Sibu, Press Conferences, and Karaoke Bars

Wednesday 9/21/11

After ANOTHER 2 hours in a jet (I'm up to 26 hours at this point) we arrived in Sibu on Wednesday. Sibu is a city in Sarawak which is located on the island of Borneo. Sibu is an amazing place and amazing culture, I was very sorry to leave after spending 4 days here. I loved Sibu and it's people so much I am going to write a separate post when I get back to the states. Below you'll see the building we are jumping off of. Rockstar right? It's 126 meters of pure slider off fun.

When we arrived at the airport in Sibu we were greeted with our own bus and taken directly to the RH Hotel which is right across the street from the building we are jumping. We were greeted by much of the staff, shook a lot of hands, and enjoyed some mango drinks while we checked in. 

After we checked in there was only time for a quick change of clothes before we had to go downstairs for the press conference. You see, in the US they throw you in jail for jumping off a building, but in Sibu they hold press conferences and make a lot of publicity for it to get people to come watch and spend money. Anyway, we introduced ourselves to the media then had a bit of a reception afterwards.

There were 23 jumpers from 9 different countries jumping in Sibu this year.

That night we were treated to a welcoming BBQ at a local bar. That was our first experience with Malaysian Karaoke. Apparently every bar in Malaysia has Karaoke and everyone loves it. The most popular songs seem to be American love songs with Chinese love songs in a close second. These guys take their Karaoke serious...they even make their own music videos for them. We found one such place across the street from our hotel, and for some reason they had giant murals of the Cincinnati skyline both inside and outside. Small world.

Into Kuala Lumpur and back out to Borneo

Tuesday 9/20/11:
After 3 jets totaling 24 hours of flight time, 1 high speed train, and 1 taxi, I finally arrived at my hotel in Kuala Lumpur. The the size of this city and it's buildings are amazing. We didn't have too much time in KL since we had to wake up at 4:30AM to fly to Borneo but we did manage to do some exploring. Adam and I decided to take in some of the local culture and headed over to Chinatown to get some food. After eating and exploring some shops we decided to walk around a bit and didn't pay too much attention to where we were going. Our logic was that the hotel was right next to the largest building in the city so we could just look for that and head in that direction. This wasn't the smartest idea for multiple reasons: The first, is that since the buildings are so big distance is really hard to judge. The second, is the building we picked as our way point was completely round, which meant when facing it we had no idea what direction we were going in. This resulted in us getting lost and wondering around for a few miles in some not so nice parts of town. In the end we made it back and crashed. Leaving the hotel at 5AM to spend another 2 hours on a jet headed to Borneo!

And so it begins...

Finally after what felt like an eternity of waiting my journey finally begins. Getting to Malaysia is no easy task and required 24 hrs of inflight travel alone. Because of this I decided to spend a couple days in L.A. visiting my stepbro and enjoy southern Cali. What a way to start the trip. The weather couldn't have been more perfect and I had a blast bumming around Marina Del Ray, Santa Monica, and Venice Beach.
Saturday night we went to dinner at The Tasting Kitchen. GQ magazine gave it the number 4 spot in their Top Ten Best New Restaurants. I'm not one to get caught up in all that but this place was delicious and had a great atmosphere.

The next morning we rented some bikes, rode 5 miles down the boardwalk and had Brunch at Zengo. It's an outdoor restaurant with tons of great food such as amazing sushi, dim sum, and tapas. Not to mention all you can drink sake sangria and mango mimosas. After gorging ourselves we had a nice ride back to Marina Del Ray.

Sunday night at 11:30PM my flight leaves LA, and 14.5 hours later I'll be in Gaungzhou, China, then 2.5 hours later i'll be on a 4.5 hr flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!