated us to keep the documenting going.

Here is some web statistic from the last two months that we pulled from Google Analytics.

• Number of absolute unique visitors: 303
• Total number of visits: 1 296 from 21 countries
• Average time spent on site: 4:20 minutes
• Total number of page views 4 876

Coming to a pirate near you

The eagle has landed. Once again we have Swedish soil between our toes, or at least we would have if it had not been so frickin cold! What is this people? We thought we had an agreement. You were supposed to have spring up and running by the time we got back, were you not? Well anyway, freezing is nice for a change (not!)

So since it's cold and nasty it seems suitable with some DVD recommendations. Here is our top 3 list of films that we saw and enjoyed while we were away. Followed by 3 crappy movies that we were unfortunate enough to catch, do not repeat our mistake.

THE HIT LIST

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Not every day we see a stop-motion animated film but this one is a must if you're a fan of Wes Anderson, and you should be. George Clooney does the voice of Mr. Fox, a sly chicken stealing family man, (read fox) who gets in trouble with three angry farmers who are tired of sharing their chickens with Mr. Fox. Other voices are done by Meryl Streep, Owen Wilson and Bill Murray. Great attention to details, this one you have to see at least twice.

El secreto de sus ojos
Won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film 2010. Well deserved we think. About a man who when retired tries to solve a murder that happened 30 years earlier but still haunts him in his sleep. Opening today we believe, if you live in Sweden and prefer the big screen.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno
It's a comedy OK! And the link above is safe for work. Two friends with cash flow issues comes to the conclusion that making a porno is the answer to all of their problems. Lots of funny quotes can be pulled from this movie but taken out of context they make no sense so you just have to watch it yourself. Remember, watching it tipsy only adds more laughter. From director Kevin "Clerks" Smith.

Close but no cigar: Traitor, Gridiron Gang and Up in the Air.

THE SHIT LIST

Ginostra
So bad, just horrible. This thriller stars Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell. The lack of positive review quotes on the cover should have tipped us off but it didn't. Money and more importantly honeymoon time right down the drain.

Public Enemies
What happened here? Solid director Michael Mann plus great actors like Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Martins new favorite (not based on his performance here) Channing Tatum it should add up to a exiting and interesting movie. But no, it adds up to shit, diddly-squat a real sleeping pill. If we want Tommy Gun galore obviously we'll just see Miller's Crossing again.

Today you die
Not fair you say, you can't include a Steven Seagal movie on the list, of course it's gonna suck and therefor should be left out of competition. Right you are, we agree! However, this one is just so bad it's bad even for Mr. Seagal standards. The plot goes as follows Steven Seagal "portrays" Harlan Banks a former thief who is trying to go straight but needs to do one last... f this, who cares.

It's the final countdown

After being on the road for 62 days, visiting 6 city's in 4 countries it's now time to travel back home to Europe and Stockholm.

Top 4 things we will miss when back in Stockholm (in no particular order)

• Restaurant prices - there is no problem going from starving to full for 8 SEK (3 PLN).
• Laundry service - so cheap you almost feel ashamed when paying.
• Service minded and genuinely nice Malaysian people.
• Freshly squeezed orange juice - from 5 SEK (2 PLN) a glass.

Top 4 things we now love about Sweden (in no particular order)

• Drinkable tap water.
• Right-side traffic without the jams.
• Fast Internet connection.
• Tunnbrödrulle

Top 4 things we won't miss about Malaysia (in no particular order)

• Being followed around in stores by sales clerks
• The traffic jams
• The lizards
• The Absolute Music 5 CD (or whatever was hot 25 years ago) that all stores insists on repeating over and over again.
  

Most useless thing we packed
Socks. Last time we wore socks it was still January.

Best restaurant we found in Malaysia
La Sal at Pantai Cenang, Langkawi. We have been there 3 times and between the two of us we must have tried half of the dishes on the menu. So it feels safe to say that you can't go wrong at this place. Don't miss out on the drinks either!

Central Market, Kuala Lumpur

Housed in a sky blue Art Deco building dating from the 1930s, the Central Market or the Cultural Bazaar as it's also known, was formerly the place to go to for the people of Kuala Lumpur when they needed fresh produced food. Today the market focuses more on shopping with Indian, Chinese and Malay ethnic arts and craft shops. Prices never seem unreasonable here but we were told that you have to put your game face on as haggling is necessary. We didn't shop much for ourself per se but we did dig up some great (we hope) finds for close ones back home.

