Malaysia - Day 9

Day 9 - Monday 24 September:

For breakfast we all met up at a Chinese restaurant and had a variety of Dim Sum. I liked some of them, but others had a horrible texture. My favourite was BBQ pork inside a sweet dough (like this). From there we walked over to Joe's jewelery store where we had a look around, and he started telling us the history of Melaka as we began our historical tour around Melaka. We followed the ruins of the old fort around the edge of the city (well, what used to be the edge before they started reclaiming back so much land from the ocean). As I am not interested in history in the slightest, I got a bit bored, but everyone else seemed to find it interesting. 

After our tour we all met back at the Calathe Arts Cafe for lunch. From there us girls went back to Joe's jewelery store and a few of the boys went to the observation tower.  I sent about RM200 on 3 pieces of jewelery (all hand made) - 2 pairs of earrings for myself and a beautiful butterfly broach for my Nanna.  With our purchases we went back to the guest house to pack, and then started our journey back to the Luther Centre.

As we were waiting at the final major intersection before hitting the main highway we witnessed a severe car crash. Most of us were just drifting off to sleep and awoke to a loud bang. A truck coming from the other direction had lost control.  Involved were 3 trucks, 3 cars and 2 motorbikes. It was a traumatic sight to see and we were all a little bit in shock. We all prayed for those involved and their families, know yet knowing the outcome. We found out the following day there were 5 fatalities.

View from the observation tower

When we arrived back at the Luther Centre we were left to our own devices to get dinner.  We all walked in the direction we were told for Nandos, only to get a little lost. It took us 45 minutes to finally arrived at the restaurant, and as we were all annoyed, another 15 minutes of arguing to order, but it was delicious!  One the way back, we stopped at Maccas for icecream, and it was only a 20 min walk in total. (Also, if we were so inclined, for just RM3 Maccas would deliver - no minimum order!)

Malaysia - Day 8

Day 8 - Sunday 23 September:

Our group with Ps Thomas

The morning started with church at our partner congregation - Luther House Congregation. We arrived a bit late - 9am for an 8.30 service (we only arrived at the restaurant for breakfast at 8.30) - but there were still people who arrived after us, including the man who was being baptised that day (he arrived about 2 minutes before they called him up to be baptised). The sermon lasted about 45 minutes, but the time went quickly as it was quite interesting. It used the analogy of being stuck in a traffic jam to use godly wisdom. Pastor Thomas was very friendly and we had a chat with him after the service. We even got a special welcome as visitors.

After church we left for Melaka. We stopped at the Melaka Lutheran Church - Pastor Calvin's first congregation - mostly made up of university students, so it is very youth orientated. From there we went on to lunch (about 2.30pm by this point), and then to our accommodation: House of Kititto. It was a guest house, so it had a shared common area and bathrooms.  Chloe, Erin, Jesse and I shared 2 double beds in one room. After a quick rest and toilet break we walked into Jonker Street which is where Melaka's night markets are held.

Our group with some of the Melaka youth group

The night markets were very busy, and had lots of fascinating items. There were souvenirs, bags, clothes, gadgets, food and craft items. We wandered the streets for a couple of hours before meeting up at the Calanthe Arts Cafe, where our tour guide for Monday owned the cafe and jewelery shop.  We had a late dinner, sat and chatted for a while, and eventually started back to our accommodation. It was about 10.30pm by now and the stalls were starting to pack up, but we stopped so many times that it took us almost 45 minutes to walk the 15 minute journey back to the guest house.  I fell asleep quite quickly.