Wes & Erica's vacation photo album// DFW, TX // August 2025

We took a quick trip to Texas in August to see Ghost on their Skeletour (for Wes) and to see the Return to Infinity: Yayoi Kusama exhibit (for me). I've been told, more than once 😖, that our vacations seem like an exhausting to-do list instead of a relaxing experience, so this time those two activities were literally all we did -- no extra stops, no last minute plans.😊 (I actually also wanted to go to Fuzz Lab, but their hours are weird & there wasn't a location near our hotel, which meant we'd have to stress to fit it in, so we skipped it.) We got to spend quality time lounging around in our nice hotel and I got a lot of crocheting done on our downtime.

Probably the largest sandwich I've see in my lifetime. I ate about 3/4 of it.

Wes has a couple of coworkers from the Dallas division of Paycom so we're always getting good restaurant recommendations. We had lunch at Weinberger's Deli in Grapevine, TX. (Downtown Grapevine is super cute, and I would have wanted to walk around their historic main street, which is railroad and dinosaur themed, if it wasn't 102℉ that afternoon.🌞) The deli was packed, even though it was around 2pm when we got there. Wes got Morgan's Turkey sandwich, which had both turkey & pepperoni, and I got the Vera Cuban. There are soooo many different sandwiches on the menu; it was hard to choose but I went with vera because it had cilantro on it. 🥪 We both liked our giant sandwiches, but also both wished we had gotten something else (Wes the muffuletta and me the lamb special). Wes saw a billboard for Grape Fest, advertised as the best wine festival in the region, annually in September in Grapevine on our drive out of town. 🍷 It's been added to the 2026 vacation itinerary! 

We went to Nando's (Dallas location -- about an hour away but so worth it) for dinner. 🐔 I learned from No Such Thing As A Fish that the Nando's franchise is the world's largest buyer of South African art because they decorate each of their restaurants with art made by indigenous artists... like they actively seek out native & emerging artists to feature in their various locations. So, of course the first thing I do when we walk in is look at all the art on the walls! 🎨 The menu even had art on it and a QR code that takes you to the artists from that location's social medias. That aspect of the restaurant is super neat, and the food was delicious, too! 😋 I rarely see livers on offer so I got them (even though I much prefer gizzards). OMG they were so tasty!! Wes isn't a huge fan of livers, either, and he agreed that they were very good. They had several sauce options to choose from; I got the Peri-paradise sauce over the livers and the Peri-ranch over the Brussels sprouts (Wes went with medium). We also sampled the lemon & herb sauce, which Wes really liked but I didn't. We got the Naughty Nata (Portuguese custard tart) for dessert, to-go because we were stuffed but couldn't turn down a sweet treat. LOL

I should have taken a picture of the fighter jet/airplane decor inside. It was definitely a theme restaurant. 

The next morning, we had breakfast at West Side Café, an airplane themed diner that is close enough to some sort of base or training facility that we could hear jets flying overhead while we ate. 🛫 Not sure if they built it there on purpose to really lean into the theme. LOL I wanted to try their bacon, cheddar & chive "tater kegs" but they're only served at lunch. (My newest foodie goal is to eat a tater keg -- a large tater tot stuffed with something yummy.) I ended up with Mama Sue's hashbrown casserole and French toast instead. The food was okay. I liked that their syrup is warmed up and Wes liked that his bacon was hickory smoked instead of Applewood smoked. 

We had no plans until dinner that evening, so we stopped in Café Azul on our way back to the hotel to get coffee to sip on the rest of the day. ☕ The little coffee shop looked so familiar but I don't think we've been before. I got the Mexican mocha and Wes got the churro latte. We stayed in Fort Worth's Cultural District, and right across the street from the Kimball art museum. I checked their website to see if they had any good special exhibits but nothing peaked our interest. Again, it would have been fun to walk around the area if it wasn't 100℉. Man, I HATE summer. 😠 Ugh.

I've never been a fan of bologna but the slices we got on the meat & cheese plate were really good. Wes was not impressed.

Our next meal (late lunch... early dinner... whatever meal you eat at 3:30pm) was at Taste of Europe, another restaurant recommended by one of Wes's coworkers. There is a small grocery store with Eastern European foods at the back of the restaurant. The market had some interesting things that we wanted to try, but nothing was going to keep well in the car while we were out & about. I tried a chicken kiev for the first time. It was good and I loved the lemon butter. 🧈 I could dip anything in that stuff! LOL I tried one of Wes's perogies. It was so heavy; no idea how he ate all 10 of them. I guess we wouldn't be having dinner until late night after the concert so it was a good idea to have a nice meal beforehand. 

