Southeast Asia 2023

I woke up early today for my flight to Panang. I woke up at 5:15, to get 6:00 of sleep and still leave the hostel by 5:45. I got ready and packed all of my things, then went to check out. The checkout was easy. But when I went to get a grab to KL Sentral, it gave me an error saying that cash payment is not accepted this early for safety. So I asked the hostel front desk guy if he could call me a taxi, and he said he didn't have any taxi phone numbers. "How?! You're a hostel" I thought. So I went to download GoJek (another rideshare app) but that wanted to text my US # to authenticate me as well. Which I have an international sim now, so I don't have access to my US # still. I then figured I'd call bank of America, just like I did yesterday, to authenticate my credit card on the grab app. But I ran out of international minutes and it auto hung up. So I checked my phone for alternative methods.  It said that I could take the train now - which it wasn't showi...

Today I wanted to stick with my morning routine, so I woke up at 6:00. I did some journaling, and then an upper body workout followed by meditation. The workout was comical because it was in the 4'*4'(ish) shoe box of a "pod" that I was in. But it was better than nothing!  Afterwards, I figured I'd get sweaty during the day so didn't bother showering. I changed and got ready then headed out to get breakfast. The hostel has a deal with the cafe downstairs where if you leave a review, you get free breakfast! It was about 8:00 now, so I went to do that before leaving. I needed to leave by 8:25 to catch the train to the batu caves where I was meeting some people from the Kuala Lumpur group chat. I got a chia yogurt pudding bowl with an iced latte, that I ate really quickly. I was able to leave on time and hussled to the train station.  When I got to Batu Caves, I recognized the girl I was meeting based on her desc...

Today I woke up early to catch the bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. I woke up at 5:45, got ready, packed my things (including another peanut butter banana sandwich for breakfast and a coffee), and headed out. It was 45min by bus to the bus terminal. But I wanted to get there 30min early and leave a little extra time in case something happened (I get lost, traffic, bus comes early, etc.)  I thankfully got to the main bus terminal early, around 6:45am, which gave me time to eat breakfast while I waited. The bus came at 7:30 as scheduled, I was on my way!  The bus ride was easy. I worked on my blog and slept the entire way. It was nice to relax for a bit, listen to music, etc. Traveling can get so tiring because you're constantly on the go and constantly "on" looking after yourself. Even staying at hostels.  We went through immigration, which was a breeze. I had a few oranges with me and they didn't care at all - or even ask. About halfway, we stopped at a bus termina...