26 years ago I left the US and went to Malaysia to live with a Malay family for a year. I was an AFS Exchange student, and I have NEVER been the same.
This is a picture of the neighborhood where my host family lives. The Masjid in the background is right next door to our house, it was built the year I lived here.
Oddly enough, my American family moved from my home, Anchorage, to the high Sierras of Northern California while I was gone, so not only did I come home different I've also never really been home, which might be why some days I feel more Malaysian than American. Today I was craving Asam Laksa and in googling recipes and checking if I could get laksa noodles on Amazon Subscribe and Save, I found a blog called Rasa Malaysia. Mostly it's a blog for recipes, but her pinterest page has pictures from Malaysia. This is what got me thinking. I decided I need a place to be Malaysian, where I can't always in my daily life in the US, a place to feed my "homesickness" for places I can't be right now.
11 years ago my husband and I moved to South Korea for a year (he's in the military). It was an amazing year, and I love Korea almost as much as Malaysia (only less because I don't have any "family" in Korea). This blog will scratch that itch too.
This is a picture of Songtan where the base is, the multiple, tall, white apartment buildings in the back right of the picture were our home for the year.
At University I studied Sanskrit and all things India, living in Malaysia taught me a love for Indian food, and Bollywood, studying the history, culture, and ancient language of India taught me the rest. Someday I WILL go to India and live. My husband and I hosted an AFS "son" from Pakistan two years ago, and I got close to him and another exchange student from South India. This blog will be an outlet for my love of things Indian as well.
Finally, last year, I had the amazing opportunity to be hosted in Cairo Egypt by a wonderful AFS host family there. I was only there for 10 days (we were in the middle of yet another move here in the states), but it was quite the experience, that I would like to repeat (only longer). I loved everything about Cairo, and I want to learn more. This blog will help me love Egypt even more.
This is Cairo Tower. This picture could have almost been taken from where my Egyptian Host family lives, just round the corner (can't see through the buildings to the tower though).
Whenever I get to know Malaysians wherever I live, I usually hear from them that I'm very "Malaysian" even though I don't look it. I joke that I'm Malaysian on the inside. There's a large bit of my second home inside me, and a bit of Korea, India, and Egypt in there too. This blog is about all these facets of my personality (probably going to end up throwing in some good old fashioned Norwegian too - My mother is half Norwegian half Swede - we'll see where the wind takes me).
So, to start things off, here's the Laksa recipes that started this blog!
Asam Laksa is a tangy fish broth based noodle soup that Penang is famous for. It's a bit of a love hate thing, I LOVE it. However, if you're not into spicy sour fish soup, there's also Curry Laksa (better known outside Penang and in Singapore - also called Curry Mee which is how I know it), and Bee over at Rasa Malaysia also posted an "American Friendly Laksa" recipe. Let me know what you think. I've got Asam Laksa on the menu this week. I'm on the hunt for proper Laksa noodles (which is hard to do in Vegas when you're trying to avoid going out in the 105+ weather).
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