Friday night we just grabbed dinner over at Publika. We tried a place called London Town.
Just hanging out...
Drinking his fresh watermelon juice
We just got a bunch of stuff to share: calamari (which was sightly overcooked), onion rings, garlic bread, and some pizzas. The kids really liked the pizza. (I felt like I was out to dinner with restaurant critics as they expounded on the "cracker crust" and the toppings. It was kind of comical.) I thought the pizza was good, but definitely didn't beat the 'za at Fahrenheit 600.
Then it was home to pack for Melaka as we were planning to leave around 8 a.m. in the morning.
Brochures ready to go
We were all up and at it early - I think everyone was ready to get this show on the road. We had an uneventful drive to Melaka - even though the traffic was quite busy due to the holiday weekend.
Melaka
Traffic was busy in town - so we went to the hotel and decided we would take the shuttle into town instead of searching for a parking spot. Gotta love the free shuttle service!
This is where the shuttle dropped us off.
We took a few minutes to get oriented and then planned on what we were going to see and do today and tomorrow. We started at Christ Church.
Caleb saying a little prayer...we probably all needed to!
Melaka is a port city and is highly influenced by the British, Dutch, and Portuguese. Christ Church is done in the Dutch architectural style. We took the time to take a quick look around inside.
Next we headed to St. Francis Xavier's Church. This is a Gothic-style church...still being used today for worship.
A few photos of the Church of St. Francis Xavier
After that we continued walking around town. It was on this walk that we saw the Monitor lizard you see below. He was a rather small lizard - maybe 2 1/2 feet long. We saw another one swimming in the Melaka River that was considerably bigger. They are a common sight along the side of the river there. YUCK!
Then we headed towards the Maritime Museum with a quick stop at a fort so we could get some pictures with cannons!
The river and the start of Jonker Street
The lizard and the fort
Family photo - Blaine volunteered to take a group photos for some other tourists here and then they insisted that we be in their photos and that they take photos of us. We had lots of laughs! The boys are now celebs on some random folks' cameras!
The Maritime Museum
The museum is inside a replica Portuguese ship. The kids had fun exploring and looking at everything inside.
We continued walking and got to the Menara Tamingsari - which takes you up in the sky and circles around several times - giving you an awesome view of the city.
By this time we were tired and grabbed a quick lunch. We headed back to the hotel for a quick swim and a catnap. I'm glad we did this as we were going to hit the Hard Rock Melaka for dinner and then walk Jonker Street after supper.
We grabbed a cab to head back into Melaka. (The shuttle from the hotel was all booked up, but they said they would be able to pick us up at 10 p.m. in town to bring us home.)
Tasty dinner at the Hard Rock! Can you really go wrong with burgers and beers?
After dinner we headed down Jonker Street.
Jonker Street
Jonker Street is a place for touristy trinkets, local treats and lots of people. We decided that if you needed a keychain - you should buy it here. Everyone was selling keychains! There are people everywhere - so we kept the boys close. At times, I found the street a bit overwhelming - both in sound and smell. Between the heat and humidity and all of the items being cooked - I did not find it very pleasant. But, it was fun to walk around and see what everyone was selling.
The boys showing their "guns" in front of the Mr. Universe statue
The newest idea for food on a stick! Sure to be a hit at the Iowa State Fair.
As we were walking on Jonker Street, the wind kicked up and you could tell it was going to rain. Yup, no umbrellas, no shuttle, no taxis in site. So...we walked back to the hotel...in a downpour. We looked like drowned rats upon our return. Thankfully, we were all laughing - as the night only got better.
The next morning we were heading to Cheng Hoon Teng Temple - the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia. Blaine was navigating - and we thought we had found it. We thought it was this:
We looked at each other, looked around this "temple" located behind an auto repair shop and said aloud, "Seriously!?!? This is it?! I was expecting so much more." Okay...back in the car we went...and I looked again at our brochure...that was definitely NOT the oldest temple in Malaysia. It was some sort of temple...I think, but not the one we were looking for. Thankfully, the Garmin brought us to the right location.
Cheng Hoon Teng Temple
Inside the temple
It was really quite beautiful. The temple is an active place of worship and lots of people were there to say prayers and make offerings.
Then it was back downtown for a tuk tuk ride. Grayson had been bugging us since our arrival - so we kind of held on to this as a carrot so we could see what we wanted to see! We found two drivers who gave us about an hour tour around town!
Tuk Tuk Ride
Our tuk tuks
I could not help but laugh as we rode around in the trishaws as our drivers wanted to stop often for cigarette breaks. I'm not sure how you can peddle people around and still be a smoker, but they managed.
We stopped at St. Paul's Hill so we could climb up to the top to see St. Paul's Church. St. Francis Xavier was originally buried here before his body was moved to India.
Next we saw the Melaka Sultanate Palace. Our driver jokingly referred to this as "his house."
Melaka Sultanate Palace
The Gardens
Inside the museum
This is a replica of a 15th century Malay palace and is built without the use of nails. Inside, you can find many exhibits - some about the life of a sultan, Melakan culture, clothing, weapons, etc. I found it to be quite beautiful.
After the palace, our tuk tuk tour was over and we grabbed a quick lunch. We had one last activity to do after lunch - a tour of the Melaka river. We walked down and bought some tickets and hopped on board.
The cruise took you up and down the river - where you could see the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are some very beautiful places along the river where the homes are painted and well-maintained and shops and restaurants are thriving. Then, you can also see some of the great poverty which still exists. You can see colossal wastes of money,too - like the monorail. This was built in Melaka several years ago and ran for about 2 months - with many mechanical issues - and now sits unused. A complete shame.
And that was our weekend. We had a quiet night back at the hotel as it was still rather rainy and we were all hot and tired. We got up early this morning, grabbed some Starbucks and headed back to Kuala Lumpur. It was a great first venture for us out of KL!
Sounds like a great weekend!
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