The Ghost concert was a phones-free event (so no pictures for the next few paragraphs😢). The concept was terrifying at first (no phones... what if there's a terrorist attack, medical emergency, bad weather??!?! 😳), but it ended up being okay. Ghost's frontman claimed that not having your phone made you "more engaged with the band", but honestly, I think it was to protect his proprietary material -- no concert footage leaked on YouTube. I may have been a bit more engaged but I was also 100x more anxious. 😵 The concert was at the very nice & CLEAN Dickies arena. The employees placed our phones in Yondr bags for us as we walked in, and there were more employees outside of the arena waiting to unlock our bags as we exited. I thought the process would be more chaotic, resulting in a crush... and none of us having a phone to call for an ambulance, but it was very well organized. Kudos to the Dickies arena staff! 👍

Wes loved the concert; Ghost is one of his favorite bands, and that's all that really matters. My opinion is just blah, blah, blah, noise. 💀 This was our second time seeing them live. (First concert was at their 2022 Imperatour) I thought that maybe the first show wasn't amazing because the venue wasn't packed and our energy was off (it was in Lincoln, NE... not exactly a hotbed for heavy metal music). But this time, the Dickies arena housed a sold-out crowd and the vibe was top notch, and I still felt like Ghost wasn't having the time of their lives like we were. 😑 I guess my main problem is that it sounded so rehearsed-- exactly as they do on Pandora; at one point I wondered if it was even live. I know, its a weird complaint that the band sounded too good but that's just me. 🤷

Overall, the show was fun & we enjoyed ourselves.  I've become a Ghost fan over the years and I could recognize the hits. 🎶They played a few of the songs that Wes really likes that they didn't play the last time we saw them; I think he really likes the new Skeletá album so it was a good tour to go to. We wanted t-shirts but the merch line was insanely long before the show. I volunteered to step out during a lull to grab the shirts we wanted, but by the time I got the merch booth, our sizes were sold out. 😒 We had planned to get sushi after the show (Blue Sushi Sake Grill was just 10 minutes away), but it took ages to get out of the parking garage and back onto the main street. We settled for Taco Bell on the way back to the hotel instead; their taco pizza was no replacement for delicious sushi, but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to dinner at 11:30pm.

Hands down the best breakfast I've had in a while!! 😍 Definitely the best mimosa I've ever had.

The next morning, we had breakfast at Lucile's. 😋 We've been keeping a list of restaurants to return to each time we're in Texas; Wes has Hurtado BBQ and Blue Sushi Sake Grill, and I'm adding Lucile's. We ate off the breakfast menu, but I'm dying to try their lunch & dinner options. Lucile's is a cute little house built on a median and inside is filled with open air New Orleans vibes. Super cute decor and very  welcoming. Wes said his bacon was cooked perfectly. I got the crab lump benedicts, with huge lumps of fresh crab. 🦀 Everything we got was so good!

After breakfast, we headed back into Dallas for the art museum. It was still kind of early when we got there, so we got street parking right in front of the museum. 😁 I don't think we've ever been so lucky with street parking. We were only planning to visit the Kusama exhibit, but our tickets came with free general admission so I paid the max time (2 hours) so we could walk around. We got back to the car literally as the parking app's timer went off!

Oh how nice it would be to be a woman spinning yarn in a shop with her husband and cozy dog. #wistful 

The museum also had a pair of shoes that Yayoi Kusama made; she stuffed the shoes with balls of paper-or maybe it was rocks- and painted them, so they were no longer useful. I think it is supposed to represent being saddled down with ills to where you can't function fully as a human anymore.

The Kusama exhibit wasn't really worth the price 😒 so I'm glad we got general admission into the museum as well. I thought it would be larger, but it literally is a 10x10ft box. With no ventilation. There are glass pumpkins all around and the walls & ceilings are mirrors so we were standing in a pumpkin field, completely surrounded. Very cool concept... but there is a time limit and we were accompanied by a museum guard. We could only go in there one time for only 90 seconds. (When we went to the exhibit in Bentonville, we could go in as many times as we wanted and linger for as long as we liked.) I didn't mind the time constraint, but what ruined the experience for me was the guard. She clicked her stop watch when we got in and did not take her eyes off us; she was just doing her job and there was no way for her to be invisible in such a tiny setting, but it was truly distracting. We were free to take pictures & selfies and talk or whatever, but it felt so weird with her there. 😫 I couldn't feel engaged or immersed in my "immersive art experience" (which made me think of the Ghost concert the night before and decide that, yeah, I actually was pretty engaged then after all). 

We tried to find all the new acquisitions since its been a few years since our last museum visit.

