TBA Day 6: Tom Jones = Role Model

Today was one of those lovely contented days that I've been experiencing so often on this trip so far...

On the way home from dinner last night, Ringo drove us past the place to get the good laksa (Jonker Dessert 88), which turned out to be only about 2.5 blocks from the hostel over very flat ground, making it fairly walking-distance. I decided to venture over there for breakfast this morning and get my laksa fix. Ringo feels I should have ordered the Seafood Curry Laksa, but I'd been wanting to try asam laksa and had heard that the Nyonya Asam Laksa here was pretty darn good, so I went that route (even though the asam laksa is more of a Penang thing, apparently, and I'll be in Penang soon enough...). I'm used to curry laksa with its much creamier coconut-milk based broth, but the asam laksa is less creamy and has a nice lime-y sourness to it. Super-yummy and definitely something I hadn't tried before.
As I was eating my breakfast, two backpackers who had been at dinner with me the night before wandered in for their last meal in Melaka and joined me at the table. They ordered one of each of the two laksas I'd been deciding between and, upon seeing the curry laksa, I decided I'll go back tomorrow and try that one as well. When we finished eating, they called Ringo for help getting a cab to the bus depot. He came by the restaurant and then arranged that the cab take me back to the hostel (for free) on its way to the bus depot. Because he's awesome like that.

On a side note, the backpackers had seen me use my FlipStick when we were waiting in line for dinner last night and apparently thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was pretty cute watching them mime to Ringo (while speaking something I don't speak and can't accurately identify) how I was able to just unfold my stool and sit right down. Ringo translated that they wanted the ordering information, so apparently the FlipStick is awesome in any language and will soon be sweeping Asia...

The "plan," (if you're one of those silly people who insists on "planning" things) for the day was to hop on a touristy bus thingy after breakfast and tool around the city a bit... but I got a good amount of tourism in yesterday on my trishaw and was really getting more of a sitting-around-with-a-book kind of vibe from the day than a spending-half-the-day-waiting-at-bus-stops-in-the-sweltering-heat vibe... Thus, below was my view for most of the day (the parts when I wasn't destroying the earth by blasting the A/C in my room and reading under a cozy blanket, that is).
At one point while reading in the common area, Ringo came through and I asked him about the framed picture of Tom Jones hanging on the wall behind me. It turns out it's there because Tom Jones is a great role model for all of us. Apparently he was homeless and starving when somebody gave him his big break, he impressed the right music industry people, and the rest, as they say, is history... Now, some of you fact-checkers may notice that this is not the story you find in places such as Wikipedia (he was the child of poor coal-miners, though...), but who am I to tarnish somebody's image of their role model? The utter cheesiness of Tom Jones always puts a smile on my face, so I like that the picture is there...

One last example of the awesomeness of Ringo: I needed to grab some more Malaysian money before heading to KL, but apparently the only ATMs are at banks and banks are far from the hostel. So Ringo, being awesome, drove me to the bank, and then (since I hadn't gone on the bus tour) gave me a little car tour of the sites until he got called back to work. Awesome.

I don't have to leave until 10:30am to catch my train tomorrow (giving me just enough time for delicious breakfast laksa), and I don't seem to have any form of food poisoning (yet?) so I'm optimistic that tomorrow's day of travel may be more pleasant than my day getting to Melaka...

After dinner update:
And... Even a mellow, not-so-OCD Emily is still very much an introvert. Wow. Ringo was taking the 6 new lodgers to dinner. It was a ways away so he was going to walk them there, then come back and drive me there to meet them... then the place was closed and he took them to the same place as last night. OK... I'll still go to be social... That was a bad idea. I'm so deeply exhausted right now and have been since I got to dinner. I wasn't particularly hungry so I ended up mostly trying to pretend to be perky and social. Ringo felt bad about dragging me to the same place and insisted on taking me past the place with the best poh piah in town (and in Malaysia in general, according to him). I was like "Dude, I'm so freaking tired. Can I please just go home and go to bed?" No. That was not going to work. We got the poh piah (a vegetarian wrap thingy) as take away, he dropped me back at the hostel, I took a bite, and... Well, that's actually pretty darn delicious. You win, Ringo.
I am now in my air-conditioned room with the door locked, and they're going to have to pick the lock and drag me out of here if they want me to be social any more today (Ringo seems to think we'll all be hanging out later tonight... when I will be sleeping...). Sigh... I'm looking forward to the semi-solitude of a travel day tomorrow. I think it will be at least a day before I'm ready to interact with people again...