FINALLY Off to the Beach!

This morning we woke up around 8 to get ready, shower, and check out of our hotel so we could explore a bit more around the city. We checked out around 10 and proceeded to make our way in the direction of the National Mosque. After looking at the map, we realized that we had been relatively close to the Mosque yesterday (and unfortunately it was the only thing on that side of the city that we had missed yesterday...) So we hopped back on the monorail and headed over there. We made it all the way BACK to the National Museum we had visited yesterday and asked for directions. Turns out we had pretty much walked almost directly next to the Mosque on our journey yesterday. OOPS!

We got there and got on line to enter the Mosque. In order to enter, you must be dressed appropriately, which includes a full hijab for women and a long tunic for men. So since we weren't dressed (quite) appropriately, we had to wait on line to borrow clothing from the Mosque (which they nicely supply for free). While we were dressed fairly conservatively, although not conservatively enough, I could NOT believe the outfits people wore there! It is a RELIGIOUS institution! I saw so many pairs of booty shorts I legit wanted to walk over to the girls and yell at them for being so disrespectful! How could you ever think it was appropriate to wear those, or mid-riff baring shirts to a Mosque of all places?!?!??!?? OY people bother me. Not only that, but since there was a line to borrow clothing, there were whole groups of people just straight up cutting the whole line. At one point one man came and stood directly in front of me. I said, "Excuse me sir but I've been standing on line for 20 minutes and there are people in line behind me as well" and he looked at me like I had 17 heads and told me that he hadn't seen me. Or the line behind me.

I seriously don't understand people sometimes.

And then he basically stood directly behind me. And then edged his way in front of me again.

I couldn't deal. Seriously.

After being cut by several people who don't know how lines work (since apparently the concept of lines doesn't exist in this area of the world), we received our clothing to enter the Mosque.

I look good, right?

We then wandered around the Mosque, taking pictures, and learning about Islam.

The guides were wonderful at explaining different aspects of the religion, and there were also signs posted and pamphlets explaining Islam, as well as the differences between Islam and Christianity, and how Jesus fits into Islam. According to Islam, Jesus was originally a prophet of Islam, however, his teachings were misconstrued so that his followers believed that he himself was the son of God, not simply a prophet for him. Quite interesting. More on this in another post...

After leaving the National Mosque we headed back towards the lake by the National Museum. We wandered past lots of different exhibits (including the world's largest enclosed aviary - super random), a Mousedeer "exhibit" (aka cages with roosters in them?? THAT was confusing...), and also saw some HUGE lizards (probably about 2-3 feet long) while walking!

From there we walked to the National Monument. Or at least that was our intention. But we kinda just kept walking. And every time we thought we were getting close, we'd see another sign, pointing us to continue onward. So we kept walking. And walking. We were honestly about to give up when we got to a sculpture garden, with sculptures made by artists from around Asia. We sat in the garden for a few minutes while we mustered the courage to forge on. FINALLY we reached the national monument. Annddd it was basically just a big sculpture lol. So glad we walked for about an hour to see it :-p.

After reaching the monument we decided it was time to head back to our hotel to grab our stuff and head to the airport. We stopped for shwarma on the way (shaved meat, deriving from Eastern Europe) and it. was. delicious. SO good. From there, back to the hotel, and then a 40 minute taxi ride to the airport. We got to the airport around 4 for our flight around 6 to Langkawi! MAN are we looking forward to a few relaxing days at the beach!

It's funny, you don't really realize how burned out you can get when travelling. Especially doing the crazy, round the world type of travelling that we're doing. When I travel, I'm intent on seeing EVERYTHING we possibly can, so I am always on the move (which I think drives Jon a little nuts...but I can't really blame him for, ya know, wanting to eat lunch sometimes...or not wanting to go to another temple... :-p). We have discovered that our bodies need at least 2 beach days for every 2 weeks that we travel nonstop lol (unless, of course, there are beach days mixed in there somewhere :-p). Anyhoo - we were SUPER stoked to finally be on our way to the beach after so much intense site-seeing of late!!

After an uneventful flight we arrived in Langkawi and took a super short (about 8 minutes) taxi ride to our hotel. We were SO happy when we arrived! We got up to our room and it was SO BIG! With a balcony! We're very excited to go exploring tomorrow!! We ordered room service since it was too late to go into town for dinner. Jon ordered pizza and I got chicken. The pizza was meh. The chicken was horrible. So bad. They clearly cooked the food in the afternoon and then tried heating it in a microwave. I say "tried" because the plate was cold and only the outside of the chicken was warm. Yea...I didn't each much of that...

So now, after splitting some of Jon's pizza, it's time to call it a night. Looking forward to the beach/pool/relaxing/doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING the next few days!!!

Jess' and Jon's highlight of the day: SHWARMAAAAAAA. Oh, and arriving at the beach!!