The fuzzy pink closet was my favorite! Bottom right: my spoils from the gift shop. I've looked through the Dalí cookbook and there is nothing that I can make as a home chef 😢

We've been to the Dallas Art Museum once or twice before so we just took a quick tour around this time. Wes wanted to revisit the East Asian collection, and I had to say hi to the mummy (I'm obsessed!) I think we saw all the new (to us) pieces, and hit all the collections on the map.

Mummies are truly the best; I am still mad that we missed the Immersive King Tut tour a few years ago.

Check out the amazing detail on these two! 😲

The artist sculpted wind in the one on the left. WIND. How do you sculpt the concept of weather?! It really looks like the man's garment is billowing, and it blew my mind.

The piece on the right is made from beads. Tons & tons of tiny beads!

It was lunchtime after our museum visit. We drove up to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Plano, TX. I imagined it was a shopping center (the website boasted of a food court and Kinokuniya bookstore), but it was actually a giant Japanese grocery store. It was cool to walk around and look, but it wasn't really what we wanted for lunch. The Kinokuniya was a small stall in the store; kind of disappointing 😞 but we can cross another Kinokuniya location off our list. There was another stall with gumball machines, but with blind box figurines instead of gumballs inside. Each cost 3-4 tokens, and tokens were $5 each... no thank you, I can buy a legit tokidoki Unicorno for cheaper than that.

I should have gotten a picture of all the blind box gumball machines.

Luckily for us, we were in the Asian district of Plano and had plenty of other restaurant options. We went to Sichuan Folk, which was just across the street. All the diners were Asian and the menu was in Chinese, so we knew this place would be good. 😄 They had beef soup dumplings, which was a treat (I usually only come across the pork or veggie ones). I wasn't going to get a spicy dish, but I figured I had to since we were at a Sichuan restaurant. 🌶 I got the cold sesame noodles. They were so good but so spicy!! Wes got a spicy pork dish.

There was a boba place next door so we got drinks for the drive home. I got my standard go to... the strawberry matcha latte.🍵🍓 I liked that it had chunks of fresh strawberry in it. Wes got a fruit tea, and he said he didn't like the chunks of fruit. Opposites attract, I guess. 😆 We had to order from a kiosk, which forced us to customize the drinks. No forgetting to add boba, or questioning the sugar level or how much ice you want. I think all boba places should install these because I can never hear the cashier, who always mumbles, over the loud trendy music. LOL

🚗We went to Buc-ee's to fill up on gas & snacks and take our last potty break before the long drive home. We usually try to leave town mid-morning, but decided to stay a bit later since it was summertime, so the sun would be up longer. My night vision has majorly deteriorated but traffic was fine and we got home before it got too dark. 🌓Another Texas trip in the books! And a relaxing one at that. So long DFW, see you next year for Grape Fest! 🍇

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album// Tulsa, OK // June 2025

The June theme for my sewing club's sew & share is A June Wedding and, boy, did I fulfill that challenge!👰🤵 Wes & I got invited to my friend, Miranda's wedding so I made my dress, a garment bag, and her gift. The dress code was formal (evening) attire so the garment bag was extremely useful. Wes still had to steam his shirt at the hotel, but my dress came out in pristine condition. 💅 The wedding was in Tulsa so we made a little trip of it.  

Preview of wedding pictures... there WILL BE MORE!!
Fun fact: Andrea made her bridesmaid dress (top left). And even more impressive is that she sewed it in two days 😲

We dropped the dogs off at camp Friday morning, and headed out. The Road to Oklahoma shop hop is every June & July, and even though I've been an avid shopper for the past 3 shop hops, I've never visited any of the fabric stores around Tulsa. Our first stop once we got in town was to change that! 

Got my passport and block pattern. And, the striped fat quarter was the free shop hopper gift!

We went to The Quilting Studio. The store was gigantic with all sorts of fun quilting cottons. It was sort of a maze when you first walk in. 😵 There were several classrooms toward the back of the store, too. The shop hop special for the week was $2 fat quarters, but the specials change each Friday... the cashier forgot it was a new Friday so I got my 2 fat quarters at the discount! The only downside was that I had to spend at least $5 to use a credit card, so Wes had to grab all the change out of my car while I rummaged my purse for any cash I had. I guess I could have bought more to remedy this embarrassing situation but I'm trying to not buy too much fabric nowadays. 

I got the calamari banh mi and Wes got the fried chicken bowl. The cinnamon chips were weird as a side.

