We had the good fortune to be invited, along with our other work colleagues who have relocated here with us by now, to have dinner at the home of one of our Malaysian colleagues. It was wonderful to meet his wife and four children, and to have a traditional Malay meal with their family: satay (chicken and beef strips that have been skewered on long sticks, like a kebab, and then slowly grilled, served with peanut sauce and fresh onion and cucumber), mixed fried vegetable salad (lettuce, carrots and other vegetables fried with belachan, which are small dried shrimp, quite an interesting treat!), chicken rendang (coated with spices and cooked for a long time over low heat with coconut milk), a spicy fish dish with large sardine-like fish that had been steamed and then drenched in a nice tomato-ish broth, and a beef dish that I didn't get the name of that was like rendang, except it was thin strips that had been marinated in soy sauce. For dessert we had Boh tea and a tiramisu that some of our colleagues had brought. It was a flavorful and fun evening.

Saturday morning we met some friends of Jill's parents friends, Rich and Louise, (the parent network is like the computer FOAF, just done with memory and lots of email) whom we had had the chance to eat a dinner with when we were just visiting. They are from Houston and also are into horse riding, which thrilled Jill to no end, not to mention that they are real troopers (Louise had unfortunately broke her wrist in a fall from a horse the week before we were to meet them for the first time, but she still came and had dinner with us, propping her cast up on the table!). The place where they ride, the Selangor Turf Club, was having a three-day event this weekend; the dressage competition had been Friday, and show-jumping was Sunday, but I had expressed a preference for the cross-country event which took place this morning. It was interesting to see a small cross-country event, since the last one we had seen was the Rolex, which is one of the top-three events outside of the Olympics. Everyone, horse and rider, has to start somewhere! We were amazed at how the riders could keep the map of the course in their heads, as it didn't seem as well-marked as it could have been, not to mention that it was marked for three different class levels. After the event, we gave Rich and Louise a lift back into KLCC and had lunch with them at Neroteca, a nice Italian bistro/deli, where I had the best caprese panini (tomato, mozzarella, and pesto) and J had a pasta with prawns and pesto. The strawberry italian soda I had was so good (mainly since it hadn't been overly laced with syrup) that I had to have a second. Definitely a place to return to in the future, especially since their deli case had a great selection of cheese available for take out, and cheese is something that the grocery stores seem to have a problem stocking in any variety or quality.