Surroundings of our hotel, just round the corner from the five star Sheraton hotel and suddenly you are hit with these great contrasts.






Inside Central Market, paradise for bargain lovers


















On our way back to the hotel




Nelly playing hide and seek with a friendly waitress while mom and dad were eating dinner.

Shoping Spree in Kuala Lumpur

The trendy shopping district Bukit Bintang is to Kuala Lumpur what Orchard Road is to Singapore but with one major difference. Everything is cheaper in Bukit Bintang. So after a steady breakfast at the Pancake House we hit the new Pavilion mall. It was a successful raid for the whole team. Nelly got away with most stuff as usual, she is after all our MVP. But mom and dad also scored. Dad got a new sweater from Ted Baker and a shirt from Paul Frank. While mom invested in a brand new laptop from Samsungs N-series.

Swedish flag burning in Kuala Lumpur

As we're sure you know (cause apparently it's front page news in Sweden) a Swedish flag was set on fire outside our country's embassy in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. Protesters demanded action to be taken against cartoonist Lars Vilks and newspapers that published his caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Don't send the marines just yet though, we're safe from harm! But thanks for your kind heads up and shown concern. Here in Kuala Lumpur the event is not even reported by the news. If you try and search The Star Online which is Malaysias biggest newspaper you come up empty. All Swedish related news here are about Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

However it's good to know that the Malaysian government keeps a watchful eye on the media here. News that are not considered to qualify to be public knowledge do not appear in the papers and are not discussed on TV. We don't watch much Malaysian TV, but we spotted immediately that some Amercian movies are being censored here, for example the naughty classic "Sex and the City".

Nelly plus entourage on the move again

We have crossed the border once again, gone from Singapore to Malaysia. The trip went smooth, just under one hour. Nelly is such a good sport when we're on the move and travelling with AirAsia is a breeze, Lufthansa has a lot they could learn from them.

Singapore was great, we were sad to go. Really expensive though, that's the down side but apart from that we loved it. They have a nice mixture of old and new that harmonize well! People are kind, everything is clean and the whole town just run like clockwork.

Our hotel Sheraton Imperial in Kuala Lumpur is great which is a breath of fresh air cause we really didn't care much for the one we stayed at in Singapore, The Rendezvous.

Here at the Sheraton in KL we have for example a walk-in closet which we turned into Nelly's master bedroom. She's sleeping there right now at the time of writing this, exhausted after a long day. Another great thing about our room is the huge window that goes all the way down to the floor, perfect when traveling with a small one. The view from 27th floor keeps Nelly occupied, sometimes for over 5 minutes. It takes a lot nowadays to amuse her after two months of adventure in Asia.

Singapore by day - Singapore by night

After exploring Chinatown we took the subway to Clarke Quay for a nice slow cruise on the river.

The Singapore river divides it's host in two equally beautiful parts, the River Planning Area and the River Valley. Practically all land surrounding the river is commercial hot spot. Thus making the river cruise a perfect starting point for those who want to get a quick overview of Singapore.

























Singapore by night

After a nice dinner at Clarkes Quay it was time for one last adventure before we'd call it a night.





The Singapore Flyer is the world's largest observation wheel, each rotation takes 30 minutes.

It was a real bitch getting there though cause the free brochure we found at the hotel said the closest subway station was City Hall but failed to mention that you then have to take a special shuttle bus. When we learned this we asked some guy who apparently was a complete idiot how long the bus ride was and he said we could easily walk it. Wrong! We did maybe half the distance but by then we had completely run out of curse words so we had to surrender and jump into a cab.

The hassle getting there turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Night time must be the perfect hour to take the ride actually. The land is dark and there's nothing but glittering city lights beneath your feet, it's urban beauty at it's best!

Chinatown - Singapore

Last full day in Singapore for us today. And even though we love the place, the great distance between Stockholm and this part of the world makes it a little uncertain when we'll see it again. Therefore we decided to be really busy bees and try to see as much as possible starting with Chinatown.

The Chinese people are by far the largest ethnic group in Singapore, composing approximately 75% of the population, which makes it perhaps a little bit silly to talk about a Chinatown part of town. However there's a certain district here called Chinatown that does retain buildings of historical and cultural significance. Large sections of it have been declared national heritage sites.