Next was lunch. 🥪 I saw an Instagram post about Lone Wolf years ago and have been wanting to try it each time we come to Tulsa... but then I find other restaurants I would rather try. LOL We finally made it, and while it was good, I kind of wish we ate somewhere else. 😕The restaurant was right next to Fixins Soul Kitchen (which was amazing... we had lunch there the last time we were in town) and Wes wanted to pivot to eating there again, but I stayed firm with banh mi. Like I said, the food was tasty; Wes said his chicken bowl was good, but my sandwich cost $13.50!! I've never paid more than $7 for a banh mi. Don't jack up the price because you "elevated" ethnic comfort food... ugh, so annoying. 😑

We still had time to kill before the hotel's check in time, so we headed to Scheel's after lunch. It is an enormous sporting goods & athletic apparel store. We were greeted by an aquarium at the entrance and a Ferris wheel in the middle of the store. We walked around both floors but barely looked at any sportswear. We spent most of our time in the pet🐕, snacks🍬, and toys 🏎 sections. In defense of our sportiness, I did look at Pilates attire and Wes looked at pocket knives... we just didn't buy any. We bought dog treats, candy, and Wes found some collectible Hot Wheels for a friend. 

My favorite hotel of all the places we've stayed at in Tulsa.

Our home for the rest of the day would be the Ambassador hotel. It is a historic hotel in downtown Tulsa. Our room was so nice!! It was a lot bigger than some of the others we've stayed in. The lobby had an alcove that was a photo booth, but the computer/camera didn't work 😞 We got to rest for about an hour before the wedding. I was going to curl my hair but my curling iron stopped working, so I took a power nap instead. Wes was worried we'd be late, but I know Miranda and I know weddings... both are rarely ever on time. LOL We had time to get all dressed up, drive to the venue, park on the street and walk to the ceremony, and still had about five minutes to spare!

I saw on their website that the Dresser Mansion has tours, so I'll have to add that to the to-do list the next time we're in Tulsa.

The wedding was at the Dresser Mansion. 🏡 The mansion is a historic site (with the actual National Register of Historic Places designation) built in the 1900s. The house is kept in its original state with art and furniture in all its rooms. We got to walk through a couple of the rooms on our way out to the back patio where the wedding was going to be held. I should have assumed a June wedding would be outdoors but I was so surprised (and a little annoyed) that it was. The mansion had such large, beautiful, air conditioned rooms.

Right as we got settled into our seats, I realized I left Miranda's present (that I spent an entire week working on) in my car! 😖 It was already a little past when the wedding was supposed to start, but I know these things never start on time so I asked Miranda's mom and the officiant if I had 5-10 minutes to run to my car to grab something, and they both said no. So we stayed put in our seats while I sweated & stressed out about the gift. I guess it would have sucked if we missed Miranda's grand entrance. She and her dad appeared on the balcony and came down the stairs for us. She looked so happy. 😊 (In hindsight, I would have had plenty of time to run to the car, grab the gift and make it back into our seats.)

The ceremony was beautiful. 💕 Miranda looked gorgeous in her dress! She and her husband had a wine ceremony where she poured some white wine into a goblet, then he added some red wine to it, and they drank the combination. The wine had been sitting out in the heat all afternoon so I doubt it tasted good but it was a cute gesture. LOL At the end, they were announced as Mr. & Mrs. Mulkey... he took her last name!! That was the first time I've seen that and thought it was so cool!!

They had personalized Pop figures (bottom center left) #soadorable
One of our wedding gifts was a guitar pick with their picture on it (Miranda is a musician); also freaking adorable! (right, third from top)

There was an open bar so we all hung out and drank after the ceremony. Fun, but less so because it was outside in the early evening heat. (🌞 It would be another 2-3 hours before the sun set.) Initially, Kelly from sewing club, was the only other person I recognized, but then I noticed some other familiar faces. We all stood about in the +90℉ heat and talked about how hot it was, but was thankful it wasn't storming. Yay for summer in Oklahoma. 😒 By pure coincidence, we sat at a table with Kelly and Donna... Miranda's two other friends who sew! We had homemade authentic pork tacos made by one of the groom's friend's family. 🌮 The tortillas were so good!! I ate four 😋 I was hot, starving, and slightly buzzed by dinner time so I forgot to take any pictures of the meal.

