Desaru day 3

Erik has not learned that throwing open the curtains in the morning will in fact wake up his wife in such a way that she cannot fall asleep again, though he will have no problem falling asleep again himself. Such was the case this morning. So much for sleeping in - once the sun is up, so I am.

So we headed down to breakfast at about 7:30. After that, I tried to talk Erik into joining Billy Blanks and me for a little Tae Bo (my latest kick, no pun intended) but he's taken on the crazy challenge of doing a triathlon in June so he decided to do a mini-triathlon of biking, running and swimming.

Once we had cleaned up we spent a short time near the pool soaking up the clouds, me taking a last walk on the beach with my trusty ipod. After lunch we went in search of a mini klan klan (market). We were told mini klan klan could be found in Kota Tingi, a small town we had to drive through on the way home. What we really wanted was some pewter handicrafts we had seen in the hotel but deemed too expensive. Anything found in a hotel can usually be found only steps away at fractions of the cost. Or so we thought.

The mini klan klan did nothing for us aside from finding a man who told us pewter was sold at City Square in Johor Bahru. But if I wanted to dress like a Muslim Malaysian woman, that mini klan klan would have been a jackpot.

We did track down the pewter store in City Square, but being in a department store kept the prices nice and high. They weren't indecent prices, but it's a basic principle that when you travel to countries like Malaysia, you don't want to buy something unless you feel like you're really getting a bargain. So no pewter for us.

We thought, since we were only a kilometer from Singapore that we could easily get back to pick up our kids a little later than the 5 o'clock we had told our friends. It was, after all, 4:40. At around 6:10 we pulled into their driveway. It's amazing how long it can take to drive one kilometer, when half of Singapore is trying to drive back with you at the same time.

We're back safe and sound now. Megan is now reading books to herself in a whisper. And in the dark, which is a trick. Time for me to switch out of vacation mode and back into regular life.