After an 18-hour long flight and subsequently being stranded on a plane for nearly three hours due to inclement weather in Newark, I was so ready to go home. Finally got home around 12 o'clock last night and hummed to myself a "sweet sweet home" lullaby and immediately fell into a deep sleep. Two weeks went pretty fast and it's never long enough if you are with family and friends whom you haven't seen for quite a long time. When some of the kids saw me and took a good look at my hair, they jokingly remarked,"Wah! The weather in Malaysia is that hot la." Kids! They were referring to my newly permed hair done in KL. But seriously the weather in Malaysia is so insanely hot that even my hair can go haywire. I don't know how the locals manage to stay cool during the heat wave, but one thing I noticed is that: many of them wolf down hot chili peppers even in this stifling scorching heat, the ones make your tongue go numb and your mouth on fire. Their reasoning is: hot chili peppers make you perspire more which in turn will take the heat off your body thus cooling you off. Another secret to stay cool which they gleefully divulged to me---try Durian. Durian is also called the stinky fruit because of its distinct strong smell many find extremely unpleasant. My friend Steve once told me Durian smells like Chanel #5 to him. To me, however,the smell is almost like a piece of meat gone bad and the taste of it is even worse. The pic shown is taken at my friend Bruce's house which was permeated with "Chanel #5". Please be considerate, absolutely No burping please. Until I can embrace the heady smell of "the king of all fruits" my friend, my only weapon against heat is the good ol fashion way of taking showers several times a day and stayed in an air-conditioned room as much as possible.