We watched the first dances, cake cutting (🍰cake was also delicious and I ate it all before I remembered to take a picture), and listened to toasts after dinner. I've been to plenty of weddings, and I think Miranda & Josh have the most caring and genuine friends. Their toasts were so heartfelt; I almost started crying when Andrea started crying during her maid-of-honor speech. Then Josh gave a speech about how happy he is to have joined their family and how much he loves Miranda.💑 I would have been weeping along with him if I wasn't so mad about how hot & sweaty I was. One of his seemingly drunk friends grabbed the microphone after his super emotional speech to give an annoying bro speech, which I thought was kind of rude but it was a good segue into the next round of activities for the night. We had the anniversaries dance (Wes & I came in third with 10 years; Miranda's parents won with 48 years!), the shoe game, and the bouquet toss. 💐We were chatting with her before the toss and I was about to take a picture with her when the DJ announced it. I was like, we'll find you later for our picture. She insisted that we take it now, so I stupidly replied, but you have to toss your bouquet. Then I remembered she's the bride and I should take a picture with her and everyone else can wait. I was four drinks in by this time... and there was no water. Insanity. We were all outside, there was an open bar, jug of lemonade & tea that kept getting refilled, but no water. There was a small jug of water at the beginning of dinner, but no one knew where more was after it ran out (and trust me when I say I asked around). The bartender took pity on me and gave me a cup of ice with a little bit of melted water from the bottom of his bucket. 💦 I knew it was time to head out when heat exhaustion and dehydration started setting in. LOL 

The wedding was a ton of fun and the food was amazing (much better than your standard wedding catered fare); I'm extremely glad & thankful Miranda thought to invite us and let us be a part of her special night. 😍 My dress was literally stuck to me by the time we got to the hotel. I showered, drank an entire bottle of water and promptly fell asleep. I didn't even notice when Wes got in bed. 😂

We got there just before the rush. I've learned that if we're going to a popular breakfast spot, it's best to get seated before 10am.

The next morning, we went to Bramble for breakfast. It was so good! I got the birria chilaquiles; highly recommend. They had a breakfast cocktail menu but all I wanted was water. (I would definitely go again and I'll get a mimosa then.) Wes said he liked his breakfast, but the sausage wasn't as done as he'd like and the latkes were a little over done... if only they met in the middle.

I told myself I was only buying fat quarters for the shop hop block patterns, but I couldn't pass up the Ruby Star fabric with the dainty bows.

We stopped in Sand Springs on our way home. I had another fabric store to visit! We went to Quilt Nuts. It wasn't as big as the shop in Tulsa, but I liked it more. The owner was friendlier and the store just had more welcoming vibes. Most of the fabrics weren't my style, but she had Ruby Star Society on the clearance rack!! 😲 This NEVER happens. I asked how much it was discounted and she said 70% 😮, so I had to get 3 1/2 yards. Main Street in Sand Springs had a ton of cute little boutiques & antique shops, but we couldn't browse because we had to pick up the dogs from camp early. We did stop into Boulder Coffee for a driving home drink. I got the Almond Joy cold brew, but without coconut syrup, so it was more of a chocolate covered almond-flavored cold brew. 🥤 Wes got a plain cold brew and said it tasted average. 

I am so jealous of this lush & healthy basil plant. Mine is dead. 😢

It was a short trip out of town this time, but we enjoyed it. 😀 I really liked the hotel we stayed at, and am glad we got to attend Miranda's wedding. I would consider her sister, Andrea, a close friend but I was a little surprised when we got Miranda's wedding invitation. Wes & I have been to a bunch of weddings, and I think (and Wes would agree) that we felt most welcome & comfortable at this one. It was like we all knew each other and were ready for a good time... more like an evening out with friends than a formal wedding. We talked to everyone, including Miranda's parents, and everyone was just so authentically happy to be there. 💗 Best wishes to Josh & Miranda Mulkey!! 

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album// Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - DAY 4// March 2025

Our hotel was right next to Suria KLCC (the biggest & nicest mall in town!) and we went there every day but didn't actually walk through it and shop until our last day.

Our final day on vacation was *almost* perfect; the day started out fantastically and continued to go well until we got to the airport to prepare to fly back home. 🛫 There, we ran into a slight snafu that ruined our streak of having an ideal trip (😣but we're not going to talk about that because I'm genuinely trying to practice the "power of positivity" and optimism). 

My donut was frosted like the traditional flag/lanterns that we saw hanging everywhere.

Moving on...  🍩☕On one of our many trips to the mall, Wes noticed that there was a Dunkin' and wanted the classic coffee & donut breakfast. I got a rose mocha latte with whipping cream (which was waaaay too sweet and the rose flavor was grossly artificial; I felt like I was drinking a scented candle) and a yummy ketpat donut with pandan frosting and banana cream filling. I also went to a neighboring Indian restaurant and got chicken & potato and lamb & potato samosas. 

Our morning activity for the day was a tour of the historical Rumah Penghulu Abu Seman House. It is a traditional Malaysian house in the middle of the bustling city. It was one of the highlights of the trip for me, but its not a super popular tourist attraction. Our Grab driver actually asked if it was the right place when he dropped us off. 😬 I told him that I thought it was and we hesitantly made our way to the door. 

This historical house tour was my second favorite activity of the trip (nothing will beat the Batu Caves). 

