Rambutan and and my five-plus things!

 Today I had the extreme pleasure of eating a seasonal fruit known locally as rambutan while the taxonomic name is Nephelium lappaceum. If you look up "rambutan," you can find a multitude of different, beautiful, pictures; however, I don't want to plagiarize anything. So I snapped a couple pictures with my iPod, something I probably would have done anyway. The rambutan is native to Southeast Asia, specificallly Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The unique fruit is a close relative of the Longan berry, Lychee (both of which I have tried) and the Mamoncillo. The type shown here is a bit more a wild type within the species as most sold are pure red when they are ripe. To eat this tropical delicacy, you break the outer layer of skin, exposing the egg shaped center. You then slip the rubbery inside out and eat it. It's rubbery kind of like a grape if you can imagine that except quite a bit more rubbery.

Giant Hypermarket

Today was amazing, I talked on Skype (as I mentioned earlier) until around 2pm my time. Then Auntie Ipah drove me over to Giant where I looked around at stuff for about at hour, finally buying like 5 dragonfruits for a little over MYR 7, or around $2.50. I felt I got a great deal, especially considering the size of these things. As I left I ended up chatting with a charming young lady named Rose Mary. We chatted a bit and I found she worked out of KL and was only here until Sunday. We finally exchanged names and I left.





Upon leaving Giant I headed over to Sunshine Square, another of my favorite stores. I found a picture online of Sunshine, I'll try to take a picture of the building next time I go, but for now...  there's the picture! I got really cute presents for Marti, and some interesting Asian shampoo containing ginger! After I left Sunshine I began walking home and ran into Rose Mary once again, this time in from of the bank that is on the right side of the building.


After I finished walking home, I saw Auntie and some of the other ladies who live in the apartment were planting stuff in pots. I suddenly remember I was late because I was actually supposed to be helping! I rushed my stuff upstairs and went out to help. I honestly wasn't able to help all that much as they were pretty much done. My presence wasn't completely wasted though as I was able to help move some plants into pots. The four of us had almost everything done, (again, I didn't do much at all) when two of the ladies rushed upstairs to do something. I learned that after they returned we were supposed to plant trees in the back of the apartment building. I was excited to help, although incredibly tired after the day and lugging the many pounds of dragon fruit around for like four hours. I stayed out there as long as I could, waiting for them to get back, wanting to prove myself. Well, lets just say I proved something, but it wasn't I could be of service. I began to feel invisible insects crawling all over me (I seriously have no idea if they were there or not, but I keep getting bit everywhere so they have to be coming from somewhere.) I rushed inside and quickly began working on making certain I didn't have any bugs on me. I think I actually did find a couple. No big deal, but I stayed inside for the rest of the night anyway!

Last but not least, I texted my bff Sarah :) Sarah is my best friend and has been pretty much since we met. We used to hang out all the time, especially last summer, when we really got to know each other. We were both kind of volunteering to promote Kim's Taekwondo at the United Artists movie theater in Amarillo. Once Sarah mentioned this ice cream place I had never been to before named Kaleidoscoops. She told me about this one flavor, it was difficult to describe but she did a spectacular job. After my first time there, we would randomly go to Kaleidoscoops and order the secret flavor pretty much every single time, it was awesome! We also had a fantastic time going to sonic and just plain hanging out! We would sometimes even hang out before and after Taekwondo! One of the most amazingly awesome things about Sarah (and yes, there are many) is that both of our birthday's are on the same day! Until one experiences what it's like to have your best friend have the same birthday as you, one cannot appreciate it! It's simply amazing :) We're actually texting right now, although she is at work... xD

Well, it is bedtime and I'm exhausted! Goodnight y'all!