Ken's Soul

Ken here. Today, I sold my soul. Our Indonesian cleaning lady explained to me that there were no fireworks for Malaysian Independence day out of respect for Ramadan. Then, she looked at me and said "You Christian, right?" Time moved like the martial arts fighting in Matrix. What should I say? She's from Indonesia. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. Didn't they have some bombings by Islamic extremists not too long ago in Indonesia? What if I tell her I'm Jewish and she tells one of her friends and some radical forces her to allow him into our apartment, or access to our kids? She was already fascinated that we're American. "I like American food - pizza, McDonalds, spaghetti."
I had prepared for this day. I had mentioned my concerns to my rabbi and to Griffin's Hebrew school teacher. I had prepped the kids not to mention that they were Jewish to anyone ("But WHY do they hate us, Dad? It's not like we have a gun or anything"). I thought of my own Hebrew school education, and the ethics lessons centered on the choices Jews made during the Holocaust: fight, convert, run - what would you have done? But I was still caught off-guard by the cleaning lady before I had drunk my coffee.
Colleen and I recently found out that the September 11 terrorists had used Malaysia as the primary meeting ground to plot the attack. Somehow, that fact escaped us in all our trip planning.
All this flashed through my mind in about a tenth of a second. "Yes" I replied after slightly too long a pause, sat down with my computer, and continued preparations for my fantasy football draft. -ksf.

Griffin's Day Off

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September 1, 2010

Hi Blog Readers! This is Griffin.

Ramadhan is a special holiday. All the Muslims fast until 7pm, at sundown. We went to a Ramadhan buffet. I felt bad for all the people who had to fast. It was really really good food. There was a band playing. The food looked and tasted different, but it was all very good. We cooked our own seafood at the table. There was a pot where you could put stuff in and cook it.

I had a day off from school for National Malaysia Day which is Malaysia's Independence from Great Britain day. We went to a playground at Lake Gardens in Kuala Lumpur. I started swinging without anyone pushing me. The same thing happened with Alice. If you look in the picture you'll see that I climbed to the top of the swings on my own. It was a really good playground for gymnastics. There were these bridges, I climbed off them, swung, made it to the bottom of them and swung to the ground.

We walked around the park until we came to the National Mosque of Malaysia. In all mosques, non-Muslims are not allowed. Mosques are a place where people go to pray to a God. There are other parts to the mosques than you see in the picture. If you look closely, I am holding a stick in my mouth you may not be able to see.

When we were in the park we tried to get a taxi. They tried to make us pay a flat fee but we wanted to use the meter instead, so we said no to all the taxis.

The subway system is different than America. Instead of just $2.25 always, like in NYC, it depends on how far you are going.

I have been painting watercolors lately, as you see in the picture above this writing.

I am having a great time in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Love, Griffin

ps Note that Griffin just wrote a blog posting, about 5 postings below, of his time in Greece too.