Tours are offered at 11am and 3pm daily. We got there a couple of minutes before 11am. The receptionist was the friendliest/chattiest person we encountered in all of Kuala Lumpur.! 😄 She explained that the house is a World Heritage Site and asked where we are from and how our vacation was going. I told her it was our last day and asked if there was anything we needed to see before we left. She suggested the Kraft Komplex down the street. It is a handmade artisan market and the kitchen would be serving free porridge at 5pm to all visitors (to break the daily fast for Ramadan). That was a little late for us but we'd definitely give the market a look. 

All the gorgeous woodwork is original to the house, and done by hand. Its amazing how well how all of the old buildings throughout the entire city of Kuala Lumpur have been preserved. 

The house's website said we'd watch an informational video before our tour but we didn't see any tv's around. Instead we went to the little giftshop. Our tour guide arrived promptly at 11am and we sprayed ourselves with mosquito repellant, took a traditional straw fan, and headed out onto the grounds. We were the only two people there so we got a personal tour! 🏡 Our tour guide was a sweet young lady who was sooooo insanely knowledgeable about Malaysian history, culture, and of course, everything there is to know about the penghulu house. I imagine she must have been a history student. 

I'm adding Outdoor Kitchen to my next home's "must have" list.

The "penghulu" is the headman or chief of the town. His was the biggest house and it also served as a police station, jail, wedding venue, and community event center. We started outside in the garage area underneath the house. We were told that most of the cooking is done outside so the rest of the house wouldn't smell. 🍲 The #1 problem I currently have with cooking at home is that the entire house has begun to smell like a dirty/stale restaurant, so this outdoor cooking room spoke volumes to me. #chartrusewithjealously LOL Our tour guide also told us that having the house built on stilts prevents animals from coming in, and if a burglar came, the residents could easily push him off the very steep stairs.  

I want a vintage telephone and typewriter!

The first room is the headman's office. It looked like your typical office, but it also tripled as a police station and jail. 👮 She said that criminals would be temporarily held here, but I didn't see any doors with locks or bars. So I guess they all complied out of respect. She also said that he would bring both sides of the crime into his office for statements and conduct a small trial. 

Wes & I got to pretend to be guests of honor to be photographed in the community event room!

The next room was the wedding venue. 👰🤵 The bride and groom would sit at the end of the room while the villagers came to congratulate them. All well wishers brought (or was gifted, I can't remember which) a feather and a flower with an egg tied to it, which were symbols of fertility. Each couple staked flags with their wedding colors around town that lead to the house; everyone would know that the green couple, say me & Wes, is getting married on Thursday. After the wedding, the flags would disappear and a new color would be placed for the next wedding. 

The living room doubled as a community event center and was the largest room in the house. The house has very high ceilings and lots of windows for fresh air. The breeze was nice but I was still sweating profusely. Our tour guide didn't break a sweat, but she did agree that it was an unusually hot morning. 🌞 The front door of the house is much lower than the rest of the door frames so all guests would have to bow to the headman has they entered. Unless you're me... I walked through that door just fine with my 5"2' stature. 😂

The house has two bedrooms. I think I remember our tour guide telling us that the room with the red bed is the regular everyday bedroom while the other one, with the white bed, is used for guests and special occasions. The house has wide breezy hallways that lead from section to section. I was jealous at how spacious it is! 🏡 Our guide said that the entire community would club together to build a new house when needed, and if you wanted to move to a new plot of land, everyone would meet up to literally pick up your house and walk it over to the new area. 😲 But that required a petition to the headman with a really good excuse as to why you needed to move. 

The baby would be placed in a swaddle pouch that hung from the ceiling (top right). One of the toys is a little handmade beanbag; the children made those to practice their sewing (middle right). 🧵

The next room was the nursery. 👶 It is the biggest room in the house. The kids would play with toys that make noise (like the traditional marble game) while mom and the other women in the household would be in the kitchen in the next room. Our tour guide said that as soon as the noise stopped, they would suspect that the kids were up to something and could rush in the check on them. LOL The nursery is also the family's dining room. The food was kept underneath a wide basket to keep bugs away from it, and water was kept in cooling jugs. There was also an old Singer sewing machine, which I thought was super cool!  

The last room on our tour was the kitchen. 🍲 It is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. I know gathering & eating is an important part of all Asian culture, so I assumed the kitchen would be one of the biggest (most important) rooms.🍛 But, a majority of the cooking is done outdoors and then cooked food is brought into the kitchen for its final preparation. Our guide showed us some of the tools that were used, including one that was for cracking coconuts. 🥥 She said that all food was found on the land. The family would raise chickens and eat coconuts and other vegetables that grew naturally. 🌴

Our tour guide took some nice pictures of us. All of the influencers we saw turned their phones upside-down to take pictures.  That's what she did and I think it is supposed to make the angle or perspective look better 🤷

After our guide (I wish I knew her name so I could give her a shout out; she really was great!!) wrapped up the tour of the house, she seconded the receptionist's suggestion that we go to the Kraft Komplex. It was just a block down from the house and she assured us that we'd make it there and back in plenty of time for our Grab pick-up. 

The complex is just 2 little shops but it looked so cool on the outside. The buildings were modeled after traditional Malaysian houses. The first "shop" was actually for displaying sample items. It had traditional garments, fabric, jewelry, and handbags. 👚 I wanted a small basket-weaved clutch but there was no where to pay for it. We walked around until we finally found a sales employee. I told her that I wanted to make a purchase and she said that I couldn't! 😐 After some back & forth, I finally understood that everything in the first shop is just for display, and we had to walk down to the second shop to buy the items that are actually for sale there. Weird. There was as small section of handbags for sale but none looked like the one I wanted. I found some clutches in a similar basket-weaved style but there weren't the same size or color. I wanted to ask the clerk if he had any others (or if I could just buy the one from the sample shop), but it was getting close to our Grab pick-up time and I think Wes was starting to get embarrassed at all the "arguing" (I call it "asking questions for clarification") I was getting myself into on this trip. So I left souvenirless. 😔

The only thing I really wanted was a purse from Dior, but it was more expensive than duty free would allow, and I can always just order it online. 

We spent the rest of the day at the Suria KLCC--Kuala Lumpur City Center--mall. There is a nice park that wraps around the back of the mall (which was on my to-do list), but it was too hot for an afternoon walk. 🌳 The mall is enormous!! It is separated out into four stories, with each floor having it's own theme, and more importantly- it's own food court (this is how we could eat every one of our meals there. LOL). The second floor houses all of the luxury brands. I wanted a nice handbag or pair of shoes, but most stores were by appointment only and once you made your appointment, you were expected to buy. I really just wanted to look around (without the pressure to purchase), so we window shopped instead.

Those two figurines in the middle, cabbage dog & the sassy eggplant cat, were way more expensive than anyone can possibly guess. Bottom right: my spoils 😍 2 fat quarters & a Unicorno figurine.

We always go to Kinokuniya on my annual birthday trip to DFW. I go for the tokidoki merch and Wes goes for everything else. This was our first major (aka large) Kinokuniya shop; we may have gone to one in San Francisco but it was nowhere near this big. This one had all of the manga and nerd culture stuff I'm used to seeing, but it was also an actual bookshop too. And it randomly had a fabric section! Granted it was part of the arts & crafts section, and only sold fat quarters, but I was still excited to see it 💗

I got cabbage, rice, shrimp & an egg. Wes got rice, bean sprouts, and lamb & chicken for his protein options.

After walking around two floors of the mall (I don't remember what the fourth floor is, but the third was children's stuff and sporting goods), it was lunch time. Malaysia has Malay, Chinese, and Indian cuisine. We ate plenty of Malaysian food and had a great Chinese meal at Din Tai Fung, so it was time for Indian food. 🦐 I walked around the food court and picked the restaurant that had the longest line; that one would have to be the tastiest, right? 😋 I ordered a combo plate with the BIGGEST shrimp I've ever seen! It looked straight out of an ocean documentary. LOL It was spiced, deep friend and delicious!

I ordered a peach yogurt tea drink to go with my meal (because no one serves water here 😠). It wasn't the best tea but at least it came with cute stickers. We spent the rest of the day on the first floor, which had a mix of stores and was more accessible (cheap 😅) to regular consumers. I listen to a lot of British podcasts and they're always talking about Marks & Spencer so I was excited to go in one, but I was not impressed. Wes wanted to go into Japan's UNIQLO for novelty t-shirts. He didn't find any but I picked up some cute things. 👕🎀 And, then came my handbag. 👜 I had decided I wasn't going to spring for a luxury brand but I still wanted something. We came across the Vincci store, which is a prominent Malaysian brand. Perfect!! A Malaysian handbag from my Malaysian trip 😍

Vincci was awesome and I wanted one of everything. 😍All the of handbags, accessories, and shoes are so cute!💛

We wrapped up shopping and headed back to the hotel for a quick nap and to pack. I'm glad I didn't go too crazy at the mall because we had just enough room in our luggage for everything. Our Grab driver to the airport was the only one who made small talk with us. 🚦 He said rush hour traffic that Friday wasn't as bad as it usually is. He then said that he got to the hotel early for us because the traffic and time of our flight was stressing him out. LOL He got us there in plenty of time! 

Goodbye Kuala Kumpur!! 👋 Durian is the fruit to eat here; I hate how it smells & tastes but I told myself I'd try it if there was a yummy way of preparing it. There wasn't so I skipped. There is a store with all durian based foods at the airport (bottom left).

✈ We had a long journey home ahead of us! As mentioned previously... airport drama... getting our boarding passes was a bit (okay, it was EXTREMELY) stressful, and we had to skip going to the "secret" rainforest in the airport, but we made it and we were soon seated on our comfy seats on the Korean Air flight back home. It was kind of a good thing that we didn't have time for dinner at the airport because we were served another million meals on our flight.

Our first flight was from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul Incheon. We had breakfast 🍚, which started with a shrimp & ricotta cheese crepe (not my favorite). The main was delicious beef congee, and fruit for dessert. The grapes weren't as large this time around. Surprisingly, this was the only meal were got. But, it was only 6-hours to Seoul. We had a little more time at the Incheon airport this time so I tried to get us on a tour or to see the airport's Korean Cultural Center/Museum, but we were too early for the tours and the museum was too far away. By the time we walked & bused to the terminal it was at, we'd barely have any time to look around before it was time to fly out again. 

Korean Air is doing it right with their 5-course meals!! 

I was more exhausted (physically and emotionally) than I thought I was, so I literally slept through the entire flight from Seoul to Atlanta, GA. 😴 We had terrible turbulence on this flight but I even slept through that! I remember waking up a few times to flight announcements and feeling kind of bounced around, but I really only woke up to eat. We had two main meals and a snack. I slept through the snack, which is fine because I was not hungry, but I was also kind of sad because Wes said the snack options were pretty good. Our first meal was lunch:

* we started with crab salad and champagne🥂 (these flights must go through absolute barrels of champagne!!) top left

* our soup & salad course was seared scallop 🍥 with assorted banchan (since I got the Korean meal option). Wes got the Western meal option which came with an actual salad, I think. Our menu said we'd be getting cream of green pea soup, which I was so excited for (split pea is one of my faves!), but the Korean meal came with a spicy soup that I didn't like. top right

* my main course was Korean Nutritious Octopus Rice.🐙 I thought it would be like a poke bowl or clay pot, but it was neither and I didn't really like it, either. I picked out the octopus bits and ate them with the banchan. My suggested white wine for the meal was Jan-Marc Brocard Chablis Premier Cru.  middle right

* we got a cheese course after our main dish, which was good (I love cheese🧀 so I am happy to eat it at any time) but it was kind of out of place in my Korean menu. The bread was a weird texture, so I ate my cheese with the grapes and nuts. bottom right

* I could NOT fit another morsel of food into my stomach but the flight attendant came by with dessert and who was I to turn down ice cream with assorted cakes? 🍨 bottom left

Our second meal was dinner, another multi-coursed meal.🍴 It was good, all of our fancy first class meals were, but there is just something off about airplane food. 😕 Maybe it's the altitude (I have read that does affect your taste buds) or maybe because it's not freshly prepared, but I didn't really like anything. I mean, I ate it and enjoyed it well enough, but it wasn't anything I'd request again. Anyway, for dinner we had:

* salad with cabbage, edamame, salmon skin and some other stuff thrown in, with miso ginger dressing. 🥗 The best part of the meal, for me. top left I think Wes said the main course was his favorite dish. 

* my main course was beef bulgogi with glass noodles. The beef was great but the onions kind of ruined it for me. bottom left Once again, my soup was too spicy. Eating soup during active turbulence (they call it "rough air" now. LOL) is so stressful! 😫 Wes got the Thai chicken curry.

* we got fruit for dessert. I ate the orange, skipped the pear and gave Wes the watermelon. right

Korean Air is my new favorite airline and I will only be vacationing to Asian countries from now on because I refuse to fly with anyone else. 🙆LOL Our Graff toiletry kit is so cute & I love all our lotions and stuff. Even Wes was impressed with it!

After 13 hours, we were back in the states. 🛬 We landed in that the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. We had a 3-hour layover so I tried to find us something to do. The airport's website boasted a bunch of "best airport" awards but I couldn't find a single thing for passengers to do (besides eat & drink). Oh well, we'd be home soon. We landed safe & sound, and about an hour early, at Will Rogers International Airport and were greeted by my mom & stepdad. Another trip in the books! Also, HAPPY 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!! 👫 #ericaandwes 💖 Our actual anniversary is this week and we plan to go out for a nice meal, but I'm not sure if anything will beat all the great food we had in Kuala Lumpur. I've already decided that we need a big international trip for each milestone anniversary... come on silver anniversary! 💍